The Chutry Experiment

After several years of writing, I’ve just submitted my revised manuscript for second book, On-Demand Culture: Digital Delivery and the Future of Movies. The book is still several months away from publication–there’s copy-editing and page-proofing to be done–but the lion’s share of writing and researching is complete. And quite naturally, completing such as task has me reflecting on my writing process for this book and thinking about what I would like to do next.

To a great extent, these questions are caught up in the personal. I started writing book two just a few weeks after meeting and falling in love with the person who would eventually become my wife, and although she has been supportive of my research, I also have little interest in maintaining my hermetic lifestyle and the writing pace that saw me through the completion of Reinventing Cinema. It’s also a “professional” question, in that I am aware, as many scholars have been discussing lately (I’ll cite many of them soon), that there is some value in writing in formats that are not considered “academic” or that we need more flexible ideas of what counts as a “sellable” piece of academic writing in an era in which academic presses are struggling (as the discussion of the University of Missouri Press illustrates). It’s also “political,” in the broad sense of that term. Writing in academic contexts can often be very insular, and I’d like to branch out from that and to see more scholars do the same.

With that in mind, I’ve decided that I’m going to be taking a little breather before I decide on my next Big Project. I’ve maintained a more or less frenetic writing pace since about 2007, and I think it’s time to recharge a little bit and figure out where I want to focus my writing efforts in the future. That’s not to imply that I am not excited about the work I have done in On-Demand Culture or in the scholarly essays that grew out of it. Instead, I think this might be an opportunity to go back to using the blog as a space for thinking about and testing ideas, for cultivating new approaches and new ways of thinking about the issues and ideas that matter to me. When I finished Reinventing Cinema, I already knew, even as I was sending off the manuscript, where I would be going with my next book, that I wanted to address the distribution “crisis” and especially how it might be affecting independent film. In the process of writing, my focus shifted slightly. I became interested in Redbox kiosks, 3D movies, digital cable advertisements, movie apps (such as the Netflix iPhone app), and other aspects of the movie industry, but they were all tied to the idea of digital delivery and to the underlying concerns behind my original set of questions: What is digital delivery and where is it taking us? What are the implications for the movie industry, for independent artists, and for audiences? The answers, as I hope my book will show, are complex and sometimes contradictory. I don’t have that gnawing question this time, that sense of crisis that propelled my research for the last three years since Reinventing came out.

But in thinking about the process for this book, it was (in some ways) much less “public” than the process for my first book. In some ways, that was a function of time. I chose to cut down on blogging so that I would have more time for bigger projects, such as academic essays and the book. Part of that was the changed nature of the academic blogosphere, and here is where I think that some of my experiences might fit into the (very productive) discussions that I have been following about blogging and academic writing. One of the reasons that I have likely slowed down on blogging is that the format seems less social than it used to be. There are a number of reasons for this shift, and Kathleen Fitzpatrick identifies a few of them. RSS feeds make it so that readers don’t have to go directly to the author’s blog, and perhaps more insidiously, Facebook has a “hovering” effect in that it sucks comments and content in, making them less visible on the blog. Comment spam also became a factor, especially starting around 2004 or so, which also adds a barrier–required registrations, demonstrating that you’re not a robot–to keep readers from commenting on the blog directly.

That being said, I think the blog format–informal and conversational–can foster valuable dialogue and can allow authors and readers to share and develop ideas. I like Kathleen’s idea of blogging as serialized scholarship, and her suggestion that we need better methods for “capturing thought in the idea of being produced.” Some of this process is “captured” in blog archives. I can see, for example, that I wrote quite a bit about Redbox and related phenomena, but many of the helpful responses I received along the way aren’t there. And like her, I’m not ready to suggest that humanities journals no longer serve as “tombstones” for thought, in the same way that Paul Krugman sees happening in economics journals, but I think the play between blogging, academic journals, and books can help to foster healthy discussion about a research topic, whether it’s Keynesian economics, the future of the book, or the ongoing evolution of the movie industry.

