The business class section on the Airbuses is a terrific joke where it comes to legroom, we all know that. I am one that doesn’t mind paying what things are worth, but it’s a joke to charge £500-£700 for a return to Helsinki in Club Class just for a meal on a tray.
So I’m in Economy which, legroom-wise, I don’t mind, but it’s the darned chiken-and-ham or cheese-and-tomato cold and soggy sandwiches what kills me, specially if I do a couple of one-day trips on a given week…. It’s sandwich or death, really… again for me this Sunday, coming back home…
I have been working with the New Producers Alliance – the UK’s largest network of producers, directors and script writers, in next year’s seminars and events. Our film industry seems to live these days a clear ramp to bigger box office revenues. Still, it is very hard to find funding for over £20m production budgets unless you are Tim Bevan at Working Title. Things that in Hollywood, with their überproduced films, are totally a given, like original music score recorded from a live orchestra, over here is like pulling teeth out of a producer’s budget. Even when this year, original score was the only Oscar that we got, the brilliant Dario Marianelli for ATONEMENT, Joe Wright’s beautiful and technically challenging film.
I found this Eddie Izzard Lego animation still carries a huge amount of truth, specially with this Cannes Film Festival madness that we had with the Tropic Thunder release later on this summer.
There are a million reasons I could give as to why music and film, once they enter society, and they are savoured, sampled, devoured and idolised, become particles of popular culture, and hence, once time has stripped the economic return from them, they should become copyright-free for artistic purposes.
My hope is that, in the future, the legal palaver wrapping a music or film asset, will be as obsolete as flags stuck on the Moon….
One of the typical examples that I give when speaking about co-creation in video content, is this great tryptic derived from a stage performance by Eddie Izzard, the greatest cross-dresser comedian.
So we first sample Eddie doing his thing, which BTW, takes inspiration from another film asset, STARWARS. Fast forward to minute 2.16
And when this content, which takes leverage from another asset, is remixed by another artist,he credits Eddie clearly and we get this:
But the medium is open to remixing the asset with one’s best skills and creativity, and the one that for me beats them all is this:
Warholising is a term we coined at Sense Worldwide when we produced insight research about why people remix, mashup and appropriate third party content to create something superior. This definition is precise: one has to aim artistically to offer an enhanced experience. From this point of elevating the subject, Warhol got away with not being sued by Campbell soup, or Jeff Koons by Spalding.
Why on earth record labels and film studios do not release the copyrights to their materials when the remixing is for the sake of art and not economic – and here we are, begging for the crumbs of Creative Rights, when in the Art world all these pieces go for millions to the artist, his agents and auction houses… It is something that I am fighting in every meeting I have with Execs in the aforementioned businesses. Cory has been a great help but he is now, more than ever, a full-time science fiction writer…
STRADBROKE ADVISORS
: Telephone +44 (0)20 7193-8568
: Email imartinez@stradbrokeadvisors.com
: Web stradbrokeadvisors.com
STRADBROKE works with Venture Capital firms assessing investment opportunities and advising their portfolio companies on how to innovate their strategy, brand, products and services to successfully come to market or increase ... Continue reading »
