Author: David Newhoff

David is an author, communications professional, and copyright advocate. After more than 20 years providing creative services and consulting in corporate communications, he shifted his attention to law and policy, beginning with advocacy of copyright and the value of creative professionals to America’s economy, core principles, and culture.

Keeping the Dark On

Anyone who follows the ongoing tug-of-war between Hollywood and Silicon Valley will inevitably encounter variations on two cherished themes of the Web-centric:  1) that Hollywood is corrupt, monopolistic, and greedy; and 2) that Hollywood is incapable of embracing technology.  If we are to believe that either or both of these generalizations are fair, then what are we to make of the now-imminent shift to digital-only distribution for theatrical feature films?  Are the studios throwing their weight around and crushing the little guy, or is this just part of the march of technological progress?

I admit the subject raises conflicting feelings for this particular film lover.  The purist in me wants to keep celluloid around for as long as possible; the pragmatist (and semi-proficient DP) in me understands first-hand what digital cinema in general offers the independent film artist; and the humanist in me is sad to know that an estimated 1,000 small-town theaters will be shutting their doors.  See this article from The Wrap.

The bottom line is this:  by about the end of 2013, any movie theater that cannot project digitally will no longer be a movie theater.  The major distributors will cease shipping 35mm film prints, which will save billions in printing and shipping costs. In general, the big chains are already digital, and some of the mid-market independents can afford to finance the new capital investment; but theaters serving small markets will either need to raise donated funds (between $65,000 and $200,000) or close up shop.

I happen to live in a community with a single-screen theater, one that I actually helped save a few years ago (with the promo below) when the business was up for sale, and our local film club wanted to purchase it.  By “film club,” I’m referring to FilmColumbia, which hosts a wonderfully curated, small festival about to celebrate its 13th season this October. In addition to being home-base for the festival, the Crandell theatre in Chatham, NY shows first-run movies for less than half the cineplex ticket price, and it screens independent, art-house films on the weekends. The Crandell is truly the cultural and economic hub of the village of Chatham, and it is the only theater of its kind in the entire county.  And this weekend, my colleagues and I are shooting a new promo to help raise funds to go digital.

Built in 1926, the Crandell had to foot the bill for another capital improvement within weeks of its opening — sound. The brass RCA plaque displayed above the ticket window is a reminder of a time when those who held patents on technology controlled both production and distribution, which more or less set the precedent for how the motion picture industry evolved for most of its history.

Today, the means of production, and at least certain kinds of distribution, are available to nearly everyone.  At the same time, a whole generation is watching movies (legally and illegally) on computers, tablets, smart phones, and iPods. I suppose some might be tempted to wonder why bother trying to save this antique of actual brick and mortar.  But the answer is a no-brainer for me:  because the experience of going to the movies at your local, little theater has not lost any of its aesthetic value. In the same way that film still captures and reproduces textures that the best digital technologies have yet to match, the local theater experience is one not so easily quantified as it is felt.  So, since I cannot possibly do anything about the future of celluloid projection, I can at least do my part to save a few seats for my friends and neighbors.

 

Why isn’t the Internet breaking?

During the squabble over SOPA and PIPA, one of the underlying (and possibly just lying) PR bullets coming out of Silicon Valley was that the actions called for in the bills would “break the Internet.”  And when that wasn’t the claim, the most consistent complaint was that the bills would chill free speech.  But in the wake of violent protests to an online video that may be related to the deaths of American diplomats, it turns out there is suddenly room for discussion about both speech and algorithmic solutions to thorny problems in an otherwise “free and open Internet.”

According to this piece by Somini Sengupta in yesterday’s New York Times, there is not only room for discussion, but it seems we’ll be having this discussion for quite some time and hearing from many parties. If nothing else, this article makes plain that the concept of free speech is no more universal inside the conference rooms at Google and Facebook than it is among nations.  So, if speech is relative, and algorithms can theoretically be written to correspond to definitions of “hate speech,” what was all that flap about SOPA and PIPA? I know the mechanisms requested by those anti-piracy bills are different from those required to address the issues cited here, and I don’t know anything about writing code; but it seems to me that the math problem in the case of analyzing hate speech worldwide is a hell of a lot harder than cutting off funding sources to a finite number of torrent sites.

The irony, of course, is that the makers of The Innocence of Muslims are fully protected by the First Amendment, even though what they chose to do with that right is irresponsible and loathsome.  And even if someone did manage to come up with a universal definition for hate speech, and a programmer managed to write code to seek it out on the Web, it’s possible this film that started all the trouble might not even meet the narrow criteria that would need to be written.

By contrast, the transactions made possible through torrent sites are not protected by the First Amendment, are comparatively easy to define, and extremely easy to locate.  Yet, we were led to believe that neither law nor technology could possibly have stopped or even mitigated piracy.  I don’t know.  As I say, I don’t write code, but it sounds a little bit like the masters of the Internet are clearly capable of flying F-18s when they need to but suddenly incapable of driving golf carts when they don’t want to.

Sunday Thought Exercise – M.A.D.ness or no?

18th Century German illustration of Moloch.

I know it’s a day to relax, enjoy a late-morning cup of coffee, and perhaps forget about the troubles of the world, so I hope you’ll forgive me for asking you to think about nuclear weapons.  This article from 2009 has stuck with me ever since I first read it.  Not only is it an interesting analysis of global stability vis a vis nuclear proliferation, but it raises a sociological or philosophical question or two.

In short, the fact remains that, while we view atomic weapons as terrible things, no two nuclear-armed countries have ever gone to war, not even conventional war, since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In grade school, we learned the somewhat counter-intuitive concept of Mutually Assured Destruction with regard to the U.S. and the Soviet Union, but as Jonathan Tepperman points out in his article, the principle has worked globally for over sixty years. Rather than support or criticize Tepperman’s article, I find myself asking the science fiction writer’s question.  Assuming we take the oft-used premise of an alien civilization analyzing the human race as a whole, what does this global, atomic stalemate say about us?  Does it imply that we must invent machines that supersede own humanity, even to the extent that we must hold a gun to our own heads to make ourselves behave?  

Why do I ask on this particular blog?  Because the relationship between Man and his machines is part of examining the “digital utopia.” For those who don’t follow these issues, the ideas, politics, and sensibilities of many leaders in Silicon Valley extend way beyond the matter of how to get more gadgets and apps into our hands. As we experience a period of upheaval in many political, economic, and social systems, there is an unmistakably technocratic drumbeat out there to which the next generation is plugged in  and tapping its feet.  This is a subject that will be examined in detail in future posts, but for now I invite your responses to the above question.