Further, as Jason Mittell notes, there is some value in using blogs and other social media formats as a form of pre-publication publicity. Jason had a much more “open-source” process for his second book, in that he posted entire chapters to his blog and Media Commons for peer-to-peer review, inviting feedback from anyone who wished to comment (he also points to Scott Higgins’ ongoing research, which has, so far, only been published on his blog. I’ve posted a few ideas, but rarely have I posted actual content here, but like Jason, I think these forms of “pre-publication” can serve a vital role of engaging with a wier audience, even while having your ideas tested by this more expansive form of readership. Their comments provide me with even more incentive to renew my focus on blogging, especially during a moment of media transition when it feels like so many writers are getting it wrong, as I tried to complain in my bullet-point post mentioning Neal Gabler and Ranall Stross’s recent articles.

Ultimately, these questions about format and informality even speak to the possibility of reconsidering the object that can be monetized by academic presses. Jeff Rice has been addressing the University of Missouri Press’s evolution by suggesting that presses ought to consider selling short articles/essays for a dollar or two via electronic formats, following the “singles” model used by iTunes to great success. I think there is quite a bit of value in that, especially when many journals charge exorbitant rates ($15 and more) for digital copies of single articles. I realize the motivation behind the higher rates–protecting the value of institutional subscriptions–but a bestselling academic “single” might provide academic presses with some additional revenue.

No matter what, I am excited that On-Demand Culture has taken this big step towards completion, not just because it frees me from an intense focus on a single deadline but because it allows me to begin thinking about the “next” question, about what I want I want to write about and even about the formats I’ll be using to engage with others about those ideas.

Just a quick pointer to an article in The Fayetteville Observer where I discuss the forthcoming Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises. I think some of my points come across much more strongly than I intended, but it was fun to talk about the film and hink a little about my own investments in Nolan’s films.

Three quick liks while I am on the road and taking a day or two off from working on the book:

• Via Daily Kos, a link to Neal Gabler’s latest column from the LA Times, which takes the recent reboot of the Spider-Man franchise as a sign that, for teenagers, at least, film history basically only extends back to last week. Yes, the cycle of rebooting seems to be accelerating–when it comes to movies at least–but I’m not sure that teens are any less interested in past films than they might have been twenty-five years ago when VHS was one of the primary means of accessing film history.
• By comparison, Randall Stross of the New York Times worries that young people are only watching movies on smaller screens–iPods, iPhones, iPads, and maybe laptops–using Netflix or Hulu. Obviously people are using these devices to watch movies, but the article literally dodges the questions of how many, how frequently, and so on. There is no discussion of the fact that many Netflix users stream through a TV set, choosing to watch on the biggest screen available. And while theatrical movie attendance, in the U.S. at least, has remained steady, overseas box office is rising.
• Finally, Munib Rezaie offers a much more nuanced take on some of the challenges raised by digital delivery, looking at the changing status of the film geek in the streaming era. He builds from my discussion of the DVD-era “film geek” to point out that instant availability–of movies, of information–changes how we think about our relationship to film culture. As Munib notes, the processes of talking about movies, getting recommendations, and even learning about films have changed thanks to new digital delivery technologies.

Many of my Raleigh readers will likely know that one of our local independent theaters, the Galaxy Theater, a funky suburban multiplex that offers a mix of art house and Bollywood films, may be demolished. Developers have eyed the location–in the heart of downtown Cary–as a potential site for a new shopping complex featuring a high-end grocery store. Making matters worse, the theater appears to be several months behind on its rent, according to the Raleigh News-Observer. The theater owners are working on rallying the community, and like many other locals, I think closing the Galaxy would be a big, even devastating, loss to the local  movie scene and would efface another small part of our history.

The Galaxy will always be a site of intense sentimentality for me. It’s where I went on my first date with my wife, where we saw Is Anybody There?, a drama featuring Michael Caine as a retired magician who befriends a boy whose parents run the retirement home where he lives. I can still point to the parking space where we pulled up in her car and remember squinting into the dark as we sought to find empty seats, one of the rare occasions I’ve arrived late to a movie. Since then, my wife and I have seen dozens of movies there, and I’ll often catch others while she is working, usually enjoying a beer and sometimes a samosa while I watch, often relaxing with a book beforehand on one of the couches in the lobby beforehand. When I do go, the ticket takers invariably recognize us, greeting us personally with a smile and friendly conversation. I’m sure there are hundreds of other people who have similar memories or experiences associated with the Galaxy. No matter what, theaters can provide us with a sense of connection to others, the opportunity to share in the pleasure of watching movies together. And the Galaxy’s unique mixture of Bollywood and art house movies creates a fascinating hybrid space, where different communities cross paths, even if only for the brief instant of passing through the lobby or standing in line for tickets.

