Читать книгу The Writer's Advantage - Laurie Scheer - Страница 10

CHAPTER 1

A BRIEF INQUIRY INTO MASS AND NOT-SO-MASS MEDIA

To begin to understand learning how to write with The Writer’s Advantage, let’s start with a brief discussion about “mass communication,” aka “mass media.” The “mass” part of mass media has changed, and what we once knew as “mass” media has become a collection of niche media with many more options available to consumers. In the 21st century there exists a very different mass media — so different that it’s really now a “not-so-mass” media.

MEDIA CONSUMPTION

We live in a transmedia universe, meaning we all have opportunities to view content on various levels and screens — and all at one time. I can be watching TV on an actual television set or within my computer screen while texting, listening to music, and composing/editing my own movie at the same time. At any given time we have at our fingertips a multitude of instant media options. This is the environment you are writing within and for. You are vying for attention among humans with short attention spans — a hefty and lofty assignment for sure. How do you get their eyeballs to watch your material? How do you invite the gazes of potentially important consumers amidst all of the participating content competition? I believe that it is important to briefly take a look at where media has been to understand how to write for the transmedia marketplace now. We’ll look at a brief analysis of how different media have been distributed so far.

MOVIES

Every form of media has its own unique history. The movie industry began at the end of the 19th century with shorts, silent films, and newsreels before it found its stride and full-length feature films were produced.

If you wanted to see a movie in the ‘50s you went to your local movie palace, usually a grandiose theater located in the central neighborhood of a metropolitan area. If it was a major city, there would be two or three movie theaters. New titles appeared once a week, making for a limited selection, but still, audiences flocked to each new release. The population had one, maybe two selections to choose from, making it easy to discuss the movie afterwards as there was very little competition. This was clearly an unfragmented scenario leading to a good amount of the public viewing the same movies at relatively the same time throughout the early part of the 20th century through to the late ‘70s/early ‘80s, when multiplex theater centers first appeared on the scene. By “unfragmented” I mean that the consumers had very limited options.

Today we have multiplex theater centers with 20+ screens located in various parts of any given town along with the ability to view a movie on television via broadcast and cable networks and through Netflix, Amazon, and other web outlets. We can also DVR and download movies at any time and purchase them for our own viewing pleasure. It would be very difficult to have to wait an entire week to see a new movie and then have no choice in regard to the type of movie that might be. We are now a fragmented audience — broken off and separated from other consumers.

TELEVISION

The television industry began in the middle of the 20th century and — following the formatting of radio programming before it — offered fifteen-minute, half-hour, and hour programs usually sponsored for the entire length of the show by one sponsor. It was not until the advertising industry and the broadcast networks began their marriage of approximately four to six ads per half hour/hour that the industry found the operating pattern that we know today. That programming schedule found its way to basic cable networks when they came on the scene in the ‘80s. The premium cable networks (HBO, Showtime) found they could operate quite well on subscriber monies alone and did not need advertising to interrupt their content.

Within the television industry, there were four commercial networks born in the late 1940s: NBC, CBS, ABC — all off-shoots of established radio companies — and the DuMont Network, the first television-only network. Aside from theatrical movie releases, audiences now had a choice of drama, comedy, variety, news, documentary, talk and game shows to watch at home… and still the audience was unfragmented.

UNFRAGMENTED AUDIENCES

One of the best examples of an unfragmented society watching an event on television is the reporting of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in November, 1963. The footage from newsman Walter Cronkite’s teary-eyed delivery of the fatal information that day has become legendary within the history of television. There would be a much happier event just three months later — on February 9, 1964 — that would bring nearly the entire U.S. viewing population together: the arrival of the Beatles in America and their performance on The Ed Sullivan Show (1948–1971).

Here is one of the quintessential examples of audience unfragmentation. Over half of the entire American viewing public watched the Beatles that evening. CBS had the majority of the nation’s eyeballs and, to this day, those who experienced that event will talk about it as if it were a mythic appearance. The basic contextual meaning of what the Beatles were about was immediately understood. A new generation embraced them, the older generation didn’t understand them — but both generations knew who John, Paul, George, and Ringo were.

