The Social

LOS ANGELES--There are a lot of reasons why the entertainment industry is still trying to figure out how to wrangle Twitter: real-time tabloid drama, on-set spoilers, and the fact that 140 characters offers a lot of ways to say a movie really sucks.

The 140Conf LA event, which took place on Tuesday and Wednesday at the Kodak Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, had a great opportunity to be the definitive discussion hub for tackling those tricky issues and complications that arise when the much-talked-about "real-time Web" collides with the old-school entertainment industry. That didn't happen. Instead, the event was a general showcase of the possibilities of Twitter, much like at the previous 140Conf event in New York this summer.

Conference organizer Jeff Pulver said that despite the Hollywood setting, he didn't want to take a purely entertainment-focused angle. "This really is not a Twitter conference, it's a gathering of people who use it as a platform and speak it as a language," he explained at a post-conference cocktail event on Tuesday. Pulver said he intended 140Conf LA to be "a celebration" of the possibilities of Twitter and the people who are passionate about using it, a disparate crowd that includes marketers, public servants, and yes, entertainment industry professionals. Indeed, 140Conf featured panels about police chiefs who use Twitter, teachers implementing it in the classroom, and how it's affecting the photography profession.

True, there were a lot of entertainment types there, mostly those talking about how Twitter has positively affected their business. Industry bloggers talked about how the blast-it-out nature of Twitter makes it easier to harness and report fast-breaking news. "Access Hollywood" personality Billy Bush talked about what he's learned from Twitter, like "no TUIs. Twittering under the influence is not a good idea." And "Tonight Show" blogger Aaron Bleyaert talked about the program's popular "Celebrity Twitter Tracker" feature, in which it makes fun of banal celebrity tweets. "Making fun of how celebrities think that everything they do (matters)," Bleyaert said, "Twitter's been great for us."

More interestingly, Sarah Ross, head of digital at the Ashton Kutcher-founded Katalyst Media, said paparazzi interest in the Twitter-happy Kutcher has actually declined since he started documenting his life on the microblogging service. That's fascinating, and it would've been cool to see whether the case is the same or different for other celebrities who tweet. It would've been great to hear from an industry personality who doesn't tweet, or one who's quit the service, or some perspectives from the production or public relations side of things, or perhaps someone who manages celebrity Twitter accounts. There's a lot out there.

But, Jeff Pulver said, he didn't think a Twitter-and-Hollywood conference would have much draw.

"I don't think anyone in L.A. would give a damn if we had a conference about the entertainment industry and Twitter," Pulver said. "It's not as interesting to people here as it is elsewhere."

Another conference attendee at the same cocktail party voiced a similar opinion. "This is not a studio crowd," he said of the people who'd showed up for 140Conf. Studio executives are "not innovators, not movers. They're very reactive."

Fair enough. Folks like Pulver, who have been using Twitter since its early days, are probably pretty sick of hearing about the latest gossip-blog diatribes getting plastered all over their conversation tool of choice. But headlines in the likes of Variety, The Los Angeles Times, and the Hollywood Reporter beg to differ. "Bones" creator Hart Hanson inadvertently created a mini-firestorm when a tweeted joke about swine flu on-set was taken seriously. Some studios have reportedly started inserting "no tweeting" clauses into contracts. As the likes of Perez Hilton and TMZ continually remind us, it's also given train-wreck pop stars a whole new outlet to hate on one another.

The entertainment industry has historically been reliant on the deft spin of public relations to keep a gaggle of wild personalities under wraps. Social media, not surprisingly, is a real problem. That goes double for Twitter, which can be updated on-the-fly from any mobile phone on the set of the latest hyped-up teen vampire flick or on the sidelines of a velvet-rope tiff at the Roosevelt Hotel. 140conf, rather than focusing on the glittering possibilities, could have given these very real issues some more face time.

