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July 11 at 8:15am

What Is The Great Hope For The Future Of Cinema?

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Or for that matter, what do you think can really change and move things forward in both the near and distant future? If we could ask five key people what they saw on our various horizons, what would they show us? Who should we ask?  One of the great things about being pointed in a direction, is that it is almost a path. Could we have walked down that road when Francis Ford Coppola predicted YouTube in 1991:

It is not easy to just boil down to one specific all the various change that is swarming over us at this point.  I see major shifts coming in so many different aspects of cinema: discovery, consideration, value/return, participation, collaboration, transitioning, immersion, and many others. The fact that this far down the road of a connected culture we have not wed social and content together may speak of the resistance to change, but also of the tidal wave that will one day hit us. That all said, I think that all of us — creators, appreciators, entrepreneurs, & passive audiences members, are going to truly be best served by another aspect all together.

If you ask me, one of the big next changes and TGHFTFOC (see title) is the end of the dominance of the feature film form. Now don’t get me wrong: I love feature films more than any other manufactured entity. I have devoted my labor to the creation, enhancement, and appreciation of the form. I just see many trends leading to feature-length linear-narrative passive-engagement work’s decreasing relevance, along with many indications that it won’t be a bad thing when all participants in both the film industry and culture look at a far widening realm of creation, participation, and consumption.

Perhaps though it is that the end of dominance of the feature film form is a symptom of something even greater. Or maybe it is just another chicken vs. egg paradox. Regardless, the industry and culture are both waking to and adopting a move from a one-off paradigm where each new creative work requires reinventing the wheel and instead embracing both a business model and community focus on an ongoing conversation between the story world initiators and those that engage with it. This abandonment of requiring each new tale to be able to not just stand but forever sprint on its own two feet is not only logical and practical but offers many new opportunities.

I eventually will go in to far greater detail on this (particularly when I can find the time to do so), but want to get this conversation moving forward. I wonder why it is still only the outliers who are in this discussion.

Still for now, we can surely see the benefit of expanding our scripts to include a series of narrative & character extensions. We recognize that each work represents an opportunity for collaborations that we have yet to dream of. We can empower those without traditional access to work with us on building previously neglected connections and launch pads. Our stories and fantasies do not need to begin or end with our renderings but can foster new works and continual creation. We can combat the challenges of living in an era of super-abundance and non-filters by championing greater value in community focus.

The easy way is a path to irrelevance. Temporally manipulative, crowd-based consumptive,  audio-visually focused content stopped long ago as being both the art form and entertainment outlet most indicative of our time. The new form is all of that and more. It won’t only reflect our era, but lead us into a better world. And it starts with saying good bye to the cultural & economic dominance of antiquated concept.  


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  • http://mikevogel.com/ mike vogel

    I agree, I don’t think feature films as a format work very well for how people entertain themselves anymore. I also think putting a web series on YouTube has some serious shortcomings too, when it comes to narrative content. There is a lot of opportunity to experiment with distribution right now.

  • http://www.bellyfeel.co.uk/ Krish

    My favourite subject! I think storyworld’s will be the narrative format that people ‘subscribe’ to in the future, in a much longer term way than we can probably conceive of right now.  Look at kids worlds like Moshi Monsters or Club Penguin for business models that really work – they make money with engaging content using free subscriptions and micropayments – plus they sell games, films, and other material/merch in boxes over the counter. When those kids grow up they will still have a thirst for immersive stories, media, games and interactions but will be looking for more mature stories, themes and adventures…

  • http://twitter.com/mrbarnard1 Michael R. Barnard

    To predict that something is going to happen is a smart prediction, since something ALWAYS happens. That sounds snarky, of course, but the real issue is finding a way to deal with our FEAR OF CHANGE. Even though change is, always has been, and always will be inevitable, FoC is the most difficult process for many people to work through. FoC is, for many people, quite subconcious and surfaces in outrage, naysaying, road-blocking and doom-speak.

    Often, the best way to deal with encroaching change is to break it into smaller, more easily-digestable pieces, especially in the digital age when change happens so fast, we’ve created a specific term for the process: “Internet speed.”

