Hello.
So I'm sorry that I haven't updated in a little bit. It'll be a few days off, as I'm traveling to San Francisco tomorrow. I'm hoping to write as much as I watch TV during that trip. But do please continue to follow me as I get my writing chops back. After some atrophy my writing muscles are now a little sore but that is only a sign that they're getting back into shape.
Thanks,
Stef, your Bandito of Burritos
p.s. If you invite me for a burrito on this trip I will likely oblige.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Copyright Criminals
I just watched Copyright Criminals, a documentary directed by Benjamin Franzen and Kembrew McLeod. The 53-minute documentary is a retrospective of copyright issues as applied to sampling in hip-hop music. It was shown on PBS so I'll consider it fair game for this television blog.
The film* introduces the viewer to a handful of the artists who use samples in their work (members of Public Enemy, De La Soul, etc), a couple artists whose music is regularly sampled (Clyde Stubblefield and George Clinton), as well as a selection of record execs, copyright lawyers, and academics.
Cinematography is often poor, as one might expect when someone takes the roles of producer/director/editor/cinematographer, as Franzen does. Very few can effectively handle all of these roles at one time, especially not an “auteur” making his first documentary. Budget for documentary filmmaking often allows for merely adequate cinematography but I feel that something shown on PBS should be shot professionally. They had the money to clear lots of the music,** why not get a real cameraman? To be fair, some of the interviews do look good and the Clyde Stubblefield drumming sequence is well-lit.
As opposed to the camerawork, I was very happy with the effective, appropriate editing. The directors consider it “collage-heavy” and I agree to this assessment, as it weaves in and out of various shots, interviews, and subjects. I hate montage but I do like this collage approach as applied here, particularly as it parallels the pastiche of many sample-heavy songs. My favorite edited sequence might be when Stubblefield hammers out the beat to "Funky Drummer," the most sampled beat in hip-hop. Audio weaves his live acoustic beat with various songs that use the "Funky Drummer" sample while split-screen shows Stubblefield drumming and the appropriate music videos cycle through. It’s an excellent example of how foundational some samples, this one in particular, are to a given song or an entire genre.
While I'm talking about editing, it's also notable that one of the film's subjects, the music and video collage-duo Electric Method, are credited for “Audiovisual Remix Sequences.” I can think of one excellent sequence near the end of the film that clearly echoes their work. This sequence effectively gives viewers a good understanding about how "found samples" can create interesting, original art.
On the PBS show site, the directors claim that, "The position Copyright Criminals takes is not as simple as good or bad." But the truth is that the film doesn't actually take any kind of position on the issue. The film presents the problems with musical sampling and the interview subjects give a certain amount of their perspectives about sampling but we're never presented with any kind of alternative to these issues.
The film doesn't include enough information on copyright law itself. The directors recognize this but say that such information wouldn't be interesting, "It would be nice to include more information about copyright law, but we often found that the technical details tended to be dry and far less dynamic." This is a somewhat reasonable argument to a certain point. I do take some exception though, because the onus is upon the filmmakers to make the issues of copyright law interesting. Personally, I think that the intricacies of copyright law would be fascinating. But as a result of their view, we are not presented with a fundamental understanding of copyright and related issues in a documentary that centers around this issue. Copyright Criminals barely touches on fair use.
The documentary works very well as a chronicle of musical sampling history but I can't get wholly behind it because it stops short of any kind of resolution. We hear both sides of the issue (though it seems heavily slanted towards sample piracy) and the conclusion is that we're at an imperfect moment in which artists don't have freedom to sample the music they otherwise might.
I feel the filmmakers should have included a line of questioning about what could be done to appropriately give the artists the freedom they want. This documentary could have been truly foundational if it made the attempt an answer to the issue that could reasonably suit all parties. Find a way to use what the sampling artist wants while at the same time adequately compensating the original artist. As it stands I hear it as a whole lot of whining when artists complain about their creative process being cramped but then give no solution to this problem.