Take the no-tweeting rules that are getting imposed by studios, production companies, publicists, and even sports leagues. "The majority of celebrity tweets are inane and not of concern to studios, but they still need the stronger contractual protections to cover themselves against the minority," entertainment attorney Jonathan Fuhrman, who previously served as vice president of business and legal affairs at The Weinstein Company, explained to CNET News.

"Every talent agreement--with writers, directors, producers, cast, and crew--has a standard confidentiality provision," Fuhrman continued. "That's what really is at issue here. In a world where anyone can tweet, the new, buffed-up confidentiality language is an important protection for the studio to prevent any of the talent from releasing this. And this is before you take into account the whole other issue about publicists and marketing campaigns: we are talking huge, million-dollar organized campaigns that can be compromised by an ill-advised tweet."

But on the flip side, that potential benefit of Twitter was paraded onstage at 140Conf. "Heroes" creator Tim Kring, for example, gave a well-attended talk on Tuesday about how Twitter has allowed the NBC sci-fi show's team to interact with fans in an unprecedented way. "You can follow the escapades of the show by following the people involved in it," he said.

Still, Kring also hinted at the complications of using Twitter as a vehicle for connecting with TV audiences: "We're now making Episode 13 and we are airing Episode 8, so at the beginning of the season we're up to two or three months ahead of where the audience is," Kring said. "The making of the show is so far ahead of where the audience experience is that it's hard to have a real-time relationship." Unfortunately, he didn't elaborate on how the show keeps tabs on its Twittering team. Have they ever had any accidental leaks or near-missteps? Kring didn't talk about that.

"Twitter has become hugely important in marketing movies," Fuhrman said. "The perfect example is 'Paranormal Activity.' What Twitter did for that movie, every studio would love to bottle that formula, and believe me, they'll try." In other words, it's a delicate balance. Twitter, for all its 140-character simplicity, has the potential to make or break a big Hollywood success.

Even though he didn't think it merited its own two-day event on the Kodak Theatre stage, 140Conf creator Jeff Pulver did acknowledge that he thinks the Hollywood-Twitter relationship is only going to get more complicated, especially when it comes to the big movie studios.

"They're scared because they want to be the gatekeeper," Pulver said. "It's a big conflict and it's going to get worse."

This post was updated at 11:33 a.m. PT on October 30 to correct the spelling of Jonathan Fuhrman's name.

Actor Armie Hammer (left, with actress Blake Lively) in a promo shot from TV series 'Gossip Girl.' Hammer will play twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss in 'The Social Network.'

(Credit: The CW)

Did director David Fincher end up finding a pair of 6-foot-5-inch identical twins to play ConnectU founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss in "The Social Network," his upcoming movie about the contested origins of Facebook? It appears the answer is no.

According to blog The Playlist, which picked up on filmmaker Richard Kelly's Twitter account, a single actor has been cast: 23-year-old Armie Hammer, best known for the role of moneyed sleazebag Gabriel on teen drama "Gossip Girl." A thread on screenwriter Aaron Sorkin's Facebook page reveals that additional young actors cast include Max Minghella, Rooney Mara, Dakota Johnson, Brenda Song, and Josh Pence--but no character names were provided.

"The Social Network," which kicked off filming in Boston this week, is an adaptation of Ben Mezrich's unauthorized Facebook tell-all, "The Accidental Billionaires." Founder Mark Zuckerberg will be played by actor Jesse Eisenberg, while pop star Justin Timberlake will play Valley it-boy Sean Parker.

The question remains as to whether Armie Hammer, who actually is 6-foot-5, will be playing both twins with the help of some "Parent Trap"-style camera work, or if they've combined Cameron and Tyler, who had a longstanding legal battle with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg after they accused him of stealing their code and business plan, into a single character.

In either case, he sounds like the perfect casting choice for the white-collar Harvard graduates, who hail from Greenwich, Conn., and competed in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing on the U.S. rowing team. According to the Internet Movie Database, Hammer "is the great-grandson of industrialist, art collector, and philanthropist Armand Hammer."

Dude won't even have to act!

