cheers

These are the odd and necessary questions.

In the very early days of cinema no one anticipated it could work as a longer form of entertainment past the equivalent of today’s YouTube videos. Sure, Edison played around with hand-tinted footage and a connected wax audio cylinder to give colour and sound - but it was still a large hand cranked device one had to use with their eyes pressed to a viewer and stethoscope tubes jammed in the ears. One can easily imagine a steam-punk retro dimension where this rudimentary analogue technology was refined to become a hand held device - possibly with a wind-up spring - maybe a small illuminated screen and a more slender pair of ear tubes - thus becoming the equivalent of the iPhone.

But that didn’t happen.

Moving pictures grew into a larger form despite the naysayers. Editorial conventions became accepted as part of the visual vocabulary shared with the audience. Viewing times increased. Distribution and exhibition methods altered not only how pictures were watched but also how the industry itself was viewed - no longer a shabby arcade past-time but a true art form.

Cinema itself grew from the existing traditions of narrative storytelling. Avant garde forays oft times proclaimed themselves the new future - only to succumb to popular disinterest - and yet still exert an influence in how the mass movement of cinema arts were received by the larger world wide audience.

Regardless of how much any popular medium may cling to, or extend itself from, all that came before there is always an evolution in how narrative is presented and received. Camp fire legends. Street Theatre. The Legitimate Stage. Radio. Cinema. Television. Home Theatre. The Net. Within each and all of these are numerous forms that rise and fall from favour. Each contain those that came before - and yet each were profoundly distinct in their own way.

The distinction of where we are now is how these prior forms are being consumed and internalized by the emerging media. The means of general communication: “Hi, how are ya? What’s new?” are now the distribution mechanism of the technical media that once defined our narrative culture. This in itself is going to alter the way we tell stories - the way we receive stories - and even the way in which we just simply speak to each other. Mix in the massive deluge of information about our world (physically and temporally) with this conversational narrative and then layer it with AR visuals that inform, influence, distort and feed our metaphoric, virtual and real views of the worlds we choose to immerse ourselves in - it then becomes a little more conceivable (to me at least) how we could evolve our means of telling and participating in stories into methods and patterns that today would make no fucking sense at all.

I’d like to think Mozart could have been able to listen to the Ramones and immediately rock out. Most others from his time would have run screaming from the room. The use of language (aural, visual & tactile) will always be put in service of telling the tales with which we define ourselves - it has always been thus - but would we today be capable of understanding the languages of a further tomorrow?

Look back to the past.

Today’s audiences do not have the patience or discipline required to watch a black and white silent film - short or long - which requires more involvement, a greater level of participation, of the viewer than the full onslaught of colour and sound information we are now accustomed to. It’s perceived as “boring” or (more accurately) “tiring”. You have to work at it. Parallels to the active involvement of gaming abound, confirm and contradict. It’s the same and it’s different.

Things change.

I trust there will be enough that is recognizable in the future for us to be able to pass through the veil of time and not feel as though we have landed within a completely alien culture. I also trust the ways and means of human communication will always seek to define that which exists within us - and that is the most fundamental of survival processes: Where are we? What is trying to kill us? How can we survive? - and, when we feel safe enough to rest and ponder such things: Why are we?

But does that mean the future of visual storytelling must adhere to the precepts that have only recently been established in our cultural psyche? Is our currently accepted language of cinema the *only* way in which a tale - of any length - may be told and accepted by a mass audeince? I’d also like to think that Eisenstein and Griffith would have been astute enough to say: “No. Whatever it becomes, it will be new and it will be different.”

And at the same time - yes - it will be the same.

cheers

I also think it has to do with time. A short film can encompass a big idea and an avant garde audience. Can you do this in an hour or an hour and a half?

Thank you - and yes - I’ll be sure to post the logo to the Facebook group.

The Torontoist article - http://torontoist.com/2010/01/for_canadian_news_sites_licensing_is_all_about_the_kings.php - is good because it makes the whole thing seem less smelly. That doesn’t make the deal with a U.S. company any better.

The financial constraints of the CBC do need to be addressed on so many levels. Having worked there in the past I am admittedly rather jaded about the abilities and motives of the upper management dickheads. It shouldn’t have taken much research to determine how useless - and inappropriate - the iCopyright deal would be.

It will be interesting to see what the response, if any, tof the CBC will be to the Facebook group and other commentaries - excluding my snarlingly profane rant, of course.

Thanks again.

Cheers.

Great synthesis of the available information, but you should also check out the Torontoist article on the subject where the CBC answers for the use of the system. There’s a link on my blog to it.

May I suggest that you donate that wonderful Copyright CBC logo that you have up top to the facebook groups. It’s perfect!

Best,

Cameron

That future though scares the crap oit of me. Its’s like an extrapolation of the bloatware software trend. Reminds me of that animated paper clip that pops up in MS Word and tells me I’m trying to write a letter. Does anyone see that paper clip and go, “Wow, that’s handy!”

Now if I have to defuse a bomb, bring on the helpful pop-ups windows (sponsored by Met Life Insurance) but leave my tea alone!

Keiichi - happy to have found it on Sterling’s blog. Great stuff. And “Best regards” isn’t too formal - it just makes me look like the slob I am. :)

cheers

And if something is gonna render my own hands and arms for me, I’d better have some cool ass monster talons or something. But maybe at that point our our actual hands and arms will be so atrophied that those representations would be appealingly different.