#jim toth | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

jav-uni · 2 months ago

Note

It's already hard for the GP to know who she is, but interesting article though. Thanks, nonnie! //

No problem! Here’s another fascinating read I found — which confirms all that team real has stated during this stunt:

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/love-sex/relationships/a60871843/anatomy-of-a-celebrity-break-up/

Wow, that's a fascinating article! Thanks!

And, you meant to say "team PR", right? 😉, because as you said it confirms what team PR has said since day one.

Edit: Nonnie clarified and meant to say "Team PR" instead of "Team Real"

In case you can't open the link I posted the text of the article below.

The anatomy of a celebrity break-up

Celebrity divorce lawyers have been busy... it feels like there’s new break-up hitting our newsfeeds every week. But as we all become more savvy to the inner workings of the A-list PR machine, how do the insiders keep reputations firmly intact?By Annabelle LeeUpdated: 21 August 2024

Within seconds, the comments begin to pile up. It’s a Friday afternoon and the latest celebrity split has just hit our Instagram feeds. The announcement sets off a ripple effect: celebrity journalists cancel their dinner plans and begin furiously typing their stories. The stars’ publicists are carefully watching the reaction – there are certain details they really don’t want out there (and some they definitely do). As for the celebrities everyone’s talking about? She’s on tour. He’s cuddling up to his new girlfriend. The split happened months ago. It’s only now, after multiple meetings and rewrites of the statement that we get to know about it. Welcome to the wild world of celebrity break-ups...

I’ve been working as a celebrity journalist for more than a decade and even I can’t keep up with how many showbiz break-ups there were last year. Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn. Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas. Jodie Turner-Smith and Joshua Jackson. Ricky Martin and Jwan Yosef. Britney Spears and Sam Asghari. Even Jada Pinkett Smith recently revealed that, while not legally divorced, she and Will Smith have been separated since 2016. In recent months we've been shaken by the splits of Maya Jama and Stormzy, and Tommy Fury and Molly-Mae. And now, Bennifer have called time on their romance, with Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez filing divorce on their second wedding anniversary.

Something is going on in the world of showbiz – and it’s not just the divorce lawyers working overtime. There’s a whole host of publicists and dedicated crisis management teams who hustle behind the scenes to try to make a split appear as rosy as possible.

And while, from my experience in the real world, relationship breakdowns are usually messy, complicated, and painful, in the world of showbiz they maintain a veneer of mutual and loving, with both parties vowing to stay mates. There’s the now legendary “consciously uncoupling” statement from Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin, Reese Witherspoon and Jim Toth said they “move forward with deep love, kindness, and mutual respect”, and Sofía Vergara and Joe Manganiello “love and care for each other very much”. But those statements are hiding a multitude of secrets. Secrets that are carefully controlled by a team of people. So, what really goes on behind the scenes of a split? I dug deep into my contacts book to find out...

It is with great sadness...

Think about your most recent split. You bitched about them to your friends, right? Celebs are the same. Except when they’re bitching, it’s to their publicist rather than their BFF. “As a publicist, you know every detail of your client’s life so you’re one of the first people they call if they go through a relationship breakdown,” says Dermot McNamara, founding director of Candid, a PR and talent management agency. “Then comes the media strategy.”

In other words, it’s not as simple as: break up, make your announcement, move on. Instead, it’s break up, pull together a carefully constructed (and discreet) team to find a way to get the news out that not only makes the celebrity look good but also, if done right, benefits them by promoting whatever work project they have going on. And it all begins with that key statement.

Whether it’s released via a seemingly hurried Notes screenshot or in a polished press release, “they’re usually written in tandem with the celebrity’s publicist”, explains Melissa Morris, a celebrity publicist at Can We Schmooze Consulting in the US, who has advised on some high-profile celebrity break-ups but won’t indulge my nosiness and reveal which. “The content of the statement is carefully crafted to strike a balance between respecting the privacy of those involved and addressing the public’s curiosity.”

“The statement has to strike a balance between respecting privacy and addressing public curiosity”

Publicist Sally Windsor, who has worked at some of the UK’s biggest PR agencies, adds: “Most publicists have a background in media; we know how to phrase statements and word them diplomatically. Sometimes, you’ll have your client in the background saying, ‘He’s awful, tell them he did this to me’, but as a publicist your priority has to be keeping the language neutral.” Yep, as much as the celeb might want to tell the world what their ex did, the statement is not the place to start mud-slinging – that comes later. Particularly as the statement is part of a wider strategy from a celebrity’s team, which is why it can often take weeks, or even months, to plan.

