As Debord said, the main function of our society is now the production of spectacle. The spectacle's purpose is to alienate us from life and each other, to prevent social interactions that are unmediated by the spectacle.
Fifteen years of engagement with the FCP-using professional class is, at best, a good self-funding, street-cred foundation for the consumer version of FCP. It could be the same as the free itunes app of yesteryear which slowly led us to the Itunes Store and thence to the app store, iphone and ipad.
Since photoshop or thereabouts, the line between artist / consumer / producer is blurred for many reasons. Popping out a lower-cost version of FCP should goose the production stream across the board, not only helping fill the million-channel universe with consumer-produced stuff but driving the wages of pros down.
http://minimalmac.com/post/426868529/what-apple-sells
Final Cut X fits perfectly into this paradigm - it's part of Apple's mission to stop selling software / hardware and start selling experiences. You produce video with Final Cut X / Imovie / whatever because it's a way to keep you on the mac, where you'll get app-store suggestions etc. and listen to Itunes where you'll buy things.
Then you'll post your movie on Youtube so that other people will spend more time on their computer watching it, where they'll get ads pushed at them.
Professional content producers are a bit of a problem in this system because they expect to get paid for producing content, and because they have a set of specific needs. Apple is smart to abandon them because the rest of the public will buy whatever software Apple puts in front of them if it is "slick" and "fun," and they'll learn to accept its paradigms rather than vice-versa.
Senior artists in any discipline are a problem, partly because they want to get paid, but also because they are interested in ideas and formal innovation rather than spectacle. They try to make work that reduces their own and their audiences' alienation rather than increasing it.
-Flick
--
* WHERE'S MY ARTICLE, WORLD?
http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Flick_Harrison
* FLICK's WEBSITE & BLOG: http://www.flickharrison.com
_______________________________________________
FrameWorks mailing list
FrameWorks_at_jonasmekasfilms.com
https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Received on Thu Jun 30 2011 - 15:45:28 CDT
