Author Topic: Heath Ledger - News Accounts  (Read 1144376 times)

Offline serious crayons

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Re: Heath Ledger Dead - News Accounts
« Reply #140 on: January 25, 2008, 03:38:57 pm »
Good for Anderson and Star!

It's a continual quandry the news media find themselves in -- feeling the need to report on something because it's big news and a lot of people are interested, only there are no new developments so there's really nothing to say.

Nice that they were able to just admit that and move on.



Offline MaineWriter

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Re: Heath Ledger Dead - News Accounts
« Reply #141 on: January 25, 2008, 03:42:36 pm »
From the San Diego Union-Tribune:

Heath Ledger deserved better goodbye

UNION-TRIBUNE

January 25, 2008

Ennis Del Mar was a man of few words, but powerful passions.

It required an actor possessed of uncommon instinct and courage to bring to the screen the vulnerable and conflicted hero of Annie Proulx's short story, “Brokeback Mountain.”

Heath Ledger was that actor. Without emotional eruptions or cowboy clichés, he inhabited a character whose struggle with a profound love and loss – both beyond his comprehension – was unforgettable.

He died Tuesday at 28. Rarely has the announcement of the Academy Award nominations, made the same day, seemed so unimportant.

An internalizing actor whose film roles consistently defied the leading-man expectations assumed of him, Ledger chose to follow his conscience and his muse. Before “Brokeback,” for which he received an Oscar nomination in 2006, Ledger appeared in “Monster's Ball” and “Lords of Dogtown.” We saw him last year in Todd Haynes' out-there “I'm Not There.” For a movie star, he worked – and lived – about as quietly as did Ennis Del Mar.

How unfitting, then, that the hours following the discovery of Ledger's body in his New York apartment were consumed by a paparazzi-and Internet “media”-feeding frenzy. Among the worst offenders: TMZ.com, which boasts the stink of respectability because it has a TV show and because its managing editor, Harvey Levin, is a recurring talking head on “Today,” among other shows. The site may as well have changed its name to “All Heath All the Time,” updating viewers seemingly by the second with grainy photos and lurid tidbits like: “The People Who Found Heath,” “Jack (as in Nicholson) on Heath: I Warned Him!”, “How Heath's Body Was Discovered,” “Michelle Williams (Ledger's ex-fiance'e and the mother of their child) – Devastated,” and “Inside the Building Where Heath Died.”

There was more: Lindsey (as in Lohan) was distraught at Ledger's death. Ledger was not at the apartment of Mary-Kate Olsen. And photos, photos and more photos of Ledger's body being removed from the building.

TMZ was not alone in – I don't know any other way to say this – the fine art of ghoulish reporting. Culprits abounded – in both mainstream and tabloid coverage.

This isn't the first time we've seen this, and it won't be the last.

I just didn't expect Heath Ledger to be in the middle. Silly, naive me.

Sorry me, too. Sorry for a child named Matilda, now without a father. Sorry for those who read and watch and listen, who deserve better. Sorry for those whom I must accept, like it or not, are my colleagues in the media.

Sorry, most of all, for Heath Ledger, who deserved at least as much dignity as he gave Ennis Del Mar.
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Offline serious crayons

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Re: Heath Ledger Dead - News Accounts
« Reply #142 on: January 25, 2008, 03:45:35 pm »
Nice piece. Thanks for posting, Leslie.

It's beginning to seem just faintly, faintly possible that this experience will create enough backlash that the media are forced to consider moderating their approach in the future.







Offline dot-matrix

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Re: Heath Ledger Dead - News Accounts
« Reply #143 on: January 25, 2008, 03:46:10 pm »
From the San Diego Union-Tribune:

Heath Ledger deserved better goodbye

UNION-TRIBUNE

January 25, 2008

Ennis Del Mar was a man of few words, but powerful passions.

It required an actor possessed of uncommon instinct and courage to bring to the screen the vulnerable and conflicted hero of Annie Proulx's short story, “Brokeback Mountain.”

Heath Ledger was that actor. Without emotional eruptions or cowboy clichés, he inhabited a character whose struggle with a profound love and loss – both beyond his comprehension – was unforgettable.

He died Tuesday at 28. Rarely has the announcement of the Academy Award nominations, made the same day, seemed so unimportant.