“You look at what is coming up for them. If they have a big project coming up, you don’t want to necessarily announce it straight away so that they’re not constantly asked about the relationship during promotion,” explains McNamara. “But equally some people will want to get publicity and for the news to come out at the same time, so there is more interest in them.” The column inches the break-up provides become the perfect promotion.

Take Taylor Swift: her break-up with Joe Alwyn hit the news just as The Eras Tour was kicking off. What followed was multiple fan TikTok videos of her slaying it on stage, accompanied by captions such as, ‘ways to boss the break-up’ and ‘I can’t even get out of bed after a break-up and Taylor’s on an arena tour’, adding a personal element of intrigue to an already hugely talked-about tour (set to make a record $1bn in ticket sales). It was speculated that this was no coincidence and that the pair had broken up months earlier... This, of course, was never confirmed or denied by Taylor’s team (neither Joe or Taylor have ever spoken publicly on the split).

It’s not just projects that are factored into the timing of the split statement – consideration of the working hours (and press deadlines) of the media is also factored in. I remember when Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux announced their divorce, late one Thursday evening. For those working in weekly magazines at the time, their cover story for the following week had already been written and decided so journalists had to work late, quickly pulling what they had planned to replace it with the news. Some managed, some didn’t – hugely impacting sales on the news stand the following week. This could all have been a deliberate move on the pair’s part.

While the fast pace of the online news cycle disrupts this slightly, traditional print schedules will still be considered. If a celebrity posts their break-up statement on a Friday – they’re trying to avoid coverage. “Journalists aren’t usually looking for stories on a Friday afternoon – they’ll be doing admin and thinking about clocking off for the weekend,” Windsor explains. “And similarly, if I was looking after a celebrity who wants publicity, I’d be putting that statement out early in the week.” Of course, all of this is great if the pair’s teams are working in harmony, and both are willing to ensure that each party comes across well – but that isn’t always the case...

A source close to the couple...

You know the ‘close friend’ or ‘insider’ often quoted on celebrity news articles? They’re usually the celebrity themselves (via their PR) trying to take a swipe or get their side of the story out there, before their ex does. It gives them a chance to potentially sling some mud, have their say, and, crucially, control the narrative after a split to maintain their client’s reputation.

While the statement often appears to show a harmonious, loving split, that’s rarely the case and it’s more than likely each party wants their story out there. “About 70% of what I do is letting stuff out through source quotes,” explains Windsor. “You’d generally always announce a break-up through social media and then the next day get source quotes out there.” McNamara agrees, adding: “It’s a great way to control the messaging. If journalists don’t get their sources from their publicist, they’ll just go elsewhere.”

“Some want the news to come out at the same time [as a big project] so there’s more interest”

This is where things get messy. The world of celebrity has changed drastically over recent years and it’s a lot harder to keep the dirty details secret any more. The social media rumour mill means that bombshell splits that we never saw coming (think Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt) are almost a relic of the past. Publicists are keeping an eye on whisper accounts such as DeuxMoi and, in the UK, Popbitch, if they’re waiting to reveal a split. If the news hits these or people begin to notice that the pair haven’t featured each other on social media in a while, they may rethink their strategy and announce earlier than planned.

“A-listers have a whole team looking after publicity and these sites would definitely be on their radar,” confirms McNamara. “If a rumour ramps up, they want to know about it.” Some of the publicists I spoke to also agree that a celebrity’s team might leak break-up news through sites such as DeuxMoi to help control the narrative in a more natural way.