This doesn't mean that I have any problem with musical sampling. I consider it an important musical form and it is important that it has been adequately chronicled. But I do think that some concession needs to be made to the sampled artist, it's only fair. At the same time, musicians have to go through certain sources to clear the samples they want to use. This first causes a problem with cost, but there are some who will never clear their music for sampling. For example, the Beatles don't let you clear samples for their songs but you are free to cover their song. A line used a few times in Copyright Criminals is that it's more expensive to use two bars of a song than it is to cover the whole song.
But rather than even asking how this can be changed, all we see and hear is people complaining about it. To really cut to the bone we need to take this a step further. While this documentary was admirable in its ability to bring out artists like Stubblefield, Clinton, Public Enemy, and the Beastie Boys, the audience needs to be taken to someplace new for this to go from "good and worthwhile" to "great and transcendent."
In the end it's little more than "Behind the Music: Sampling."
Final rating: Certainly worthy of your time but not transcendent by any means. I could probably give a second burrito if they gave us some argument or some original thought to take away. Rather, it’s a fairly well-executed summary of established ideas. It’s entertaining and informational but not foundational. One Burrito.
*I actually don't like the term "the film" unless something is actually made on film. This was shot on video, but the term "video" has a different connotation than intended. "The work" doesn't quite fit either. So I'll use "film" until I figure out something better. If you have any ideas, feel free to share them.
** "Our documentary budget enabled us to be able to remunerate many copyright owners for more significant uses of their work." - from PBS website
The film* introduces the viewer to a handful of the artists who use samples in their work (members of Public Enemy, De La Soul, etc), a couple artists whose music is regularly sampled (Clyde Stubblefield and George Clinton), as well as a selection of record execs, copyright lawyers, and academics.
Cinematography is often poor, as one might expect when someone takes the roles of producer/director/editor/cinematographer, as Franzen does. Very few can effectively handle all of these roles at one time, especially not an “auteur” making his first documentary. Budget for documentary filmmaking often allows for merely adequate cinematography but I feel that something shown on PBS should be shot professionally. They had the money to clear lots of the music,** why not get a real cameraman? To be fair, some of the interviews do look good and the Clyde Stubblefield drumming sequence is well-lit.
As opposed to the camerawork, I was very happy with the effective, appropriate editing. The directors consider it “collage-heavy” and I agree to this assessment, as it weaves in and out of various shots, interviews, and subjects. I hate montage but I do like this collage approach as applied here, particularly as it parallels the pastiche of many sample-heavy songs. My favorite edited sequence might be when Stubblefield hammers out the beat to "Funky Drummer," the most sampled beat in hip-hop. Audio weaves his live acoustic beat with various songs that use the "Funky Drummer" sample while split-screen shows Stubblefield drumming and the appropriate music videos cycle through. It’s an excellent example of how foundational some samples, this one in particular, are to a given song or an entire genre.
While I'm talking about editing, it's also notable that one of the film's subjects, the music and video collage-duo Electric Method, are credited for “Audiovisual Remix Sequences.” I can think of one excellent sequence near the end of the film that clearly echoes their work. This sequence effectively gives viewers a good understanding about how "found samples" can create interesting, original art.
On the PBS show site, the directors claim that, "The position Copyright Criminals takes is not as simple as good or bad." But the truth is that the film doesn't actually take any kind of position on the issue. The film presents the problems with musical sampling and the interview subjects give a certain amount of their perspectives about sampling but we're never presented with any kind of alternative to these issues.
The film doesn't include enough information on copyright law itself. The directors recognize this but say that such information wouldn't be interesting, "It would be nice to include more information about copyright law, but we often found that the technical details tended to be dry and far less dynamic." This is a somewhat reasonable argument to a certain point. I do take some exception though, because the onus is upon the filmmakers to make the issues of copyright law interesting. Personally, I think that the intricacies of copyright law would be fascinating. But as a result of their view, we are not presented with a fundamental understanding of copyright and related issues in a documentary that centers around this issue. Copyright Criminals barely touches on fair use.