The Galaxy’s struggles are familiar to anyone who has been following the fate of independent film and art house theaters. Digital projection has raised a number of challenges for independently-owned theaters, who face the expense of buying expensive projectors with little help from the studios. As this indieWire article reports, hundreds of theaters may face closure, and there is some speculation that the studios are relatively unconcerned about this loss in the number of screens. Furthermore, given that so many independent films are now available through alternative platforms, such as video-on-demand and digital downloads, the place of art house theaters isn’t as clear as it used to be. Even worse, as David Bordwell points out, the core audience for art house movies–Baby Boomers and others who grew up on the ’60s art cinema–isn’t getting younger, and a new generation of moviegoers is accustomed to practices of time-shifting and watching on-demand, rather than tailoring their lives around a movie schedule. The Galaxy has worked hard to diversify, hosting special events like live Wimbledon viewing parties and screenings, like the Kevin Smith Red State Q&A, making it more than simply a place for viewing movies.

Given all of the movie options in a long-tail culture, it’s difficult for art houses to compete, a problem that is exacerbated by the ongoing (and inevitable, at this point) shift to digital projection. But it’s also important to hold onto whatever local sensibilities remain, and the Triangle community would lose quite a bit if the Galaxy were to close. Speaking selfishly, I know that I would lose a tangible reminder of an important part of our first date–thankfully the sushi place where we stopped appears to be still going strong–and a crucial place of relaxation after grading papers or writing articles, a sentiment that I’m sure is shared by others. I know that one person’s opinion isn’t enough to stop a bulldozer and that a fancy grocery store might seem like a safer bet than a business based on predicting the tastes of a bunch of movie buffs, but it would be a significant loss for the community if the Galaxy is shut down. No decisions have been made at this time, and the theater’s owners are gearing up for a fight. Here’s hoping we can keep the Galaxy and its spirit alive.

Just a quick pointer to a fascinating bit of stunt comedy, in which Mark Malkoff took on the challenge of finding out how many hours of Netflix he could watch in a single month. Reasoning that he wanted to get the most value out of his $7.99 monthly streaming bill from Netflix, Malkoff watched 252 feature-length movies in a single month, meaning that he paid approximately three cents per movie. It’s an intriguing experiment to me, in part because it takes the promises of the long tail to absurd lengths, and for the most part, Malkoff was an attentive and reflective participant. He also notes, for example, that his use of streaming video consumed a lot of data, even joking that his cable company is likely “mad” at him for using so much bandwidth, and calling attention to one of the “hidden” costs of streaming video and long tail economics.

He points out that he had more than enough films to watch, given that Netflix has thousands of titles available on its streaming service, so although it is easy to complain about a “content drought” on Netflix, these complaints may be shaped by expectations that we should be able to stream the most recent titles. He also discusses, in this New Tee Vee interview, how he used a balance of social media and recommendation engines, such as Instantwatcher, to find movies that he wanted to see. He also points out that streaming (at least on Netflix) still makes it difficult to watch with the bonus features familiar from DVDs. To correct the situation, he gets a bemused Jason London to comment on Dazed and Confused and a bedraggled Andrew McCarthy to pull him on a wagon through Central Park while he watched St. Elmo’s Fire on his iPad (a subtle reminder that streaming content is also mobile). The video is quite obviously great PR for Netflix, although Malkoff professes that he was never in contact with the company until after the experiment was complete, but it’s also a quirky illustration of how our viewing expectations and practices have changed in the streaming era.

Update: I forgot to link to Malkoff’s complete list of movies that he watched over the course of a month. There are a number of really good films here, ranging from film studies staples (Bonnie and Clyde) to silents (plenty of Keaton and Chaplin) to indie and cult classics (Tiny Furniture, Big Lebowski), although toward the middle he seemed to decide to be a little masochistic and watch some of the “worst” movies possible (Battlefield Earth, Gigli).

Steven Zeitchik and Jonathan Landreth have a fascinating must-read article that explores how the Chinese market is affecting creative decisions made by Hollywood studios (also Check out Zeitchik’s blog post on the topic). Because of China’s growing middle class (and the further opening up of their movie quota system), studios are working harder to produce content that will satisfy the relatively strict censors at China’s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television while also working to court Chinese businesses for production funds.

