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‘Movies Are Over.’ Directors, Distribs & Journos Debate Future of Film & Criticism

‘Movies Are Over.’ Directors, Distribs & Journos Debate Future of Film & Criticism

Karina Longworth
By Karina Longworth posted 1 year ago
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“There is, of course, cause for concern, and even alarm.”

These were some of the first words out of moderator Annette Insdorf’s mouth, at the start of a panel called Snip Snip: Are Cutbacks in Film Distribution and Criticism Affecting Quality Filmmaking? in Telluride on Sunday. She ticked off all the alarming factors––studio-funded arthouse distributors like Paramount Vantage and Picturehouse are shutting down; marketing costs for the average film have risen to the $20 million range, which means that true indie distributors can’t compete; there’s a glut of films in both festivals and in theaters; print outlets dedicated to film have all but disappeared, and general interest publications have come to see critics as a luxury. She closed this listlessness-inducing laundry list with the question, “Will we simply have to read blogs to be informed about non-Hollywood cinema?” The distributors and journalists on the panel (including Michael Barker of Sony Pictures Classics, Anne Thompson of Variety and Scott Foundas of Village Voice Media) ended up taking this querie and running it into a lively, contentious debate. But first, Paul Schrader declared that he’s already heard the death rattle of cinema as we know it.

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Movie Characters Who Should Use Twitter

Chris Thilk
By Chris Thilk posted 1 year ago
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Twitter, the popular micro-blogging service, has turned into a powerful tool in the hands of not only consumers but marketers of all stripes as well. Comcast, Paramount Pictures and a handful of others have all latched on to it as a way to communicate with customers, acting not only as a distribution platform but a conversation hub and customer service hub as well. Some of the biggest names in the social media marketing world are spending serious time brainstorming how to use Twitter for marketing, debating its usefulness and otherwise hashing out a series of best practices for utilizing the service.

Media outlets have also turned to Twitter for many of the same reasons. TV Guide, Fox News and even Spout have a presence there to, again, promote their content and, in some cases, even engage in a back-and-forth with readers.

But did you know that Darth Vader is twittering? How about Cobra Commander?

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MacWorld Keynote: The Movie Stuff

Karina Longworth
By Karina Longworth posted 1 year ago
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appletv.jpgI’m refreshing a couple of my favorite tech blogs every few minutes to glean the movie-related news from today’s MacWorld keynote. Here’s what I’m learning, in real time. Keep refreshing for new stuff.

12:21: It looks like watching video will become more feasible on the new version of the iPhone, which is set to ship in late February. From TUAW: “New features rolling out! Maps with location for iPhone. Webclips. Customize home screens. SMS multiple recipients. Chapters for video. Karaoke mode! (Lyrics displayable)”

12:29: The IPhone video updates, including subtitle options will be “available today as a free update for all iPhones.” [TUAW again]

12:32: ITunes sold 7 million movies last year — better than every other movie download service, but still below expectations.

12:33: “We think there’s a better way to deliver movie content through iTunes. So today, we’re introducing iTunes Movie Rentals.” [Engadget]

…Read more

Michel Gondry @ The Apple Store, Via Twitter

Karina Longworth
By Karina Longworth posted 1 year ago
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New Line has sent Michel Gondry on a tour of indieWIRE events at Apple Stores to promote Be Kind Rewind. But is actual, physical globetrotting even necessary in today’s wired world? I thought it was kind of ironic that on the first stop of the tour, which took place last night in San Francisco, several of my Bay Area-based Twitter friends were essentially live micro-blogging the event––no doubt in some, if not all cases, using Apple devices.

So several days before Gondry’s tour is scheduled to come to my city, I was eating dinner in New York, and effectively getting a play-by-play of the San Francisco version of the event via Twitter updates on my cellphone. This morning, I woke up to find that Jackson West (who, in addition to being a Twitter followee, is a colleague at a site that I freelance for, NewTeeVee) had uploaded audio of the event and was making it available for download by anyone who reads his Twitter stream.

All of this says something about our new global-cultural-techno-econo-sphere, I’m sure of it; I’m just not sure what it is.

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Are Interactive Movies Games or Art?

Karina Longworth
By Karina Longworth posted 2 years ago
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Last week, I followed a link from Fimoculous to Wired’s GameLife, where blogger Chris Baker attempted to quell the anti-Roger Ebert sentiment in the game community by posting a game review written by Ebert for the magazine. If you just read that sentence and immediately asked yourself, “What anti-Roger Ebert sentiment in the video game community?” … well, let me back up a bit.

In 2005, Ebert fired the first of several shots in what appears to have been an accidental battle, by admitting to never having played the video game that inspired the movie Doom. A reader named Vikram Keskar wrote in with an extremely well-articulated letter of protest:

Doom works as a tribute because it fails so utterly as a movie. There is a reason so many video game-based movies suck: They are fundamentally different forms of representation. Thus by being faithful to the game, the movie pisses off the critic and pleases the gamer.

…to which Ebert rather flippantly responded:

Seen as a moviegoing experience, [Doom] was not a good one. There are specialist sites on the Web devoted to video games, and they review movies on their terms. I review them on mine. As long as there is a great movie unseen or a great book unread, I will continue to be unable to find the time to play video games.