The crew of "The Social Network," the David Fincher-directed retelling of Facebook's earliest days, is headed to film in the Boston area soon with a widely reported start date of October 19.

Rumors on Web forums indicate that the Harvard Square neighborhood of Cambridge, Mass.--the eponymous university's epicenter--will be the backdrop for some scenes involving actor Jesse Eisenberg, who plays Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Eisenberg himself has been quoted as saying that the movie will actually be filming on Harvard's campus, something that the university would not confirm.

Facebook was founded in a dorm at Harvard when Zuckerberg was a sophomore there; he later dropped out to run the site full-time. "The Social Network" script was based on writer Ben Mezrich's "The Accidental Billionaires," an unauthorized tale of Facebook's origins that doesn't portray Zuckerberg in the most positive manner.

Boston.com reported Thursday that a Somerville pub called the Thirsty Scholar has confirmed that it'll be used as a filming location, but couldn't confirm what everybody wants to know--whether pop star Justin Timberlake, who plays early Facebook exec Sean Parker, will be on-set.

Here's the catch. I've read the Aaron Sorkin-penned script for "The Social Network"--granted, it's a draft with a May 2009 date on it, so who knows what has changed--and Sean Parker doesn't even appear in any Boston scenes. Sorry, Boston.

Whoa! Blogger Carson Reeves of Scriptshadow got his hands on the screenplay for "The Social Network," the adaptation of Ben Mezrich's semi-salacious Facebook tell-all "The Accidental Billionaires," and he gives it a thumbs-up.

More specifically, he said that the 162-page script, penned by "West Wing" creator Aaron Sorkin, "really resonated with me" and categorized it as "impressive." For those of us who have been following the development of the (unauthorized) Facebook tell-all, which hits bookstores on Tuesday, and its impending screen adaptation, this is a bit of a surprise.

I've read "The Accidental Billionaires." It is, more or less, a fluffy drunken romp around Harvard Yard and Silicon Valley--sort of like beach reading for dudes. But it's not dialogue-heavy, which means that Sorkin had some work cut out for him. If Reeves' review is any indication, the dialogue is good. With "Fight Club" director David Fincher reportedly close to signing on, and industry sources whispering that the roster of actors being considered for the role of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg includes hot young stars like Michael Cera and Shia LaBeouf, it's clear that Hollywood is putting muscle behind "The Social Network."

Should Facebook be worried? I'm not sure. Company representatives have been quick to make an analogy between Mezrich's "Accidental Billionaires" and Danielle Steele, and my impression of the book is that it is too silly and not damning enough to have any negative impact on Zuckerberg or Facebook. But if the movie adaptation turns out to be high-quality filmmaking, it won't be so easy for Facebook to wave off what it claims are untrue allegations about the social network's early days. In other words, audiences might be more likely to believe it.

From what it sounds like, Napster co-founder and early Facebook exec Sean Parker has an even bigger role in the screenplay than he does in the book. In "Accidental Billionaires," Parker is said to have a vendetta against Sequoia Capital investor Michael Moritz; it sounds like that's sticking around in the screenplay.

"I loved Sean Parker in this script," Reeves wrote. "Sorkin gives Parker this quirky little obsession with an old business associate who f***ed him over during his Napster days. Parker has a stalker-like obsession with getting back at him and brings up his revenge plans at every opportunity. Not only is it hilarious, but it reveals Parker's character."

That could get interesting.

(Credit: Criterion.com)

Highbrow film company The Criterion Collection has launched Criterion.com, an "online cinematheque" for people who want to watch movies, delve into some editorial content, and socialize with other fans.

Perhaps the most notable aspect of the new site is the fact that you can rent many Criterion films (a melange of old and newish, domestic and foreign) for $5 per stream, and that $5 will be deducted if you then choose to purchase the flick on DVD. Kind of a cool model that nobody seems to be using yet.

Criterion has also teamed up with a new film-centric social site, The Auteurs, to host a monthly "film festival" that makes a handful of Criterion films available for temporary free streaming and discussion. November's picks, sponsored by IFC, follow a "cruel stories of youth" theme and feature the World War II drama Au revoir les enfants as well as the quintessential nasty-kids story, Lord of the Flies, among others. No, there's no Mean Girls.

