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William Gibson on Movies, Music, Media
automatic_jack writes "William Gibson gave a talk at the Directors' Guild of America's Digital Day last week. The text of it is up in his 'blog, and in it he says some intriguing things about the nature of the entertainment and media industries. There's a bit of a surprise conclusion at the end!"
He quit blogging?
In only a single draft, even the greatest of writers will only produce content on par with the average thinker. Mr Gibson has "pettered out" as it were as a novelist. As if to reward himself he publishes countless first drafts: unpolished ramblings not ready, nay, not WORTHY, of consumption. Most blogs, including this one are about as narcissistic as hit counters on your personal home page.
Well, if you want to be punctilious - I believe the bible has been originally been on parchment (i.e. processed horse-skin). I don't know if people are aware of this, but paper was invented in china many centuries later (600-900CE, i forgot), and not introduced to the west until even later.
My point, however, was that books has INDEED changed (even since the press). For one it's more accessible and more convenient. That, by itself, changed books in ways that greatly altered the way information is consumed from books. For example, what's the most frequent method of getting things out of (especially on-line) reference manuals? I usually load up the PDF and search for the item I am interested in. Now, I wouldn't do this to a novel, but that's exactly the thing - books are no longer only a medium to convey a continuous string of information like news or story, and this "search" functionality greatly improved the usefulness of books that are not continuous.
Moreover, the format of books are changing. Not even going to the tell a story with nothing but pictures approach, you can view a blog as a living book that's constantly updating itself to reflect the present, and re-examine the past.
So yes, books have changed. but of course you have to look at it at a different angle - though, really i guess the problem is that definition of a "book" isn't so clear anymore.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Do you really think that if films came out at the same time on DVD as on the screen that many people would still go to the theater?
I know I would. I also know that people will still go to the theatre for films released a long time ago. If the local indie theatre is showing a rerelease of a classic I happen to like, I'll be there cash in hand, despite owning the work on DVD.
I wasn't particularly interested in seeing the second Matrix movie, but I went because a large group of my friends went. The social and visual experience of going to the theatre will never be truly replicated in the living room.
The Internet is generally stupid
The thing is, Holywood is some sort of monopoly only in the United States. There are thousands of movies made around the world each year made without Holywood even knowing it. I'd barelly call that a monopoly. Maybe locally Holywood is a monopoly, but internationnally, they are just another company.
This of course occured in 1436. Prior to that, books were hand-duplicated by religious scribes...
Actually, there's also a revolution that happened in the late 20th century. While the printing press allowed to make copies at a very low cost, the cost of publishing a work was still high. These days, anyone can get a work printed as a book at a relatively low cost. This also explains that increase in the amounted of crap that gets printed each year.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
It is appearent that you did not get the gist of what Mr. Gibson was saying. People have an inborn drive to create. They have a capacity to project their imaginations and to interpret the creations of others. These characteristics can be traced back through the earliest artifact made by man. But more importantly, man can abstract reality through sybolism.A study of "cave painting" shows the skill and creative nature of some of our most distant ancestory. Some of this art actualy needs to be interpreted as if its a movie. What apears to be several individuals, in some cases is realy the same individual at different points in time, a moving picture. Now we have tools that can enable us to express ourselves unimaginable to our ancestors. Mankind will always find ways to use the cutting edge tech for self expresion. Our childrens childrens childrens will be doing things that today are just fantasy. And guess what, it will still be in the quest for self expresion
Not to insult your family or anything, but you guys seem to be completely lacking in imagination. The 10 year old that I babysit, was into putting jackel heads on his drawings ( influence of the mummy movies). He creates his own Pokemon and DBZ characters. Some can be rather bizzare. If your children do display some imagination, are you going to punish them? BTW, I've been doing anthropmorphic art since I was a kid. I have started retraining to become an animator. This is truley a great time to be alive. I am able to express myself in ways that I could only dream about as a kid. And I did dream. Only hope the MPAA and that other mafia controled organization don't totaly screw us over.
As usual with Gibson, the text is full of memorable quotes.
Had nations better understood the potential of the Internet, I suspect they might well have strangled it in its cradle. Emergent technology is, by its very nature, out of control, and leads to unpredictable outcomes.
Probably correct.
I'm not flaming here, but I'm generally curious.
I've read comments like these a thousand times. Over and over. and I'm tired of it.
Dude, if somebody is on a cell phone, ask them to get off it. If someone is yammering, ask them to shut up. You'd be suprised at the amount of support you get when you get the gumption to just tell people to act their age (and respect those around them).
As for the 300# guy, that's something that comes along with it. I can deal with that, and sticky floors, if I get to see The Matrix Reloaded in ass whipping sound and a beautiful screen (hell, even a half-decent screen. Its still 20x larger than any "projector" $10k system you can setup in your house).
I love movies, and I love going to the movies. If people piss you off, tell them. If you're fed up, wait for the video. Most people scream "Just watch it on DVD, blah blah" Well, I'm not going to wait four months to see The Matrix Reloaded on DVD, I'm going to see it in a venue that is far nicer than anything I can set up myself.
And unless you've got money to burn or are rich beyond your imagination, you can't setup a theater as large, expansive, or feature-filled as a movie theater. Sorry, just can't do it. The owners spent millions so you can enjoy the movies on a BIG screen and nice sound. And I will support them because I love movies and if you don't like it in the theater, watch it at home. (Please don't respond with "My theater sucks, the projector is crap, blah blah" becuase I've heard that one too)
But please, stop bringing up this argument. Everyone has heard it, seen it, is used to it, and understands completely where you're coming from.
But it didn't stop Reloaded from making $135 mill at the box office, now did it?