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There may be a glimmer of hope may being the operative word in regards to Chinas movie theaters re-opening after being shuttered since the Lunar New Year holiday over the COVID-19 outbreak.

We hear from multiple sources, both industry and on-the-ground in the PRC, that China Film Group, the state-owned film enterprise that oversees theaters, dates films, finances, produces and more, is planning to re-open its Beijing offices as early as next week. That move would come as a positive sign to the major Hollywood studios that the PRC is slowly getting its exhibition back up and running, an infrastructure of some 70K screens that since their closing has amounted a $2 billion-plus loss.

The hope is for Chinas theaters to re-open by mid-to-late April in time for the May Day holiday (coincidentally, the global-day-and-date release of Disney/Marvels Black Widow on May 1), a maneuver that raises several questions rather than an expected boom for a country which saw its box office reach a high of $9.2B last year. Before China closed its theaters this year, its box office through the first 20 days of this year stood at $3.9B, +157% over the same period a year ago. The worst case scenario is for cinemas to re-open in the PRC by July.

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Such murmurs about exhibitions slow crawl back emerge in the wake of Chinas COVID-19 cases slowing down, just as cases in the U.S. and other countries are surging. CNN says that at its worst, such embattled provinces as Hubei reported thousands of new cases a day but according to Chinas National Health Commission yesterday there were only 24 new cases. Forty percent of those originated from abroad including travelers from Italy and the U.S.

On Tuesday, in a show of confidence, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited one of the most infected regions, Wuhan, which has 67,7K of the entire countrys 80,8K cases. Reports are that the government has cleared some neighborhoods free of infection, with temporary shelters used to isolate those diagnosed already closing.

In cities like Shanghai and Beijing, the government has encouraged citizens to return back to their way of life, though with extreme safety. In addition to hotels, restaurants and retail businesses resuming operations, we hear that Chinese exhibition offices have re-opened, and U.S. entertainment corps too like Universal and Imax, in accordance with government guidelines. Those rules include rotational shifts of no more than four hours per employee with 30% of the workforce occupying an office at one time, not to mention sanitization and personal safety protocols. Shanghai Disney recently reopened their Disney village with a limitation of no more than 5K visitors a day.

Theres also word that theaters can start applying to the government to reopen.

At the end of February, the Beijing Film Bureau and the Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control issued safety guidelines for cinemas, which led some to believe that theaters were being given a greenlight to re-open. Response on Chinese social media was heated, some suspicious about handing out so many personal details and that such a move was too early with exhibition believing such guidelines were onerous.

Among the host of precautions outlined by the Beijing authorities are for cinemas to obtain permission from relevant departments and establish an epidemic prevention and control plan once resuming operations is approved. Seating inside auditoriums will be required to be in alternate rows, with no adjacent seats sold. Theaters will also be disinfected after every screening and at least eight times per day in public areas. Moviegoers will be asked for personal information which will be registered at the box office.

However, the local government the next day clarified that the directive was for future use, as a means to prepare for when cinemas come back online. Chen Bei, Deputy Secretary-General of the Beijing Municipal Government, in a video posted to Weibo by Beijing Daily News, said conditions were not yet in place to resume operations: We have not yet made a request to allow the film industry to open. The designation of such a guideline is to lay a solid foundation and prepare for the smooth start of business under the conditions allowed by the epidemic prevention and control situation.

That said, we heard that some independent exhibitors in the PRC actually did open for business, showing older movies from back in December, i.e. Sheep Without a Shepherd. However, in a recent given day there were only 20-30 showtimes listed on local ticketing website Tao Piao Piao in the 1.43 billion populated country, which would count as many as 100K showtimes daily when business is running normally. Macaus cinema and casinos have re-opened, we understand, as have some theaters in Yunnan province, in southwest China. Still, the big circuits remain closed.

