SOme COnclusions and the future

What potential changes will New Media bring to the future of films and film studies? Well to understand the future let us first look at how we got to were we are. Traditional film studies depended on physical film screenings as well as textbooks both of which had problems.

Actual film is very difficult to transport and preserve as well as very costly to purchase. Many interpretations of the scope and nature of film were very biased, based upon the limited amount of films that the interpreter had been able to see. Streaming of video on sites such as Netflix and Youtube have made it possible for more people to see and equally importantly be aware more films than could have been dreamed possible a few decades before. This situation has meant that new film theories have been created as older ones have increasingly been seen as irrelevant; Roland Barthes must be smiling

Traditionally film text focused on directors or actors, while these text were often useful they gave most readers a very narrow knowledge of film.  Sites such as IMDb have allowed those studying film to see every single crew member on a movie they are interested in as well every other film that crew member worked on, this would have been impossible in say 1990.

There are some potential downsides to using New Media for film studies. Twitter allows an instant release of information with little if any filter this can mean real problems if a film crew wants to keep their location secret in order to make shooting easier. Even worse for anonymity is what the recent Wikileaks releases have shown us; if you send something electronically there’s a good chance someone who doesn’t believe it should be confidential might find and release it. 

Mark Twain’s concern over abundance leading to many works being left out of the marketplace is still valid.  While Netflix has been a great site in allowing for the streaming of videos it does have limitations.  You can only view those which films are available, and while the amount a films available for view is enormous it’s not unlimited. Netflix is likely to becoming the model for the industry, so expect emerging sites for movie sales and rental to be increasingly download based. However since the number of movies is growing exponentially it will be impossible to stream every single one of them. So there are still going to be a lot of movies that are forced out and given few alternative methods for distribution.

There is one problem brought on my New Media that may seem like futile nostalgia but I’ll state it anyway; all New Media has the real potential of making seeing a movie in a theatre a very unimportant experience. I know speaking for myself this very true, I’ve seen literally hundreds if not well over a thousand movies but most have been on DVD. Now you can stream movies directly to your TV how much longer till studios start releasing their films in theatres and for streaming on the same day? To me it seems foolish to wish things were different or hope for some past that is long gone. However just as the book has certain positive attributes that can never be replicated by the Kindle seeing a movie streamed onto your TV will never perfectly replace the theatre.[1] So don’t try to bring back the past but maybe burn a candle or at least digitize one for it.

Netflix now allows you to stream films directly not just to your computer but to your TV as well.  All you need is a video game system  (all three majors work), or an approved cable box.  In a few years there is a real possibility most movies will simply be download directly to your cable box or hard drive. I don’t think this process will completely replace going to the theatre but it is coming so we should prepare for it.  We won’t just be getting streamed movies but likely a program similar to the DVD with interviews, trailers and other sorts of extras. We’ll likely be able to for an additional fee send our downloaded movies to other people on the service. So while today transporting movies is costly and difficult involving changing formats and region coding in a few years it will be significantly easier. Today I write to friends in other countries asking them to pick up copies of obscure movies for me which then have to be mailed, in the years they might just send me an attachment.

One thing that will always bother me about most film books is their lack of visuals.  Too many books are obsessed with theory; they spend a brief amount of time summarizing a movie then ramble on about what it means. Wouldn’t it be great if you could just show a clip from the movie you were talking about or better yet the whole film. I wonder how much longer till we start selling a computer program instead of a textbook to study film. A program of this sort could have a multiple movies stored on it, you could read an essay on a film then watch that film immediately and decide if you agree with the essays assessment. Educators could make a program in which they talked about important principles like say lighting; the program would then have available several clips showing the dos and don’ts.

You can be a Luddite if you want to but New Media is here to stay. Some people think this is bad; they feel that New Media will destroy traditional methods of film studies as well as destroying the theatrical experience. There is also concern that even with new methods of distribution being available there still tends to be a handful of very large distributors making a lot of the decisions.

The accusation that New Media could destroy traditional film studies does seem somewhat fanciful considering that it is the same argument that has been used against virtually every technological advancement since at least the book.  As for distributors controlling which films are seen, this is always a problem. Mark Twain had to worry about this situation and it is almost guaranteed that aspiring filmmakers of today will have to worry about it as well; the marketplace no matter how large you make it will always have limits.

