Comments on: Staying on the air (an early report from the Futures of Entertainment at C3 at MIT) http://cultureby.com/2007/11/staying-on-the.html This Blog Sits At the Intersection of Anthropology and Economics Wed, 23 May 2012 20:32:12 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Mary W http://cultureby.com/2007/11/staying-on-the.html/comment-page-1#comment-2382 Mary W Fri, 23 Nov 2007 02:07:34 +0000 http://localhost/wp_culture/?p=390#comment-2382 Per your comments about vampire shows and the unpredictability of characters: I think you're on to something there. I've been wondering myself about the interrelationships between 1) the sheer number of TV & movies that have supernatural themes (vampires, superheroes etc), 2) the amount of "near future" science fiction shows/movies/books, and 3) the demands of (some) of the audience for more complex storytelling (as described in the book "Everything Bad is Good for You" by Steven Johnson). William Gibson had some interesting comments about how in the current world (post 9/11 and post internet) -- that unpredictability is a much bigger theme in life than it used to be. Thus giving rise to lots of recent media/storytelling that explores the issues of unpredictability: uncertainty, fear, characters and worlds that have aspects of being familiar yet very alien/unfamiliar. The supernatural being an easy metaphor for those issues. Per your comments about vampire shows and the unpredictability of characters: I think you’re on to something there.

I’ve been wondering myself about the interrelationships between 1) the sheer number of TV & movies that have supernatural themes (vampires, superheroes etc), 2) the amount of “near future” science fiction shows/movies/books, and 3) the demands of (some) of the audience for more complex storytelling (as described in the book “Everything Bad is Good for You” by Steven Johnson).

William Gibson had some interesting comments about how in the current world (post 9/11 and post internet) — that unpredictability is a much bigger theme in life than it used to be. Thus giving rise to lots of recent media/storytelling that explores the issues of unpredictability: uncertainty, fear, characters and worlds that have aspects of being familiar yet very alien/unfamiliar. The supernatural being an easy metaphor for those issues.

]]> By: srp http://cultureby.com/2007/11/staying-on-the.html/comment-page-1#comment-2381 srp Tue, 20 Nov 2007 21:46:24 +0000 http://localhost/wp_culture/?p=390#comment-2381 Most successful genre work follows the conventions faithfully except for one departure, which might be a small thing, and need not be in contradiction to the basic genre structure. It might be a cross-genre borrowing, for example. If that work is unusually successful it will spawn a sub-genre of work that is just like IT, except for one departure...and so on. So we've had vampire detectives, ex-con detectives, wheelchair detectives, blind detectives (James Franciscus in Longstreet for you nostalgia buffs), electronically linked detectives (Search), con-man detectives (Switch), science fiction detectives, etc. Incidentally, I've seen some quantitative research suggesting that movies that cross genres have historically performed worse than expected, controlling for all the obvious variables like budget, starts, etc. I'm not sure if there's a time trend, though, or whether the paper got published. Most successful genre work follows the conventions faithfully except for one departure, which might be a small thing, and need not be in contradiction to the basic genre structure. It might be a cross-genre borrowing, for example. If that work is unusually successful it will spawn a sub-genre of work that is just like IT, except for one departure…and so on. So we’ve had vampire detectives, ex-con detectives, wheelchair detectives, blind detectives (James Franciscus in Longstreet for you nostalgia buffs), electronically linked detectives (Search), con-man detectives (Switch), science fiction detectives, etc.

Incidentally, I’ve seen some quantitative research suggesting that movies that cross genres have historically performed worse than expected, controlling for all the obvious variables like budget, starts, etc. I’m not sure if there’s a time trend, though, or whether the paper got published.

]]> By: Convergence Culture Consortium (C3@MIT) http://cultureby.com/2007/11/staying-on-the.html/comment-page-1#comment-2383 Convergence Culture Consortium (C3@MIT) Fri, 16 Nov 2007 04:49:47 +0000 http://localhost/wp_culture/?p=390#comment-2383 <strong>Around the Consortium: FoE2, Free Game Types, and Gender and Fan Studies</strong> We are on the eve of our second Futures of Entertainment event here at MIT, co-sponsored by the Consortium and Comparative Media Studies, the program in which we are housed in. We're going to be doing a lot of blogging... Around the Consortium: FoE2, Free Game Types, and Gender and Fan Studies

We are on the eve of our second Futures of Entertainment event here at MIT, co-sponsored by the Consortium and Comparative Media Studies, the program in which we are housed in. We’re going to be doing a lot of blogging…

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