Some of these changes are relatively minimal: The movie Battleship was tweaked to give Chinese scientists credit for first identifying the alien invaders. Others are more substantial. The remake of Red Dawn (which seems to have been in process for ages) was re-edited to change the U.S. invaders from Chinese to North Korean, while Chinese bioelectric engineers were added as “experts” to the movie Salmon Fishing in Yemen, when there were no similar characters in the original novel. In all cases, narrative and character decisions are being made with some awareness about how (and even whether) the film will play legally in the Chinese market.

Zeitchik and Landreth characterize these decisions as a form of “censorship” in a couple of places, but I’m not quite sure that’s the right way of describing what is happening (or I would at least like to qualify the concept of censorship here). Yes, undesirable images may be censored, and in some cases literally cut, from movies, as happened when Chow Yun Fat’s scenes were removed from one of the Pirates of Caribbean movies. And these decisions may shape the kinds of projects that get funded. I’d imagine, for example, that a studio might now be much more reluctant to finance a project like Seven Years in Tibet. But “economic censorship” is quite a bit different than state censorship, and filmmakers theoretically could reject working with Chinese companies, as Relatively Media did when it was threatened with a boycott by human rights groups angered that they planned to film in a location close to wehere activist Chen Guangcheng was being held under house arrest. And if this means that we will get fewer racist caricatures of Chinese people and cultures, then I think there is some value in respecting these markets. This doesn’t mean that state censorship isn’t functioning here–China’s censorship practices are well-documented–but it is still the case that most of the motivations for Hollywood for altring content are economic.

Still, I think the article is an important read if only because it illustrates the degree to which these forms of economic censorship function in shaping cinematic storytelling, and more significantly, how these changed storytelling practices are being driven not necessarily (or even primarily in some cases) by American sensibilities but by those of a wider, globalized audience and by the state and economic interests that seek to shape the content of Hollywood entertainment.

A good friend of mine, Chris Hansen, is making a documentary about Doctor Who fandom in the United States, and he is interested in hearing from (and interviewing) fans of the show in all of its incarnations and also the scholars who study it (not that those two categories are mutually exclusive, of course.

I’ve known Chris for a long time, and one of my first memories of meeting him was seeing his vast collection of Doctor Who novels, so I know he’ll approach this subject with an appreciation of the series and its fans, unlike some of the Star Trek docs that have treated their subjects condescendingly. Chris also works in an academic setting, so I think he is also well-positioned to understand and present how scholars approach fan studies and similar forms of scholarship.

If you’re interested in being involved in the documentary, you can get in contact with Chris at the link above. If you want to check out some of his past films, they are available online.

Roger Ebert has a thought-provoking post on the role of streaming video in financing independent and art house films, in which he argues that declining DVD sales will make it more difficult for DVD companies to pay for quality film restorations, leading to a situation in which “ non-blockbuster titles will undergo a sudden income crisis.” Ebert explains that in the past, DVD companies could rely on retail sales through direct mail or Amazon, to video stores, and to Netflix. But due to the availability of streaming video sites, DVD sales have been declining and video stores have been closing, while Netlix has begun to purchase fewer DVDs because of its increasing emphasis on streaming. Further, studios make less money selling streaming rights than they do selling DVDs.

Ebert’s argument builds upon the news that consumers will likely watch more movies online in 2012 than they do on DVD, a situation that is obviously unlike to reverse itself. I know that in my own household, my stepdaughter and exchange-student daughter rarely watch DVDs, other than infrequent trips to Redbox. I still receive DVDs from Netflix, but they typically collect dust. When we decide to watch something, it usually involves flipping through menus on Netflix, using both genre categories and (less often) our instant queue, to find something to watch. Very rarely do we have “appointment screenings” of movies, unless I am doing research on something. Ebert acknowledges that he divides his viewing relatively evenly between streaming and DVD, and I think we have reached a stage where, for many families, skimming streaming services has become a major option for passing time during the evening. In some cases, this may involve maintaining a Netflix membership and complaining periodically about the thin streaming catalog or rotating between Netflix, Hulu, and an independent site, such as Fandor (a site that deserves a lot of credit for not only supporting older titles but also for its 50/50 revenue split with independent filmmakers).  But in the near future, it seems unlikely that there will be a single catalog where everything will be readily available.

