23.01.2011
Wilson, Chris K
Hutchinson, Jonathon
Shea, Pip
Public Service Broadcasting, Creative Industries and Innovation Infrastructure: The Case of ABC’s Pool
Pool man Jonathon’s article.
Wilson, Chris K
Hutchinson, Jonathon
Shea, Pip
Public Service Broadcasting, Creative Industries and Innovation Infrastructure: The Case of ABC’s Pool
Pool man Jonathon’s article.
Campbell, Joseph
1968
The Hero With a Thousand Faces
Very wise: he doesn’t even get into a religious discussion. He says straight away, that what he writes about is true for all religions and myths at the same time.
Numbers in brackets: pages in pdf.
xxi
“It is the purpose of the present book to uncover some of the truths disguised for us under the figures of religion and mythology by bringing together a multitude of not-too-difficult examples and letting the ancient meaning become apparent of itself. The old teachers knew what they were saying. Once we have learned to read again their symbolic language, it requires no more than the talent of an anthologist to let their teaching be heard. But first we must learn the grammar of the symbols, and as a key to this mystery I know of no better modern tool than psychoanalysis.”
3
“It would not be too much to say that myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation.”
13f
“He had converted a public event to personal gain, whereas the whole sense of his investiture as king had been that he was no longer a mere private person.”
14
“By the sacrilege of the refusal of the rite, however, the individual [e.g. King Minos] cut himself as a unit off from the larger unit of the whole community: and so the One was broken into the many, and these then battled each other—each out for himself—and could be governed only by force.”
15
“The hero is the man of self-achieved submission.” -> See On The Waterfront, maybe it wasn’t religious after all?
“As Professor Arnold J. Toynbee indicates in his six-volume study of the laws of the rise and disintegration of civilizations, schism in the soul, schism in the body social, will not be resolved by any scheme of return to the good old days (archaism), or by programs guaranteed to render an ideal projected future (futurism), or even by the most realistic, hardheaded work to weld together again the deteriorating elements. Only birth can conquer death—the birth, not of the old thing again, but of something new.”
-> He talks about Nietzsche’s and Schumpeter’s creative destruction!
16
“In a word: the first work of the hero is to retreat from the world scene of secondary effects to those causal zones of the psyche where the difficulties really reside”
18
“Dream is the personalized myth, myth the depersonalized dream; both myth and dream are symbolic in the same general way of the dynamics of the psyche. But in the dream the forms are quirked by the peculiar troubles of the dreamer, whereas in myth the problems and solutions shown are directly valid for all mankind.”
“The [Australian Aranda] word altjira means: (a) a dream, (b) ancestor, beings who appear in the dream, (c) a story (Rôheim, The Eternal Ones of the Dream, pp. 210-211).”
30 (28)
“A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”
35 (33)
“As we soon shall see, whether presented in the vast, almost oceanic images of the Orient, in the vigorous narratives of the Greeks, or in the majestic legends of the Bible, the adventure of the hero normally follows the pattern of the nuclear unit above de scribed: a separation from the world, a penetration to some source of power, and a life-enhancing return.”
37f (35)
“The composite hero of the monomyth is a personage of exceptional gifts. Frequently he is honored by his society, frequently unrecognized or disdained. He and/or the world in which he finds himself suffers from a symbolical deficiency. In fairy tales this may be as slight as the lack of a certain golden ring, whereas in apocalyptic vision the physical and spiritual life of the whole earth can be represented as fallen, or on the point of falling, into ruin.
Typically, the hero of the fairy tale achieves a domestic, microcosmic triumph, and the hero of myth a world-historical, macrocosmic triumph. Whereas the former—the youngest or despised child who becomes the master of extraordinary powers—prevails over his personal oppressors, the latter brings back from his ad venture the means for the regeneration of his society as a whole.”
-> He distinguished two essential stories: fairytale and myth.
39
“The cosmogonic cycle is presented with astonishing consistency in the sacred writings of all the continents, and it gives to the adventure of the hero a new and interesting turn; for now it appears that the perilous journey was a labor not of attainment but of reattainment, not discovery but rediscovery. The godly powers sought and dangerously won are revealed to have been within the heart of the hero all the time. He is “the king’s son” who has come to know who he is and therewith has entered into the exercise of his proper power – “God’s son,” who has learned to know how much that title means. From this point of view the hero is symbolical of that divine creative and redemptive image which is hidden within us all, only waiting to be known and rendered into life.”
40 (37)
“The effect of the successful adventure of the hero is the unlocking and release again of the flow of life into the body of the world. The miracle of this flow may be represented in physical terms as a circulation of food substance, dynamically as a streaming of energy, or spiritually as a manifestation of grace.”
44 (41)
“The World Navel, then, is ubiquitous. And since it is the source of all existence, it yields the world’s plenitude of both good and evil.”
-> God is in everything, in every blade of grass.
Casetti, Francesco
2009
Filmic Experience
Talks about the filmic experience. In a sense, the approach is similar to mine from confirmation where I re-appropriated the term cinema experience.
65
“It is clear that cinema, in widening its definition, risks losing its specificity.”
66
“This is why I would argue that filmic experience will survive: in order to allow the spectator of media to be involved in a truly exploratory way, in order to force eyes and ears to be opened as they are nowhere else.”
Hartley, John
2009
From the Consciousness Industry to Creative Industries: Consumer-Created Content, Social Network Markets, and the Growth of Knowledge
Pages 231-244 in
Holt, Jennifer
Perren, Alisa
Media Industries: History, Theory, and Method, eds. J. Holt and A. Perren
The article I saved is from the Cultural Science journal, so page numbers have to be cross-checked when quoted.
I quoted it as a reference for cultural science being interested in the growth of knowledge.
Hartley, John
2009
(The chapter I’m quoting was first published in Story Circle, then revised and published in The Uses of Digital Literacy.)
The Uses of Digital Literacy
Story Circle (page numbers in brackets)
72 (16)
In that book [Reading Television, 1978], the term ‘bardic function’ was coined to describe the active relationship between TV and viewers, where the book argued, TV programming and mode of address use the shared resources of narrative and language to deal with social change and conflict, bringing together the worlds of decision-makers (news), central meaning systems (entertainment) and audiences (‘vertically through the social scale’) to make sense of the experience of modernity.”
73-76 (17-19)
“Blaming the popular media for immoral, tasteless, sycophantic, sexist, senseless and disreputable behaviour is nothing new.” Taliesin, Chief Bard of Britain, criticised newcomers / new art perhaps as far back as the sixth century.
78 (N/A)
The antecedents of popular entertainment with political import go as far back at least as the medieval bards, heralds, minstrels and troubadours whose job it was to ‘broadcast’ the exploits, ferocity, largesse and (mis)adventures of the high and mighty.”
82 (23)
“It should be noted that the order of bards and popular television alike are specialised institutional agencies for delivering the ‘bardic’ function in a given culture. They take it on and professionalise it within evolving historical, regulatory and economic contexts, and of course in so doing they tend to narrow its potential, to exclude outsiders (the general public) from productive or creative participation, not least to maintain the price of their skills, and to restrict the infinite potential of semiosis to definite forms with which their own institutionalised ‘mechanism of translation’ can comfortably cope. These institutional agencies can optimise storytelling’s scale (a story can be reproduced many times) and its diffusion (a story can be heard by many people); but they also increase both formal and bureaucratic rigidity (‘transaction costs’) in narrative production and thus reduce adaptability to change.” Beginning is applicable to EA, but the rest is about broadcasting. He then says that the ‘bardic function’ needs to be reinterpreted.
84 (24)
“The challenge [of today's "dance"] is to understand how such a diffused system might work to propagate coherent sense across social boundaries, among different demographics and throughout social hierarchies. In other words, how does a fully distributed narrative system retain overall systemic unity? If everyone is speaking for themselves, then who speaks for everybody?” Two things:
1. This is a challenge for EA -> is the solution that there is none? -> that the old audience simply has to die out and a new generation of audience will renegotiate storytelling/narrative with EA?
2. EA answers this partly: an entarch is a professional service provider -> everybody can create with everybody, all good, but somebody will probably be successful as a mass entertainer/artist, as a star -> entarchs stand the chance of becoming the stars!
84f (25)
“As with democracy, so with musical or dramatic storytelling – the challenge is to find a way to think about, to explain and to promote mass participation without encouraging splits, divisions, migrations and anarchy on the one hand, or an incomprehensible cacophonous plurality of competing voices on the other, or an authoritarian/elitist alternative to both. The challenge is also a negative one – how not to associate ‘more’ with ‘worse’; mass participation with loss of quality.”
86 (26)
“Kings and knights were not known until praised.”
86 (N/A)
“Fame followed flattery – not the other way around.” You have to be praised by others to be famous, only then wants the world to sleep with you.
87 (26)
“For humans, storytelling itself is a form of schooling in the capabilities of language. It teaches us how to think (plot), what to think about (narrative), the moral universe of choice (character) and the calculation of risk (action), motivated by desire for immortality (fear of death).”
(33)
“Thence the most interesting question is what digital media might be used for. We should wait and see, not fall for the temptation of hurling abuse at the latest upstart medium that poses some sort of competition to the entrenched professionals of the day, just as the mythical Taliesin did in his own diatribe against strolling minstrels.”
(33f)
3 options for professional storytellers now:
(34)
“Based on the lesson of previous step changes in the growth of knowledge, it is clear that evolution is blind, and the opportunities afforded by adaptations cannot be known in advance, whether it is the opposable thumb or the digital network.”
“Certainly, when writing and printing were invented, no one could have predicted their eventual uses from the purposes of the inventors. The printing press in Gutenberg’s day was based on agricultural machinery and used largely for religious clients. Its eventual success was not at all certain. Like many innovative startups, Gutenberg’s own firm went bust. How could anyone in the 1450s have foreseen the importance of printing and publishing for the growth of the great realist textual systems of modernity – science, journalism, and the novel – since none of them existed until printing made possible the development of a modern reading public? Similarly, who today can predict the cultural function of internet affordances; the outcome of the democratization of publishing; and the population-wide extension of semiotic productivity?”
David, Matthew
2010
Peer to Peer and the Music Industry: The Criminalization of Sharing @ OII (07.08.2010)
Around 1:19:00
Definition-creativity:
4 (not 5?) different conceptions of creativity are out there:
Young people think 5. is what is creative. => There will be a shift. It’s not about perfection, it’s about being live and real.
“A younger generation, they think creativity is something messy, something that happens in the field, that they can talk about because they were there, they were part of it. And it’s actually reconfiguring the notion of creativity.”
Reiss, Jon
2010
Think Outside the Box Office: The Ultimate Guide to Film Distribution and Marketing for the Digital Era
Gives very PRACTICAL advice: specific numbers, costs, prices, positions, tasks, etc.
Mentions transmedia 3 times.
Quite radical from a filmmaker’s perspective. I specifically mean indies, who always seemed to see themselves as a smaller Hollywood -> Hollywood’s concepts / business models / etc. should also work for them. Which they never did. But now it’s becoming more clear that they don’t and perhaps never will.
Not radical enough from my perspective. It’s a filmmaker sharing his insights from his struggles within the film industry. It’s not a step back to reassess the big picture.
29-36
Define who your film is for (hopefully not for yourself) and how you will reach it.
37
“The new 50/50 is as follows:
50 percent of your time and resources should be devoted to creating the film. 50 percent of your time and resources should be devoted to getting the film out to its audience, aka distribution and marketing.”
45-52
A good “overview of rights, markets and windows”; how they have been and how he reconceptualises them.
53-59
Know what YOU want to achieve and think about how to get there.
61-72
He describes “the bare minimum” of team members you need, and some more recommendable positions if you have the money.
127-131
His “Introduction to Transmedia” is less than 5 (!) pages short.
128
“media consumers don’t consume in one unified pattern anymore.”
129f
Definition “extradiegetic”:
“This material is called “extra-diegetic” and includes all content that is not part of the final released film, especially material that is created but never intended to be part of the final released film. However, as our understanding of film expands, there will not need to be a separate classification between diegetic and extra-diegetic; it will all be part of a seamless whole.”
133-136
Chapter 13: Redefining the Theatrical Experience
His new Definition-theatrical:
“It is time for filmmakers to reclaim the meaning of a theatrical release so that it is inclusive of a multitude of live-screening event scenarios. The theatrical experience needs to be redefined as people watching “films” with other people. Any place. Any time. Any media.”
143
“Unfortunately, due to contract obligations, IFC is currently only set up to do VOD day-and-date with their Festival Direct Program.”