Social media is also changing the game, giving us normal folk (and celebrities behind the backs of their publicists) the chance to spill some tea. Kiss and tells are no longer tabloid fodder but instead ‘story time’ TikToks, with those spilling secrets on the platform in the name of ‘sharing their truth’ (and racking up their follower counts in the process). Many keep their alleged lovers anonymous, choosing to hint by ‘liking’ the guesses in the comments. Model Sumner Stroh made worldwide news when she alleged that she had an affair with Maroon 5 star Adam Levine on TikTok, with a backdrop of messages thought to be between the two of them – claims Levine denied.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by S O P H I E T U R N E R (@sophiet)

instagram

Then there’s the odd occasion when celebrities will, much to their publicists’ horror, take to social media (seemingly) without having thought their decision through. In a moment where he admits he “just snapped”, Calvin Harris took to Twitter in 2016 to drag Taylor Swift after their split. And lately, we’ve seen Sophie Turner demand “the immediate return of [their] children”, who she claimed had been “wrongfully removed” by Joe Jonas – which he denied. The pair later released a joint statement saying mediation had been successful and they “look forward to being great co-parents”.

It’s never been easier to get your side of the story out there, but, as we’re seeing, when two parties try to control the narrative, it gets complicated very quickly (and publicly). Real Housewives Of Atlanta stars Kim Zolciak and Kroy Biermann filed for divorce earlier this year and the messy details of their split reached the press almost instantly. Kroy requested full custody of their four children, before Kim alleged Kroy smoked weed around them and asked the court for him to be drugs tested. Then he alleged she had a gambling problem and asked for her to undergo a psychological evaluation.

And last year wasn’t much smoother for Ariana Grande, who ended her marriage to Dalton Gomez before (that same week) allegedly falling into the arms of her Wicked co-star Ethan Slater. Rumours then circulated that their relationship began while they were both still married, with Ariana being branded a ‘homewrecker’ and Ethan’s ex-wife, Lilly Jay (mum to their one-year-old son) calling her family the “collateral damage” in the whole saga, adding that Ariana is not a “girl’s girl”. ‘Consciously uncoupling’ suddenly seems a lot more appealing.

“I’ve dealt with my fair share of messy break-ups,” explains a well-known UK-based publicist (who we’ve kept anonymous) who has represented many celebrities over the years. “One of my previous clients was dating one of the biggest reality stars in the country. When they split, he put the break-up out on social media before we’d even had the chance to come up with our approach,” the publicist reveals. “At the time there was a lot of reporting that he had secretly got back together with his ex, and before we knew it both girls were being played off against each other. My client was heartbroken over the relationship breakdown, so I worked with her to give anonymous stories to the press to share her side of the story and build a positive narrative. Then a few months later, I booked her onto a different reality show to share her side once emotions had died down. When it comes to celebrities, I often find the more gushing the statement is, the more insincere it is. ‘We move on with the greatest respect for each other’ and the like is the most disingenuous thing I’ve heard in my life.” But if we start to see a more ‘real’ side to showbiz splits, how will that affect how we view our own relationships?

Love is dead?

If you happened to walk down New York’s Cornelia Street in April this year, you’d have been confronted with bouquets spread across the street and crowds belting out Taylor Swift’s most heartbreaking hits. For a brief period, the street (where she wrote the song “Cornelia Street”, believed to be about Joe Alwyn) became a shrine to the couple’s dead relationship. Teenagers were taking photos of themselves holding roses and crying. One even told a journalist: “I cried for a couple of hours and the next day I stayed in my room all day. It made me believe that love wasn’t real anymore. And I puked.”

This is extreme, but we do get invested in our favourite celebs – and their relationships, too. During my research for this piece, I spoke to lots of people about how celebrity break-ups have affected them and most could see themselves in the celebrity couple they had once so adored. When Jen and Brad announced their divorce in 2005, there was an outpouring of sadness from fans around the world. But that was 18 years ago, and we are still obsessed over their split. One fan told me: “I just loved them together. I felt like I knew Jennifer because I’d watched her so much on TV playing Rachel [in Friends]. When they split, I thought, ‘If they can’t make it, who can?

It works both ways. When Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck reunited in 2021 after their 2004 split, the internet was overjoyed. And, when they revealed they’d got married, every one of their wedding posts was flooded with fans saying, ‘I love your love story because it’s so similar to my own’ and ‘I think her prior marriages never worked out because her true love has always been Ben.’ Cut to now, with the couple having now filed for divorce after giving their relationship another go, these comments are revealed as intense parasocial pressure reveals itself.