With that in mind, we need to be attentive to the ways this will affect different aspects of the film industry. Ebert is probably right to surmise that film restorations may become prohibitively expensive for everyone other than a small number of boutique companies like Criterion, but I wonder how newer independent films will be affected, given that most of them will likely never be converted to film prints. Direct DVD sales (and sales through Amazon) are still likely to play a crucial role in financing independents (note my previous post on crowdfunding and the practice of pre-selling DVDs), but streaming and other forms of video-on-demand are also likely to play a critical role, and I suspect that Ebert is right to speculate that this may require consumers to pay more to support these films. As Ebert puts it, “Sooner or later, one way or another, streaming will have to pay for the films it streams. That means us.” Thus, we seem to have reached a strange point in which more choices than ever are (or at least appear to be) instantly available, even while those choices may be splintered between a variety of platforms and devices that sometimes make it difficult for consumers to seek out specific movies. At the same time, despite this wide range of choices, the loss in DVD sales continues to make it difficult to pay for and maintain catalogs of older films.

Taking a quick break from working on revisions to book two to point out some recent discussion of the use of crowdfunding to raise money for independent films. Since the 2008 closure of several major indie distributors, there has been a slow but steady turn toward alternative funding and distribution models, and there seems to be some evidence that prominent indie filmmakers are using crowdfunding techniques.

Writing for the Sundance blog, Elisabeth Holm discusses The Canyons, a collaboration between Taxi Driver screenwriter Paul Schrader and novelist Bret Easton Ellis on The Canyons, a drama about a group of power-hungry Hollywood types. Notably, in addition to raising funds through Kickstarter (the team has already raised $148,000-plus with a day of fundraising left), Schrader and Ellis also invited supporters to help cast the movie, using Let It Cast, a kind of open-source casting system that allows actors to post auditions for parts online. But I think that what is striking about The Canyons is the degree to which the film ‘s crowdfunding promotions are tied up in more traditional forms of promotions and tie-ins. Although it is relatively common for indie producers to promise copies of the DVD when the film is completed, it struck me that selling the DVD before the movie comes out functions somewhat like  ”foreign pre-sales” might have in the past; that is, it is essentially selling some “rights” to the movie (in one case, broadcast rights, in another, the right to own a copy of the DVD)  before it is finished in order to finance the completion of the movie. This is sort of obvious, but by selling enough copies of the DVD before the film is made–by my count, they pre-sold well over 700 DVDs–they can also demonstrate interest in the film before it is even finished. At the same time, the campaign seems to offer, more than most Kickstarter projects, a ticket to a limited form of access to celebrity. Gifts for larger donations include the opportunity to meet Schrader or Ellis, to get script notes from Schrader, and in one case, Schrader’s set gift from Robert DeNiro on Taxi Driver (an engraved belt buckle). It’s an interesting example of how older forms of independent cinema are now being repackaged through these crowdosurcing models.

Lucas McNelly discusses a similar project featuring a familiar Hollywood actor, Matthew Lillard, who is usually remembered for his role as Shaggy in the Scooby-Doo movie or as one of the wise-cracking teens in Scream. Lillard has raised over $128,000 (with a week left, as of today) from over 1,800 backers, suggesting that he has a much broader base of support, even if the donations have been smaller. The movie, Fat Kid Rules the World,  which has already played at South by Southwest, is an adaptation of a novel, providing it with an existing fan community beyond Lillard’s reputation as an actor. There are some creative perks–one donation amount will allow you to have Lillard (as Shaggy) record your outgoing voicemail message–but as McNelly suggests, Lillard’s active attempt to engage with potential fans has been crucial to the campaign’s success. Lillard spent a marathon 3 hour session on Reddit, chatting with fans and allowing them to ask him anything they wished. This is not suggest that one approach is superior, but instead to point out that inside and outside are becoming increasingly blurred when it comes to the use of crowdfunding models.

For something a little more substantial, Geoff King (author of the forthcoming Indie 2.0 and several other books) pointed to a BBC report on crowdfunding and its place in the indie sector, which they framed through a discussion of another successful indie project, Andrew Semans’ Nancy, Please (note: I had the opportunity to review Semans’ poignant and observant short film, All Day Long several years ago, so I can’t wait to see his latest effort). Some data from the BBC piece: over 5,000 films have successfully raised funds on Kickstarter, and as King notes 17 films from this year’s Sundance and 33 from this year’s SXSW were Kickstarter projects. Definitely quite a bit to think about here as indie funding models continue to evolve.