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High speed munching

By posted 2 years ago
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Kids might be snacking experts (see yesterday’s post), but let’s admit it. Many adults also find snacks very tasty–and addicting. The cover story on this month’s Wired magazine, “Snack Attack,” is all about “bite-sized entertainment” and how one-minute media is affecting our culture.

The six-spread magazine feature is laid out as a series of snacks, to mimic its topic. Frankly, it gives me a bit of a headache and leaves me feel scattered and distracted. I guess that’s the point. Anyway, among the bite-sized articles:

- “403 Ways to Slice a CD ” (demonstrating how an album isn’t an album any more–it’s an opportunity to dice songs);

- “Sitcom to Bitcom” (about how former Arrested Development star is making a short-form comedy series for Innertube, CBS’ new broadband channel); and

- “4 Wii Microgames: When a Quickie Is All You Have Time For” (about Tetris alternatives that last a few seconds).

Probably the most applicable piece for Spout is “Let’s Do Snacks: A veteran film producer on why Hollywood must adapt to the short-form age.” Peter Guber, CEO of Mandalay Entertainment Group and host of AMC’s Sunday Morning Shootout, writes “It’s not written in the Bible, ‘A movie shall be two hours.’ Someone made that up to sell theater tickets.” This, of course, is true. Paul and I at Spout have lamented in earlier posts that short films aren’t more available outside the festival circuit. (Here’s a previous post on short films, and another, and another.)

But Peter Guber goes on to write: “With technology, the very definition of a story has changed. It used to mean an actor and a script. Now a story is a 15-second, no-dialog clip of someone running across the street.” Hmmm. I’m sure I’m not alone in questioning this. But while many people might question whether a 15-second-no-dialog clip is a story, I would argue that it always has been a story. Technology doesn’t have the power to change the definition of a story, it only changes how we’re able to tell that story.

Guber’s very short article ends by saying that all of Hollywood is “scrambling to construct a new model to profit from these bits and pieces…” but “…if people are thinking this is the end of Hollywood, they’re wrong. This is a whole new beginning.”

I’m very curious to see what direction Hollywood runs in with this new beginning–along a fast track to simply “profit from these bits and pieces,” or along a more meaningful path, that values art and storytelling that can still enrich our lives, just in shorter amounts of time.

(Also check out the “Top 10 Reasons We Like Lists.” Spout loves lists, too!)

Silent cinema: nostalgia or opportunity?

By posted 2 years ago
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If you’re someone who takes note of advances in technology and reacts to them in some way, you’re most likely in one of two camps: the Nostalgia Camp or the Opportunity Camp. But it’s possible to have a foot in both camps, valuing the past and envisioning the future all at the same time. A somewhat recent revival of silent films with live performances is a good example.

John Brownlee of Wired recently wrote a post about this, “Filmmakers Seek Future in Past.” He says the silent film medium was pretty much killed about 80 years ago, with advances in sound recording. Now, Brownlee writes:

Prolific modern-day directors like Guy Maddin work largely in the medium of silent film to convey postmodern tales. Silent film festivals are held annually around the world: from San Francisco to Kansas, from Italy to Australia. The Chilean subways are plastered with thousands of still images, coming to life as contiguous strips of film as the trains rumble by. And numerous groups throughout the United States have been inspired to compose and perform live original scores to silent film.

Silent film has much to offer, creatively–it doesn’t have to be left in the Museum of How We Used to Make Movies. It’s true that although certain stories and messages are very difficult to communicate in a silent film, other material can be more fully and less-awkwardly communicated without sound, or at least without words. Adding a live score allows even more opportunities to communicate and convey emotion. (Check out the Alloy Orchestra, which some of the Spout team heard accompany Lonesome at Telluride last year.)

In all, I think the revival of silent films is an exciting development, especially for musicians and composers who have a whole slew of classics to pick from and play with. But will filmmakers get excited about potential new opportunities for them? And are the opportunities really new, or are they just exercises in nostalgia? Obviously, it can go in either direction, depending on the intentions and visions of the people behind the project. In terms of moving the medium forward, here’s an interesting prediction from Cherchi Usai, the director of Australia’s National Film and Sound Archive:

Curiously, it is in the ubiquitous digital advertising displays littering modern cities that Cherchi Usai sees the future of silent film, pointing to the Going Underground film festival, a weeklong event in January where silents from local filmmakers were shown in Berlin’s subways.

“Silent cinema is penetrating our lives in new, unpredictable ways,” says Cherchi Usai. “There is a paradigm shift. This is an evolution of the silent film experience into a completely different technology. And it could not have happened before.”

Viewers marketing to themselves

By posted 3 years ago
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I just did a post on SpoutBlog’s web and technology side about the cable channel Current TV. A mere year ago the idea of user-generated content as a source of entertainment was so new it was puzzling people; now, in a world with YouTube, the concept is old hat.

So what do you all think about this other aspect of Current TV: letting viewers create advertisements? Here’s what the San Francisco Chronicle article says: