I call for a more creative theoretical discussion from the filmmaker community online about the rapidly oncoming future and revolution of audio-visual digital forms of experience art and design. Here is some talk on this point of view.
Motion pictures as an art form and as an entertainment industry are at the brink of total revolution and have a very important role today.
The tradition of professionals and artists behind motion picture authorship needs to acknowledge this and to begin acting now. Why? Look at youtube. Millions of people are making ‘movies’ and - nothing to it. Of course there is much to it, unless there is not much to yourself!
The art is clearly being destroyed at a faster pace than ever before. I don’t think that real authored filmmaking stands much chance of survival other than the memory of a few to their deathbeds. (The preservation of digital media is questionable itself, as celluloid is more durable than a harddrive). If the trends of consumer video watching continue, very few people are going to ever see, create, or understand the experience of motion pictures as a deep and significant form of human art (as in the case of the true beginnings of the imprinting of motion images up to the late legendary Stan Brakhage in America). Of course we need youtube videos, and a few collective new forms can be expected to emerge from this activity - but it cannot be the primary motion picture activity, based primarily on money!
I am tired of seeing the same faces and ideas in movies, and having dull experiences in theatres without any lasting impressions. Why watch these when I can choose what I want to see on a live video stream site and include interaction? I can project this on a wall. Why are there so few real filmmakers online taking advantage of this? (Because it does not pay the rent yet and they have not caught on - except the porn industry of course, which is the drive of all modern western motion picture technology - from many cameras themselves, to VHS and DVD, the common internet, online video sites etc..). Twitter is still mostly people looking for sex if you are sincere about it.
Maybe filmmakers don’t like computers or are still not good enough with understanding the internet. Well, I don’t like computers either. Get over it, you will have to deal with it or get trampled and destroyed within a few years.
Part of this discussion online needs to incorporate the learning of a new language of new media - talking about it in new ways, using new words with understanding. So, for example, I am going to use a simple and much needed word in the immediate future of online video streams: “transception” (ability to transmit and receive):
The transception of live mobile personal device video streams online is only now emerging as a popular activity. It is the hottest form of television available: search for a live stream from anywhere about anything - while being anywhere and doing anything! It is the future of services like twitter. It is augumented-reality. In a year or two it will be live audio-visual feeds, not mere text. Later, it may easily be haptic-holographic computer generated graphics (already in existence for decades at MIT). After that, perhaps particle-based shape-shifting intelligent blob interfaces, and so on… but the main action will remain the same: real time primary-sensory transception of data, information, knowledge.
Many people think it’s not a new idea and that there is nothing particular about the future of live video micro-vlogging. There are a few popular social video streaming sites available (http://ustream.com and http://stickam.com) but these are basic and even old-school compared to the possibilities.
Rob Luketic (@robluketic on twitter) broadcasts from his feature film set - by means of his cell phone, and within seconds he has dozens of listeners, within a few minutes - over one hundred: that’s theatre-size attendance and his movie is just being made! But what does this mean, and what is the value and significance it all, especially for filmmakers?
Something is shifting, people want to be in control of your movie! They want to collectively decide with friends how to attend the motion picture experience you are proposing! They want to have influence on your work, they want an open-ended interactive system!
As the current social media websites are revolutionizing the news world and journalism (if you missed this then you don’t understand the internet at the moment - visit http://www.twitscoop.com and ponder lightly), so too will news-documentary motion pictures completey shift from recorded media to live media. They already have! It’s just a matter of a few years that recorded audio-visual digital media and video stores will also have to consider a new marketing strategy because a fresh, live, more updated video stream is available right now!
Get this: it is possible that future feature films will be live streams with shift back to a theatrical performance based art!
In a brief conclusion, motion picture authorship is perhaps the only form of art which on a certain level is a Royal Art inclusive of everything humanly acheived today, a wonderful bridge of art and technology, human connectedness, expression and longing for something greater in understanding. (I know this is bullshit to most people who work in the film industry to pay for rent, food, beer, family vacation etc… but I stand strong with my view) Perhaps since the future of live mobile personal device video streams is so already here, and since we are gaining new sociability online - a genuine being and listening together to everyone’s little words across the planet… maybe this Royal Art, worldly because of its digitality, can be of meaningful assistance to the ecological crisis on our planet - on which we, highly acheiving humans live!