In doing some research on digital movie distribution, I have become fascinated by the role of movie kiosks as tools for renting, and in some cases selling, movies. Probably the most visible–and most disruptive–version of the use of kiosks has been Redbox, which now has over 35,000 DVD vending machines in retailers, fast food restaurants, and airports across the United States and Canada. I’ve discussed Redbox in some detail in an article I published in the Canadian Journal of Film Studies, where I linked Redbox’s success, in part, to its ability to cater to families, especially those with young children, while also attempting to map out how Redbox’s cheap rentals (along wit Netflix’s streaming service) were changing the “value” of a copy of a movie. When consumers learn that they can pay a dollar or so for a night’s movie rental, there is little incentive to pay $15-20 for a copy of the film.

But this focus on Redbox’s role in shaping the value of cinematic texts (recall David Bordwell’s argument that “films have become files”) placed too much emphasis on the novelty of that particular company and ignored a number of other past precedents and new practices in automated video vending. Many of the origin stories about Redbox discuss Mitch Lowe’s past failed attempt to create a VHS vending service in the 1980s called Video Droid, but since then, I have been running into a number of other examples of services that have a longish history in both Europe and East Asia. Currently, I am still learning more about some of these services, and if you have any experience with them, I’d appreciate any guidance (in the comments, on Facebook, Twitter, or by email). One of the more dominant services appears to be Cinebank, a video vending machine (some locations called it a “video vestibule”) company operating in Germany, Italy, and Spain. Oddly, it appears that although the machines operate 24 hours a day, you must register in advance and can only do so during certain hours of the day, and in order to register users must provide their finger print. But from what I have been able to tell, Cinebank–or at least the company that manufactures their kiosks–has been in operation since the 1990s.

In other sites, video kiosks appear to be having less success. The British service Rent it Here has been in and out of administration in the last month or so, and from what I can gather, despite some early enthusiasm, another service, The Movie Booth, has also been relatively unsuccessful, but I am still trying to sort out some details there. These also appear to have disappeared, but there were a couple of predecessors to Redbox here in the United States. The most prominent one that I could find was MovieBankUSA, an off-shoot of Cinebank, the European automated video vendor, but unlike Redbox, MovieBank charged $3.50 per rental, and stories about this service also disappear sometime around 2008 or 2009, but like Redbox, the service was promoted as a convenience to consumers, one that was available 24 hours a day. Unlike Redbox, the service gave each member a PIN that could be used to access movies, and the service encouraged parents to create unique PINs for each family member so that their children couldn’t rent inappropriate movie titles. The service also used a “block” system, in which users could pre-pay $50 to get seventy dollars’ worth of rentals. Interestingly, MovieBank targeted not only retail locations but office complexes and apartment buildings. There was also a service in Singapore that also shut down, and like Cinebank, it required a thumbprint, but in the limited discussion I have seen (and much of this is only on Lexis-Nexis, so I can’t link), it sounds like Singapore’s small size, its later business hours, and the vaster selection at video stores (and online) made those options more attractive than kiosks.

There was also an attempt back in 2008 to rent or sell movies using flash drives pioneered by a service called Porto Media. At the time, there was a lot of skepticism regarding the service, and I don’t see any indication that the service ever took off. But in the last few weeks, another service, Digiboo, is attempting to try flash drives again, this time by targeting travelers in airports. I’ve seen a few Redbox kiosks in airports, and it seems that sites of enforced waiting (often without access to wi-fi) such as airports serve as ideal locations for cheap video rentals. Digiboo is quite a bit more expensive for rentals than Redbox, but it allows users the option to purchase, and unlike Porto Media, it benefits from increased processing power, with some downloads taking only about 30 seconds, with Digiboo’s chief marketing officer frequently comparing video vending to buying a bag of M&Ms.

It’s obviously too early to make any predictions about whether Digiboo will function as a useful alternative to Redbox. I know that I don’t often travel with a spare flash drive (although I probably should), but by contrast, I also plan my in-flight reading activity well in advance of any trip that I take, so I am likely not the best judge. What I am trying to uncover is why certain models (Redbox, Cinebank) seem successful while others disappear, often without any media attention whatsoever. Why might some locations and populations be more prepared to embrace kiosks while others are not? It’s easy to dismiss Redbox (and probably other kiosk services) as feeding into “lowest common denominator” entertainment, but rather than seeing kiosks merely as reinforcing the popular, it’s worth asking how they fit into a wider everyday media culture.