USC professor and China expert Stanley Rosen tells us, China is a big place and Beijing is far away and unable to monitor every development. The central governments policy is to control the virus and get the economy moving again, which of course can be contradictory. Beijings policies are often contradictory, so local areas and local officials have to decide what they can do that will help the local economy and local stability even if it violates one of Beijings contradictory precepts. In this case, some localities with no cases of the virus may well have decided that the benefits to the local economy and a very bored public would justify a quiet opening of some theaters.

So once China Film Group throws its doors back open, what can we expect? Heres what some industry sources are expecting, though not definite in any way:

Many predict that the first wave of films to be released in China will be the older local one that were stockpiled, i.e. Detective Chinatown 3 and The Rescue. Even major studio international distribution execs believe its a good idea to lead with local movies to get the masses back in the habit of moviegoing. Unlike those U.S. titles that have been cleared in China, theres no concern that these have been pirated as they havent seen the light of day. Some say it would be good for the China box office to get two big features in before Disnys Mulan or Black Widow arrives (both of which havent been dated yet by China Film Group).

Those U.S. titles that have been cleared for release in China and are awaiting release Jojo Rabbit, Ford v Ferrari, Bad Boys 4 Life, 1917, Dolittle and Sonic the Hedgehog when will they be released? Will they all be dumped into Chinas cinemas on the same day? Is it worth releasing them given that theyre likely pirated? There really isnt a consensus here from sources, some believing that these pics may will still have a shot at making whatever money they can. Even though theaters can apply to reopen, some international distribution execs believe its a chicken-and-egg scenario. A chain like Wanda will want new movies, not old ones.

And what about Mulan? Given the back-up of product, it could go as late as a month-and-a-half, if not more, after the pics global day-and-date of March 27. By the time it hits China, wont it too have to worry about piracy? Those close to the film arent so worried. Should the movie become the blockbuster that it was built to be, that in turn would become a great selling factor in China. Should Mulan be pirated before its theatrical release, sources believe theres still an audience among Chinas moviegoers who would want to see the Disney spectacle, which is an homage to many of the local epic war pics that the country currently makes, on a big screen. A youhaoxi website recently reported that in a recent poll, the want-to-see for Mulan among Chinese moviegoers was north of 63%.

The question, of course, remains how many want to head back. A recent Weibo survey showed that out of 5,500 respondents, 88% said they would not return to cinemas until the epidemic is contained.

Stateside, despite all movie theaters remaining open, both at the Cinemark in New Rochelle, NY, a city which New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo designated a containment zone, sending the National Guard in, and in Santa Clara County, CA which issued a health ban of gatherings over 1k people, U.S. exhibitors remain worried.

As Chinas exhibition begins its healing process, an unfortunate bleaker picture at the global box office unfolds.

DeadlinesTom Grater contributed to this report

Originally posted here:
As Chinas Coronavirus Cases Slow, Are Re-Openings Of Movie Theaters Far Behind? - Deadline

This was taken at the last show of Metallicas Black Album tour, in Belgium on 1 July 1993. James Hetfield, the singer and guitarist, had walked to the very edge of what they called their ego ramp [the walkway into the audience]. Because they were touring The Black Album, I was shooting a lot in black and white. I noticed him, with the sunset behind him and the arms coming up, and it became one of my most famous Metallica pictures. It shows the connection between Metallica and their audience its as if they are almost dragging him in. The time of day was important: most bands dont like daylight, they want it dark. This was shot at twilight, which gives you the perfect balance and that sense of moment. Five minutes later, it would have been dark, and the shot would have looked nothing like that.

My aim when shooting a show is to give somebody something they would not normally have seen. And to create an image that is unusual or exciting, so when people who went to the show look at it, they see something thats special. People who shoot shows tend to panic, but if you do that, you get nothing. Stand back and wait. Think about what youre doing I learned that from Fin Costello. I dont find it hard to get original images from live shows, because I know what Im doing Ive done it for so long. Nowadays, a lot of bands want to control everything and they ban photographers from shows. Yet theyre quite happy, having thrown out the people doing it properly, to let anybody take bad pictures or film it on an iPhone.