An internalizing actor whose film roles consistently defied the leading-man expectations assumed of him, Ledger chose to follow his conscience and his muse. Before “Brokeback,” for which he received an Oscar nomination in 2006, Ledger appeared in “Monster's Ball” and “Lords of Dogtown.” We saw him last year in Todd Haynes' out-there “I'm Not There.” For a movie star, he worked – and lived – about as quietly as did Ennis Del Mar.

How unfitting, then, that the hours following the discovery of Ledger's body in his New York apartment were consumed by a paparazzi-and Internet “media”-feeding frenzy. Among the worst offenders: TMZ.com, which boasts the stink of respectability because it has a TV show and because its managing editor, Harvey Levin, is a recurring talking head on “Today,” among other shows. The site may as well have changed its name to “All Heath All the Time,” updating viewers seemingly by the second with grainy photos and lurid tidbits like: “The People Who Found Heath,” “Jack (as in Nicholson) on Heath: I Warned Him!”, “How Heath's Body Was Discovered,” “Michelle Williams (Ledger's ex-fiance'e and the mother of their child) – Devastated,” and “Inside the Building Where Heath Died.”

There was more: Lindsey (as in Lohan) was distraught at Ledger's death. Ledger was not at the apartment of Mary-Kate Olsen. And photos, photos and more photos of Ledger's body being removed from the building.

TMZ was not alone in – I don't know any other way to say this – the fine art of ghoulish reporting. Culprits abounded – in both mainstream and tabloid coverage.

This isn't the first time we've seen this, and it won't be the last.

I just didn't expect Heath Ledger to be in the middle. Silly, naive me.

Sorry me, too. Sorry for a child named Matilda, now without a father. Sorry for those who read and watch and listen, who deserve better. Sorry for those whom I must accept, like it or not, are my colleagues in the media.

Sorry, most of all, for Heath Ledger, who deserved at least as much dignity as he gave Ennis Del Mar.


Well said, beautiful...thanks for posting that Leslie :'(
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Offline MaineWriter

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Re: Heath Ledger Dead - News Accounts
« Reply #144 on: January 25, 2008, 03:56:06 pm »
From the Wall Street Journal:

Will Marketing Change After Star's Death?

By MARSHALL CROOK and PETER SANDERS

January 24, 2008; Page B1

For nearly nine months, Internet-savvy movie fans have been tantalized by a Web marketing campaign to slowly unveil the new look for one of Hollywood's most popular characters: the Joker, nemesis to Batman and a central figure in the next installment of the Warner Bros. film franchise based on the Caped Crusader.

Tuesday, however, Warner Bros.' careful online campaign, which still has months left to run, took an unexpected turn when Heath Ledger, the 28-year-old actor playing the Joker in "The Dark Knight," was found dead in a New York apartment.

The tragedy will force the studio to ponder how or whether to continue the elaborate Web campaign that was already generating buzz for one of its most important movie properties. That question is made even trickier by the fact that the campaign, to date, has been largely built around Mr. Ledger's Joker, even though Christian Bale returns as Batman. The Joker character became film legend in an earlier incarnation of the Batman series, when Jack Nicholson won praise for his deranged take on the comic-book villain. Mr. Ledger's eagerly anticipated portrayal is, if anything, said to take the character to a new level of violence and intensity that is darker than Mr. Nicholson's Joker.

A spokeswoman for Warner Bros., a unit of Time Warner Inc., said the marketing campaign was continuing but declined to comment further.

The viral campaign of "The Dark Knight" began to appear out of nowhere in May. That's when an inaugural political advertisement for Harvey Dent, aspiring Gotham City district attorney, appeared online without mentioning any movie. IBelieveinHarveyDent.com featured a photo of the candidate and was "Paid for by Friends of Harvey Dent." By following clues sprinkled on Internet message boards, fans then were led to a second site: IBelieveinHarveyDentToo.com. The page was the same, but Mr. Dent's picture was defaced with blackened eyes and a ghastly red grin. (The page has since changed, but visitors can scroll down to see a hidden message.)

The site was a fake, the candidate photos were of actor Aaron Eckhart, and the Web pages were the beginning of an elaborate attempt to stir up interest among fans. Throughout the summer and fall of 2007, the campaign served up a labyrinthine adventure set in an alternate-reality Gotham City. The drive of the campaign was the slow reveal of the Joker as played by Mr. Ledger. The actor's death puts into question the future of the Joker-centric marketing push for "The Dark Knight" and whether Warner Bros. will change tactics rather than risk a negative public response.

