This breathtaking pan from A.O. Scott of Mike Myers' The Love Guru in the second review I've encountered that mentions YouTube at the end in a particular way. The other was a review this morning of Get Smart on NPR. Both reviews essentially ended with the following advice to the reader/listener: Instead of seeing the movie, YouTube X thing for free. For the NPR review it was watching old clips of the TV show Get Smart (Kenneth Turan promised us that in two minutes of YouTubery we would get more laughs than in the whole movie we'd saved $11.00 by skipping). For the Times review, it's AO Scott saying that if you really want to catch the celebrity cameos that are built into The Love Guru, you should save your shekels and watch them when they inevitably show up on YouTube.
So what gives?
When blogging became a widespread phenomenon there was the hope, the promise, that people's standards for paid writing would perhaps get higher. After all, if there's a hundred really great film reviewers (or political commentators) regularly churning out high quality material for peanuts, why should we listen to Richard Roeper? In reaction to this, the mainstream media regularly unleashed a series of stories about blogger ethics, blogger meanness and other blogger badness to try to delegitimize it's closest competitor. I remember thinking that the theotrosphere had arrived when the Times did a piece on how corrupt bloggers (whom I'd never heard of) were given special treatment to review plays, including celebrity access etc. These stories became common for awhile (mostly in political realms) but now that the blogosphere is an accepted reality everywhere except spellcheck, the Times itself now hosts a large numbers of great blogs and has gotten rid of TimesSelect, which limited people's access to their online content.
And now, perhaps, the same thing is happening with YouTube. YouTube is changing the way we think about film. If a movie is meant to be just entertaining well... then it has to be more entertaining than 90 minutes of entertaining YouTube clips, or else it's not worth your money. The more free stuff is out there, the more value must be added for each dollar you spend on something. Our standards as a culture may actually be changing for the better.
So let me leave you with a really hilarious, totally violent French comedy short that I found courtesy of Tim McMath, the totally awesome set designer of volume of smoke when it was at the 14th St. Y Theatre. I guarantee it's funnier than a lot of what ends up in the doldroms of summer comedy releases. Here you go:
Comments
Love the subject of the post.
Do you really think more voices will result in more quality?
I don't particularly feel that writing in newspapers right now is any better than it was before. If anything, since media outlets make so much information instantaneous, the only practical change I see is that, in straight journalism, there is more emphasis on the scoop.
With regard to YouTube, I'd say that nothing is changing. It's changed. And we are only witnessing the aftereffects. Particularly when YouTube is considered with an understanding of how cheap (and easy) the means of film production has become (and will continue to become).
This lower economic and creative threshold has meant a flood of independent films - too many for the market to support.
Yet I haven't seen a markedly higher overall quality of product coming from anywhere. I mean, in any given year, there is always a handful of films that are widely regarded as having real merit. Has it been any different since 2005 when YouTube really made itself known?
Still, if I've got an idea for a movie, I can make it for a few thousand dollars and distribute it quickly and inexpensively. (In 10 minute chunks on YouTube, or in full broadcast quality on a DVD or Website or in a smaller HD showing in a theater....)
This is part of why James Cameron talks up 3-D filmmaking and people flock to action movies. You can't make that stuff on a Sony 24f or Canon 24p 3ccd HD camera. That actually requires something beyond a script, a few actors and time.
For television (both network programming and for TV commercial makers), the change has maybe even more dramatic. Webisodic television is everywhere. Corporate sponsored "branded content" is just as ubiquitous. ("Branded content" will only become a bigger presence in the future - blurring the idea of product placement in a way that's reminiscent of 50's TV, but also way beyond it.)
The letters and numbers you entered did not match the image. Please try again.
As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below. This prevents automated programs from posting comments.
Love the subject of the post.
Do you really think more voices will result in more quality?
I don't particularly feel that writing in newspapers right now is any better than it was before. If anything, since media outlets make so much information instantaneous, the only practical change I see is that, in straight journalism, there is more emphasis on the scoop.
With regard to YouTube, I'd say that nothing is changing. It's changed. And we are only witnessing the aftereffects. Particularly when YouTube is considered with an understanding of how cheap (and easy) the means of film production has become (and will continue to become).
This lower economic and creative threshold has meant a flood of independent films - too many for the market to support.
Yet I haven't seen a markedly higher overall quality of product coming from anywhere. I mean, in any given year, there is always a handful of films that are widely regarded as having real merit. Has it been any different since 2005 when YouTube really made itself known?
Still, if I've got an idea for a movie, I can make it for a few thousand dollars and distribute it quickly and inexpensively. (In 10 minute chunks on YouTube, or in full broadcast quality on a DVD or Website or in a smaller HD showing in a theater....)
This is part of why James Cameron talks up 3-D filmmaking and people flock to action movies. You can't make that stuff on a Sony 24f or Canon 24p 3ccd HD camera. That actually requires something beyond a script, a few actors and time.
For television (both network programming and for TV commercial makers), the change has maybe even more dramatic. Webisodic television is everywhere. Corporate sponsored "branded content" is just as ubiquitous. ("Branded content" will only become a bigger presence in the future - blurring the idea of product placement in a way that's reminiscent of 50's TV, but also way beyond it.)
Posted by: Malachy Walsh | June 20, 2008 at 05:25 PM