I was going to write about something else today -- namely my evolving plans to fly all over the country and pick the brains of some choice play testers -- but I just can't shake this pesky pest of an idea.
Okay. So it seems that we all accept that the development of electric, solar and other non-gas powered automobiles isn't really moving forward at lightning speed because of the oil industry's financial interest in traditional car manufacturing and vise versa. I mean, I understand that there are some design errors and limitations in non-gas cars that still need some serious research (whatever) but in an age when technological advances are made pretty much daily, wouldn't you think we could whip out a tasty little number that actually looks and runs like a traditional car?
Fine. I'm over it, right? After all, I'm not saying everyone should run out a buy an alternative car and I'm not saying I would. Giving up my T1000 would be like giving up my legs (and I do know that this attitude fights against the industry's willingness to go there). But, I'm just saying, the R&D is stalled because of joint interests.
So, last night I was sitting out on my deck, perched on the triangular little cat bird seat on one corner of the railing. Way, way below is the Puget Sound. I like to sit here and watch the ferries at night. Huge beasts peppered with lights, carrying their young across the black and silent crossing. This is my thinking time. This is where I contemplate life, death, negative-sum, and the process of learning. Yeah, I do live a kinda introspective life sometimes. Yes, I get just as many ideas when I'm riding, or clubbing, or foruming, but my cat bird seat is (almost) my favorite.
So I start thinking what a great shot those night time ferries would be to open a movie with. They can be symbolic of so many things. And I start thinking about how this friend of mine won a short screenplay contest and a distribution deal like four years ago but how she couldn't get her funding together to shoot the thing and the whole deal fell apart. I feel bad for her, kinda sick about it, and then I think about how she should move forward on her own now and release the film direct to DVD because every entertainment magazine is always saying how DVD is where the runaway sales are really made lately. Then I find myself asking, "What's with the movie industry these days, any way?!"
Folks aren't going to the theaters the way they used to. The tickets are over priced, the food is even more expensive transfat wrapped in cheap cardboard and glossy wrappers. The seats are cramped. The audiences are loud and rude (and pretty much uncontrolled and uncontrollable by theater staff). It's hard to find the films you really want to see -- you know, the indies, the thought-provoking ones -- and it seems the stuff that wins all those nifty Sundance and Raindance and Cloudance awards are always only in "limited run" which, let me tell you, doesn't include towns like Bremerton and Port Orchard which are where my "local" theaters are located.
Then there's that whole "digital" vs. "film” argument, which appears to be a leading reason why so many films are in limited figging release in the first place. Last time I checked, producing a copy of actual film – you know, not a digital files that can be beamed via satellite to thirty billion theaters at once but rather huge, heavy, reels of actual FILM – costs upwards from $1800 a feature. That can be cost prohibitive, no? Plus shipping. But, getting every theater set up to screen digital would be massive costs falling on the theater owners. Oh, what a problem!
The enterianment industry has so many shared interests and broken parts I not sure what we’ll see first: a solar car or a pleasant movie theater showing digitally delivered features.
In the meantime, we wind up building our own little theater in the rec room. Big screen TVs are getting bigger and cheaper. Surround sound systems that make me wonder if it’s live abound. Theater-style lighting (wrapping around the ceiling), extra-butter popcorn (jumbo bags are still $10 less than theater bags), and a plush couch for you and your girl, boy, buddy, whatever finish off the charm. All the wonders of the theater in the perfect environment. With enough friends over for the show you can even achieve that whole group-mind I-am-Borg effect. And a month after that blockbuster movie leaves the theater you have it all to yourself on high-def DVD for the price of less than two movie tickets.
Of course, you won’t get the unbridled excitement of Alanis Morisette going down on some dude in the back row... but, heck, some realism I can do without.
E.J.