All of those who take any interest film studies may have difficulty recognizing it in a few years. Distribution of films otherwise overlooked has allowed film narrative to be rested away from the critics. Every time we see a new movie we have to try and figure out where it fits into the narratives that have been constructed. The more films that are seen, the more they help to show the greater number of flaws in existing narratives. If we are willing to toss out these inaccurate narratives then we may discover New Media has allowed us to gain a true understanding of film. 

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[1] Rich, Motoko Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/books/27reading.html?_r=1  

Moretti and Genre

Film Noir, Blacksploitation, Mondo Film, Jidaigeki, they’re all film genres; they and others have come, gone and even been revived over the past few decades. As Moretti has pointed out studying genres of popular art can often be used to understand social trends in the cultures or nations from which they emerged. Critics have usually controlled film history. Those movies which are considered to be artistically significant get written about the rest get forgotten. The forgotten films are often genre pictures crime, horror, or musical films; often however there are more of the genre films produced and they usually out gross the artistic ones.  New Media more specifically sites such as IMDB, Wikipedia have allowed us to see all the films produced in any country in a given, sometimes even their box office receipts. With such information we can gain a film history controlled not by critics but by the film viewing public.

Moretti’s work encourages us to see how genres come and go over time. Often when critics are busy praising movies they deem artistic they fail to acknowledge the ones they consider mere entertainment. Using some of Moretti’s ideas allow us to gain a better understanding of film, studying not just the movies we liked but the ones which were liked by the general public.  For purposes of this essay I intent to discuss the cinemas of Italy and Russia but specifically Soviet Era films; I feel that while the cinemas of these two countries are widely studied around the world there are many misconceptions which Moretti’s methods and the massive amount of information available through New Media can now begin to remedy.

Italian cinema is often lauded as one of the great film cultures around the world. The Neo-Realist movement is considered the first important movement in post world war two cinema. Additionally directors such as Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni are admired from film schools around the world; while these films are great movies saying that they embody all of Italian film is a gross understatement. Italian cinema also has a long history of popular films in genres like action, crime and horror, this includes popular directors such as Dario Argento and Sergio Corbucci and Genres such as the Spaghetti-Western. Trying to divide art and entertainment has often plagued film studies, however with advances in new media and some of the ideas of Moretti a better understanding may soon be possible.

Let’s use composer Ennio Morricone to show some connections between high and low art in Italian cinema.  If you click the link for his IMDB page I’ve provided you’ll see a rather large career stretching back some fifty years. Now if you click on some of the titles you will see that they stretch the full range of genres from emotional dramas, to brutal crime pictures, to sweeping historical, and some truly gruesome  horror films. Morricone composed scores for films across all genres and as a result his career shows how certain genres came and went. He began composing mostly dramas, as these went into decline he began composing for crime and horror films, when these and Italian film in general went into decline by the 1980s he like many Italians working in the film industry started working in American films, he returned to Italy in the late 1980s when Italian films started to become popular again; this popularity is credited to a film Cinema Paradiso which he composed the music for.

You may find yourself asking how does this tie into Moretti and more importantly how does this all tie to new media. While Moretti seems fascinated by the fact the genres come and go over time with a pretty strong consistency he doesn’t seem that interested in drawing conclusions. His main focus seems to be on creating models or templates through which further study could be done.  By using Ennio Morricone’s career as a starting point we can see the years in which certain genres appeared and others diminished. Taking these dates we can compare them with actual historical events and see if there are any new connections, which can be drawn. None of this would have been possible without sites like IMDB and Wikipedia, they and other sites organize films by composer something that few if any traditional film books do. Directors often (but not always) stick to the genre in which they first find great success; crew people however bounce around going from one genre to the next. Therefore studying the oeuvre of other crew members give you a better idea of the when which genres were doing well and which had ceased to be at different times.

Russia is another nation whose films are often misrepresented by critics and film theorists. A teacher of mine at film school Paul Warner informed me that there were never any action movies made in Soviet Russia and that the majority were art films, he probably never saw the following list. This list shows that a film called Pirates of the Twentieth Century was the most popular Soviet film as far as ticket sales, by the way it was a Kung-Fu film.  If you looked up the articles of all those films which were listed you’d find that four were by the same director Leonid Gaidai; most of Gaidai’s movies were satirical, musical, comedies; imagine a Russian Monty Python.  Now without the list and future lists which will hopefully exists the points which I have tried to make would be impossible to prove. New Media allows film historians to see which films and more specifically which genres actually were popular instead being forced to believe the statements of ill-informed film professors and historians.