Nowadays a lot of bands ban photographers from shows. And yet theyre quite happy to let anybody take bad pictures or film it on an iPhone

I first shot Metallica in 1984. Their drummer, Lars Ulrich, would call me me up, and I kept avoiding him. Id seen pictures of him, and I thought he was just this Danish guy who looked like a complete idiot. But then Metallicas manager, Peter Mensch, called me and said: Listen, stop being such an asshole. Go to San Francisco and shoot my new band. So I did, and that was the start of my relationship with them. In fact, the only reason I ended up shooting Metallica was because they wanted Iron Maidens photographer I was working for them at the time. To Metallica, Led Zeppelin (who I also worked with) meant nothing. But Iron Maiden meant something and Metallica wanted their photographer. Ive worked with them ever since. Ill give the group their due: they are very conscious of who they are, what they do and how they want to be photographed. But they are also very open to doing different things.

I am a rock photographer, not just hard rock or metal. I am particularly known for metal because I worked for Kerrang! magazine in the 80s, but that was more because instead of going to Leeds to shoot the Pet Shop Boys, I could go to Hawaii to do Aerosmith. Where would you rather go? And at the time the National Union of Journalists made sure that if you shot colour you were paid twice as much as for black and white, and Kerrang! was full colour.

The worst photoshoot I ever did was the first time I worked with Led Zeppelin in 1979. I was young, and really impressed. Robert Plant walked up to me and said: Do you know how to take a Robert Plant photo? He poked me in the chest and said, quite nastily: Quickly. I was shooting a cover for Sounds magazine, and I did the shoot, but I was so nervous that I did Plants photoshoot, not mine. I did what he wanted, which resulted in a very boring picture. I came away and I thought: I will never let anyone do that to me again, and I never have. I was so naive that he completely threw me. Dont let them do that to you, because if you do, you are just going to get a boring portrait.

Born: London, 1957.

Training: A course in fine art at Wimbledon College of Art.

Influences: Fin Costello.

High point: My Jimmy Page picture getting displayed in the National Portrait Gallery.

Low point: Shooting the first Spice Girls US tour. The band were OK, it was everyone around them.

Top tip: Always take control. Never let the subject take control.

Ross Halfin was due to speak on the Super Stage at The Photography Show in Birmingham, which has been postponed until September.

Link:
Metallica out on the 'ego ramp': Ross Halfin's best photograph - The Guardian

JUPITER, Fla. Responding to the concern about the potential spread of the coronavirus, Major League Baseball joined other professional sports leagues on Tuesday by closing team clubhouses to all but players and other essential personnel.

Among the concerns of Cardinals players was if more actions will follow.

Whats next? asked third baseman Matt Carpenter. Are they going to cancel the season? I dont know if keeping the media out is going to save us all from the coronavirus.

The answer to Carpenters question, at least at the moment, is no. A statement on Monday night from MLB said spring training games will go on as scheduled and there are no current plans to delay the start of the regular season, as will happen in the professional leagues in Japan and Korea.

The immediate effect of closing major-league clubhouses is that media members will at least temporarily not be allowed in the locker rooms to interview players. All of those interviews must now be done outside or in a designated interview room.

I heard about that when I got here today, said pitcher Adam Wainwright. Everybody knows the media is carrying the coronavirus.

On a serious note, Wainwright said, They are just trying to control it as much as they can. Do we know yet what it does to people our age? I know they said the elderly folks, and guys in the clubhouse were looking at me.

Its something you just dont want to spread. We want to be able to play a season without having to worry about the fans. Controlling it now seems to make sense.

If you look at how numbers are projected to spike, just from my limited exposure of watching the news about it, I dont think its a bad thing to be cautious. It looks like we are going to see a lot more cases here, now that they have started testing for it. People just need to be careful.

Wainwright noted that he had heard one of the recommendations for controlling the virus was to have people stay away from venues that attract a large crowd.

I cant think of any place that draws a bigger crowd than a 50,000 -seat baseball arena, he said.

There have been games played before empty or virtually empty stadiums in the past. One recent occurrence came during riots in Baltimore a few years ago.