The documentary works very well as a chronicle of musical sampling history but I can't get wholly behind it because it stops short of any kind of resolution. We hear both sides of the issue (though it seems heavily slanted towards sample piracy) and the conclusion is that we're at an imperfect moment in which artists don't have freedom to sample the music they otherwise might.
I feel the filmmakers should have included a line of questioning about what could be done to appropriately give the artists the freedom they want. This documentary could have been truly foundational if it made the attempt an answer to the issue that could reasonably suit all parties. Find a way to use what the sampling artist wants while at the same time adequately compensating the original artist. As it stands I hear it as a whole lot of whining when artists complain about their creative process being cramped but then give no solution to this problem.
This doesn't mean that I have any problem with musical sampling. I consider it an important musical form and it is important that it has been adequately chronicled. But I do think that some concession needs to be made to the sampled artist, it's only fair. At the same time, musicians have to go through certain sources to clear the samples they want to use. This first causes a problem with cost, but there are some who will never clear their music for sampling. For example, the Beatles don't let you clear samples for their songs but you are free to cover their song. A line used a few times in Copyright Criminals is that it's more expensive to use two bars of a song than it is to cover the whole song.
But rather than even asking how this can be changed, all we see and hear is people complaining about it. To really cut to the bone we need to take this a step further. While this documentary was admirable in its ability to bring out artists like Stubblefield, Clinton, Public Enemy, and the Beastie Boys, the audience needs to be taken to someplace new for this to go from "good and worthwhile" to "great and transcendent."
In the end it's little more than "Behind the Music: Sampling."
Final rating: Certainly worthy of your time but not transcendent by any means. I could probably give a second burrito if they gave us some argument or some original thought to take away. Rather, it’s a fairly well-executed summary of established ideas. It’s entertaining and informational but not foundational. One Burrito.
*I actually don't like the term "the film" unless something is actually made on film. This was shot on video, but the term "video" has a different connotation than intended. "The work" doesn't quite fit either. So I'll use "film" until I figure out something better. If you have any ideas, feel free to share them.
** "Our documentary budget enabled us to be able to remunerate many copyright owners for more significant uses of their work." - from PBS website
Ratings system
I have devised a rating system appropriate to the title of this blog. Never having been a fan of the star system, this is more appropriate to my taste:
Two Burritos: Excellent. In the canon. Go out of your way to see this.
One Burrito: Worthy. Something that you don't need to go out of your way to see but worth your time if you come across it.
No Burritos: Don't waste your time.
And a provisional rating, I'm not sure if I'll use it:
A Taco: Maybe you don't need to change the channel if you come across it. Maybe.
Two Burritos: Excellent. In the canon. Go out of your way to see this.
One Burrito: Worthy. Something that you don't need to go out of your way to see but worth your time if you come across it.
No Burritos: Don't waste your time.
And a provisional rating, I'm not sure if I'll use it:
A Taco: Maybe you don't need to change the channel if you come across it. Maybe.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Don't limit your viewers
Finally having made my way through season 4 of Friday Night Lights, I thought I might write a little about it. There is an inherent problem, however.
Friday Night Lights is currently seven episodes into season 5. So I can't be current with it due to NBC's rule of only having four episodes available at a time online. Well, I could buy the episodes on Amazon or iTunes, but I'm not really a fan of paying more for something that I should be getting for free.
NBC is only losing my viewership by taking this approach. I've been watching Friday Night Lights for six months now and would love to get current. But NBC decides that I'm going to have to pay (yeah right) or wait for it to come up on Netflix Watch Instantly. Personally, I think this is a load of BS. I'm willing to watch the ads on hulu or the NBC site. If they're willing to show the latest four episodes, why aren't they willing to show episodes beyond that?
There must be some argument for cost effectiveness and I would welcome it. But I feel like NBC should prefer to have its viewers up to date on the series to increase the likelihood of viewing the show on broadcast.
I know I'm a special case at the moment, as I'm not subscribed to TV and am exclusively viewing television online, but I have to imagine that I'm not the only person in this situation.
iTunes charges $2.99 for the HD episodes of Friday Night Lights. Episode three drops off of NBC.com and hulu tomorrow, so one would assume that I can't watch three episodes of a show by that point.
