English Entertainment
Go Back to Black & White with the Pretty Little Liars!
MUMBAI: Next Saturday, be there for the black and white affair. It’s the Pretty Little Liars (PLL) like you’ve never seen.
For the first time in its 4 season run, the groundbreaking teen phenomenon has filmed an entire episode completely in black and white called “Shadow Play”, with heavy throwback at the classic Hollywood noir films of the yesteryear.
PLL writer and spin-off Ravenswood co-creator Joseph Dougherty is helming the episode which revolves around the character of the smart, yet headstrong and stubborn Spencer Hastings (played by Troian Bellasario), who has been going through many a sleepless night fueled by Aderol and she’s trying desperately to find out whether or not Ezra Fitz is A, the sinister antagonist hell-bent on exposing their lies and lives. Just to push her further, Spencer takes another pill as a result of which she loses touch completely with her own reality and wakes up in a new reality which has her life “Noir-ified”.
Making it “one of the photographed episodes of the series”, writer-director Joseph Doherty elaborates, “The central portion of the storytelling will be told in a particular kind of black and white which is meant to honor a form of very lush story-telling from American films of the forties.”
“With this episode, you could literally stop it at any point and print it out blow it up on a poster and it will look stunning”, says Shay Mitchell, who plays the role of the lesbian swimmer Emily Fields in a behind the scenes video on YouTube. Lucy Hale, who plays the artsy girl Aria Montgomery is still amazed at how all the liars faces “work for the era” making the episode incredibly authentic. Bellasario welcomed the prospect of the episode as a surprising world where people were bold, brash and adventurous, taking chances and risks, quite similar to that of the actual story.
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Shadow Play continues the storyline with where the characters are and how the story is progressing, but the dialogue is “dated”!
While Mitchell is of the opinion that Shadow Play is one that goes down in history, PLL costume designer Mandi Line states that designing the costumes for an episode based in the period of the 1940’s and one that is shot completely in black and white comes with a unique set of challenges. What Line originally had been planned for the episode didn’t work out at all, because when it comes in black and white, “Color Doesn’t Matter.”
Line’s challenge was convincing the Pretty Little Liars that along with peach and green and leopard and all these different colors, and how in black and white they actually pop. So the actors are wearing green shoes with purple dress with leopard green trench coat, which in color would make them look crazy because they might not match, but it makes complete sense in black and white.
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Line concludes that the best of working on this episode was that the script taught her something, and it had been a while she’d been taught something. Working on Shadow Play has certainly heightened her skills as a costume designer.
Follow the Liars as they enact a “Shadow Play” with more classic drama, passion, secrets and of course, lies on Saturday, 22 February at 2 p.m. with an encore telecast at 10 p.m. on Zee Café.
English Entertainment
Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders approve Paramount deal
Investors wave through a $111 billion megamerger but deliver a stinging, if toothless, rebuke over half-a-billion-dollar goodbye packages
NEW YORK: The shareholders said yes to the deal. They said no to the cheque. At a virtual special meeting on Thursday that lasted barely ten minutes, Warner Bros. Discovery investors voted overwhelmingly to approve Paramount Skydance’s $111 billion acquisition of the company — and then turned around and voted against the lavish exit pay packages lined up for chief executive David Zaslav and his fellow outgoing executives.
Not that it will make much difference. The compensation vote is purely advisory and non-binding. The Warner Bros. Discovery board can, and almost certainly will, pay out as planned.
But the symbolism stings. It is the second consecutive year that WBD shareholders have voted against the executive compensation packages, and this time they had good reason. Zaslav’s exit deal is, by any measure, extraordinary. Under the terms filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, he is set to receive $34.2 million in cash severance, $517.2 million in equity in the combined company, and $44,195 in continued health coverage — a total of at least $550 million. On top of that, Warner Bros. Discovery has agreed to reimburse Zaslav up to $335 million for taxes assessed by the Internal Revenue Service on his accelerated stock vesting, though the company says that figure will decline depending on when the deal closes. As of March 11, Zaslav also held $115.85 million in vested WBD stock awards — and last month sold a further $114 million worth of WBD shares.
Shareholder advisory firm ISS recommended voting against the compensation measure, citing “problematic” tax reimbursements to Zaslav and the full vesting of his stock awards.
Zaslav will be bound by a two-year non-competition covenant and a two-year non-solicitation of customers and employees after the deal closes.
His lieutenants are not walking away empty-handed either. J.B. Perrette, chief executive and president of global streaming and games, is in line for $142 million, comprising $18.2 million in cash severance and $123.9 million in equity. Bruce Campbell, chief revenue and strategy officer, will receive an estimated $121.5 million, including $18.8 million in severance and $102.7 million in equity. Chief financial officer Gunnar Wiedenfels is set for $120 million, made up of $6.6 million in cash severance and $113.1 million in equity. Gerhard Zeiler, president of international, will get $82.6 million, including $11.9 million in severance and $70.7 million in equity.
The deal itself, clinched in February after Netflix declined to raise its bid for Warner Bros., still needs regulatory clearance from the Justice Department and European authorities. Several state attorneys general are also weighing legal action to block it.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, was unsparing. “The Paramount-Warner Bros. merger isn’t a done deal,” she said after the shareholder vote. “State attorneys general across the country are stepping up to stop this antitrust disaster. We need to keep up this fight.”
If it does go through, the combined entity would be a formidable beast, bringing together Paramount Skydance’s stable — CBS, CBS News, Paramount Pictures, Paramount+, BET, MTV and Nickelodeon — with WBD’s portfolio of HBO, Max, Warner Bros. film and TV studios, DC, CNN, TBS, TNT, HGTV and Discovery+. Paramount has said it expects $6 billion in cost savings from the merger, which is Wall Street shorthand for mass layoffs on a significant scale.
The ten-minute meeting was presided over by chairman Samuel Di Piazza Jr., with Zaslav, Campbell, Wiedenfels and chief communications officer Robert Gibbs in virtual attendance. Di Piazza was bullish. “We appreciate the support and confidence our stockholders have placed in us to unlock the full value of our world-class entertainment portfolio,” he said. “With Paramount, we look forward to creating an exceptional combined company that will expand consumer choice and benefit the global creative talent community.”
Zaslav echoed the sentiment. “Over the past four years, our teams have transformed Warner Bros. Discovery and returned the company to industry leadership,” he said. “Today’s stockholder approval is another key milestone toward completing this historic transaction that will deliver exceptional value to our stockholders.”
Paramount Skydance struck a similar note. “Shareholder approval marks another important milestone towards completing our acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery,” it said in a statement, adding that it looked forward to “closing the transaction in the coming months.”
The shareholders have spoken on the merger. On the pay, they were ignored before the vote was even counted.