    My thinking, which I want to hone and polish, is that filmmakers (or a broader term, such as storytellers) will need to start thinking in terms of owning their initial entry into every known and yet-known marketplace. Our control will be diminished at some point in the process when the audience can take more control. The audience already can do mashups on YouTube, choose whether to watch on a 50′ screen in the dark or a 3″ screen on a subway, discuss in real time via social media around the world, and choose whenever they want to watch rather than whenever we want to show; many more options await their control.

    We will remain responsible for controlling the entry of our story via the many paths it will take.

    I envision that we will be sowers. We will wander into a beautiful field while carrying a burlap bag of seeds, reach a scoop into the bag, then fling the seeds out into the field. From there, the elements — sun, wind, rain, heat and cold, soil – will determine what sprouts and how, and what will carry the seeds further.

    As content creators (“filmmakers,” “storytellers,” etc.), we will put the seeds in the burlap bag. As for me, I’m trying to figure out what the burlap bag will be. Others smarter than I am will figure out what will happen to the seeds after we have flung them out into the world.

  • http://burnsthefire.com/ Burns the fire

    Thanks for yet another ass-kicking post that walks a tight-rope between sadness over our losses and hope for creative transformation and growth. Like so many, I am a writer and filmmaker exploring cheaper and faster ways to bring my characters and stories to life (grateful not to be a purist or clinging to the past). I am rabidly excited by the internet. I recently decided to focus more energy on my blog and have started playing around with the form. It’s direct, it’s emotional and it’s a start!

  • Lorie Marsh

    Hi there, All!  Coming from a long-ago corporate background in multimedia, I’ve been a keen early adopter and follower of the burgeoning narrative transmedia wave the last several years.  Just wanted to share that I’ve been curating an Immersive Storytelling board on my Pinterest page: http://pinterest.com/loriemarsh/immersive-storytelling/.  If any of you check it out, you’ll find many way-cool and very current examples of multiplatform projects and storytellers.  I also share #transmedia links and retweets from my Twitter stream – @forwardmarsh.  Keep on, keeping on. :)

  • Ann Greenberg

    Enjoyed your post.  I couldn’t agree more.  Been working towards what I call “Democratic Cinema” for decades, and founded my first company to do it in 1992.  Today is the most exciting time for Cinema in the past 100 years, IMO!

  • http://www.dlxe.net/ Frank

    Personally I think the long form will continue for some time. The “tentpoles” will dominate holiday/summer playing time but the other features will not draw as they once did. Too many avenues for the product and a large number of devices out there. The want to see will be determined by need to see.
    Lots of individual creators with their hands on semi-professional tools and a desire to produce means lots of product but not necessairly in the theaters.

  • http://www.yogamayafilms.com/ Matt

    (I’m very sorry for the long post. You struck a chord in me:)

    > “What Is The
    Great Hope For The Future Of Cinema?”

     

    That writers and
    directors keep coming with original, heartfelt, honest material that tests our
    paradigms and moves us forward culturally.

     

    ‘Cinema’ and ‘feature
    films’ are synonymous. No matter how much ‘progress’ or change people talk
    about needing in ‘Cinema’ they’re really only discussing TV and Internet
    formats.

     

    I recently read Peter
    Jackson saying he shot 48fps to get kids back into the cinema (I know it’s also
    for the 3D strobbing). I couldn’t believe the creator of the Lord of the Rings
    trilogy could think that anyone cares about the frame rate so much that they’ll
    be flocking back.

     

    How about we encourage
    original and relevant material again. Remakes, Sequels, Boardgames, Prequels,
    and any other stretch to bring something to ‘Cinema’ that has an inbuilt
    audience for the marketing department, is just not going to satisfy our desire
    for seeing something honest and true.

     

    > “Or for that matter,
    what do you think can really change and move things forward in both the near
    and distant future?”

     

    There is an idea that
    this constant need for change is an American disease. Cinema (in my opinion) is
    a perfected art form. The group experience in a darkened room with massive
    screen and surround sound, is the peak of an art form.