I'm not going to pay $9 to get up to date on a season that I'll just be able to catch up on when it goes to Netflix in six months. Get with it NBC, you're losing out.
Friday Night Lights is currently seven episodes into season 5. So I can't be current with it due to NBC's rule of only having four episodes available at a time online. Well, I could buy the episodes on Amazon or iTunes, but I'm not really a fan of paying more for something that I should be getting for free.
NBC is only losing my viewership by taking this approach. I've been watching Friday Night Lights for six months now and would love to get current. But NBC decides that I'm going to have to pay (yeah right) or wait for it to come up on Netflix Watch Instantly. Personally, I think this is a load of BS. I'm willing to watch the ads on hulu or the NBC site. If they're willing to show the latest four episodes, why aren't they willing to show episodes beyond that?
There must be some argument for cost effectiveness and I would welcome it. But I feel like NBC should prefer to have its viewers up to date on the series to increase the likelihood of viewing the show on broadcast.
I know I'm a special case at the moment, as I'm not subscribed to TV and am exclusively viewing television online, but I have to imagine that I'm not the only person in this situation.
iTunes charges $2.99 for the HD episodes of Friday Night Lights. Episode three drops off of NBC.com and hulu tomorrow, so one would assume that I can't watch three episodes of a show by that point.
I'm not going to pay $9 to get up to date on a season that I'll just be able to catch up on when it goes to Netflix in six months. Get with it NBC, you're losing out.
(Slight) Change of Mission
It has been decided that I'll actually start editing the posts after writing. The intent is to come away with a tighter product. I'm a big fan of the immediacy of writing without editing, using the blog as a diary of sorts. But this needs to be super tight if I ever decide to use this as a writing sample.
The positive side? Some rambling pontifications might be cut down. There might be a lot less first person in the narrative.
Considering I don't get paid for this, it's possible that I don't post as much as I might otherwise. But we'll see.
The positive side? Some rambling pontifications might be cut down. There might be a lot less first person in the narrative.
Considering I don't get paid for this, it's possible that I don't post as much as I might otherwise. But we'll see.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Footwork
Okay, so I’ve posted twice about how cable networks and the DVR have functioned as catalysts for brilliant programming. And I’ll admit that a lot of my writing has been pretty obvious. What I’m hoping to do is to lay a foundation for future posts so that readers who start with the beginning of the blog and go forward (as if there were any) can have an understanding of where I’m coming from.
It’s the same as sports where the most basic aspect of any given skill is not how you’re holding the ball; rather, you begin with footwork and go from there. To briefly sidetrack myself, I will talk about sports footwork here.
I used to coach volleyball and I feel like I have played almost every sport there is. Whether you’re talking about track, football, baseball, volleyball, hockey, cricket, or bowling, footwork is the basic fundamental above all else. This is for a few reasons:
Anyway, I got sidetracked by footwork. I love the topic and could go on for days and days. But now I want to bring it all back home to my television emphasis:
So even if we don’t think about it (indeed, footwork needs to become an unconscious, natural, or instinctive aspect of athletic pursuit) we need to understand its importance.
Think of the movie theater. If I am making the effort to go to another place to interact with visual medium it implies that I have already invested myself in that experience. I’m not going to drive twenty minutes, park, pay $15, buy a giant tub of popcorn, and sit next to a bunch of strangers for a 15-minute event. We want something more substantial because we’re invested in this fashion. Also, we’re probably going to want a standalone installment of whatever we went to see because we’re not going to want to repeat that experience the next week. That’s not to say that we won’t see a sequel but we want to have some kind of a full experience of a story when we go.
If we’re buying a TV at the store they want to show us nature shots and sports shots but no narrative structure at all. That’s what works in that moment.
With television it's important that we don't invest too much effort because then we can keep coming back.
So this discussion has this foundational relevance when considering our interaction with moving picture media. I may dwell on it for quite a long time, we’ll see. I’ll probably jump around topics a little bit but I do find this kind of stuff very interesting.
And damn it, I’m gonna write about it.
