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All That’s Gold Does Not Glitter

May 30, 2006

by:

Joe Patti

Over the long weekend I watched the extended movie versions of the second and third Lord of the Ringsmovies. I also watched the “Making of” DVDs for the first movie which was actually twice as long as the first movie itself. Plenty of other folks have talked about the value of making of videos for the performing arts so that isn’t my purpose today–At least not directly. I am sure I will circuitously make the case for doing so somewhere along the way.

The thing that was most on my mind as I watched the “Making of” DVDs (other than the fact I want to move to New Zealand) was how speculative making a movie is. As I watched the producers, directors and designers discuss all the concept art, storyboarding, computer rendering, writing, modeling making, location excavation and manufacturing that went on for years before shooting even began all I could think about was the money that was being spent without any income being generated.

Not long afterward, I decided the movie could now probably single-handedly fund the arts in New Zealand by donating half the sketches and cast off paraphenalia to charity auctions and finance a new movie by selling the other half on E-Bay.

Coming from a world where making slightly more than you spend constitutes a successful season, it is difficult to empathize with an industry that measures their success as making three times as much as they spent. When you think that some of the money is going to finance movies like The Lord of the Rings years before the movie has a chance to make money, it is easiers to sympathize. (When drug companies make the same argument about developing medications to support why I am paying so much for a pill, I am pretty much unmoved though.)

Which is not to say that the chances movie studios take are bigger than performing arts institutions. In some regard it is a matter of scale. A $100,000 loss to a small theatre can be as devastating as a $100,000,000 loss to a movie studio. In a small organization the stakes can seem even larger because you have a more intimate relationship with the people you have to fire if you screw up.

If anything, for all their money and personnel analyzing costs, movie studios are just as apt at making stupendously poor decisions as an arts organization run by someone who has had no experience in the field. Miramax was going to produce the LoTR project originally and wanted it all in one movie. That would certainly have flopped in a HUGE way. Peter Jackson, the director, planned on doing it in two movies but fortunately some sainted man at New Line insisted it be done in three.

So yeah, if you haven’t surmised by now, I am a big fan of the books. I don’t usually watch the “Making of” portions of DVDs, nor do I in fact own too many DVDs. I don’t have much basis for comparison but one of the things that made it easy to like the production segment of the DVD was the fact that Weta Workshop where so many elements of the movie were created ran things economically. Two guys created all the chainmail for the movie linking and soldering something like 12 million links one at a time.

Obviously coming from a performance background I have a frame of reference that accords me a level of appreciation for the hours that were invested in creating items that appeared for 15 seconds on the making of the movie video and was unobtrusive in the movie proper. In some respects it is almost foolish for an arts organization to try to make a behind the scenes video to compete with the splendor of those connected with movies like the LoTR trilogy. (Although a 45 minute piece done by a theatre is probably going to be watched more often than the 5+ hours for the Fellowship of the Ring.)

The other thing I was thinking as I watched the movies is that if the trend of declining attendance at movies continues, within my lifetime I may be seeing campaigns advocating attendance of performing arts events that include movies. I’ll bet that just as people today argue that in Shakespeare and Mozart’s time live events were raucous affairs, people will point out that a similar environment existed in movie theatres in the early part of the 21st century and that the strictly regimented dress and behavior are unnatural and people should be able to wear whatever they want. (Granted, not a complete parallel with the current situation since many of the first movies in the 20th century had uniformed ushers handing out program books.)

General Musings

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Return To Amazing Things

May 24, 2006

by:

Joe Patti

Over a year ago I did an entry on recruited vs. elected board of directors profiling the interesting way Amazing Things Arts Center was approaching the governance of their organization.

I went back to their website to see how things were going and it looks promising. They have a good number of activities and a few classes going on. They have continued with their commitment to transparency by placing an application of a potential director in the governance section of their site.

One of the things I really appeciated when I visited this time was that they wrote to their membership about the possibility of moving in to a local firehouse as a new home. (I believe they are currently working out of a storefront.) I was impressed that they addressed the tough questions of safety in the downtown area. They followed by addressing the fact that the firehouse is in another community while the community they are currently in showed a lot of support in helping them renovate their location over the last year or so. The letter seemed pretty honest and devoid of much spinning of circumstances to conceal unpleasant facts.

At this point the only thing I would fault them on is not listing the names of the board members or administration online. It would help bolster the whole transparency goal if they did. Other than that, I will be coming back periodically to see how things are playing out.

General Musings

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What The Future Brings

May 23, 2006

by:

Joe Patti

I have been pondering the implications of my post yesterday on the status of arts organizations.

It seems clear that larger arts facilities may find themselves either owned by large media conglomerates or closely associated with artistic offerings over which these large corporations exercise influence. Large facilities may end up affliated with companies like Clear Channel and Comcast just as television stations are with networks and be guaranteed the exclusive right to present specific tours/exhibits in the region.

Smaller arts groups may lose access to these artists altogether, but gain other advantages by exhibiting flexibility. The limited niche appeal of the Professional Amateurs mentioned in yesterday’s entry may be a boon for smaller organizations and provide opportunities that hadn’t be available in the past. Museums for example, may not have large performance spaces but can certainly host a steady stream of mildly famous people each weekend while attracting attention to their collection. Perhaps a noted online director will screen his film to 100 interested people in the community this weekend and then a singer-songer writer next weekend.