This is common, us pinning our hopes and dreams on to celebrities. As well as proclamations of true love being ‘dead’ when celebrities split, there’s also the idea that if infidelity is involved, it means that anyone can get cheated on (the whole, ‘If they can get cheated on there’s no hope for the rest of us’.) But while it’s natural, what we’re actually doing is trying to project ourselves on to a soap opera – something that isn’t real. “Following a celebrity’s love life is like living through them – it’s escapism from your day-to-day. You might think, ‘I wish I had a husband who looks like Brad Pitt’, or, ‘I wish I lived in Beverley Hills’, but a lot of the time, their lives are fabricated stories created by their PR people,” explains psychologist Jason O’Callaghan, who is a former showbiz reporter based in Ireland and now a therapist to many celebrities.

As for their relationships reflecting our own? “It’s actually the opposite. Hollywood stars have higher break-up and divorce rates than the rest of us because of the pressure of being in the public eye,” O’Callaghan explains. A study by the MarriageFoundation found that 40% of celebrities divorced within a 10-year period, yet the UK national average for divorce in the first decade is 20%. Throw in long-distance travel, conflicting schedules, and differing career priorities, and it’s far from a fairy tale.

“I worked with my client to give anonymous stories to the press to share her side of the story”

“There is nothing to suggest that the more attractive you are, the happier your relationships will be,” says O’Callaghan. “Even if you look like a Hollywood star, it doesn’t mean you are immune. Relationships don’t tend to last just because you’re attractive. Infidelity is caused by a number of things, and while attraction is important in a relationship, infidelity and marriage breakdowns are not prevented by being as conventionally attractive as possible to your partner.”

The truth is that looks, money, fame... they just don’t guarantee a happier life. And you don’t need to be a celebrity to know it is hard. out. there – whether you’re dating or making a relationship work. With longer life spans, a growing interest in different relationship models and the fact we’re no longer pushing the idea that you have to be in a relationship to be happy, it’s not surprising divorce rates in the UK rose by around 10% in 2021, with 42% of marriages ending in divorce.

But if celebrity break-ups can teach us anything, it’s that, in the words of Taylor herself, “There’ll be happiness after you, there was happiness because of you, both of these things can be true”. Just because a split happens, it doesn’t mean love wasn’t there. While celebrity break-ups can feel brutal, they also remind us we’ve all been there and we’re never as alone in heartbreak as we feel. Break-ups are messy and complicated, perfectly worded split announcement or not, but life goes on. Even if life isn’t a sold-out world tour for everyone...

This article originally appeared in the Dec 23/Jan 24 issue of Cosmopolitan UK.

31 notes · View notes

sabrinatvband · 8 months ago

Text

Notes on Comic Art #3: Dynamicism [again]

I've recently been devouring Tim Eldred's writings. Eldred is not a very famous artist, but you're almost certainly familiar with his work. He's been a storyboard artist and / or director on Extreme Ghostbusters, Avengers EMH, Teen Titans (2003), and every Spider-Man show beginning with TNAS, as well as many, many other shows.

But before primarily becoming a board artist, Eldred worked in the comics industry. He did a lot of work on anime/manga-inspired comics, and was a staff artist at Malibu Comics for a few years.

One of the many odd-jobs he did in his career was create art for a few of those Christopher Hart "how to draw X" books you've probably seen. Don't worry, Eldred has credibility; he thinks the books are shit and he only accepted the work to make ends meet. But he thinks an example of good comicbook storytelling that he did for one of Hart's books mostly holds up, if you ignore the writing Hart added around his examples.

I recommend you read Eldred's post about this first, and then come back around here to read my own commentary.

An entire book drawn like this first example would eventually start to feel like those comics laid out by Jim Shooter. Shooter's comics are a many notches above this, but the effect of having few dynamics would basically be the same.

Eldred says he constantly saw direct downshots in pages from beginners during portfolio reviews. I don't think Eldred is lying, but the weird thing is that I can't recall ever seeing a direct downshot in a comic. I guess it's because none of those beginners ever got published. Either way, I do agree that it's an awkward, mechanical angle. There might be an occasion where it's the correct choice, but I can't imagine when that might be.

Anyways, Eldred was trying to make a point by having these pages use six panel grids; he's implying they're boring. I think Hamm's rebuttal to this POV is the best one I've ever read:

Varying the size and shape of panels or their points-of-view doesn't "add drama," it adds visual interest. And narrative is more important than visual interest. Some of the most gripping comics have mostly same-sized panels: Watchmen, V, Toth's work, much of Los Bros Hernandez, not to mention most comic strips.