At the defaced Harvey Dent Web page, fans could get a code that allowed them to remove a piece of the overlying image. As more fans participated, Mr. Dent disappeared pixel by pixel, displaying the first official photo of Mr. Ledger's Joker: a grim white face appearing out of the darkness with dead eyes and an erratic, ruby smile carved into his cheeks.

With a playful but psychotic tone, the Joker character kept movie fanboys guessing for months. In late October, he requested that they participate in a nationwide scavenger hunt. Fans took photos of letter-shaped landmarks all over the country. The letters formed a message: "The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules," which then dissolved into a fresh Joker image. In November, the Joker encouraged fans to submit images of them and friends painted with white faces and red smiles. Each game resulted in a new image of the Joker or a new site with a new quest. Fans were updated on viral developments by editors of popular film news sites like www.superherohype.com and aintitcool.com, among others.

In late fall, fictional newspaper the Gotham Times launched its Web site, www.thegothamtimes.com, where fans could read up on Batman's exploits or Mr. Dent's war on corruption. Readers then discovered a second newspaper, the HaHaHa Times, at www.thehahahatimes.com, which was a frightening version of the original paper with edits made by the Joker himself.

In December, the campaign subsided when "The Dark Knight" prologue was screened before IMAX showings of "I Am Legend" and the first full-length trailer for "The Dark Knight" made its debut. Both featured footage unveiling Mr. Ledger's performance.

Such campaigns aren't new, of course. "The Blair Witch Project" in 1999 established that young movie fans could be enticed by online games that hold their interest for months before a film's release. Online campaigns have now become a standard feature of the marketing for certain films, especially comic-book fare like Batman.

Mr. Ledger isn't featured just in the online campaign. The movie's current poster includes a ghostly and haunting image of Mr. Ledger in his Joker getup, with the tag line "Why So Serious?" scrawled in red. In recent interviews, Mr. Ledger said the Joker was the most-fun role he had ever undertaken but was taxing physically and emotionally.

The movie's viral campaign is the work of 42 Entertainment, a Pasadena, Calif., independent producer of alternate-reality multimedia environments. The goal was to create a multiplatform story bridging the 2005 film -- which cost $150 million to produce and sold about $370 million of tickets world-wide -- and its sequel.

Untimely deaths have interrupted movie marketing before -- from James Dean's 1955 death before "Giant" was released, to the accidental shooting of Brandon Lee on the set of "The Crow," to the murder of director/actress Adrienne Shelley in the run-up to "Waitress" last year.

Web movie campaigns often rely on movie fan sites to whip up and maintain interest in the online initiatives. "We usually help kick off campaigns by spreading the word, and fans take it from there," said Mirko Parlevliet of Coming Soon Media LP, which operates sites like comingsoon.net and superherohype.com.

Mr. Parlevliet said the viral campaign for "The Dark Knight" "was very detailed and got a great response from the fans," adding that fans were rewarded for participating by gaining access to trailers, posters and photos. Still, he says, "I personally don't think these games reach an audience beyond the Internet-savvy fans. ... Also, [the studios] should concentrate more on a world-wide audience instead of just the U.S. fans."

Warner Bros. released a statement yesterday expressing its condolences on Mr. Ledger's death but didn't comment on the status of the film, which is in post-production in Los Angeles. It is possible that some of Mr. Ledger's sound-recording work was incomplete.

An executive at a rival studio said that while "The Dark Knight" is basically a big-budget movie with tragedy now attached to it, it would be unwise to change the marketing strategy or campaign at this point. "The best thing that could happen is that all this marketing stuff just goes on and the movie and the campaign don't turn into some kind of weird grave marker," he said.

Write to Marshall Crook at [email protected] and Peter Sanders at [email protected]
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Offline Kelda

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Re: Heath Ledger Dead - News Accounts
« Reply #145 on: January 25, 2008, 04:07:15 pm »
Among the worst offenders: TMZ.com, which boasts the stink of respectability because it has a TV show and because its managing editor, Harvey Levin, is a recurring talking head on “Today,” among other shows. The site may as well have changed its name to “All Heath All the Time,” updating viewers seemingly by the second with grainy photos and lurid tidbits like: “The People Who Found Heath,” “Jack (as in Nicholson) on Heath: I Warned Him!”, “How Heath's Body Was Discovered,” “Michelle Williams (Ledger's ex-fiance'e and the mother of their child) – Devastated,” and “Inside the Building Where Heath Died.”