While doing research for my second book on the digital distribution of movies, I read with extreme interest David Bordwell’s latest book, Pandora’s Digital Box, a highly-accessible but thoroughly researched text that focuses primarily on how digital projection systems are affecting movie theaters. Although Bordwell touches briefly on the role of video-on-demand and day-and-date distribution, he looks at these practices in order to consider how they feed into the theatrical experience. While Bordwell acknowledges that many of these changes are revolutionary–our concept of “film” is completely transformed and our film production and exhibition practices have changed dramatically–Bordwell is careful to view these changes as being entirely positive or negative; instead, recognizing how much of cinema’s origins have been lost to history, he attempts to offer detailed technical and anecdotal accounts of the digital transition.

All of these changes beg the question: what happens to “film” in a digital age? And here, I think Bordwell’s background in the poetics and the production cultures of filmmaking provides a powerful answer. Film persists, he suggests, in the “craft routines” and the visual language of the medium (215). Those routines may be altered–and some may be rendered automatic–but the 100+ years of making movies on film still speaks to us and through movies in an increasingly digital age.

Bordwell’s book is highly readable, accessible for almost anyone interested in the film industry. As he noted on his blog, he sought to write the book in a “para-academic” style, one that depended on careful inquiry and in-depth research while also using language that will be familiar to non-specialist readers. The book, in keeping with our digital age, is available as a PDF download from his website for $3.99.

Bordwell starts with the premise that, in the digital age, “films have become files” (8) and builds from there to ask what this means for moviemakers, audiences, theater owners and workers, and others who are affected by the film industry. In other words, what happens when movies are reconceptualized as objects that can be accessed on-demand, rather than as material objects that require an elaborate shipping, delivery, and storage system? One answer to this question is that much of the labor associated with movie projection becomes de-skilled and automatized. Rather than skilled, unionized projectionists, projection becomes automatic, handled through a few mouse clicks.

Throughout his career, Bordwell has been attentive to the fact that the movie industry is shaped by relations of power, and this book is no exception. One of the persistent questions that is addressed throughout the book is the issue of how the digital changeover will affect both independent filmmakers and theater owners, whether those spaces are art-house, smart-house, or simply regional mom-and-pop theaters in small towns. As Bordwell suggests, digital projection provides the Hollywood studios and distributors with much greater control over the exhibition process, allowing them to monitor more precisely how often (and even when) a film is shown. He adds that, in the long run, the conversion to digital will provide distributors with significant savings.

For independents, there are other complications. The cost of converting (and then upgrading) equipment makes local, small-scale ownership of theaters more complicated, and Bordwell cites data from National Association of Theater Owners president John Fithian to suggest that hundreds of smaller theaters could close in the wake of digital conversion. Alongside of this discussion, Bordwell traces the changing role of film festivals as “distributors,” an argument that I’ve been exploring from a slightly different angle. As Bordwell notes, digital submissions have allowed for a massive expansion in the number and diversity of festivals. In 1980, he calculates that there were 100 festivals worldwide. By 2008, that number had reached 4,000 (157).

Given that theaters–even the larger commercial chains such as AMC, Regal and Cinemark–had less to gain from digital conversion, Bordwell spends quite a bit of time discussing the negotiations between theater owners and distributors and effectively makes the case that 3D, which was being touted as far back as the 2005 CinemaCon, served as a “Trojan horse” (73-74) that helped  spur the “need” for digital projection. Lured by the promise of ticket surcharges and the textual novelty of movies like Avatar, theaters were ultimately willing to convert, even though the 3D bubble would eventually burst, despite current efforts by James Cameron, Peter Jackson (who is pushing for 48 frames per second projection, rather than the standard 24 fps), and others to promote the format.

I have a couple of other posts percolating right now, including one that will push against some of my ongoing research on rental kiosks, but for now, here are a few links:

• In Media Res is hosting a themed week featuring contributions from several members of the Connected Viewing Initiative. Today’s post from Sharon Strover highlights some of the questions I’ve been thinking about in my own research for book two and in my CVI project with Max Dawson, namely questions about what it means to be an “on-demand user” and how social media sites function as an informal “TV Guide.”
• Ted Hope has a post outlining the ways in which the JOBS Act will affect the practice of crowdfunding that is now commonly used to raise money for independent films.
• This is a few days old, but Bill Murray’s “tour” of the set of Moonrise Kingdom is a great promotion of Wes Anderson’s latest film and a perfect illustration of how Murray has one of the most fascinating star images in Hollywood today. See also Murray’s willingness to give a group of scruffy film fans a “slomo walk,” rather than signing an autograph. And the notorious (and mostly unverifiable) Bill Murray Stories blog.