Moretti’s theories on genre present some truly fascinating opportunities when applied to genre. We are being increasingly able to see when certain film genres first appeared as well as when they went into decline. A few years ago researching Italian or Russian film in such a way would have required 50-100 books most of which weren’t in English. Today it can be done in a variety of languages thanks to a few websites. Another method created by all this studying of genre is studying box-office receipts; such studies like the one I linked allow us to see what actual people were going to see this gives us a much better perception of how film was viewed by a culture. While Moretti’s books doesn’t really discuss financial success of genres I feel that using such information follows Moretti’s spirit by using a piece of typically ignored data to try and understand historical trends. By studying genres we can gain a better understanding of how film has actually evolved not how critics would have liked it to. This understanding would have been impossible without New Media. 

To Tweet or not to Tweet

Twitter, whether you love it or loathe it, the service and its seemingly ever-present 140 character messages are here to stay. For future generations studying film this presents a real possible Boon. Imagine not just reading about a director or actor’s opinion on a film but having their exact words. However Rosenzweig warned such a situation could easily lead to unimportant information obscuring, that which is actually useful to historians. Another problem, for film production at least is that information can be disseminated so quickly; film productions like to keep as much as possible under wraps, and twitter is likely to make this job more difficult than ever before. Most of the opinions on twitter seem to over praise or over scorn it; while I find myself more often in the later camp I can’t say I know for sure because it will be many years before we can truly assess the impact. Twitter has been around less than ten years, but it’s very clear if one reads a newspaper magazine, or news site that it as well as other new media is changing the way information is released and received.  Much as the book altered the way altered human ideas of knowledge and memory by making knowledge permanent and transportable twitter alters knowledge by making it immediate.

The press, in particular film critics has often been a big frustration for filmmakers over the years. A bad review of a film or a story detailing a troubled production in a major newspaper or magazine can destroy a film’s chances before it even gets to theatres. As a result of this most major studios keep extremely tight controls on their production hoping to prevent any bad publicity. Twitter means a harsh review could be handed out for a movie while a critic is still viewing it, imagine a website being set up so that you could see the audiences opinion of a movie as they are watching it. Another problem is that because twitter is so public the anonymity and secrecy some film crews need to do their work is becoming increasingly more difficult. Film crews have often gone to great lengths to hide their production, the crew of Return of the Jedi created the fake film Blue Harvest that appeared on all official production materials.

With Twitter the cat is often out of the bag, a friend of mine from film school who worked on the film Fair Game related to me a story of a specific incident involving twitter. While the Fair Game crew was in New York the needed to film a scene that required a mostly empty street, they spent a week location scouting and found a street that would be empty at the time of day they needed, they gathered the crew necessary and went to the location. Several photographers and film fans greeted them; this cost the production around 10,000 extra that day alone. It seems a production assistant excited to be working on his first feature decided to mention the location in his twitter account; he was fired and the rest of the crew was strictly warned against future events. Such leaks have always been a problem on film sets and thanks to twitter the problem is only likely to be amplified exponentially. One could try and prevent this but to do so you would likely have to shut down the Internet so best of luck.[1]

Well just so you don’t think my whole intent is to be harsh on twitter, I have thought of some positives. Twitter because it is instant and archived allows to know things in real time, for future generations it makes it infinitely easier to know what historically important directors and actors were thinking; as well as how their actions were viewed by their peers. It also gives potential future archivists a lot of material to work with; provided the filmmakers of today are tweeting.

Another great feature of twitter is that anyone can use it; while presently this may mean a lot of information of questionable value a few years from now the gains are potentially enormous. Most directors and actors began their careers at the bottom of the industry totem pole; for aspiring directors this means the position of production assistant, for actors being an extra. Now most people working on a film today will not become a famous director or actress but some will, wouldn’t it be great 30 or 40 years from now to find out what they were thinking as they began their career?

So is Twitter a good or negative force for film? Well I don’t think one can say either way definitively since there is decent evidence for both sides. On the negative side critics now have more power then ever to destroy the work of hundreds with just a few characters. Additionally crews filming on location now have to worry about every single crewmember becoming a possible albeit an unintentional leak to the press.  Finally while Twitter does allow for a nearly unlimited amount of tweets to be stored such abundance can as our readings this year have shown lead to unimportant information crowding over that which is useful.

