Finding the "missing" talent in a technology-rich present

Filmmaker David Schmüdde wrote at Beyond The Frame about director Peter Webber’s latest post for Directors.UK.com. Webber discussed film and technology in his entry, The Newest New Wave; he lamented that in spite of the quantity and quality of technology available today, new filmmaking genius has not emerged:

“…there is a limit to what can be expected from this democratisation of the means of film production. The most important commodity in all of this is not in fact the technology but the talent.”

Director Aaron Stewart-Ahn’s recent comments informed Webber’s post:

"...we don’t see films as brave, funny, entertaining, ambitious or unashamedly intellectual as the ones they [Godard, Coutard] made together....Nowadays there seems to be an overall diminution of ambition, an unfortunate limiting of horizons."

Is this true? It may be more accurate to say we’re prevented from seeing clearly the heirs of Godard/Coutard:
1) The US is now a culture of amateurs. Anybody with a digital camera/videocam, camera phone, tablet with camera--but without any additional training--is a potential creator of video for publication/distribution. Much of what appears in public online video repositories is produced by the untrained but highly motivated user. It may not look like the product of seasoned creators.
2) Education in the US places a premium on analysis (and not storytelling) in preparation for the workplace, not on analysis for the creation of better art. However, analysis is taught, and it may yield content that looks very different from Godard/Coutard's generation. What narrative emerges will also look very different.
3) Venues for sharing/publication/distribution like YouTube and Vimeo receive and warehouse so much content that it's unfathomable how even the existing film industry could drink from this firehouse and find satiation. There's just so much content that it swamps whatever is really good; how do we find the needle in the haystack?
4) Success breeds contempt; The Blair Witch Project neutralized the indie creator space for quite some time. Commercially-funded cinema has mimicked independent film to the point of discouragement (see Cloverfield [2008] for the use of cinéma vérité complete with jump cuts as an example, applied in a sci-fi/fantasy production). The product of blowback against earlier real and faux indie efforts may look quite different as it rebels against past success.

Entertainment Industry and the Truth About Information: It's the Experience, Stupid

I’ve been stewing over a post by Steve Blank retweeted earlier today by director Peter Webber. Blank discusses the reason why the movie industry can’t innovate, pointing to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) as one of the firewalls the movie industry bought to prevent incursion on the industry’s intellectual property.
SOPA is a cheap method for the industry to avoid more expensive innovation and take a less risky action: sue the fuck out of anybody who might find a way to tweak their output and make yet another product, especially products from which they can’t reliably draw income. Bottom line, it’s not about creativity or protecting it; SOPA is about protecting monetary turf on the cheap while avoiding any expense-incurring risk.
But the movie industry will have to deal with reality sooner or later--better now, while the current business model still brings in tons of money as Steve Blank pointed out. They can afford the luxury of experimentation to the benefit of their shareholders, versus later when the truth becomes crystal clear to the public.
The truth, which all industries built on replicable human knowledge must face, is that information is a commodity in the age of the internet. It wants to move freely, and it will. For most of human history, information was corralled and controlled; money could be extracted by gatekeepers who controlled the medium. In the age of the internet, gatekeepers no longer have control. Networks attached to the internet are leaky--and information will take advantage of these leaks to move as it’s like air, hard to maintain in a vacuum of any scale. [cont'd.]

Refinery29.com and the fall of western women's civilization spawned by Twilight -- Not

There've been a rash of opinion pieces all over the internet bashing the Twilight saga. Some make effective points; most don't, like the latest at Refinery29.com. It reads like a piece one might pull out of their butt to make a managing editor happy by driving up traffic through angered readers. (Believe me, I'm quite familiar with this kind of crap as a former managing editor--been there, applauded it.)
This particular piece was so thin and inflammatory that it deserved a comment. Here's what I posted:
__________
Bottomline, Neha Gandhi argues this kind of modern myth is bad for US culture, right? We can ignore the fact that other cultures have built entire religions and ethical foundations on similar archetypes, yes?
We should just ignore the fact that billions (yes, with a B) of Indians, Nepalese and other near-Asian peoples over the past 2000+ years have enjoyed the epic Ramayana, whose god Rama and demigod/avatar Hanuman share characteristics similar to Edward Cullen and other male members of his family. Here's Jambavantha (a supporting character in the Ramayana) reminding Hanuman of his powers:

You are as powerful as the wind;
You are intelligent, illustrious & an inventor.
There is nothing in this world that’s too difficult for you;
Whenever stuck, you are the one who can help.