     

    Rather than focusing on
    why cinema is periodically smothered by multinational conglomerates – numerous
    times in it’s 100 year history – we are all talking about what the new thing
    needs to be. How about getting GE, Comcast, Time, Viacom, News Corp, etc. away
    from deciding what films should be made and distributed.

     

    How about we hand back
    the reigns of this most wonderful of art forms back to people who have
    something great to say with it. Can you enhance the experience we all had when
    we saw the original Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, The Shining, E.T., Some
    Like It Hot, Pulp Fiction, Blade Runner, American Beauty, Magnolia, Blue
    Velvet, Annie Hall, The Graduate, Sunset Boulevard, Psycho, The Big Lebowski,
    Taxi Driver, 2001, The Dark Knight, Chinatown, Fight Club, Apocalypse Now,
    Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Seriously, what are you going to do to cinema to
    make this art form better?

     

    I think ‘The Master’ is a
    perfect example of why cinema does not need to change, but those controlling
    what gets made and marketed need to change. Paul Thomas Anderson is making a
    beautiful movie (I’ve only seen the three clips that have come out – and some
    stills) but it appears to be infused with honesty and love, and based on his
    work leading up to it, my money is on this being truly great cinema. I’ll even
    say it’s going to get Oscars for best picture, best director, and probably
    others, too.

     

    He’s not looking to crowd
    fund or develop stories with his audience or find the episodic nature of the
    material so he can secure a long drawn-out cash-flow.

     

    As far as I can see,
    about the only thing he’s doing any different then has been done for decades is
    he’s shooting 65mm; fantastic. Other great films have done that, and that’s
    about all you need. Someone who understands cinema and how to make it. How
    refreshing.

     

    No need for gimmicks, new
    cameras, new frame rates, etc. etc. What can you bring to cinema to improve it?
    3D? seriously?

     

    This is going to sound
    backwards to most, I’m sure, but it’s the audience that is the problem with
    cinema (and consequently the corporate marketing departments).

     

    I believe this constant
    need to degrade (‘change’) a perfect art form is because the consciousness of
    the audience is degrading, gradually. Attention spans are decreasing, inherent
    quality of experience is going down. The emotional platform is being stripped
    away. It appears that people can no longer relish life… honestly.

     

    > “If we could
    ask five key people what they saw on our various horizons, what would they show
    us?”

     

    The horizon of paint on
    canvas has remained pretty solid. No need to go any further with that
    particular art form. A great frame and that’s about that. Have the people here
    stood in front of an original Monet, Dali, or Van Gogh, Rembrandt, etc. etc.

     

    Would we prefer to have a
    Van Gogh that the audience helped with the brush strokes? I wouldn’t.

     

    Peter Jackson’s 48fps to
    get people back in the cinema is a little like saying that a cooler font will
    get people reading books again.

     

    > “Who should we
    ask?  One of the great things about
    being pointed in a direction, is that it is almost a path. Could we have walked
    down that road when Francis Ford Coppola predicted YouTube in 1991:”

     

    Also, I don’t hear
    Coppola predicting YouTube here. I hear him saying that genius is not the realm
    of the ‘professional.’ That with access to the tools of filmmaking true genius
    may arise in places we wouldn’t have previously found it.

     

    YouTube is one of the
    reasons I think audiences, and their experiences of art, is decreasing. The
    overall level of greatness is coming down so fast that people can’t even seem
    to appreciate good work anymore. What passes for exceptional today is often
    pretty bad.

     

    Every one that told me
    ‘Avatar’ was a good movie rethought their position when I said I didn’t think
    it was. People are becoming more and more mindless all the time, following the
    crowd down every road, even when it ‘s a bad one.

     

    > “It is not easy
    to just boil down to one specific all the various change that is swarming over
    us at this point.  I see major
    shifts coming in so many different aspects of cinema: discovery, consideration,
    value/return, participation, collaboration, transitioning, immersion, and many
    others. The fact that this far down the road of a connected culture we have not
    wed social and content together may speak of the resistance to change, but also
    of the tidal wave that will one day hit us.”

