The Age of Footage:Total Video Access and the Cinematic Imagination

The Story So Far

• The development of the Hollywood system.• The formal properties of Hollywood film.• The development of film styles.• The shifts between eras; reflection of social

anxieties. (Right and Left cycles).• Postmodernity and intertextuality. (style

influenced by cultural accrual)• Shifts in audiences.

In Tonight’s Episode

• Hollywood: 2007.• A Tour of Copy Protection Mania. - HD-DVD / Blu-Ray - DVD - VHS• Film Piracy and Film Culture.• Relationships Between Technology and Film

Form.• Internet Screen Aesthetics.

Hollywood: 2007

Star System: Corporatization of stars and their agencies means that all aspects of star image are financially controlled and equipped.

As cameras follow stars everywhere, they are ‘stars’ everywhere – especially in private.

“Cui Bono?”Who profits?

“We have no obligation to make history. We have no obligation to make art. We have no obligation to make a statement. To make money is our only objective.”

— Michael Eisner, CEO, The Walt Disney Co.

More money at stake=

More risks=

Insurance=

More control

Is Hollywood's biggest money-maker:

a) Movies?b) DVDs?c) Television?

d) Merchandise?

Hollywood: 2007

“Once upon a time—before the TV and VCR—studios earned virtually all their profits from a single source: the theater's box office. Nowadays, in the new Hollywood, the world box office is a money loser: In 2004, the studios lost an estimated $2.22 billion on the $7.4 billion they took in from the box office.”

- Hollywood's Profits, Demystified: The real El Dorado is TV, By Edward Jay Epstein

“The simple fact is that the studios pay more to alert potential audiences via advertising and to get movie prints into theaters than they get back from those who buy tickets.”

• “Consider, for example, Warner Bros.' movie The Negotiator, with Samuel L.

Jackson and Kevin Spacey. It was efficiently produced for $43.5 million, scored a world box office of $88 million, and appeared to be a modest success. In fact, Warner Bros.

collected only $36.74 million from its theatrical release after it had paid check-

conversion and other collection costs, the theaters had taken their cut, and the MPA

had deducted its fee.”

“Meanwhile, to corral that audience, Warner Bros.' advertising bill was $40.28 million, and its bill for prints, trailers, dubbing, customs, and shipping was another $12.32 million. So, after the movie finished its theater run, without even considering the cost of making the movie, Warner Bros. had lost $13 million. Why? For every dollar Warner Bros. got back from the box office, it shelled out about $1.40 in expenses, which was about average, if not slightly above par, for studio movies.”

“Fifty-nine percent of this immense $17.7 billion of revenue from television licensing comes from America, which is not surprising, considering that on an average day fewer than 2 percent of Americans go to movie theaters, while more than 90 percent watch something at home on TV. And without these profits from TV, no Hollywood studio could survive.”

Cui Bono?

Once, studios ran all aspects of film viewership.

The last 10-15 years have seen a total reassertion – not collapse – of the Hollywood system.

This is due to ‘vertical integration’ and openly monopolistic practices.

In 2006, the six major movie conglomerates combined for 91.6% of the North American market; the two mini-majors were almost exactly half as successful as their 1986 counterparts, sharing 6.1%; and all of the remaining independent companies split a pool amounting to 2.3%.

Copy Protection Mania

• The CD/DVD/Blu-Ray/HD-DVD technology has not changed a great deal since 1969; it is continually sold as advanced precisely because it is not.

• Sony, Phillips, Hitachi, Matsushita (Panasonic), Mitsubishi, Pioneer, Thomson, and Time Warner own “DVD” – even making money from blank discs.

• The new formats exist not to give us anything new, but to redistribute the power relations between these companies. Ie, Laserdisc.

Copy Protection Mania

Two things emerge from these phases of inter-corporate rivalry:

1. The corporations will eventually be forced to accept the model that profits them the least.

2. The public flocks to the technology which gives them the most control.

Laserdisc Vs. MMCD / DVD

VHS vs. Beta

“Cui Bono?”

VHS and DVD use “Macrovision” to make sure only a television, not a second recorder, was getting the signal.

This meant, in theory, that the only thing you could do with a film is watch it…

in theory.

“Macrovision” is/was incredibly easy to get around. VHS tapes were being pirated before people could even buy

VCRs. Macrovision security on DVD was no better.

(Macrovision still gets big Hollywood bucks to sell the same crap.)

DVDs also have a little thing called CSS:“Content Scrambling System”

This scrambles and reduces the DVD signal, putting it through a code.

• It was cracked by teenagers ……. In two weeks.

Turns out computers are designed to crack codes!

540 people have been sued over the use of DVD cracking.2044 people have been sued – and 14 jailed – for DVD piracy.

More money at stake=

More risks=

Insurance=

More control

FUN FACT: We are bound by

American law on copyright.

You can be deported to America.

Sucks to be this guy.

“For his crimes as the lynchpin of a criminal gang illegally reproducing and distributing pirated software, computer games, music and videos over the internet, he is staring at a five-year stretch in a US prison when he is sentenced next month.” – The Australian, March 12, 2007

FUN FACT: He has never been to America. Nor is he related to an American.

“40% of all Western market film piracy occurs in New York.”

“70% of all Western market film piracy occurs in Canadian urban centres.”

- MPAA Global Piracy Report, March 2007

Copy Protection Mania

Billions has been spent on copy protection of media.

The failure of these measures is absolute and total.

More than two thirds of people globally who watch Hollywood product (American TV, DVD, Film, Cable) do so through piracy. [est. of May 2006]

Copy Protection ManiaWhat began as a fight for VCRs to have a ‘record’ button has become the biggest threat to the Hollywood system in its history – including television; the fight which it lost.

“There is no future in which bits will get harder to copy. Instead of spending billions on technologies that attack paying customers, the studios should be confronting that reality and figuring out how to make a living in a world where copying will get easier and easier. They're like blacksmiths meeting to figure out how to protect the horseshoe racket by sabotaging railroads.

The railroad is coming. The tracks have been laid right through the studio gates. It's time to get out of the horseshoe business. “ - http://www.boingboing.net (May 17)

HD-DVD / Blu-RayThe new systems which are being pushed to consumers

have also been broken. By teenagers.Within weeks.

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We have seen how television affects film and vice-versa.

Can the internet affect film aesthetics?

Internet Aesthetics And Film

1. Speed of ReceptionFilms are available online, to download, within days of their release – sometimes before.

‘Word of mouth’ means a film’s financial future can be ruined by that pesky force, taste.

Also, the ability of producers to manage suspense and surprise endings has changed.

Dan Harries, “Watching The Internet”

“The movie screen, the home television screen, and the computer screen retain their separate locations, yet the types of images you see on them are losing their medium-based specificity.” - Anne Frieberg

“Because digital media potentially incorporates all

previous media, it no longer makes sense to think in specific terms.” - Henry Jenkins

Programs like Quicktime and sites like Youtube have a similar technological basis; they are not great at showing fast motion and produce ‘blocks’ (like in the videos you’ve seen).

Also – webcam/phone technologies are producing a lot more close-ups across media.

But…..Internet Aesthetics

Minisodes

Seeing the “24” success and the time we spend online is outweighing television time, Sony Pictures is releasing (June) ‘minisodes’ – episodes of their old material cut down to 5 minutes.

Goodluck with your final essays!