Yeah, the super-intelligent, incredibly strong, psychic immortal Edward, right there -- virtually another avatar of Rama/Hanuman.
And what of Sita, Rama's wife? An "abandoned child" or "orphan child" archetype, she's not unlike Bella in that they share rather thin parental oversight. She's supposed to model all that is the epitome of virtuous femininity as a model wife, although under threat from outside forces she cannot control (like kidnapping by god Ravana).
The Ramayana isn't the only mythic epic with parallels in the Twilight saga. One could make the case that many of our familiar fairy tales, Disney-fied for our modern western consumption, offer very similar archetypal models. But nobody's pointing out that Snow White--who lives unmothered and selflessly for seven little men while waiting for a prince to rescue her from evil--offers a similarly "bad" and eerily similar model of femininity as Bella does in the Twilight saga.'
Heck, no, let's not dig too deep there at the risk of pissing off Disney's lawyers, or hurting access to the actors, director and production companies behind the impending Snow White and the Huntsman.
Myths have been critical to the formation of human culture including its ethos since humans could tell stories. We've survived these many incarnations of the same archetypal models of masculinity and femininity for thousands of years. Yet this op-ed proposes young American women are suddenly going to emulate crappy models of femininity because of one author's myth-like books? Yeah. I don't get it. Weakly argued.
[Comment originally posted at: http://www.refinery29.com/twilight-breaking-dawn-bella-swan-role-model#commen...]

Fan Fiction Story Translation Policy

I've received requests to translate my stories in languages other than English, in which I draft my works.

At this time translations are NOT authorized for the following reasons:

-- English is my primary language; I am not prepared to do a thorough job of auditing translated works for their faithful duplication of the original work.

-- I am not prepared to audit the translators for performance if more than one request is made for a single non-English language.

-- Translators' work is voluntary and uncompensated, and therefore completely at the whim of the translator; I cannot assure that translation work will be completed fully and on a timely basis for readers of my work.

I'm very sorry for the inconvenience this causes my readers whose first language is not English.

Thank you for understanding.

Book Club: Ulysses, by James Joyce

I'm participating in the 1Book140 book club reading of Ulysses by James Joyce. This is a massive undertaking, in part because the book is so dense and chewy, and in part because there's so much material out there to read about this classic.
[Note: 1book140 is a monthly online book club hosted by Jeff Howe and The Atlantic. The November 2011 selection is Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. More about the book club's launch at this link. To join the book club (whether you choose to read Ulysses or not), use this link.]
I expect to write from time to time about Ulysses and the experience of reading it with a virtual book club. If you have any interest in Ulysses or are interested in joining along with the book club, the following resources may be of use to you:
Some additional resources:
Ulysses eBook - Project Gutenberg
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4300
Multiple formats available; keep in mind that this work is still under copyright in the EU into 2012. The HTML version does not provide breaks or headings at points where previous Episode ends and a new one begins.
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Ulysses (novel) - Wikipedia entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_(novel)
Worth reading for the history, context and outlines, overview of Episodes.
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Ulysses in a Nutshell (Shmoop-based summaries and analysis)
http://www.shmoop.com/ulysses-joyce/
Note the links to Intro and each of the Episodes; each Episode has both a summary and an analysis.
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Ulysses audiobook - Archive.org
http://www.archive.org/details/Ulysses-Audiobook
Note downloadable versions as well as embedded player; the downloads and player are divided by episode.
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Ulysses audiobook - LibriVox.org
http://librivox.org/ulysses-by-james-joyce/
Compare and contrast with the Archive.org version which has near-commercial production values. Also note backstory about LibriVox's production at:
http://librivox.org/2009/11/22/about-that-ulysses-recording/
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Twitter tags: Book Club, Ulysses - #occupyulysses Book Club, all - #1book140
It's worth noting that Ulysses was written over a seven-year span. It may not be unreasonable to think it will take as long to fully grasp this work.

Increase readership through improved promotion

Fan fiction authors are frequently concerned about increasing readership of their creative writing. Sometimes they are driven to stroke their ego through traffic; sometimes they'd like more feedback to improve their writing. Writers often want to increase their name recognition, too, in advance of publication of  non-fan original works of fiction.

Whatever the motive, fan fiction authors need to understand the existence of a critical ratio -- the comments per post ratio. Only a small percentage of persons who read a blog post will actually take the time to comment. This percentage is even smaller than the number of visitors; remember that some traffic to any URL is accidental or drive-by and will only skim, not read any content at the URL.

This same ratio exists for ANY site on the internet, whether a Facebook page or a Twitter account. It also applies to any works of self-published fiction, fan or otherwise. 

To understand more about this ratio, see this article: Ratio Analysis for Bloggers 2-Comments per Post Ratio

It's also important to understand that even the very best of products, from Apple brand electronics to fast food hamburgers, will not become popular if they are not promoted. By promotion we mean placed in a way that potential customers see them, become aware of and interested in trying the products. Companies use a combination of tools to this end, including advertising and placement of product in key locations; it's no accident that popular cereals, for example, are on the grocery store shelves right at your eye level where you can readily see and reach for them. That's a deliberate effort to make the product available to you.

Yes, you may already have self-promoted your work through your own blog, Twitter or Facebook account. If your readership at those sites is proportionally small, this will not increase traffic or widen interest among new visitors. You'll have to stretch a little more for effective promotion.