On the plus side archiving will open up many possibilities for future historians. Instead of having to track down actors and crew members hoping that they have a good memory of a film the worked on Twenty or more years before you now can have their exact words.  We also have the words of people who today might not be that important to the film industry but in a few decades could be up for an Oscar.  The main difficulty with studying Twitter is that it’s reasonably new and we really can’t tell how much of an impact it will have in the future, but we can be sure someone will tweet about that impact whatever it may be.

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[1] Twitter/LoC archive, http://sexdrugsandintellectualfreedom.com/2010/04/22/twitterloc-part-i/ retrieved 12/08/2010.

The Death of the Autuer

 In 1968 the philosopher Roland Barthes predicated the death of the author. He wasn’t talking about an Agatha Christie novel but was stating that he felt an author’s biography should be of less importance than their bibliography. In Barthes’ mind too often people’s interpretations of an Author’s work were clouded by what they knew of that author’s life. He hoped that over time people would break away from this trend, relying solely upon a work’s content and no outside sources when writing about it. 

New media has made the late Frenchman’s dream both further away and closer than ever. If you try and read up on a film in a scholarly work after the plot the first piece of information you will be given is the director’s bio, if it’s an entertainment magazine the first piece will be the actors’ bios. However anonymous artists have emerged in literature and music so with all the possibilities for production and distribution why couldn’t one emerge in film?

Ever heard of Thomas Pynchon or The Residents? The first is a writer most English majors have attempted to analyze at some point, the second is one of the more bizarre bands you are ever likely to encounter. Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow is one of those books which every English student has been reading or trying to read since it was first published in 1972.  However despite the notoriety of his work very little information on Thomas Pynchon exists; most photos of him date from the 1950’s and he almost never grants interviews.  He’s had two cameos on the Simpsons in which he is depicted as man with a bag over his head that has a question mark on it. For close to forty years The Residents have been using every single advancement in recording technology from videotape to the Internet. They have consistently expanded their art without compromising their identities.  Now if anonymous artists can exist in literature and music why not film? Today thanks to digital recording, editing, and distribution one can make a movie almost anywhere in the world. While the Anonymous Director has yet to arrive they may be only a few years away.

While the Internet may one day provide for an anonymous author at the present state such an idea seems like only a pipe dream. Countless books and now websites devoted to film spend most of their time discussing the biographies or off-screen dramas of the people who make the films.  Many movies today are marketed based on the eccentricity of their director or the off screen drama of their costars. With such a huge side industry in magazines like Entertainment Weekly or sites like TMZ it seems the Author will be here for some time to stay.

Auteur is a word associated with a group of Frenchmen Roland Barthes did not belong to, the New Wave. Their Auteur theory held that when studying a film the most important piece of information to consider is the director.  This theory has come dominate film studies both in schools and texts. However with the information available via sources like IMDB and Wikipedia one can now know about other contributors to a movie besides the director.

Let’s uses the Film Taxi Driver as an example, in 1976 it one of film’s highest awards the Palme D’or at Cannes.  The career of the Film’s director Martin Scorcese really took off after this; film four years later he directed Raging Bull, which many consider his best picture. However a few clicks through Wikipedia shows both of these films had the same writer (Paul Schrader) and the same Cinematographer (Michael Chapman). Keep searching and you’ll discover these two men worked on another movie, 1979’s Neo-Noir Thriller Hardcore. When writing about Taxi Driver and Raging Bull could one not write a book or article on the works of Paul Schrader and Michael Chapman? Before the age of Hyperlinks almost all works film works focused on the director, however now lists of the entire Oeuvre of Editors, Writers, even Costume Designers is available at one’s finger tips.  It’s hard to know what this will mean for the future, but you can be certain with easy access to information future films students will seem ill informed if all they know is a film’s director.

Well, as Barthes died in 1980 it’s impossible to know what he would have thought of the Internet and other forms of new media. Certainly the author is quite alive and well since by now it is even easier to get a film director’s biography. So many people involved in the making and distribution of a film know news stories particularly controversial one sell movie tickets; until this trend ends directors and actors will continue to act crazy knowing that whenever their antics are reported on it can potentially fatten their bank account.

However there will always be those artists who for one reason or another chose to keep their biographies a mystery. Anonymous artists have emerged in literature and music and continue to do so. Since New Media in the form of streaming sites like Youtube make media content easier to distribute anonymously one should expect that not just anonymous directors but fully anonymous films could be around the corner. The death of the Auteur which Barthes may very well of predicted had he lived longer and studied film, seems to be very soon at hand. 

