Auteur Theory (The Critical Path 23)
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Auteur Theory is episode 23 of The Critical Path, a show using Apple as a lens to look at telecom and computing markets to understand what it means to be great. |
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Episode Description
Horace talks to Prof. Bill Torgerson from St. John’s University about the writing process and how it survives and/or thrives as a commercial enterprise. We touch on writing for movies and compare the collaborative process of “content creation” vs. the “single voice” of an author. If you make software you really should pay attention to how art is made. And vice versa.
Episode Information
Initially Released January 26, 2012
Runtime 66 minutes
Episode Page Auteur Theory
Recurring Topics and Characters
Discussion
| Intro | The show starts with Dan introduces the interview show along with a mention of sponsors Sourcebits.com, Mindnode.com, and Bandwidth by Vidmeup.com. Horace talks with Bill Torgerson, where then start with his background in education and writing.
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| 5 Minutes
[00:00 (START) - 05:03] |
| Innovating in Creative Arts Today | Horace and Bill discuss the crisis of innovation in creative arts when the touch on how Bill worked for 10 years studying the creative process, his story of trying to get a literary agent, and the different forms to get published today (indie press, iBooks, etc.).
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| 4.5 Minutes
[05:03 - 09:29] |
| Auteur Theory | Horace asks about the process of writing when it becomes a commercial product, in how much of the process is broken. He mentions the Auteur Theory raises in Paul Canto's Seminar but then raised the issue of the Casablanca film, where it was built in a collaborative process. Bill responds that almost always art is a collaborative process. This leads to discussing Cinema and it needing commercial interests to advance the art due to the need for an paying audience.
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| 8 Minutes
[09:29 - 17:16] |
| The Disruption of Hollywood | Bill and Horace discuss how hollywood has changed over the years, from signing contracts to the star system. To now where you have people like Kevin Smith and Louis CK financing their own productions and distributing it themselves. They talk about finding a groups of like minded people, being naive enough to change the world, and some of Bill's reasons for writing a piece for commercial release.
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| 11 Minutes
[17:16 - 28:35] |
| Horace's Development of Early eBooks Format | Horace discusses on how he assisted in developing a early ebook format in 1999 which became the basis for ePub. He talks about how he made a poor prediction that he made that ebooks were going to be the disrupter, based on the technology. Instead music was due to the fact that technology enabled people to solve a problem they had. 1000 songs in your pocket and being mobile with a large collection of music. Bill and Horace moves on to how the next disruption is going to happen in video and books, with iBook Author being a good tool to enable direct distribution of content.
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| 8.5 Minutes
[28:35 - 36:55] |
| Creative Forms of Distribution and Creation | Bill starts with how a model in use today is a person self-publishing and selling a NY Times best seller then signs a 'Real' book deal. Then talks about more community driven efforts to publishing and distribution. Like Justin Halpern using is Twitter feed to write and sell a best selling book, The Red Lemonade Community and Press. Horace interjects bill's first point that people should aspire to building and maintaining your own value network, to create a separate field that disrupts the standard distribution channel. They continue with talking about some basic online cross-pollination like 5by5 does with their website and people trusting the brand of the network to discover other shows. Like television brands and putting a new show after a popular one to bootstrap it. Also about the large power of hte
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| 9 Minutes
[36:55 - 45:55] |
| The Power of the Internet | Horace starts by using a Mark Zuckerberg Facebook example to start a point how with the power of the internet, you are able to build an audience. They discuss the day to day writing process, Horace thinking about serializing his book creation online and Bill talking about the value of good editor in a collaborative process, and the pros/cons of writing in public.
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| 13 Minutes
[45:55 - 58:36] |
| Wrapup | They wrap up the show with Bill talking about his idea for a doco, Horace about how technology helps us do these creative experiments, The Rise of the Motion Picture Lecture, and some discussion of Apple's products and their Retail Store free training.
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| 8 Minutes
[58:36 - 66:59 (END)] |
Quotes
"... Art is almost always a collaborative process"
–Bill [12:31]
"If you were to think of software development as an art. Then would there be such and art if there wasn't the commercial value that would lead or come from distributing that material and getting paid for it. And people would argue a pure artist doesn't need an audience…. However there are some form of art that if there are no commercial aspect, it does not get done"
–Horace [16:04]
"Recently there has been the devolution of power and overtime. The stars were able to break out of the star system and become names of their own. Own their own images as you will. As did directors, and over time there has been this increasing valuation of the talent, but now we are at the last stage, the last barrier where things need to be broken which is distribution. And this is where we are seeing experiment."
–Horace [21:37]
Horace: "Most of us, enter into this with limited knowledge, in fact that is one of the strengths, we don't know how hard it is. And..."
Bill: "Thats Right"
Horace: "We are actually naive enough to think we can change the world and in fact only those or are that way do change the world." [24:42]
"Now we are at the point where we have to study video.. and my point is that, when you think about an ebook format or a technology based solution to a creative process. You have to keep in mind, that consumer's behavior, really always wins. What their preferences are, wins over what your perceived constraints might be."
–Horace [31:28]
"Writers [do] sense we are at the end of this time and I have heard some writers say last month, there are still some pretty big checks to be cashed. "
–Bill [42:23]
