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I wasn't that impressed...

3D is not a better approximation of sight, it is damned unusual. And uncomfortable. It is a new medium (in its current guise), but is as relevant as the pop-up book is to world literature. The only thing that is driving this is beating file-sharers and physical unit pirates (espec. in Asia).

I shall probably see the damn thing - though a 10.30 am press show might assuage my guilt. I may even like it. But it is really the last firework in the Lumière display.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Wed Dec 23rd, 2009 at 03:46:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]
LOL

The audience in the picture looks like they are all eagerly awaiting the joys of root canal surgery.

Except for the lady third on your right who has apparently fallen asleep.

It's funny.  The techniques and technology of film making are progressing at a rapid clip.  Yet the process and practice of story-telling is heading ever-downward.  To quote Harlan Ellison, "It's like a dead rat embedded in a Lucite block."

by ATinNM on Wed Dec 23rd, 2009 at 03:57:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Finding the answer to that little conundrum is what we are about?

My standard lecture on the subject describes the 'concept editor': someone who can speak the language of many different groups, and translate visions between them. I aspire to be a concept editor. The group that is most tricky to deal with is the punters. Evolving all the time.

And the artistic question, as ever, is to what extent do you educate the punters and to what extent do you entertain them? A spoonful of tolerable medicine. And yet art, like advertising, is aimed at pointing out the inadequacies of the punter's life.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Wed Dec 23rd, 2009 at 04:09:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Whatever you do, it's elitist. ;-)

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Wed Dec 23rd, 2009 at 04:10:56 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Need an English to American translation.

By "punters" do you mean the audience or the backers of a film?

by ATinNM on Wed Dec 23rd, 2009 at 04:20:11 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Punters are them as buys the tickets.

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Wed Dec 23rd, 2009 at 04:21:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]
But as I've said before, there are three sales processes in any project: selling to the group who you need to create critical creative mass, selling to the investors/pre-buyers/commissioning editors/publishers, and selling to the punters. All of them need different narratives.

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Wed Dec 23rd, 2009 at 04:24:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I was thinking more of the product narrative than the (various) "sales campaigns."  

Oh, well.  Nothing to do with me.  I know too much, and too little, to want to get into the Film business.

by ATinNM on Wed Dec 23rd, 2009 at 04:49:30 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I'm not sure the bad and good distinctions (of e.g film-making) are useful any more. 100 years ago the distinction between fact and fiction was perceived as more clear. Back then they thought they knew what an 'oeuvre' was.

But I still claim that there is no such thing as an original 'oeuvre'. Never has been. Because for an 'oeuvre' to be successful in any way, it needs to communicate through what an audience knows or thinks it knows already. What the audience already knows about a 'work' is implicit in it's ability to vibrate the audience in some way - that is, a work must always reference what has gone before, otherwise it can have no 'meaning'.

The distinction between 'reality' and fiction was easier to smudge in the days of linear presentations. But in the non-linear life which we now lead (and have always lead), it becomes more difficult to control the psychedelic experience of life, and to divide what is real from what is not real.

The drone operators in Arkansas, directing drones in Afghanistan that kill people, play a video game. An extreme and trite example perhaps. IMO the next 10 years will be spent arguing about what is real. As ever ;-)

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Wed Dec 23rd, 2009 at 05:10:41 PM EST
[ Parent ]
In a very real sense there is no Real.  It's all interpretations OF reality.  On the other hand, "interpreting reality" such that you can jump off a bride and fly is a quick learn in the limitations of interpretation.

In almost the same way, an artist's -- if we want to start throwing insults around - oeuvre cannot be singular because communication require some overlap in "vocabulary."  (I spare you the standard ATinNM discourse re: Piercean semiotics¹)  The desperate search for "originality" by western artists -- including film makers -- is a Modern (Post-Modern?) obsession, not a necessary aspect, part, or property of Art tho' it may be a necessary aspect, part, or property of the currently existing Art business.  

¹  You're welcome.

by ATinNM on Wed Dec 23rd, 2009 at 06:06:06 PM EST
[ Parent ]
here's the evening's poetry, colman

ATinNM:

such that you can jump off a bride and fly

for the uxurious amongst us, that rings so true...

~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Wed Dec 23rd, 2009 at 09:15:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]
ATinNM:
 The desperate search for "originality" by western artists -- including film makers -- is a Modern (Post-Modern?) obsession, not a necessary aspect, part, or property of Art tho' it may be a necessary aspect, part, or property of the currently existing Art business.  

mmm, chewy...

PNing a bit, but i see it a bit differently.

first of all, one may seek to be original in a manner that belies desperation, more of a quest for calm.

but if you sub novelty, then i agree.

just to carry a tradition on without undue embellishment, now there are many artists content with that, even making a living.

the art business makes more off of novelty, as the public rewards that more highly, as it reflects and accompanies the deconstruction of the past that is presently accelerating.

i would submit that the 'sweet spot' for a career artist is when he or she knows that the fans want something not too different from the last offering, but leaving room for evolution.

the worst would be to have to stay a step ahead of a zeitgeist that was slipping away faster than you can run, or conversely to have such a rigid fanbase that they wouldn't show up unless the artist were faithfully cloning their own pasts for them, with little or no room for growth, because that would be confusing and make them feel superannuated.

~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Wed Dec 23rd, 2009 at 09:29:30 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I think punters are customers in England...

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Dec 23rd, 2009 at 04:59:17 PM EST
[ Parent ]
UPDATED: Copernicus Grades Cameron On The Science of AVATAR!! -- Ain't It Cool News: The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news.

First, a little background: I'm a professor of astrophysics who has
searched for planets, worked on SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial
Intelligence) programs, and taught classes on life in the universe.
Right now, I'm helping to build a global network of telescopes to
search for planets and supernovae.

That is a long-winded way of saying that it is part of my job
description to think about the possibility of life on other worlds.
So when James Cameron makes one of the most expensive movies ever
made, and one that puts us right in the middle of an alien culture... in
3D.... well to say I'm interested doesn't begin to cover it.



Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Wed Dec 23rd, 2009 at 07:36:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Sven
I wasn't that impressed...3D is not a better approximation of sight, it is damned unusual.

Remembering the 50s, I elected for us to see in in normal vision. We got seats in the last row, had no one in front of us and were able to see it as a movie vs. an experiment in a "new" visual technology. I DON'T like putting uncomfortable paper thingies over my glasses. From your reaction it sounds like I made a good choice.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Wed Dec 23rd, 2009 at 09:36:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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