     

    Why should social and
    content wed? All my experiences of great art has been one-off creations by
    personalities that have lived, in one way or another, on the far edges of
    normal human experience. People who have personally expanded themselves beyond
    the average, and from this expanded vantage point have recorded who they have
    become, or what they have seen, in various art forms for us all to experience.
    It applies in all art forms.

     

    Wedding social and
    content makes mediocre art.

     

    Largely, I think this is
    coming from a society less and less sensitive to true virtuosity, and more so
    from economic considerations.

     

    Let’s not destroy a
    beautiful (and in my opinion) perfected art form because society is becoming
    less sophisticated and there’s a greater and greater need for economic
    justification.

     

    > “If you ask me,
    one of the big next changes and TGHFTFOC (see title) is the end of the
    dominance of the feature film form.”

     

    Because I’m going on too
    far, and I’m sure no one is interested to read all this, I won’t elaborate
    further on this point, other than to say, if you take away the feature film
    form, what’s left in cinema. That’s what cinema is. I certainly don’t want to
    pay to go to the cinema to see something that can just as easily be experienced
    on my computer at home.

     

    I write all this out of a
    sense of duty to represent, what I’m sure is, a very large group of people who
    believe that the problem in cinema is the content, not the form.

     

    How about some content
    that moves us. No matter how you change the form, it’s not going to help.
    Bringing TV and the internet into the cinema isn’t making cinema better. You
    can watch TV and tweet every thought you have at home.

     

    Cinema is an emotional
    medium. If there is a problem in cinema, it is in it’s emotional content. No
    amount of manipulation on the technology, format, form, creation, destruction,
    etc. etc. is going to fix the fact that the large majority of cinema doesn’t
    touch anyone, deeply or honestly, which is after all what everyone truly wants
    - whether they realize it or not. As a society we are becoming more and more
    superficial all the time; facade is ever more important. It’s an empty
    unfulfilling path to take.

     

    I believe this growing
    superficiality is what is truly being reflected when people talk about the
    Cinematic form needing change.

     

    Thanks Ted, for the
    provocative post.

     

    Matt

  • http://twitter.com/m_curtis Michael Curtis

    Couldn’t agree with you more. Great comments. Thanks for posting.

  • jorge
  • http://twitter.com/davidsquaredson David Davidson

    I agree with the points you are making, but I think the people leaving comments are not seeing the different cadence of change to movies, bricks and mortar cinemas and interactive. Been studying disruption of the content ecosystem for years. Long format story telling is not going away, and I agree completely with you that there will be an engagement via the second screen (tablet, smartphone) and Internet content in sync with the primary screen. But the cinema is going to continue to shrink to a niche. There is little group experience – they are all strangers and you’re not supposed to talk. As fairly large OLED TVs become the norm, 1080p is going to look outstanding. And depending on the screen size even 4K starts to make sense. Even less reason to visit a cinema. But what will happen to content creation of any type, is money is being pulled out of the system. Its going to have to learn to live on a lot less. The industry today has acted like gas, its expanded to fill the space available. Stats on OTT cord cutting and shaving shows the consumer is spending less. If the real stats about the numbers of commercials actually watched made it to Brands they would never pay what they are now. Its only a matter of time.

  • http://www.yogamayafilms.com/ Matt

    I think all you’re mentioning, David, will go on in parallel — meaning cinema will remain strong even while all these other screens and experiences will grow. I don’t believe cinema is going to shrink that much; it may ebb and flow (I believe we’ll see a great renascence). In any case, whatever size it is, I’ll be pursuing a life of feature length filmmaking and going to the cinema (there are some nice ones around). And in my estimation, long-form cinema (old style — if you will) is the most inspiring art form I’ve ever encountered. I don’t see anything that could take its place. I’m interested in individuals — great artists from all disciplines, and their work — I don’t care so much of the ‘social’ experience as entertainment. I pick my association and influences carefully — as they have a funny way of defining our world-views — morphing into our life’s paradigm and ending up as our reality — defining what is or isn’t possible. It is for this reason that I think the ‘social’ media experience shouldn’t be adopted whimsically, although it has been and will continue to be.

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