LIMITED AMOUNT OF TEXTS

This type of programming — where the majority of viewers can recall where they were at the moment it happened — continues through the Golden Age of Television programming [I Love Lucy (1951-57), The Andy Griffith Show (1960-68), The Twilight Zone (1959-64), etc.] and with all of the NASA lift-offs at that time. The finite television network universe had its run until the early ‘80s and the advent of basic cable programming. Until the early ‘80s there is only a limited amount of texts for writers to comprehend, write about, spin off of and parody. The Carol Burnett Show (1967–78), a well-loved variety hour, would often parody famous films such as Gone With The Wind (1939) and popular soap operas and disaster movies of the time. The reason Burnett’s parody style was so successful was because the audience had collectively viewed and knew well the original content being parodied. It is nearly impossible for an audience to understand a parody unless they know the original text. This is the secret of the success of Saturday Night Live (1975–present), as the show exists purely to parody current series, events, and personalities. The point here is that because of the limited viewing audience, it was fairly easy for writers to find fodder to write about. These limited choices begin to end in the early ‘80s with the birth of basic cable programming.

THE CABLE REVOLUTION

August 1, 1981, is considered by many to be the birth of basic cable. The first video aired on MTV, The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star,” began the cable revolution and soon after nearly a hundred new networks were available to view and purchase by American households. Sure, networks like CNN, Lifetime, and HBO existed in the ’70s, but they didn’t have the distribution power then. When cable providers such as Time Warner, Cablevision, and Cox Communication, to name a few (depending on where you were located in the country), came into power, that is when the American public had a much larger menu of entertainment options from which to choose.

FRAGMENTED VIEWERSHIP

The fragmentation of viewers begins here. Now you no longer have a large amount of viewers going out to movie theaters and watching the same movie, watching the same network at the same time, or even watching in real-time (the time the series is scheduled on the network’s programming schedule) because audiences began taping programming (via video cassette recorders) to watch when it was convenient for them personally. This shift made it more difficult for writers of movies and television/cable shows to relate to all viewers. Soon, a 500-network universe is available to American viewers. The fraction of viewers watching one event/series/network becomes smaller and smaller. With the expanding popularity of personal computers and the “world wide web” in the early to mid ’90s, the attention span of a typical content viewer becomes even more fragmented due to the many options available at any time.

WEB CHANNELS

Along with the dawn of the new century, all basic and premium cable networks have ancillary content available on their websites. An example of this might be additional interactive content for children who enjoy the viewing of Dora the Explorer (2000–present) on Nickelodeon and then want to visit the website for more information about that episode, and in some cases watch additional episodes of the show. Likewise for all of the lifestyle programs such as house hunting and remodeling homes on a network like HGTV. Their website would soon include video vignettes regarding household projects, the same for The Food Network, etc.

When YouTube appears on the scene in 2005, the birth of ­consumer-created content begins. Web sensations such as Fred (2006) and web channels like Funny Or Die (2007) soon follow. The opportunities for writers and creators of content now seem endless, as are the viewing choices for consumers.

SO MANY OPTIONS, SO LITTLE TIME

Today, video gaming, IMING, texting, emailing, gaming, etc., all co-exist. Additionally, with the birth of social networking sites, the amount of people watching/consuming a piece of content from the same resource at the same time becomes even more and more fragmented. Perhaps one of the only events in more recent times that resonated in the way those did in the ‘60s are the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001. Here is an anomaly in the 21st century — an event that happened that stopped the world. You will always remember where you were and what you were doing when you heard about New York City’s World Trade Center being attacked and destroyed. Remember, though, that even at that time viewers had a multitude of television and internet resources through which to get information.

A MENTION ABOUT THE PUBLISHING INDUSTRY

During these decades of change regarding the visual media industries, publishing remained intact. Books of all types would be published in hardcover and then, after a short window of time, released in more affordable paperback versions, prolonging their popularity.

