Must listen several times to this opera over the holiday break in preparation for the trip to L.A. Must make the most of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
A few scripts to read today. Then I show the doc film in class, "The Monster That Ate Hollywood," a rather grim look at changes in the film industry since multinational corporations bought the studios. It's the same thing that happened in the book industry, the removal of artsy fringe projects and the bigger emphasis on the "bottom line." What would happen in this culture if the bottom line were about quality instead of quantity? Fat chance. The digital revolution is really changing the deck so far, however, and it is absolutely amazing how many quality videos you find on the net today. I was talking recently to a filmmaker of my generation about this, how far ahead younger generations are in film craft, thanks to digital video, at early ages of study, and how much better their work is than his work was as a teenager and young man. Of course, most of this is "art for art's sake", which is fine, but eventually artists want to get paid for their efforts (or they leave to do something else to pay the rent) and the economics of the digital revolution are up in the air, though already the corporations are doing things to try and bring it under harness (and profit). Currently sites like YouTube offer an incredible, uneven, fascinating mix of filmmaking talents.
2 comments:
I think you are right about the digital era and the "independents" eventually getting paid. Many things that have been "corporat-ized" have eventually become the province of independents and/or small upstarts. then the cycle starts again. Witness Starbucks and Grand Central Baking. Coffee used to be Folgers or nothing. Likewise bread. I enjoy your blog.
Tom Waits covers Weill on his newest (3 disc) CD. Worth a listen.
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