Wainwright hopes the situation does not reach the point where that becomes necessary.

Its harder for me to play in front of small crowds than large crowds, he said. Well see. I cant speculate about what I dont know.

Another concern, at least among the media, is that players might actually enjoy not having reporters in the clubhouse and this might create a movement to install that policy going forward, with or without a threat of spreading a disease.

Sometimes it can be a little uncomfortable in there, Wainwright said.You cant have the same conversations you might otherwise.

Carpenter said banning the media from the clubhouse will have at least one other effect.

Its going to make your jobs harder, he said. And you are going to find out which guys want to talk to you.

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Cardinals and MLB close clubhouses to media in effort to control spread of coronavirus - KSDK.com

SAN FRANCISCO First, there were conspiratorial whispers on social media that the coronavirus had been cooked up in a secret government lab in China. Then there were bogus medicines: gels, liquids and powders that immunized against the virus.

And then there were the false claims about governments and celebrities and racial unrest. Taiwan was covering up virus deaths, and the illness was spiraling out of control. Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder who now runs a philanthropic organization, was behind the spread of the virus. Italians were marching in the streets, accusing Chinese people of bringing the illness to their country. None of it was true.

As the coronavirus has spread across the world, so too has misinformation about it, despite an aggressive effort by social media companies to prevent its dissemination. Facebook, Google and Twitter said they were removing misinformation about the coronavirus as fast as they could find it, and were working with the World Health Organization and other government organizations to ensure that people got accurate information.

But a search by The New York Times found dozens of videos, photographs and written posts on each of the social media platforms that appeared to have slipped through the cracks. The posts were not limited to English. Many were originally in languages ranging from Hindi and Urdu to Hebrew and Farsi, reflecting the trajectory of the virus as it has traveled around the world.

Security researchers have even found that hackers were setting up threadbare websites that claimed to have information about the coronavirus. The sites were actually digital traps, aimed at stealing personal data or breaking into the devices of people who landed on them.

The spread of false and malicious content about the coronavirus has been a stark reminder of the uphill battle fought by researchers and internet companies. Even when the companies are determined to protect the truth, they are often outgunned and outwitted by the internets liars and thieves.

There is so much inaccurate information about the virus, the W.H.O. has said it was confronting a infodemic.

I see misinformation about the coronavirus everywhere. Some people are panicking, and looking to magical cures, and other people are spreading conspiracies, said Austin Chiang, a gastroenterologist at Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.

In Taiwan, virus-related misinformation on social media has fed concerns that China might be using the crisis to undermine the government of the self-ruling island.

In recent weeks, there have been posts on Facebook and other sites claiming that Taiwan has concealed large numbers of coronavirus infections. There have been fake but official-looking documents promising giveaways of face masks and vaccines. A screen capture from a television news broadcast was doctored to say that President Tsai Ing-wen had contracted the disease and was in quarantine.

In a statement to The Times, Taiwans foreign minister, Joseph Wu, blamed Chinas internet armies for the deluge of falsehoods, though his office declined to elaborate on how he came to that conclusion. Chinas Taiwan Affairs Office didnt respond to a faxed request for comment.

The Communist Party claims Taiwan as part of Chinas territory, and Taiwanese officials have long accused Beijing of manipulating both traditional news media and social platforms to turn Taiwanese citizens against President Tsai, who opposes closer ties with China.

Summer Chen, the editor in chief of Taiwan FactCheck Center, a watchdog group that debunks online rumors and hoaxes, said her team had been busier since the outbreak began than it was ahead of Taiwans presidential election in January, when the island was on high alert for potential Chinese meddling.

Throughout this whole epidemic, people have really liked conspiracy theories, Ms. Chen said. Why is it that during epidemics people dont choose to believe accurate scientific information?

Facebook, YouTube and Twitter all said they were making efforts to point people back to reliable sources of medical information, and had direct lines of communication to the W.H.O. and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Facebook said it bans content that could cause people harm, such as claims that discourage treatment or taking appropriate precautions against the coronavirus. Posts and videos that shared conspiracy theories were clearly marked as false, once they had been reviewed by fact checkers.