You can also throw in Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby, and many other gold / silver age artists. The Dark Knight Returns is built using a sixteen panel grid.

There are many other things that can be said about this "worst" example, but my final comment is that the first, fourth, and sixth panels of the first page, and the first panel of the second page, are all completely fine. I'd even argue that there's nothing really wrong with the third panel of the second page. The big problem with most of these panels is that they lazily flatten objects that could've had depth, mostly cars, and I don't really see that problem in the ones I mentioned [aside from 1-4, but that's appropriate].

Here's what Eldred calls the "intermediate" example. Something we start to see here is figures breaking out of panels. Once again, Jesse Hamm has something to say:

Panel borders are a symbol that helps the story move swiftly and clearly. Like punctuation. Each time you break them, letting figures or objects jut out of them, you slightly erode their effectiveness. You can break them occasionally to good effect…but broken often, they lose power, and it looks gimmicky. Be judicious!

I think all of the panel breaks across these two pages are not only completely superflous, but they're also actively detrimental to the artwork. Especially the one in the second panel, which makes the left side of that panel feel more tangent-y than it would otherwise.

I have a lot of problems with the following quote from Eldred:

The big panel in the center is what I later learned to call a “three-quarter downshot.” I learned the term once I made the jump into TV animation and found out that (like the direct downshot) it was a common default angle for storyboards. Everyone used it without understanding what a cliche it was. You almost never see it live-action filmmaking, for example. Once it was beaten out of us, we all learned how to find better alternatives. But until you get that training, you just think of it as a helpful way to convey geography.

Once again, I don't doubt that some people in the storyboarding world think that the "three-quarter downshot" is bad. But it's perfectly fine for comics. There are two reasons you don't often see this kind of shot in live action filmmaking:

-It requires either a crane or a cameraman moving onto a building. One of those things is expensive, and both of them eat up a lot of time, which is always in short supply in filmmaking.

-Because live action filmmaking is live action, our eyes are always being bombarded with a lot of information. It takes too much time for a viewer to spot the relevant figure in a three-quarter downshot composition, and so it's mostly useless in live action.

In comics, budget is not a problem, and time works differently so a reader can have a second to discover where the relevant figure is standing. There are some comics, like RoboCop vs The Terminator, that would've been served quite well by a few three-quarter downshots, because they don't do enough to convey geography.

It's worth mentioning that the first example uses 12 panels to convey what the second example conveys in 9. I haven't said it outright yet, but aside from the panel breaking stuff, I do think the second example is better than the first.

Anyways, here's the "advanced" example:

Whenever I see a book dominated by compositions like this, I always make the same mental note: I'm not reading this. The actual mental note is more of a This artist lacks discernment and this is visually incoherent, but the end result is that I'm still not going to read it. My eyes immediately glaze over; it's too much work to parse the tilted panels and constant panel breaks. Everything is cranked up to 11 and I have no time for any of it.

Canted angles work just fine when the composition is canted while the panel borders are normal; that's easy to understand. But I don't enjoy this Gene Colan-type stuff. This is why I've never read Spawn, or a lot of newer manga.

While I was reading Eldred's post, I kept expecting him to say something to the effect of "You should mix and match stuff from these different levels, because the loud 'advanced' example is not always appropriate", but he never says that. Maybe he just didn't think it needed to be said?

What are the lessons here? Sometimes good artists give bad advice, and sometimes people can try so hard to be cutting-edge and smart that they get in their own way.

Let's look at one last thing, a similar demonstration from How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way. There are a lot of things that can be said about how much of the advice in How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way is destructive, but let's just ignore that larger discussion for now.

Obviously the left page is the boring, non-Marvel page, and the right page is the Marvel page. Notice how much more dynamic the Marvel page is without changing the panel grid, or breaking any borders. Dynamics, in many cases, really does come down to using high or low angles and creative blocking / composition. And, once again, there are instances where some of the panels on the left page might be more desirable than compositions on the Marvel one; context is key.

Varying the size and shape of panels or their points-of-view doesn't "add drama," it adds visual interest. And narrative is more important than visual interest.

#making comics #comics #art

6 notes · View notes