theOven

I just remembered the “brilliant” concept of the “reality show”; Joe Schmo Show (website for the Joe Schmo show 2, it says it all!). The concept is simple; you find a naive and nice guy who would believe almost anything, put him in a house full of actors and make him believe he’s in a reality show. Then you push the limit for what can be seen as reality as far as you can without blowing your cover. I have to admit that I really enjoyed watching it, because for me and everyone who was watching this it wasn’t reality, it was comedy.

Then in the last episode when it all got revealed, I saw that it was real for this poor guy. He is probably one of the nices guys around, and at first he was so happy that he won something (even he hadn’t, because it never was a competition). Then when I saw how uncomfortable he became after he realised that this would not look good for him on television, it all went downhill…

It is a show that experiment with the darkside (to use a term from Starwars) of reality-tv. How much will you believe is reality as long there are cameras around? Is everything you see on reality-tv, reality or is it staged by the producers? Even if I felt sorry for Joe Schmo, it does raise some important questions. Can you go too far in pushing people into a “fake” reality, and what is the limit? The creator Rhett Reese, told CNN: “What we set out to do was to parody reality TV” (read it here) I’m not sure that is correct, and if that was all. If he is telling the truth, I think the creators was more naive than Joe Schmo. They also told CNN that they during the show felt sorry for stiring him up, but I don’t buy that either. I think they wanted to see how far they could go in making Joe’s reality unreal without him questioning it all. That’s why they spend so much time on finding “the right guy” and why would they ever make Joe Schmo 2 if that was true??

Sadly it’s not the only concept that exploid the urge people have to get their 15 minutes of fame. You have shows like Average Joe, Joe Millionair, Love or Money, Temptation Island and the new concepts of Big brother that are coming out of Holland and the UK (where one half live in luxury and the other part in poverty within full view of eachother). Reality in it self isn’t very exciting, it is the settings it is put into and the drama and the extreme personalities it creates that consumes us. It seems like the simple concept of reality is becoming a concept of testing and pushing people to the limit of their mental health, and we love it….

I want to thank everyone that have put comments on my blog. Excellent that people are reading my writing, a special thank you to my mate Butch.

However there’s a couple of things that I would like to add, and this is mostly to friends and family that are in here; I would like all comments to be put in English and to be on the subject of the blog. I had a comment that was in Norwegian and contained something about going out to party, if anyone is wondering where that is; it’s deleted!

On the issue of pictures, we are told, by the university, to not use anything that have copyright on it and therefore it is hard to find pictures that will underline my comments that I have the right to use or the copyright on. However when I get a picture to put in it will be done.

I just want to blog the feedback and ideas that I got from my clas during our Media Context session in week 4. It was most helpful, so thanks everyone, if anyone have more question or inputs please comment on this blog.

- Title: How will the introduction of PVR (Personal Video Recorder) influence television production?

- Explain the consept of PVR

- Have a look if the TiVo (Brand name for a PVR in the US) has change things in America the last couple of years, and how well used it is. Joni also mentioned that TiVo has to be subscribed to, as you would subscribe to cable television.

- Don’t think it is available in Australia yet, but have to have a look into that. Someone mentioned that Foxtel might already have introduced it. What are the possibilities for PVR in Australia and what kind of attidudes are out there.

- Compare ABC to Seven, Nine and Ten. How will it effect commercial television compared to goverment founded television.

- Then the big question: what will happend to the ads? Will it decrease the amount of money the commercial television gets from advertising or will productplacement replace that gap? Will people be able to avoid all unwanted advertising or can the stations get a way around the technology?

- How will it effect what kind of programming that will be produced for television. Will it give way for Live shows with interactivity to make people participate in the show and in that way prevent them from recording the program?

- How will it effect the market for DVD’s ? What about the Panasonic DVD recorder with a hard disk? What about copyright, when it is so easy to share, how will that be prevented?

- PVR on mobile phones?