Still recovering from a busy academic year and some writing deadlines, not to mention some road trips to accompany our host daughter on college visits. It looks like it’s going to be one of those years where I feel hopelessly behind on all things cinematic and televisual, but here are a few of the items I’ve read or watched with interest in recent days:

• Somehow I’d missed the fact that Redbox has acquired Blockbuster Express from NCR (which means that Redbox kiosks will soon replace Blockbuster kiosks in your local Safeways, Publix grocery stores, etc), but the intriguing story here is that Redbox also has plans to start selling movie tickets in its kiosks, a move that might help to build a better relationship with the studios.
• James Poniewozik discusses the uproar over DishTV’s new technology that allows viewers to automatically skip advertisements on prerecorded TV shows. Naturally the networks are upset and have sued Dish, but Poniewozik suggests that the network response will hurt them with consumers down the road. More on the Dish controversy, including speculation that this may be a negotiating tactic designed to reduce retransmission fees.
• The makers of the crowdfunded and crowdsourced Iron Sky are running into complications with maintaining their “outsider” ethos, given that the film’s German distributor has been posting cease-and-desist orders to people pirating content related to the film.
• The buying frenzy at this year’s Cannes Film Festival inspires more discussion of VOD and day-and-date distribution practices, with more of the VOD players calling for splashier, star-driven films for their increasingly crowded catalogs.As Ted Hope suggests, there are no simple answers in this “Saturation Point Era” of movie distribution.
• Jim Emerson offers his own take on Cannes and passes along a fun little video featuring all of the overhead shots used in Wes Anderson’s films. Notably, when Anderson watches the video, he sees all of the labor that went into constructing each shot.

David Bordwell has just announced the release of a new book, Pandora’s Digital Box, a study of the conversion to digital projection in movie theaters. The book amplifies material written in a series of blog posts about the topic and is available through digital download for the low price of $3.99. I’ve profited immensely from Bordwell’s posts on digital projection in some current research I am doing for my second book, both in terms of his discussion of 3D and his analysis of how digital projection may be altering film festivals, so I’m certainly looking forward to diving in to this study.

In the announcement post, Bordwell also discusses the benefits of using the blog to reach film enthusiasts using what he calls a “para-academic” approach, one that feeds neatly into his longer-form writing. It’s a practice that I’ve been neglecting for the last couple of years for a variety of reasons, but as I’ve promised a few times in the recent past, I hope to return to these grounds more often in the future.

Given that I wrote quite a bit about digital projection in my first book, Reinventing Cinema, I feel somewhat obligated to mark the announcement from 20th Century Fox that they will end 35mm film distribution by the end of 2013. It wasn’t hard to predict that this would be the direction that the movie industry would take, but I am somewhat surprised that it happened quite this quickly. But as this Hollywood Reporter article points out, the National Association of Theater Owners now seems to support a total phase out from all studios by the end of 2013.

This move isn’t terribly surprising, and to be honest, I’m not sure that many moviegoers will notice the difference. I still wonder how the digital transition will affect how movies are distributed. Obviously, digital copies are far cheaper than film prints and much easier to deliver, which potentially benefits low-budget and independent filmmakers, but it’s a little less clear how digital projection will work for independent and repertory cinemas. NATO and the studios have pledged to help theaters adapt, but for smaller distributors, the virtual print fees (the subsidies paid by movie distributors to help theaters cover the costs of buying digital projection equipment) may be too expensive, making it more difficult for independent and low-budget films to reach theaters.

There are also some significant problems associated with archiving and preserving digital copies–namely the need to upgrade as digital platforms evolve. There may be some room for optimism here. As this article suggests, digital copies take up significantly less space than film copies, making it easier to store multiple versions of a movie, but given the number of movies that have been lost due to a lack of attention to preservation, it seems important to dedicate some effort to the preservation process.

More than anything, this news is yet another reminder that cinema, like most media, is a medium that is in a constant state of transition, both at the level of aesthetics and economics.