When Facebook users attempt to share them, a message pops up alerting the user that the post includes information that has been deemed false by fact checkers.

Those measures, however, have not stopped people in private Facebook groups from linking to and sharing misinformation surrounding the virus. In private Facebook groups, including one that totals over 100,000 members, conspiracy theories spread that the coronavirus was an invention of the pharmaceutical industry, intended to sell the public on more expensive drugs and more vaccines.

While many posts simply encouraged people to take vitamins and eat a balanced diet to boost their immune system, others offered promises of immunity or cures if certain combinations of powders and drinks were consumed. Some were even more dangerous. The Food and Drug Administration referred to one miracle mineral solution posted many times on Facebook and Twitter as the same as drinking bleach.

Dr. Chiang, the gastroenterologist, recently helped start the Association for Healthcare Social Media, a group dedicated to encouraging more health care professionals to post on social media so that they can dispel some of the misinformation.

People are looking for good sources of information because a lot of what they see, when they log into their social media platforms, is just scaring them, he said.

While Twitter acknowledged the presence of some of this content on its network, Del Harvey, Twitters vice president of trust and safety, said the company has not seen large-scale, coordinated efforts to misinform people about the coronavirus. After The New York Times contacted Twitter with examples of tweets containing health misinformation about coronavirus, some owners of the accounts were suspended for spam.

Facebook said that in addition to working closely with health organizations, it was offering W.H.O. free ad space to try and point people toward accurate information on the coronavirus. The company said that it was removing posts that discouraged people from seeking treatment or suggested remedies that could cause physical harm and that it was placing warning labels on posts that were rated false by their fact checkers.

YouTube, which is owned by Google, also said it was working closely with W.H.O. to help combat misinformation. YouTubes spokesman, Farshad Shadloo, said the company had policies that prohibited videos that promoted medically unsubstantiated methods to prevent the coronavirus in place of seeking medical treatment.

Dozens of YouTube videos, however, included titles that suggested the video offered a cure for the virus. In others, the comment sections below the videos included links to pages offering a range of alternative, unsubstantiated treatments.

In some cases, those links have led people to websites that lure people in with the promise of a cure, but actually steal credit card information and other personal details.

The cybersecurity firm Check Point said more than 4,000 coronavirus-related websites that include words like corona or covid have been registered since the beginning of the year. Of those, 3 percent were considered malicious and another 5 percent were suspicious.

Research by Sophos, a cybersecurity company, has shown an uptick in these so-called spear-phishing messages targeting people in Italy, where coronavirus infections have surged in recent weeks. Those messages included a link to a Microsoft Word document that claimed to list cures for the virus. When downloaded, it installed malicious malware on peoples computers.

Last month, W.H.O. also put out a warning about fake emails from apparent W.H.O. representatives. The emails carried malicious code aimed at breaking into someones computing device.

John Gregory, the deputy health editor for NewsGuard, a start-up that tries to stop false stories from spreading on the internet, said the medical element to coronavirus misinformation made it different from other conspiracies the public has dealt with.

Because the information about the virus is playing out in real time, its always going to be easier for someone to make a false claim, Mr. Gregory said. Then, theres a separation of a few days before anyone with a scientific background, or journalists, are able to debunk the claim.

Sheera Frenkel reported in San Francisco and Davey Alba reported in New York. Raymond Zhong reported from Beijing. Chris Horton contributed reporting from Taipei, Taiwan.

More here:
Surge of Virus Misinformation Stumps Facebook and Twitter - The New York Times

As cases of the new coronavirus increase in the United States, a relentless news cycle and false information are spiking fears, leading people to take extreme measures to regain a sense of control over their health. Health experts explain how to keep yourself calm.

Our analysis: The 'recurring themes' of disease outbreaks

Reports of the new coronavirus, which causes a disease known as COVID-19, first surfaced in early December 2019 in Wuhan, China. As of Wednesday morning, officials reported more than 121,800 cases of COVID-19 globally. Officials said as of Wednesday morning there had been at least 4,381 deaths linked to the new coronavirus, and all but 1,219 occurred in mainland China.

In China, the number of newly reported cases of COVID-19 has slowed. But the number of newly reported cases outside of China has more than tripled over the past week and a half. In the United States, state and federal officials as of Wednesday morning reported 1,015 confirmed or presumed positive cases of COVID-19, up from 231 on Friday. So far, 31 U.S. deaths have been linked to the new coronavirus.

As the number of COVID-19 cases grow, the global economy has tanked, stores have been ransacked, and people are hoarding medical supplies.

Given the situation, it's "understandable that people would be frightened," according to Quartz. COVID-19 is spreading, there is no treatment or vaccine, and its true mortality rate is still unclear.

However, while older people and those with certain existing medical conditions have a reason to be concerned, the anxiety spreading among the general population is "disproportionate to the risk posed by COVID-19 as we understand it today," according toQuartz.

Health experts have noted that the vast majority of people who are diagnosed with COVID-19 will develop mild symptoms that won't require hospitalization and others will be asymptomatic.

According to psychologist David DeSteno, the reason people are so afraid of the new coronavirus, despite the limited risk, is a "mix of miscalibrated emotion and limited knowledge" about the virus.

The "non-stop media cycle" surrounding the virus isn't helping to quell people's fears, according to Quartz, especially given that people are prone to "availability bias," meaning we give more weight to the information we can immediately recall.

"As news about the virus's toll in China stokes our fears, it makes us not only more worried than we need [to] be about contracting it, but also more susceptible to embracing fake claims and potentially problematic, hostile or fearful attitudes toward those around usclaims and attitudes that in turn reinforce our fear and amp up the cycle," DeSteno explained.

A general lack of knowledge surrounding the disease impacts our perception of risk, as well. People are likely struggling to assess the risk of COVID-19 because even researchers are still learning about the virus. In response, people will sometimes act erratically in response to a "perceived lack of control," according to Dorothy Frizelle, a consultant clinical health psychologist in the United Kingdom.

Metin Basoglu, a professor of psychiatry and founder oftheIstanbul Center for Behavior Research & Therapy,has researched how people cope behaviorally with traumatic events such as earthquakes. A key lesson, he says, is that you need to accept that some risks are out of your control. "You cannot control every single risk that comes your way in life, and lead a meaningful, reasonable, and productive life at the same time," he told Quartz.

To be sure, it's important to take basic risk-mitigation steps, including following public health guidance around handwashing and self-isolating where appropriate. But people who are prone to anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorder might go overboard with what Basoglu calls "extensive, unrealistic avoidance."

Some people, for instance, might wash their hands to excess, which can actually be counterproductive. As bioethicist Kelly Hills told Vox, "If you are washing your hands so much that they are raw or chafed, you are washing your hands too much"and potentially increasing your risk of infection.

It's also important for people who are prone to anxiety to manage their news consumption. It may be tempting to stay glued to the TV or the internet around the clock for the latest developments, but that can make anxiety worse. "Too much media exposure, we know, can heighten one's anxiety," said Alison Holman, associate professor in the school of nursing at theUniversity of California, Irvineand expert in health psychology.

A better approach, according to Hills, is to read coronavirus news once per day from a credible source. "If you don't need to stay on top of this for your job or your academic work, don't," Hills said.

Finally, as anxiety and even panic around COVID-19 continues to spread, it's important to lean on trusted social support networks. I would recommend that people who tend to be more anxious connect in a safe way with people in their lives who they trust; who can help them calm down; and who they can turn to for support," Holman said (Timsit,Quartz, 3/9; Kucharski,The Guardian, 2/8; DeSteno,New York Times, 2/11; Alptraum, Vox, 3/10; New York Times, 3/11; Smith et al., New York Times, 3/11).

See the original post:
Is your coronavirus anxiety spinning out of control? Here's how to handle it. - The Daily Briefing