Aspects

- Economical: Will it effect the founding for commercial televsion?
- Social: Will it give the viewer the freedom to watch whatever whenever they want.
-Political: What kind of laws will be used to prevent sharing and burning of programming onto DVD’s?
-Enviromental: Less plastic..? (thanks for that one Rupert!)

Comments wanted…

I was sitting and watching the Norwegian final of the Eurovision song contest the other day on webtv and thinking: “Why on earth am I watching this piece of sh..?” I just don’t understand why I’m want to watch 40 years old men dressed up like heavy rockers from the eighties, singing like the Darkness, winning the Norwegian competition of the Eurovision. Can I blame my partents for forcing me to watch this as a kid or is it just that now that I am in Australia I see how sosial out of balanced the hole thing is?

This was my thoughts untill I watch a commercial for the X-factor on Ten; “Nine contestents left, a live audience and you will decide how our next superstar will be!!” Then it hit me: That’s Eurovision! It is the same concept, 8-12 contestents in each countries is put infront of a live audience and the viewer decides how wins, and the winner normally get fame and fortune in that country. Then the winner is sent to whichever european country that won last year to try to become famous in Europe. 25 contestents, songwriters and artists, infront of a live audience, and the viewers decide who wins! Not that I love shows like Idol and X-factor, but it made me think more about this.

So then I thought; the X-factor is based on the Idol-consept and so is Popstar. Is this really an original idea or are they all based on the Eurovision? It may be said that the Eurovision isn’t a talent competition, but I don’t agree with that. Every year in the national competition you see a new face and a few times the European winner becomes big stars because of their proformence in the contest; ABBA, Cliff Richard, Celine Dion, Secret Garden (I know they are only semi famous and Norwegian..), Sandie Shaw and Lulu. >Winners of the Eurovision They all went on and became huge stars all over the world, without people outside realising that they started their career in the Eurovision.

While Idol, X-factor and Popstar are a nice package of a TV show that is aimed at teenager and middle aged women who think they all are cute and talented, the Eurovision is a freak show of a song contest that could compete with the Sydney Mardi Gras parade on every level, for example there had already been a transexsual winner before we even heard of Miriam (the song “Diva” with Dana International competing for Israel in 1998). Idol is all about the money; phone companies loves it because 14 years old girls spend all their pocket money ringing or sms’ing on their favourite, the record companies loves it because it gives them a sure hit and they may be able to sell a few albums extra as well.

The Eurovision on the other hand is a competititon that reflex the trends in Europe both the underground culture and the pop culture. The voting also reflex, not only the “best” show, trendsetters and song, but also the political situation in Europe. If Romaina have done something that Switzerland didn’t like that year, I’ll bet you that they won’t get any points from them. And than you have all the ethnic groups that support their home nation; Germany always give Turkey max points because of all the Turks in Germany. Norway loves Sweden and give them max points, but Sweden looks at Norway as a little brother and don’t care and rarly give them points. Last year it made headlines that Turkey and Greece gave eachother points (they are no longer fighting over Crete)… The Eurovision is such a complex and historically popular TV-show that I don’t think Idol or Popstar will ever get even near the joy, anger and all the other feelings that the Eurovision creates. It has sustained since 1956 and is only increasing in popularity, and will outlast all the other talent shows for years to come. My thoughts of the Eurovision has change to be more admiration of a TV show that have lived its own life for 49 years and is impossible to recreate. It’s no longer a talentshow, a songcontest or a freakshow, it’s all.

We had some creative excersices at uni where we had to create or come up with a concept of a TV-show. And there was many concept that we came up with and there is 1000’s that can be created, but I don’t think that no one ever could make another Eurovision, it takes time to make something so trivia and powerful at the same time. It may be difficult for people outside Europe to see this and like it, but the next time some one in Australia asks me why we watch the Eurovision Song Contest I will say: “Because it is all that Idol is and so much more”.

And that concludes the points from the Oven(ian) televoting!!