151
“[...] Chris Hyams (the head of B-Side) did the research and found that all films (studio and independent), on average, lose money from theatrical.”
171
“I believe that incorporating aspects of an event into your screenings is the future of independent live event/theatrical releases.” A bit of a nonsensical sentence, but it goes back to stressing experiences.
172-174
“Ways to create a sense of an event:
174f
“Transmedia Aspects to Screenings
175-177
Other options:
195
“The alternative theatrical grassroots screening model has shown the way to democratize and return a shared film experience to the control of individuals and groups,. With that newfound power, people will continue to find new ways to exhibit and congregate in order to watch films.”
243
“I think transmedia has tremendous potential for how narrative filmmakers can find new audiences and engage with them. Again, this is not just about marketing, it is about finding and engaging the audience for your film and your oeuvre.”
244
“Audiences don’t consume media as they once did. They have their own preferences, whether it is a movie theater, DVR, their iPhone, Xbox console, etc. Audiences have media and art form preferences. You can’t bend them, you must accommodate them.”
245
“Part of the death of DVDs has been due to people realizing that they didn’t need to watch a film more than once. Transmedia creates a life beyond the one viewing of a film.” -> Not sure about that. Isn’t transmedia even more ephemeral than a traditional movie?
275
“merchandise can be points of entry for films or narrative extensions – so they can be important to a transmedia strategy.”
289
“Television’s core business is repeat viewers.
It is difficult for television to command repeat viewers with individual films. When there was a plethora of fledgling channels such as HBO, Starz, Showtime, AMC, etc., they needed to buy movies to fill their schedules. But as those networks have matured, they have turned to series to bring back repeat viewers. Even indie stalwarts IFC and Sundance are buying fewer films in favor of series programming.”
296
“Ways to monetize your digital rights”:
299
“There is an argument I have heard on panels lately: Most filmmakers have a greater problem with anonymity than with piracy. I think this is a false argument.” If nobody wants to pay for it, perhaps nobody wants to see it, so perhaps the film is simply shit or doesn’t have an audience. -> Market it properly!
347
“Dentler observes that if you look at the history of consumer media, you always have different models for different types of publications. Some things are free, some things you pay for. He uses print media as an example, pointing out the difference between the Wall Street Journal and the Free Press.“
Hon, Adrian
02.11.2007
A Game by any other Name
Says ARG has become a term used for everything and has therefore lost its meaning.
Definition “ARG”:
“In fact, ARGs are not defined by what they are, but what they are not. ARGs are not videogames or computer games. They are not casual games. They are not traditional sports games, or board games, or playground games. But they are essentially everything else that involves some sort of game-like experience or play, and that is why we are seeing such a confusing collection of things being called ARGs.”
“I think that the term ‘ARG’ is an umbrella term de facto used for the class of games that do not fall under traditional game definitions, and the reason why it is gaining such prominence and momentum is because of a blossoming of non-traditional games.”
“In time, better sub-classifications will crystallise out of our experimentation, and genres of ARGs will emerge, just as the genres of videogames are now well-known. For now, though, we should recognise and savour the happy confusion that exists, and embrace the freedom that this wholly alternate class of games gives us.”
A comment by a developer probably:
“An ARG is a game that requires a greater-than-average intellectual and imaginative wattage from its players if they are to get from the experience as much as the creator hopes they will.
Which doesn’t bode well for the chances of them ever going mainstream…”
I think they CAN go mainstream, but they have to become easier accessible.
mssv.net (11.05.2010)
Bentley, Alex
Earls, Mark
2008
Forget influentials, herd-like copying is how brands spread
They argue that marketing has to be remodelled entirely:
Hartley, John
2004
From Republic of Letters to Television Republic? Citizen Readers in the Era of Broadcast Television
386
“Very little progressive optimism was applied to television in a systematic way in formal academic, intellectual, and critical writing. This was in large part a symptom of twentieth-century intellectual politics, with television as merely the latest in a long line of miscreant media stretching back through movies, radio, and music to the gutter press, yellow press, and penny dreadfuls of previous centuries. Cultural elites were habituated to “assailing” media that in their view failed to “uplift” the masses.”
413
“Television became old when the desires and fears it used to evoke as the latest, most popular, all-singing, all-dancing attraction were transferred to newer media such as the Internet.”