Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Jon, I think that answers most of your question, but for the personal
part: If I get a screener, or I'm backwatching, I'll use my computer,
the same one I'm typing on (MacBook > Dell flat screen).  Otherwise, I
use the wonderfully boxy, seventh-generation rear-projection 55-incher
in the TV room with the DVR and the VCR and the DVD and ... a couple
other boxes I forget what they do stacked on top.  I bought that thing
in 2001 and it was a floor model, $1800.  They said the bulb would
probably burn out sooner because it had been a floor model.  Still
hasn't burned out.  Neither have I.
  

    
(I say seventh-gen, but I'm just referring to its rear-projectionism.
The set is HD.)
  

    
I wanted to ask about the rise of reality TV.  How have reality shows
changed us?
  

    
Thanks for that <25> Aaron...I'm surprised.  I haven't had a TV for
many years and would have thought others were moving away from it.
Apparently not.  So everything will be more interwoven with all the new
devices and delivery systems.  Like your "there's an 'att' for that,
sort of like the iPhone's "there's and app for that". 

Watching Cinderella on VCR at my 4 year old grandaughter's house today
and she was playing with my iPhone and texting at the same time.
Amazing!
  

    
If the technology is changing so much how do you see the advertising
adapting?  The way you describe it TV will still be a broadcasting
media. If you still have little kids, but they drop out or migrate to
something else for a while, what will happen to developing audiences?
  

    
I hope we didn't piss you off Aaron, or that you don't have the time
to keep this conversation going.
  

    
Greetings from New Orleans, where the carefree nature of life
apparently extends to visitors with online commitments.

Gail, it is obvious that reality TV has changed almost every aspect of
televised storytelling.  The inexpensive, handheld technology that
makes $5,000 MTV pilots possible have allowed cable networks to ramp up
their original programming enormously.  

The "realism" or perceived realism of reality TV has impacted
everything from newsmagazines to soaps to one-hour dramas.  The
youngest adult audience is the one most likely to watch reality TV, so
even scripted shows must begin to take on a more "realistic" look and
feel or be left behind.

Perhaps no genre has been more impacted by reality TV than the
half-hour comedy, which has been taken over by improvised and
semi-scripted models (exception: CBS).

Reality TV has broken down the wall between Hollywood and the rest of
America.  Not only do tens of thousands of Americans try out every year
for the shows, but the shows are increasingly being produced where the
producers live, not in L.A.   We even have a successful producer in
suburban KC who just got her third series greenlit this week.

But I think the biggest impact of reality TV on American culture is
that most Americans have a hard time telling it from documentary. 
There is a whole spectrum of nonfiction storytelling, from the extreme
manipulation of shows like MY LIFE AS LIZ, a fiction spun out of
reality video, to something like GREENSBURG, which tells a mostly true
story about a town rebuilding but takes great liberty with the fact, to
a docu with a strong POV like CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY to a more
straightforward docu like one we watched last night about the
Vietnamese community post-Katrina in New Orleans.

Most Americans can't distinguish between these types, and that makes
Americans more vulnerable than ever to video manipulation, especially
the younger viewers who fancy themselves jaded but are, in fact, the
most accepting and voracious consumers of reality TV.  Whether it's
rallying support for a war, or using reality-type commercials (as Obama
does) to push your programs, there is a merging of TV and real life
such as we've never seen before, and I suspect the person who most
masterfully fuses them together to terrifying effect is not even out of
diapers yet.
  

    
<dlwilson>, as I said above, advertising has had time to adapt to
DVRs, which was its most active threat.  As for these other media, they
can control exactly when and how their announcements appear.  Short
term, revenues will take a hit, but long term the industry will figure
out how to bring back the ATM (if it ever went away).
  

    

At the back of Aaron's book, was a list of 100 best TV shows of the
last 15 years. I was surprised at how many I had not seen. But I guage
how much I love shows by how much I want to own the DVDs when they come
out. I own:

West Wing, the first two seasons
Sex and the City, the whole series
Picket Fences, several seasons
Northern Exposure various seasons

I spent many hours of chemo transfusions watching the West Wing. It
was great for taking my mind off of the present. When Northern Exposure
was on cable I loved most every episode before Rob Morrow left and
used to get the episodes, in order, from Netflix. Also loved My
So-Called Life and got all the episodes from Netflix and watched them
again. Some of Star Trek: The Next Generation holds up nicely too. SO
what TV series do you own on DVD? or which ones to you rent from
Netflix?
  

    
I own The Wire and Oz, mostly because I missed most of them on TV.  I
still need to catch up on Oz.
  

    
Doesn't this indicate that our television viewing behavior is
changing?

I was over TV after the Rockford Files closed down.  Then came the
ability to watch entire series and seasons on DVD.  Suddenly I could
catch up on The Sopranos, The Wire, Dexter, Damages etc.

There is a continuum of quality of the various series ranging from
high concept serious through entertainment to outright exploitation. 
Then there seems to be a new set of categories: critically acclaimed,
popular, acclaimed but low ratings, low but continued, low but canceled
etc.

I find myself watching the high concept series one episode after
another.  Same with trashy guilty pleasures. Can't get enough of them
when they hook me. The more pedestrian and those derived from a comic
book concept are much more difficult to watch that way.  I'll either
fade in and then out, or space myself to watch between longer
intervals.  Now the streaming sites made it possible for me to start
watching continuing series weekly like old style TV.
  

    
I wonder what effect youtube has on the overall direction of
television. It's added a new kind of material that has never been seen
on tv -- the carefully crafted amateur production.  Still, I don't see
that material crossing over to tv often. Am i just missing that?
  

    
It crosses over to TV news, which is kind of funny. Not to mention the
reading of tweets on CNN, MSNBC, and the like. Now when a particularly
funny youtube video goes viral it often ends up as a 30-second story
on the news.
  

    
Shows I don't see much tv news.

Does the book do any prognosticating or extensions of trends?

I wonder about increased forms of interactivity, and also about ad
targetting. We may get to where there can no longer be a discussion of
great ads, or the Superbowl ad buys, because one household is seeing
Pepsi while another sees BMW in the same time slot.  

What about mobile devices: I'll watch TV as a semi-social activity,
but am less interested in solo podcast mode.  I expect I may be in a
pretty un-influential minority. 

Will popular small devices drive production investments and artistic
choices as well as almost certainly driving the ads served to each
individual? I wonder how that plays out. 
  

    
Like all these questions.  Aaron, I'm wondering about interactive TV,
what happened to that? Will it revive with all the new
interconnections?
  

    
What happened to the discussion here?  Someone pull the plug?
  

    
Must have been the Big Easy.
  

    
What Gail means is that Aaron was in New Orleans. Not sure what
happened. Sorry for the lack of response. 

In any case, our attention in Inkwell moves to a new discussion (with
Don Lattin on his new book, "The Harvard Psychedelic Club") but this
topic will stay open indefinitely. Thanks to all who contributed to the
conversation.