One Small Window

If one were to think about it, older audiences (already used to the habit) and people with refined tastes (feature length movies could some day be like opera) would be the ones seeking organized, formally-designed long-form entertainment.

We are already well aware of the fact that children cannot sit still through the average feature length animated movie without pee breaks and candy runs and who knows what other bodily function-mandated activity.

The average urban (or First World) teenager is so hyper-connected that there is no way she is going a hundred and twenty minutes without checking her Facebook or Twitter accounts while whatever major movie shenanigans play out on that big flickering screen.

With cheaper, faster bandwidth the music video (for one) is enjoying resurgence as a form of entertainment. Case in point, Lady GaGa and her huge following on the viral video circuit.

Even though this is an area that has already been mined by the likes of CollegeHumor.com endeavours like Funnyordie.com indicate that the stars among celluloid’s funnymen recognize the value in putting up short entertainments online.

So if one were looking at it logically, and is there any other way, it would seem that shorter, palatable entertainments are likely to enjoy bigger viewer numbers with each passing day. Going viral is increasingly becoming about decent production quality and the realization of imagination-capturing ideas.

Technology has democratized the process of creation and distribution. It won’t be long before someone cracks monetization as well. In fact, why does that have to be a model that works for all? As long as the individual creators can keep making money off their works, does it matter if the model is different every time?

Yeah, didn’t think so.

So sure, feature-length movies aren’t going anywhere but in sheer numbers, there is no denying that actual patronage is shrinking every single year. Eventually, it may occur to filmmakers (long before it trickles up to those at the head of power structures) that a film only needs to be of feature length if there is a long enough story to tell. For the rest, there is short form entertainment. Which, if done well, will guarantee more eyeballs (and who knows, a greater return on investment) than all the too-long-in-production, too-expensive, too-ill-conceived mistakes that light up the marquees at the neighbourhood megaplex each week.

The revolution has already begun. Are you in on it yet?

Embedded below are two short-form videos we have encountered within the last week that prove the diverse nature of entertainment freely accessible off the Internet.

Links mentioned in this post (some of the content at these links will most definitely be NOT SAFE FOR WORK):
Lady GaGa on Youtube
Funny Or Die
College Humor (more…)

In his weekly column in HT Café dated 26 April 2010 (Page 7 in the dropdown menu on the left), the Bollywood actor Imran Khan concludes that movies will help people find common ground; after starting out saying that good movies foster debate. He also re-quotes his uncle Aamir Khan’s belief that it is a filmmaker’s job to make movies. The issues such movies may raise are to be dealt with by people qualified to do so. I take no objection to the latter premise. In fact I think it would do the world a lot of good if more people did their jobs and concerned themselves less with other people’s business. I do object however, to the conclusion that movies will help people find common ground.

With the exception of Hollywood product, most cinema (Bollywood included) does not enjoy widespread distribution outside of its primary market. Only the most enterprising cinephiles (and those numbers are not as large as one may hope) will seek out material originating in worlds far removed from their own. So how can my movie foster dialogue in Tanzania when I have no means of getting its people to watch it?
(more…)

As myths go, there isn’t one more toxic (to the industry and the business) than the one where people state confidently that there is nothing new to say. I spent a few hours at the studios where the music for a major Summer 2010 Bollywood release is being produced.
I gotta tell you, some of the stuff I heard in that room would blow the minds of cinema audiences around the world.

None of it was the bullshit that masquerades as ‘insider gossip’in the birdcage liner delivered daily by your newspaperwallah. These were tales that would make your hair stand on end. These were anecdotes that would have most viewers curled up in foetal balls in appropriately dark corners of their homes, gibbering like idiots because they suddenly realized that the world was a scary place. And they would all make for fantastic cinema.

How I wish economics and business sense would coalesce enough to enable the bringing of tales like the ones I heard to the silver screen. I promise you, just on the strength of the Hints, Allegations and Things Left Unsaid (oh how I love that Collective Soul album name!) I sorta-kinda heard in that studio, there would be no shortage of kudos (or global dollars) for the filmmakers capable of translating their life stories into efficient slices of cinema.

This is why all the storytelling teachers in the world tell aspirants to ‘write what they know’. If only the lure of ‘glamour’ wasn’t so seductive.
Sigh.

Newspaper articles, trade guides and online journals will periodically feature talk about how a certain screenwriter/director/actor has a few people ‘interested’ in them or their project. At that time, the bulk of the article will be devoted to listing the credentials of the interested parties and everything they have achieved in the past and how that is validation of the fact that the above-mentioned screenwriter/director/actor is doing important work.

People just starting out (or struggling to find a toehold) in the business will also be familiar with the term from emails, text messages or actual verbal conversations with powers-that-be (of varying intensity). The word ‘interest’, quite like the stuff you accrue on a bank account, can lead to a great deal of disappointment if you place too much hope in it.

‘Interest’ is not a commitment. It is (at best) an indication that you haven’t totally turned off a potential employer with your script/showreel/curves, at first glance. Will that ‘interest’ translate into a commitment that involves someone other than your mother/father/brother/sister/lover investing time and effort into making one of your dreams come true?

It is not the most preposterous idea in the world but you’d better have a foolproof proposition before another person (who is neither emotionally beholden to you nor someone you have some serious dirt on) will lift a single finger to help you.
In the meantime, an expression of interest only means that the two of you may dance together someday. Up until that day, take a tango lesson or two. Because you don’t want to be caught with two left feet the day it’s your turn to try on the glass slippers.