The importance of streaming

Streaming has changed film studies and production by making many existing habits of filmmakers easier than ever. Viewing older films and referencing them in newer ones, throughout the history of film it’s been the backbone of the industry. The process allows up and coming filmmakers whether they are aspiring editors, set designers, or directors to see what had worked and what hasn’t throughout the history of film. Additionally rediscovery of older films has meant that many filmmakers who were passed over or ignored when they were first working might at last receive their long deserved notoriety or compensation. Finally having films streamed means that you don’t need to have a hard copy of a film in order to study it or present the film to others. This presents a leap forward meaning that many of the frustration of transporting a film may soon be a thing of the past. 

Streaming of films has potential drawbacks as well as advantages. I might lead to a situation in which the marketplace as well as the academic sphere is overcrowded with a few select films.[1] Many advantages may also exists and having more information exposed to more people for analyze often leads to improve methods of studying history.[2] I feel that since we can’t reverse time we should take advantage

Some films like Citizen Kane or Godzilla owe their fame to being referenced Hundreds if not thousands of times in film and television. However what was referenced is greatly controlled by what is seen. Citizen Kane was loved by many critics on its release, and has been appearing on 100 best film list ever since; basically if you go to film school your going to have to see it. But what happens if a film wasn’t loved right away? Well a few years ago Youtube appeared and soon afterwards Netflix began offering streaming video. This abundance of information while it may sound like a boon can easily be a burden. 

Roy Rosenzweig pointed out in the article we read this semester how it’s very easy for low quality or unimportant information to become the predominate one; when everything is available it can often make that little bit which is important seem irrelevant.[3] Mark Twain had also warned in the Copyright book how the abundance of cheap works can often mean that the same works keep getting pushed to the forefront and that many lesser known but equally quality works fail to get seen and are forgotten over time.

Streaming means that now you can watch any movie you want regardless of its obscurity. You also have no need to return, rewind, or store any of the movies you purchase. This combination means that as soon as you read or hear about an important scene of a film you can probably find that clip on youtube sometimes the whole movie; and with Netflix ever expanding their library it is often possible to view the entire film.

Well the immediate advantages to streaming video are obvious; one can see infinitely more clips faster than ever and obscure films are more easily able to enter the public consciousness. Orson Welles’ 1956 film Touch of Evil is often credited with one of the best openings in Film Noir. The scene consists of a single take in which a bomb is planted in a car then driven across the Mexican border where it explodes. You can view the scene here, pretty impressive, and you didn’t have to even purchase the DVD. Joe Dante the director of movies such as Gremlins has often credited the film Hellzapoppin with many of his ideas; he has stated he can use it because so few people can see the film, until now. So with just a few clicks and a little patience the filmmakers of today can see all the good stuff of a film.  No longer is one’s knowledge limited by the films you can afford to purchase, or those that your school and library can afford to carry. Hundreds of thousands of clips as well as the ideas which they inspire are now available for easy access to all.

Another upside to streaming of video clips on youtube is that sometimes it can lead to discoveries of lost gems.  L’important C’est Daimer and House were two of the more enjoyable and frankly more insane movies I saw last year. However I had been trying to see each of them for years before that; I wanted to see L’important after viewing the documentary Z-Channel A Magnificent Obsession which spends more than five minutes telling you how great it is, and House after reading about it in virtually every book which discusses Japanese Horror Movies. Both films while financially successful in their native countries (France and Japan) so bewildered critics that they never received much release in the United States.  However in the past view years, youtube clips began appearing of the movies. This meant film fans started clamoring for their releases and both films and distributors followed their lead and both films are now available on DVD.

Even as recently as twenty years ago film books would contain articles in which the author had to reveal they weren’t sure of plot points in films. This was understandable considering the restraints critics were often under; it wasn’t uncommon for film historians to have to travel to foreign nations to see films they wished to write about. This often meant seeing the film once in a theatre and the print qualities varied wildly.  With streaming of video, quality is guaranteed and the print doesn’t wear out; videocassettes had major problems in both areas. Additionally since one can watch streaming videos wherever and whenever they want they can review a film several times to be sure they have all the plot points and other details correct.  Imagine the possibilities if film archives of countries like the United States or Japan digitized their entire libraries. Directors, Actors, even Genres could be rediscovered, this could lead to fundamental changes in the way many nations film cultures are studied.[4]

The main downside to such an abundance of information is that is doesn’t always lead to quality. Perhaps Roy Rosenzweig discussed it best when he described the debate between scarcity and abundance. Having access to such a large amount of film and film clips doesn’t really insure that you’re going to see or incorporate the best ones. Aspiring directors always want to do the most elaborate shots possible whether or not this is for the best of the film.