I know, I know, it's all a bit pretentious. Now go put on a scarf and down a few macchiatos and think about something deep.

No, this isn't that Aaron Sorkin thing.

Film on Facebook, a project that the social network first announced in conjunction with this spring's South by Southwest Festival, will be debuting its first film on Thursday.

The movie, called One Track Mind, is a surf-theme movie created by Woodshed Films, the production company behind a number of outdoors-focused productions, including several created by crunchy singer-songwriter Jack Johnson. It'll be available on Facebook Thursday and Friday, and a live-chat session with director Chris Malloy will take place on Thursday evening.

The film and video chat session will be broadcast using live-streaming platform Kyte. The whole project has been sponsored by apparel companies Patagonia and Etnies.

At SXSW, when it announced Film on Facebook as well as Music on Facebook, the company marketed its "Fan Pages" product toward the thousands of independent musicians and filmmakers who flood Austin, Texas, each year for the cultural festival.

Facebook, the company argued, is a great promotional platform; the One Track Mind premiere is consequently a demonstration of how an indie production company can spread buzz and gain fans through the social network.

Right now, the music and film communities are still more closely tied to Facebook's News Corp.-owned rival, MySpace, which recently launched its own music service and has a "MySpaceTV" site that shows original programming in addition to user-created videos.

NEW YORK--Two years after acquiring it, MTV Networks has shaped Atom Films into Atom.com, a sister site to its Comedy Central network dedicated to short-form, Web-based comedy.

Executives from the Viacom-owned MTV Networks held a press conference here on Thursday to kick off the new site, which Executive Vice President of Digital Media Erik Flannigan described as "our punk-rock label...where you're purposely encouraging development that's supposed to (expletive) with the system and break down boundaries."

Along with four new original Web series commissioned by Comedy Central, which range from an animated show about conjoined twins connected at the naughty bits to a live-action series about three clueless slackers who attempt to be militia guards at the U.S.-Mexican border, Atom.com welcomes user-generated submissions. Select videos will be featured in a weekly "Upload Showdown," and winners will become "pro" content creators on Atom.com and have access to additional Comedy Central resources like a spot on a new late-night televised program, Atom TV, a sort of week-in-review special about the site.

Atom TV, which premiered Tuesday morning at 2 a.m., is "jukebox-style, proudly low-budget, (and) super-late-night," according to Scott Roesch, general manager of Atom.com. Eventually, Atom.com will percolate into video-on-demand cable television, where Atom Films had a presence in its early days. Ideally that'll happen later this summer.

More Web shows are on the way, too, including an "advertorial" series called Agency, in which terrible advertisements for real brands are created by an incompetent, fictitious ad agency.

Online comedy video sites are a dime a dozen, but Roesch said that because of the ties to Comedy Central, Atom.com has an immediate lift above the fray. The new site has more than 20,000 videos in its library already, and predecessor AtomFilms.com pulled in more than 1.9 million unique visitors monthly, which execs say is more than online comedy brethren FunnyOrDie, SuperDeluxe, and The Onion combined. Built on Viacom's Flux social platform, Atom.com also aims to be a community site of sorts.

There's a history to it. In 2006, MTV Networks acquired Atom Films, home to online indie hits like Gerbil in a Microwave, along with Shockwave and AddictingGames, and Atom Films founder Mika Salmi became head of MTV's overall digital operations. While the short-form films site had some science fiction and horror hits, too, it was comedy that turned into the real successes, and that's why the company has decided to rebrand it as a comedy-only site. "In the online viewing experience, you've got to grab the viewer immediately," Roesch said, explaining that online video as a whole is best suited to comedic styles.

"There's not a lot of viral tearjerkers," Flannigan added, saying that Web comedy is now an essential part of American youth culture. "There is a social currency in your knowledge of and your passing along of short-form comedy."