In the blog world, promotion can take the form of links at other blog and websites, including actual advertising. It may also take the form of recommendations by key personalities who have popular blog/websites. 

If you are trying to increase readership of your creative writing, whether works of fan or original fiction, you'll want to identify sites which are geared toward promotion of your work. In the Twilight fan fiction fandom community, the following sites are frequently used to promote fanfic:

http://www.thetwilightawards.com/

http://www.twiwrite.net/

http://twinetwork.wordpress.com/

http://twificdatabase.blogspot.com/

http://tweetafic.blogspot.com/

http://www.indieficpimp.blogspot.com

http://www.fictionators.com/

http://www.twilightficzone.blogspot.com

http://www.twimuses.com/

Another method of promotion is posting about your works at community sites popular in the fandom, like A Different Forest. Submitting appropriate works as requested by other fandom sites may also help, like Perv Pack's Smut Shack or The Lemonade Stand (in these two examples, content is for mature audience and works must be M-rated).

One other option is participation in popular awards as the awards sites will help with promotion of your work. Two examples for the Twilight fan fiction community are:

http://emergingswanawards.blogspot.com/

http://www.avantgardeawards.com/

Authors may also want to consider participation in charitable events like Fandom Gives Back. By contributing a small work of fiction under the event's guidelines, authors may reach a new and wider audience and increase readership of their other earlier and future works.

Take careful note of the most popular works of fiction and their authors. How are those works and writers being promoted? They may offer additional education about effective promotion through a little research into their outreach efforts. You may find that some do not have any presence on Facebook and/or Twitter but only have a fan fiction account. Look carefully at what works to make them popular.

Lastly, it's important to remember that readers want to experience quality works  and will help increase readership by word if they enjoy a particular piece of writing. As an author it's important to remember that if you focus on the quality of the content itself and treat reasoned critiques respectfully in order to improve your work, readers will be more likely to both enjoy and assist in promoting your work. 

There are untold numbers of unsuccessful products pulled from the shelves which didn't make potential customers happy enough to buy the product, in spite of massive ad campaigns. Works of creative writing may be no different than these commercial products.

Writing purely for the sake of increasing traffic isn't enough to actually increase traffic; readers want something worth the investment of their time, whether to stop and read or make the greater effort to comment. Give them real value, something worth their time which piques their interest and entertains them -- or all the promotional efforts in the world won't make a difference.

The inevitable question: Why hang out here?

Any time now somebody is going to ask me the question.

Why the hell are you here in fan fiction?

Or a variant on the question, delivered with a smirk and/or a snort:

Why the hell are you here in Twilight fan fiction, of all places?

Yeah, I know. They won't ask me to my face why an intelligent woman of my age, education, background, and status is hanging out in what looks like a pop cult centered on unrequited teen desires.

But I'll answer their questions, both the open ones and the unspoken ones.

First, fan fiction is a great way to take a plunge into creative writing. One can take short cuts on character development and concentrate on construction of a story arc, development of themes, tone and language usage while extending pre-developed characters. (It's a win-win for published authors whose characters are used as springboards since fan fiction sustains interest in their works.)

For someone like me whose body of writing has been nonfiction for more than eight years, this is a real treat -- a cheat of sorts to help me get the bugs worked out of writing fiction before I concentrate on an actual non-fan fiction novel.

Secondly, fan fiction as a whole is very, VERY open and diverse, extremely liberal. For example, authors and readers alike are willing to explore a spectrum of expression in human sexuality and through a virtually unlimited range of scenarios. Topics from poverty to infertility to global politics are plumbed by authors whose backgrounds are as varied and in many cases highly knowledgeable about the topics they use in their work. This openness is a strong fit with my personal values; it feels like home. I don't have to compromise while exploring creative writing.

Thirdly, with specific regard to Twilight fan fiction -- there is an enormous concentration of creative feminine energy. It boggles the mind how many well-read and creative women offer up their hobby writing for free. There aren't many places where women can congregate in these numbers and work so freely in tandem or collaboratively on creative projects.

Fourthly, the Twilight fan fiction community is extremely supportive in a way that the next largest fan fiction community is not. It's not absolutely clear that this is a result of the overwhelmingly female percentage of participants, but it's hard not to think that this is a factor when the most active proponents of other women's work are women themselves. They've developed networks and social media tools to flack their fiction works, and in some cases the promotional efforts have led directly to print publishing for profit.

Lastly, fan fiction is a really tremendous place to learn not only about writing but getting one's works published. The social networks entwined around fan fiction are linked to book agents, published authors and publishers, so many of whom are willing to share information about getting published.

So that's it, in a nutshell, the reasons why I allow myself to pigeonholed with those folks. Yeah, we know outsiders look askance at us and point fingers, snigger and refer to us as if we have a third eye in our foreheads. But they don't get it and likely won't; when they cough up money for a published work written by someone who once dabbled in fan fiction, maybe they will clue in.