While I was at film school the teachers all warned the students not to focus too much of their energy on flashy shots.  However if I remember, well at least what I can still remember (hehe) most of us were showing youtube clips to one another before the shoot. In my case this lead to a series of spectacular failures, for most of my peers it meant films that looked great visually and made little if any sense logically.  Perhaps if more people watched full films and understood how elaborate shots work in the context of films they would produce more works of importance.

Access to large amount of streaming films and film clips has advantages and drawbacks which are slowly starting to emerge. On the plus side some directors such as Robert Rodriguez of Desperado and Spy Kids fame post clips showing younger filmmakers how to make films look better on a lower budget; here’s a clip where he shows how he did the effects for Once Upon a Time in Mexico.  However many critics have begun to blame this preponderance of streaming clips for today’s film having to many quick cuts and a focus on style over substance. My father put it best “all these filmmakers today focus on trying to do all these fancy shots, they never focus on writing a better story.”

In the end however I believe that changes, which are happening in film studies and production, are positive as a whole. Historians whether they are of film or architecture can only be benefit when they are exposed to more works and more views.[5] Streaming will ultimately allow those voices in film studies which had traditionally been put to side a true chance to shine.

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[1] Rosenzweig, Roy, Scarcity or Abundance? Preserving the Past in a Digital Era. http://chnm.gmu.edu/essays-on-history-new-media/essays/?essayid=6 retrieved 12/08/2010

[2] Cohen, Daniel J, The Future of Preserving the Past. http://prototext.org/clio/fall-2010/future_of_preserving_the_past.pdf Retrieved 12/08/2010

[3] Rosenzweig, Roy

[4] Cohen, Daniel J.

[5] Cohen, Daniel J. 

Welcome to My Blog

1. Intro

The rise of New Media particularly the Internet over the past two decades has forever changed the face of film.[1] New ways have been developed to view, produce, and even distribute film, which would have seemed like science fiction 30 years ago. This has lead to some real upsides such as streaming video helping to get lesser known or forgotten filmmakers exposed to the wider world; it also may help many realize the importance of all the members of the crew on a film not just the director. The use of hyperlinks allows us to seamlessly combine a text discussing a film with clips of the film or even the film in its entirety.

New Media can also have some serious negative impacts upon film. Roy Rosenzweig and Mark Twain both warned that an abundance of material can often lead to a few works on limited quality becoming ones which eclipse all others in terms of visibility.[2] Twitter has meant instant publicity for films along with instant criticism. Roland Barthes’ concerns regarding the difference between the biography of an artist an their work are still just as valid.[3]  Wikipedia and countless other sites have guaranteed that many film fans, students, and professionals can know everything about the lives of a films crew and stars before the film even premieres. However because it is now possible to know the biography and Oeuvre of nearly every single crewmember the time of death for the Auteur may be close at hand.

What does the future hold? Well in all likelihood most of the methods we are using today such as the auteur theory may very soon seem irrelevant. Film fans, students as well as aspiring filmmakers are now in a position where it becomes truly possible to understand the real scope of film. We can now view and be aware of just how many films exist all around the world. Even more important is that it is now possible to show just how many people are required to make a film possible; it also easier than ever to explain to a layperson what each of these jobs do. Film will continue to evolve as each new technology emerges, however new media has changed film forever in specific way which I hope to share with all who read this blog.

Now before you begin to read one quick favor, check out the hyperlinks! A large portion of what I am writing about discusses the impact of being able to read about a film and see the film at the same time. I’ve done my best to set up this blog so that you can do both and I sincerely hope that you will.

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[1] Ayers, Edward L. The Pasts and Futures of Digital History, http://www.vcdh.virginia.edu/PastsFutures.html retrieved 12/08/2010

[2] Vaidhyanthan, Siva, Copyrights and Copywrongs, New York University Press 2003, pgs 55-80

[3] Barthes, Roland, The Death of the Author http://www.ubu.com/aspen/aspen5and6/threeEssays.html#barthes, retrieved 12/08/210