While reading Butch’s blog, I remembered something I did read at the “Australians in Hollywood” exhibition last year at the Arts Center here in Melbourne. The exhibition had a section about how Australia was coming a “part” of Hollywood, with the new film studio on the Gold Coast. It also said that Hollywood isn’t what it used to be. Hollywood used to be the place to go if you wanted to be a star or a part of the film industry, cause everyone and everything that was important in the industry was located in the glam suburb of Los Angeles. This is not the case anymore, Hollywood has become a name that is used on the american film industry, not depending on where it is shoot or produced. Butch mentioned Lord of the Rings triology as an example that Hollywood isn’t the only place in the world where you can have enourmous motion pictures made.

The world is getting smaller, in the sense of that it is easier and better way of travelling, communication over the world continents is not longer a problem, with satellite telephones, internet broadband and email. Compared to the 50’s and 60’s when it was cheaper to build a set that looked like Paris or New York, then actually going there (they still have a New York set in Hollywood), that may not be the case anymore. Actually going to Paris or New York is a better alternative, money wise and the quality of you enviroments.

Adding to all this is trade agrements between countries, like the European Economic Cooperation and the Free trade agrement between USA and Australia. This agrements makes it easier make your film in another country and countires that may not afford to make a big film production can cooperate with another country in the same situation, without it costing extra in national taxes etc. Just look at the last Nicolas Cage movie, Ghostrider, that they are filming in Melbourne now. They are using Melbourne as a part of their locations, because it’s as cheap to do it in Melbourne as in the US, and that makes the location more important than the money.

You can see some of the same trends in Bollywood as well. Two years ago I saw a documentary of a swiss busdriver who made a fortune on driving Bollywood film crews around Switzerland on film shoots. According to this documentary Indians saw Switzerland as very exotic and loved the swiss nature. So it was normal for Bollywood producers to go to Switzerland to film. This busdriver, had also became a producer and did some acting for these movies he was working on and had become a huge star in Bollywood. This is just another example that the film industry no longer is attatched to a spesific place, but has become a world wide industry.

So what will happen to Hollywood? I don’t know, but it is still the place for big events like the Academy Awards and the world capital of glamour and luxury. But the term “Hollywood movie” is becoming more a negative decription of a film, than something positive. Hollywood is looking more and more like monument of what was and not what will be in the futures in the motion picture industry.

In the article “The Landscape Content” by Gali Einav, the writer writes about sites that emerge diffrent content and companies into one site, to make it more accessable to people. I’m supprised that Apple.com wasn’t mentioned. Apple.com has on their site put up a site that shows all the move trailers that have been released the last couple of years. This is a good way for people to see what movies that are coming to the cinemas or just to see which film they want to go and see the next weekend. The site also linked to clips, the movie’s homepage, the filmcompany’s homepage ect (apple.com).

To view the clips you have to download the quicktime player, which is Apple’s free mediaplayer. However not everything on this site can be seen with the free version of the Quicktime player, for something you have to upgrade your player and this cost money. If you are a fan or interested in this material, you normally will pay. This is in my opinion a great way of selling the product, and at the same time use the trailers to see how the media player works before you upgrade it.

According to Nielsen//NetRatings, May 2003 (internetworldstats.com) There where 38,957,000 american that had access to broadband or high speed internet at that time in their homes. The websiteoptimizations.com show similar figures. And according to Nielsen there will be about 61.5 millions home computers that is connected with broadband or high speed connections in 2008. This indicates that the market for downloading films and documentaries from the internet only will increase. And a site like apple.com will only attract more users, cause the speed and quality of our coonections will only get better. Neither Windows mediaplayer or Realplayer have the same kind of service/or offer to attract their costumer. Windows mediaplayer, doesn’t really need to, cause their mediaplayer is already the most used and all their updates are free, but is this the reason Realplayer is the less used of these three players? Realplayer is also free and is better to play mp3 with than Quicktime (in my opinion). However, right now they are too similar to Windows mediaplayer and dont’ have their own nitche. And please correct me if I’m wrong, however I love the Apple trailer site and, it does contributes to me prefering the Quicktime to Realplayer.