There is one on tmz - http://www.tmz.com/tmz_main_video?titleid=1389981778 - which I had to smile at - it showed busy and mrs williams - plus another woman i didn't recognise walking toward the brooklyn apartment. During the clip with Michelle's mum, there is someone shouting at the press - leave them alone you should be ashamed of yourselves. Good on that woman
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Offline mariez

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Re: Heath Ledger Dead - News Accounts
« Reply #146 on: January 25, 2008, 04:42:47 pm »
From the San Diego Union-Tribune:

Heath Ledger deserved better goodbye

UNION-TRIBUNE

January 25, 2008

Ennis Del Mar was a man of few words, but powerful passions.

.......

Sorry, most of all, for Heath Ledger, who deserved at least as much dignity as he gave Ennis Del Mar.

Yes, thanks for posting that, Leslie.  What a beautifully written piece.  He certainly did. 

Marie
The measure of a country's greatness is its ability to retain compassion in times of crisis         ~~~~~~~~~Thurgood Marshall

The worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself.    ~~~~~~~~~ Mark Twain

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Re: Heath Ledger Dead - News Accounts
« Reply #147 on: January 25, 2008, 05:28:32 pm »
Not Fit to Print Dep't: From New York Magazine

In Other News

1/25/08

In Ledger Mystery, ‘Post’ Goes After Mary-Kate. Cops, Not as Much



We'll admit it: When we saw the cover of the Post today, we felt a little bad for Mary-Kate Olsen.

Sure, it was weird that she didn't tell her masseuse to call 911 immediately after the employee found Heath Ledger's dead body, but everything happened quickly, and she did try to help.

Why was it suddenly her responsibility to take care of things? She's only 13 years old for Pete's sake. The "HEAT IS ON MARY KATE" headline, followed by the "Cops to grill her in death" kicker, seemed a little aggressive. And, we've just found out, it's not even true. Both Us Weekly and TMZ.com are reporting that Mary-Kate will not be questioned.

"We have absolutely no interest in talking to Mary-Kate," a police source explained today. Now, if you look closely at the Post story, buried at the bottom, another cop source said the same thing.

"Law enforcement sources last night said they did not think there was anything suspicious about either [the masseuse's] or Olsen's conduct," their story said. So the heat, technically, was not on her at any time. Except, of course, from the Post.
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Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Re: Heath Ledger Dead - News Accounts
« Reply #148 on: January 25, 2008, 05:34:54 pm »
From New York Magazine

Intel

1/25 | 2:29 PM

Col Allan Is Not Afraid of Mary-Kate Olsen!



Following our post this morning about how the Post's story on Mary-Kate Olsen being questioned by police turned out to be wrong, we just received this statement from Post editor-in-chief Col Allan, via e-mail:

We confirmed this story last night with an impeccable source inside the NYPD and we stand by our reporting.

Almost immediately after the tragic passing of Mr. Ledger, Ms. Olsen’s attorneys began emailing us threatening letters. As has been well reported, there were a number of calls to Ms. Olsen from the masseuse before the NYPD arrived on the scene.

We would find it strange if Ms. Olsen were not questioned at all. The New York Post will not be pressured and we find it odd that the chiefs at the NYPD appear to be terrified of 4-foot-11 inch, 90-pound Mary Kate Olsen.


Classic.

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Offline Penthesilea

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Re: Heath Ledger Dead - News Accounts
« Reply #149 on: January 25, 2008, 05:52:14 pm »
From the San Diego Union-Tribune:

Heath Ledger deserved better goodbye

UNION-TRIBUNE

January 25, 2008

....


I just didn't expect Heath Ledger to be in the middle. Silly, naive me.

Sorry me, too. Sorry for a child named Matilda, now without a father. Sorry for those who read and watch and listen, who deserve better. Sorry for those whom I must accept, like it or not, are my colleagues in the media.

Sorry, most of all, for Heath Ledger, who deserved at least as much dignity as he gave Ennis Del Mar.

Thank you Leslie for posting this.