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"Movie Junkets" - Exposed Hollywood "Movie junket" Trade Secrets Revealed* by Wild About Movies Publisher Tim Nasson Updated August 27, 2007
8-27-07 Update: A snide remark from an even snider 'alleged' movie critic, quoted on his virtually dust collecting website, "(Nasson's) next revelation about the junket business goes like this: Worst of all, sometimes the studios send press who had not been invited to a junket tapes from the junket and instruct the writer to use the tapes (generics, as they are called in the trade), after transcribing them, as if he or she were at the junket personally. Warner Bros., Dreamworks and Paramount are current three studios most repsonsible for this reprehensible practice. I’m still not convinced this is a practice. What IS common, I know, is that junketeers who were present will give or sell transcripts to people who weren’t." (Quoted by EDS - initials of someone we will not give the time of day to).
"Movie Junkets" Exposed The television press and print and online press are divided into two separate groups by the movie studios who set up each junket. Television entertainment reporters are allowed about 4-6 minutes to interview each of the film's talent attending the junket - separately, on the day set aside during the junket weekend, for TV interviews.*** The other day is set aside by the studio for PRINT AND ONLINE interviews. While some websites and newspapers would have you believe they are bringing you an 'exclusive' interview with an actor or director, the fact is, that 99.9999% of the interviews you read in any newspaper, (including major dailies such as The Boston Herald, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Virginia Pilot, all Canadian dailies), or on any website, are from ROUNDTABLE interviews at "movie junkets". Simply put, for the most part, up to twenty print and online journalists are crowded into 5-8 rooms on the second floor of The Four Seasons Hotel at Beverly Hills - if that is the hotel, and it most always is in Los Angeles, where the junket is taking place. The cramped journalists, with pen and notebook in hand, tape recorder on the roundtable, positioned at the seat where the talent will sit, stay put for up to four hours, while most of the talent from one movie, (example, Hairspray The Movie), rotate between rooms, giving each room, with up to 20 journalists in it, 15-20 minutes to ask questions. If you're lucky, you'll get two questions in. However, every journalist in the room, (including us, we admit), write up the interviews as if we were the only ones in the room and as if all questions asked were asked by us, and that all questions answered were directed to us, specifically. The studios are all aware of this and couldn't be happier to have the interviews in print. Of course, with more Print and Online press attending each junket than TV press, it would be impossible to allot each Print and Online press representative at each junket even 10 minutes with talent, being that there are usually well over 100 Print and Online reporters at each "movie junkets", compared to 20 or less TV entertainment reporters. Worst of all, sometimes the studios send press who had not been invited to a junket tapes from the junket and instruct the writer to use the tapes (generics, as they are called in the trade), after transcribing them, as if he or she were at the junket personally. Warner Bros., Dreamworks and Paramount are currently three studios most repsonsible for this devious practice. And, finally, many lazy websites can't even take the time to create a story based on the day they spent with the talent - they just cut and paste the transcribed interview from the roundtable and post it on their site, without any background information about the actor or director. That being said, enjoy all of our and our competitors' celebrity interviews. They are not as glamorous as they are made out to be!
--------- Arrive At Logan Airport 6:45 AM --------- Paperless ticket in hand, glide through First Class* security and arrive at American Airlines Admirals Club at 6:55 AM --------- Grab a coffee to go, a mini muffin, say goodbye to Admirals Club employees, rush off to board Flight 25 at 7:15 AM --------- Flight 25, if on time, takes off at 7:45 AM --------- Arrive at LAX, if plane is on time, around 11:00 AM --------- Grab taxi at curbside at 11:15 AM --------- Arrive at Four Seasons Hotel at 11:45 AM --------- Check into room at Four Seasons Hotel, shower, change, at Noon --------- Check emails, do catch up work until 12:30 PM --------- Back at hotel room, checking e-mails, phone calls 3:30 PM --------- Take a nap 4:00 PM --------- Arrive in hotel lobby to go to screening at 5:30 PM --------- Arrive at theater for screening 6:15 PM --------- Screening starts 7:15 PM --------- Reboard shuttle bus to Four Seasons Hotel from screening 9:30 PM --------- Go to hotel bar for a quick dinner 10:00 PM --------- Climb into world's most comfortable bed, watch TV 11:30 PM --------- Fall asleep 1:30 AM Saturday - Hotel Wake up call at 7:30 AM
------------- Go down to the second floor to claim a chair at a roundtable room, preferably one next to which the talent will be sitting 8:15 AM ------------- Go movie studio's hospitality suite in room 1418 for breakfast at 8:20 AM ------------- Back down to second floor to wait for interviews which begin at 9:00 AM ------------- Six twenty minute interviews from 9:00 AM - NOON ------------- Go up to hotel hospitality suite for lunch 12:15 PM ------------- Go back to room to pack, check emails 12:45 PM ------------- Check out of hotel at 1:15 PM ------------- Get in cab for LAX at 1:20 PM ------------- Arrive at LAX 1:50 PM ------------- Breeze through First Class* security, with paperless ticket at 2:00 PM ------------- Enter LAX Admirals Club at 2:10 PM ------------- Grab a bottle of water, check BlackBerry, make a phone call or two, leave for gate at 2:45 PM ------------- Wait in queue for First Class boarding of flight 726 to Boston at 2:50 ------------- Flight 726, if on time, takes off at 3:20 PM ------------- Grab a cab at Logan, curbside, 11:30 PM - since there is a line twenty people long ------------- Arrive home just shy of midnight * First Class denotes my own upgrade since I am Executive Platinum. Movie studios only pay for coach tickets. So, if you think the life of a junketeer, who must endure the above tedious itinerary more than 20 times per year, is as fab as it is cracked up to be, think and think again, especially if you're not a member of American Airline's elite status and would be sitting in coach - presumably in a middle seat in between two obese people who have not bathed in days, since they are probably connecting either from London in Boston or Australia in Los Angeles. Additional Junket Secrets Revealed
Celebrity Interviews (A Very Select Number) Interviewed By Tim Nasson - in PERSON - During the Past Two Decades
Sacha Baron Cohen - "Borat" Christian Campbell - "Trick," "Tick, Tick, Boom" Helena Bonham Carter - "Wings of the Dove," "Theory of Flight," "Fight Club," "Novocaine," "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" John Cusack - "There's Something About Mary," "Pushing Tin," "Runaway Jury," "High Fidelity" Kathy Griffin - "My Life On The D-List" Angelina Jolie - "Lara Croft," "Girl, Interrupted," "Pushing Tin," "Skycaptain And The World of Tomorrow," "Alexander" Matthew McConaughey - "The Newton Boys," "Wedding Planner," "How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days," "Sahara," "Failure To Launch" Ryan Phillippe - "Cruel Intentions," "Flags of Our Fathers" Joaquin Phoenix - "Ladder 49," "Walk The Line" Arnold Schwarzenegger - "The 6th Day" Reese Witherspoon - "Cruel Intentions," "Legally Blonde," "Walk The Line" *** Editor's note: The Boston TV entertainment reporter we passingly refer to no longer accepts junket invitations - per orders of her network - and the producer we were referring to no longer is employed at that TV station.
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