Granted, some museums already do these things. But as the definition of concepts like the process by which one becomes an authority on a subject becomes blurred, so too perhaps will the idea that museums offer one type of recreational activity and film houses and theatres another.

Other than investing in technology appropriate for presenting art whose genesis is virtual, probably the most important element for success will be to include opportunities and floorplans that are conducive to socialization. If I want the experience of staring straight on at a performance framed by the square of a proscenium, I could watch the film or concert on my computer.

The impulse of organizations to add opportunities for socialization to attract younger groups is probably a good one. These initiatives might not currently be jibing easily with the performances with which they are associated. I have a feeling the socialization opportunities are here to stay and the format of the performances are what will begin to change.

Until technology is able to virtually replicate biological responses to environmental stimuli, exploiting the advantages of being physically present will increase in importance as the motivating factor for event attendance. Since the advent of broadcast media and film this has been true. It is just that the increased ability to direct one’s experience has started shifting the definition of what these advantages are. Right now I think we are in a transitional period where the validity of the current motivating elements is waning but the emerging elements haven’t become defined enough to identify.

Arts in an Age of Technology

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New Cultural Divide

May 22, 2006

by:

Joe Patti

Bill Ivey and Steven Tepper had an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education last week (subscription, alas, required) in which they offered two opposing views of what the cultural state of the US will be in the future. Regrettably in their opinion, both visions of the future are not mutually exclusive and will define the new cultural divide.

The first vision of the future is rather optimistic. As the cost of technology decreases and becomes widely accessible, the ability of people to express and educate themselves has been increasing. The authors cite British social critic Charles Leadbeater who feels the 21st century will be shaped by amateur professionals-“ProAms.”

Those pro-ams are people who have acquired high-level skills at particular crafts, hobbies, sports, or art forms; they are not professionals but are often good enough to present their work publicly or to contribute seriously to a community of like-minded artists or creators. Pro-ams typically make their livings in other work but are sufficiently committed to their creative pursuits to view them as a possible second career later in life.

A well-educated populace of amateurs who can converse intelligently with authorities of a field and perhaps even parlay their pursuits into a second career. Not only does technology make it possible for them to indulge their interests, but it enables them to cheaply disseminate their work to others providing for the development of ideas on a scale never before possible. What’s not to love about that scenario?

Well, actually, there isn’t a lot not to love about that scenario–if you are able to be a part of it. Like all incidents of cultural divide, the separation is mainly a function of the gatekeepers. The new optimistic trend they describe does away with the old gatekeepers for the most part because it allows people to make their own choice about what they want to experience, how long they want to invest processing the experience and in what environment they want to encounter it. The concepts of high and low art have less influence in this situation as do the arbiters of such things.

According to an article in the American Sociological Review by Richard A. Peterson, an emeritus professor of sociology at Vanderbilt University, hierarchical markers of taste have eroded. Today people define their status by consuming as omnivores rather than as snobs. A new kind of cosmopolitanism underlies the mixing and matching of different cultural forms.

As an illustration, imagine an encounter between two people on the street: a classical-music lover and a lover of rock music. If you are asked to predict which of them is likely to listen to Latin music, ethnic music, jazz, and blues, who would it be? It turns out that the classical-music fan is much more likely to enjoy those nonelite art forms, according to data from the National Endowment for the Arts’ national survey of public participation in the arts. If fact, when you analyze the NEA statistics, the classical-music fan is more likely to listen to just about every genre of music. Today’s cosmopolitan consumer culture is not bound by old hierarchies.

The more pessimistic view of the future is all about gatekeepers. Noting the ever increasing consolidation of the media in the hands of fewer and fewer people, many are forecasting a future where the variety of voices one can encounter becomes increasingly narrow. The authors point out that this is not only true in retail stores where only CDs of a limited number of artists might be available, but also in the arts where “small and medium-size organizations are facing competitive pressures from the growing number of big performing-arts centers – cathedrals of cultural consumption that might bolster a city’s image, but that bring with them some of the same constraints endemic in the consolidated media industries”

The authors also point out that things are moving from a world where we are no longer purchasing but renting culture.

“A few decades ago, cultural consumption required a small number of pieces of equipment – a television set and antenna, an AM/FM radio, and a record turntable. Now cable television, high-speed Internet connections, DVD-rental services, satellite radio, and streaming-audio services all require hefty monthly fees. Even consumption that feels like a purchase, like an iTune download, is often really a rental…”

According to the authors the new cultural divide will be comprised of those who have the time, resources and knowledge to “navigate the sea of cultural choice” to inform, cultivate and share their cultural lives on one side. Those who lack these things will obviously be on the other side of the divide receiving their culture via tightly controlled media channels.

The authors don’t quite know how the developing gap will impact political, cultural, social and communal life in the future. They do ask the question: “Can America prosper if its citizens experience such different and unequal cultural lives?”

I personally don’t see that this question has any more validity being applied to the chasm they anticipate than to the divide that already exists. It might involve different segments of the population than the current one does, but perhaps through lack of imagination, I don’t see the emerging one being markedly larger or destructive to society than if the old gap endured.

State of the Arts, Terms and Ideas

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