It’s the same as sports where the most basic aspect of any given skill is not how you’re holding the ball; rather, you begin with footwork and go from there. To briefly sidetrack myself, I will talk about sports footwork here.
I used to coach volleyball and I feel like I have played almost every sport there is. Whether you’re talking about track, football, baseball, volleyball, hockey, cricket, or bowling, footwork is the basic fundamental above all else. This is for a few reasons:
- You’re talking about where you come into contact with something else the most. Football is a contact sport but your feet are on the ground a lot more than your shoulder is in a running back’s sternum. Basic physics tells us that the ground is actually giving us resistance, so this is where you are dealing with the most force.
- You are setting a foundation on which all other actions occur. Think of the lower half of your body as a tripod for a camera. You can get a clean shot with an unsteady tripod but you have to compensate for lots of other things, maybe by using a fast shutter, which then might lead to other dominoes down the line (faster shutter means either wider aperture [focus issues] or faster film [more grain]) that you might not want to deal with.
- Your legs are the biggest, strongest muscles in your body. Example: much of the force generated by a baseball pitcher is from the lower half in the windup. Proper weight transfer in throwing (baseball, football, shot put) or striking (boxing, baseball, football) is key to a number of sports. As is load and push off in explosive/jumping sports (volleyball, basketball, etc.).
- Speed/quickness. This is a complicated issue, somewhat related to the next point as there are a few aspects of this. You’ve got your strength and range of motion issues that relate to the speed and quickness. Speed is obvious: the ability to run really fast. This relies on strength, form, and stamina. Quickness is also pretty obvious: the relationship among reflex, reaction, and explosion of a particular physical movement.
- Rhythm/timing. I could write a whole post on this as it applies to sports and TV, and I probably will someday. But this is one of the things that Bill Walsh preached to guys like Joe Montana. Actually, many of the other points come out of this. Your legs and feet set the foundation for the rhythm of your movement. In order to excel at a sport, you need your body to be in a certain rhythm, a certain flow. Sure, there is a lot of brute force in some sports but an athlete needs to have a certain grace. Perhaps it’s because being in rhythm helps you control your body rather than having to fight it. But each step you take jars your body a little, and if that movement is in a comfortable rhythm then you probably have a better chance at success.
- Efficiency of movement. You know how getting from A to B is quickest with a straight line? That’s not always the case in sports, due to body positioning. You’ll understand this explicitly if you’re familiar with volleyball and the steps that a middle blocker or a swing hitter has to take to get into position for the various attacks a setter might call. If the setter wants to run a shoot or a slide then you’d damn well better be in position to hit it. It’s not about just running as fast as you can to the spot where you need to take off, you need to take the right steps to a.) get there and b.) have your body in position for the best attack.
Anyway, I got sidetracked by footwork. I love the topic and could go on for days and days. But now I want to bring it all back home to my television emphasis:
The way we ingest TV is the foundation of our experience with TV.
It has many nuances, just like footwork in sports,
but it is the basic aspect of our interaction.
So even if we don’t think about it (indeed, footwork needs to become an unconscious, natural, or instinctive aspect of athletic pursuit) we need to understand its importance.
Think of the movie theater. If I am making the effort to go to another place to interact with visual medium it implies that I have already invested myself in that experience. I’m not going to drive twenty minutes, park, pay $15, buy a giant tub of popcorn, and sit next to a bunch of strangers for a 15-minute event. We want something more substantial because we’re invested in this fashion. Also, we’re probably going to want a standalone installment of whatever we went to see because we’re not going to want to repeat that experience the next week. That’s not to say that we won’t see a sequel but we want to have some kind of a full experience of a story when we go.
If we’re buying a TV at the store they want to show us nature shots and sports shots but no narrative structure at all. That’s what works in that moment.
With television it's important that we don't invest too much effort because then we can keep coming back.
So this discussion has this foundational relevance when considering our interaction with moving picture media. I may dwell on it for quite a long time, we’ll see. I’ll probably jump around topics a little bit but I do find this kind of stuff very interesting.
And damn it, I’m gonna write about it.
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