Sep 29 2010
Amateurization Response
Week 5: Amateurization
Quentin Tarantino’s Star Wars
– Henry Jenkins
For the longest time fans of media (whether it be music, video, print, digital, or whatever) were solely on the receiving end of whatever the producers gave their audiences. Now the fans have the opportunity to take the content they love and manipulate it. But should we consider this a welcome opportunity? Copyright is always one of those scary topics that people think they understand. Where do we draw the line on borrowed content? Thanks to the digital age, there is a growing tension between receivers and producers. But which side should be upset? Should we have access to what others have created and fashion those ideas into something new? Or should the producers have the sole right to limit how their content is used and intervene in the sharing process?
In “Quentin Tarantino’s Star Wars”, Henry Jenkins explains that the interactive model of mass media is more symbiotic than the old model to which we have become accustomed. He argues that culture is the result of fans interacting with the content they love. We are no longer parasites that simply feed off whatever is handed to us. We respond and remix. We reshape and create new ideas. But somehow copyright always gets in the way. Yet, it seems that the knowledge and severity of a judge in a copyright case would have a significant impact. The laws still seem fuzzy to me, and I’m sure others feel the same. Why else do we have groups trying to find loop holes in the system. Something isn’t clear. Jenkins stresses the need for regulations to be normalized.
Jenkin’s whole purpose for his article was to suggest that this is the way things should be. He doesn’t see content as making society dumber, it’s how we handle the content. What we do with it in the end has more meaning than the content itself. So why take away that opportunity to respond? According to Jenkis the world is more diverse through participatory means. And I agree. The reason we have expanded out ideas at light speed is because of sharing. We share and build and grow. Not only have the tools to share media become easier and cheaper, the tools to produce what we see at the movies or on TV is also dropping in cost.
This leads me to one of my framing questions for the week: At the end of the article, Jenkins asks what we can expect for the future of digital cinema. Do amateur filmmakers have a chance at becoming the majority and will big movie producers go by the wayside? Although it seems hard to believe amateur individuals can step up to the big guys in any field, I wouldn’t want to say this couldn’t happen in the future of media. Media has become collaborative and it has pulled talented people into the mix that may not have normally had the financial means to join in. Personal computers are becoming people’s at-home-studios. Most things that used to require a crew and special equipment can all be accounted for simply through a digital program. One person can orchestrate the production of a film using tools sold at the consumer level. I think we are well on our way to seeing more amateur films. Because the internet has made it easy to share ideas and content and costs have come down in regards to production equipment, the next big producer could be Joe Shmoe working out of his one room apartment on his laptop.