Not much change is seen in publishing until electronic readers appear on the scene in 2004 and consumers find a new way of reading their favorite texts. By the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century, e-books become hefty competition for standard publishing. At the same time, individual authors begin self-publishing and distributing content via the internet. And not long after that, “blogging” is born.

CONTENT IS KING

In all of the types of media we’ve studied, content is king and has remained king throughout these many decades of changes in distribution and technology. In each type of media, writers are still necessary. None of these industries could survive without writers.

So how do you, the writer, get a handle on this fragmentation? These shorter-than-short attention spans? These multitasking consumers? We’ll explore this in the next chapter to learn how to arm ourselves in this fragmented world.

TOOLKIT SANDBOX

A Wizard, Some Questions, and a Mysterious Millionaire

CASE STUDY: The man behind the curtain and the classic American text

Author L. Frank Baum would be astonished today if he knew what has become of his 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. During his lifetime he did know that children adored the book, as they wrote him letters asking for more. He obliged them, and in 1904 he wrote the first sequel, with many others to follow — written by himself and by authors designated by his publisher after Baum’s death in 1919. An original Oz book was published yearly between 1913 and 1942.

And while the books were indeed popular, it is the film version entitled The Wizard of Oz (1939), featuring Judy Garland and now-iconic characters and musical numbers, that is imbedded in the psyche of every American (and admirers worldwide) alive during and since that time.

Perhaps it is because this film had the advantage of being shown consistently on network television since 1956 that the content of the books and film remain forever a part of popular culture. This was unusual, as most theatrical movies would be shown nationally on television only once or twice after being released in theaters, and then scheduled late at night or on weekends by regional affiliates. This was not the case with The Wizard of Oz, which was broadcast annually and highly advertised as a special event. These broadcast telecasts continued until 1999, at which time the film went to cable and broadcast showings became more frequent.

All of which has resulted in the production of Oz-related content in nearly all mediums over the years, including:

The Wiz (1974) — Broadway stage musical that won seven Tony Awards.

The Wiz (1978) — movie adaptation of the Broadway musical starring Michael Jackson and Diana Ross.

The Wizard of Oz (1982) — a Japanese anime feature film.

Return to Oz (1982) — a darker adaptation of Oz sequel novels.

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (1995), a novel by Gregory Maquire that spawns a series of additional books entitled Son of a Witch (2005), A Lion Among Men (2008), Out of Oz (2011).

Wicked (2003) — Broadway stage musical adaptation of Maquire’s novel.

The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz (2005) — TV movie.

Tin Man (2007) — television miniseries produced for the Syfy channel playing up the sci-fi/fantasy elements of the story.

The Wizard of Oz (2011) — London stage musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Oz the Great and Powerful (2013) — movie prequel starring James Franco, telling the story of the wizard’s arrival in Oz.

This is by no means a complete list, however it is a list that illustrates how a single basic storyline can be transferred to different genres and released in different versions and venues within a transmedia universe. This content, whether consumed as a book, a film, a film viewed on television, as a musical, or as a prequel in print and film, continues to stand the test of time. Oz resonates again and again to generation after generation — all based on a yearly television broadcast of a film that nearly everyone grew up watching.

Additionally, more versions of this original text are planned — a 3D animated film, NBC and CBS are developing series, Syfy has another miniseries in the works, and the 75th anniversary of the original 1939 film may see a re-release in 3D in 2014. Why all this interest in a novel that first appeared over a century ago? That’s a good question. This is content that resonates to audiences on a universally human level and has been perpetuated from generation to generation due to its accessibility. As we continue to look at ways to do research in this book we will see that a text like this is very important to observe, as there is something within the text that strikes a nerve with writers and creators and with audiences over and over throughout the decades. Each generation wants to put their mark on these iconic characters and this story about how “there’s no place like home,” and each generation offers up a new spin, a fresh look at the content. In essence, by observing the history of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, one can clearly see how each version is authentic. Whether the version explores prequel subject matter or injects music or dance or animation, each version is unique in its own way.

QUESTIONING WITH THE WRITER’S ADVANTAGE