A guest post by Illia Svirsky.
Let me share with you some of the most recent films that I’ve seen:
- The Boxing Cats – a forty-second clip where cats in miniature boxing gloves punch each other inside a miniature ring.
- Exploding a Whitehead Torpedo – caught on screen is a missile deployed in the sea sending sheets of water and clouds of debris into the air.
- Seminary Girls – young shapely females in catholic schoolgirl uniforms get into a pillow fight.
- Eugene Sandow – a very muscular man flexes his stuff.
You probably assumed that these are all YouTube clips, right? Well, they’re not (although you can find them on YouTube), they are humankind’s first films.
A few days ago, I had to teach a tutorial about film history. Researching on the subject, I discovered two things:
1) At the dawn of the twentieth century the face of the world was dramatically altered. After hundreds of years in candlelit darkness there was suddenly electricity in every home, advanced machinery, cars, telephones, sound recordings and playbacks, as well as radios and the telegraph. It was during this time of rapid technological advancement that the first movie camera appeared.
2) As I watched the very first films people made (dating as far back as 1895) I was struck by how similar they were to the material people post on YouTube. I also found it interesting that as I moved up the chronological ladder, the quality and the sophistication of these early films had increased, much like the sophistication of the clips people post on YouTube today versus five years ago.
Let’s look at the trademarks of the early films: short (1 min to 5 min); not much story and generally revolving around a single gag or a punch-line; no budget; small production crew with only few people involved (generally the star and the cameraman); minor editing if any and simple SFX if any.
Now take your average amateur YouTube clip — short (1 -10 minutes), made via webcam or slightly better, on little or no budget, by a small group of people, employing amateur editing and humble special effects.
Henrik Werdelin’s blog reports that on Aug 1/2006 the top 100 clips most viewed on YouTube consisted of: 4 ads, 3 commercial virals, 31 music videos, 2 movie trailers, 2 candid camera shows, 58 films of user generated content (homemade dances, montages of funny photos, comedy skits, newsworthy events, quasi-national- geographic/ripley-believe-it-or-not).
According to the Library of Congress the films shot in the U.S between the invention of film in 1895 and 1910 can be broken down into the following categories: Actualities (including: Disasters, Famous People, Foreign Places, War); Advertising; Animation; Early Documentary-Style; Drama And Adventure; Humorous (sexual innuendo also falls into this category); Trick (experimentation with editing and special effects); Reenactments (material borrowed from other mediums).
You can view these earlier films and see for yourself how close they are to what you would find on a YouTube page.
Many people today can’t help but wonder how modern media will change as it enters a world where every person has a portable television in their pocket/purse with access to vast amounts of footage at our fingertips. One can only imagine what will become of newspapers, books, radio, films and television in an era where literally everyone has the ability to create their own media and have it up for the world to see within seconds of conception.
I can’t predict the future, but let’s look at what happened to the motion picture industry within the first twenty years of its existence:
At the beginning of the twentieth century, almost immediately after movies first appeared, the motion picture craze swept across the globe. Increased demand lead to higher competition. Competition forced filmmakers to up the quality and the sophistication of their product. To make a better product they raised production budgets and, consequently, lured over professionals from other mediums (such as theater, press, fine arts, etc”). To guarantee returns on investments, the price of admission multiplied four times. To justify raising the price of admission theaters were being built with greater seating capacity, bigger sound and bigger screens. Censorship and copyrights appeared. Venue, quality, talent, exposure and publicity created movie stars, and before anyone knew it, Charlie Chaplin became the most recognizable face on the planet.
I can’t help but wonder who’s going to become the most recognizable figure in our world in the next ten years? Oh, and by the way, congratulations to Sockington the Cat who just reached a million followers on Twitter.
Robbo
And the wheel keeps on turning!
The business development of the film industry was predicated upon it being an economy of scarcity – the physical reels of film had to be created and moved and displayed within the limits of cost of distance affordable. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that video cassettes were available to the general public – thus sparking the revolution that has both profited and beggared the film industry. The advent of the digital revolution with its emerging economy of abundance provokes changes that contrast sharply with the earlier development of that business we call show.
“History doesn’t repeat itself but it does rhyme.” is how Mark Twain said it.
I also recall Mary Pickford, quoted in “The Parade’s Gone By”, Kenneth Brownlow’s seminal work on silent films when she said: “It would have been more logical if silent pictures had grown out of the talkie instead of the other way round.”
She was referring to the technological developments required to advance the art instead of the art itself driving the form – becoming increasingly minimalist and spare in its execution rather than adding on constant layers of gloss and spectacle, colour and sound, wider screens and surround sound and so on.
Now we find ourselves in a mirrored state with rudimentary images and sound (by comparison to what large theatres offer) but with advancements rapidly closing the gap between not just what is acceptable and saleable but also desired by the public. Few could imagine a mere 10 years ago being able to walk around with a feature film library in their back pocket.
The tech now, however, is not being developed for the purposes of increasing or maintaining an existing business model (as it was with cinema in the Hollywood heydays) but in concert with an explosion in communications and data usage that rivals video cassettes, television, telephony, radio and cinema combined.
Yes, what we are watching online today will be regarded as archaic and quaint in a very few short years – just as we now regard the Biograph and Pathé short subjects from a hundred years ago. But the evolution of the quality and content of what we will be watching in the future will be driven by technological advancements not necessarily directed by conscious audience desire nor artistic inspiration nor limited to the purposes of a singular business model. These newer forms of visual storytelling will emerge from innovations created simply “because it can be done”.
Both artist and entrepreneur are running in the same race to keep up and use these culturally disruptive technologies to create works that speak to us all and make a pant load of cash for a lucky few.
Great post! Thank you.
Cheers.
P.S. I adore (and follow) Sockington but he ain’t no Chaplin. 🙂