Something for nothing “You’re in luck cuz last night it happened again, I was feeling creative about twenty to ten. So I sharpened a pencil, then I wore down its end, And now soon you’ll have something to share with your friends.” — Loudon Wainwright III
Graham Gordy
n You know what I love? Free stuff. Free samples. Free tastes. Free desserts. Buy one get one free. Free trial offers. Mail in 10 wrappers to get a free Moon Pie T-shirt? I’ll do it. Free 50th Anniversary Silver Dollar City baseball cap? I’m in. Free Organic Shea Butter Anti-Aging Cream sample? Yes, please. I want free stuff even when I don’t want it. But those are things. Tangible things. Things that if I picked them up in a store and put them in my pocket and walked out, I would feel like I was stealing. Yet when we go online, there’s a disconnect. Our computers are generally a free and open forum, and somewhere along the road toward getting digitally everything we can get digitally, we started expecting to get everything we can get digitally for free. One of the results of this expectation
over the last decade was, if not the death, at least the abject leveling, of two of our country’s major industries — newspapers and music. And whether the heads of the movie industry want to admit it or not, we’re on our way to the third. Don’t get me wrong. The reasons the movie industry is hurting right now are legion: because of the enormous boom in entertainment options (video games, DVR, OnDemand, good TV, web video, web apps), because the big studios are pieces of huge multinational corporations that are hurting in other areas of their business even more than movies, because the credit crunch has made financing hugely difficult, and because, until recently, the studios devoted considerably more resources to fighting piracy than to exploring new distribution models. That said, piracy is an enormous factor in the current economic crisis of Hollywood and it only stands to become a larger one. Home video has always been where the studios actually make money (due to
calendar
400 President Clinton Ave. 375-2552. www.rivermarket.info.
Continued from page 27 Octubafest. University of Central Arkansas - Snow Fine Arts Center Recital Hall, Oct. 27, 7:30 p.m.; Oct. 29, 7:30 p.m.; Oct. 31, 7:30 p.m. 201 Donaghey Ave., Conway. Ryan Bingham, The Rustlanders. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9 p.m., $15. 519 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-442-4226. Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 5 p.m., free. 111 W. President Clinton Ave. 501-374-7474. www.capitalhotel.com/CBG.
Lectures
Chip Johnson. The mayor of Hernando, Miss., delivers a lecture, “Creating a Culture of Good Health” as part of the Clinton School of Public Service outdoor lecture series. For reservations, e-mail publicprograms@clintonschool.uasys.edu or call 683-5239. River Market Pavilions, 12 p.m.
THIS WEEK IN THEATER “Chicago.” The classic Kander and Ebb musical about celebrity criminals in Prohibition-era Illinois. Fri.-Sat., 7:30 p.m.; Sun., 2:30 p.m.; The Weekend Theater, $14-$18. 1001 W. 7th St. 501-374-3761. www.weekendtheater.org. “The Color Purple.” Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of female, African-American life in racially tense Georgia, circa 1930, gets the musical treatment in this touring production. Through Oct. 21 and Oct. 24, 7 p.m.; Oct. 22-23, 8 p.m.; Oct. 23-24, 2 p.m. Walton Arts Center. 495 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-443-5600. “Death by Fatal Murder.” Mayhem ensues when Inspector Pratt, Miss Maple and other Agatha Christie characters are called to solve a murder at Bagshot Mansion. Sun., 5:30 p.m.; Tue.-Sat., 6 p.m. through Nov. 14, also Oct. 21, 11 a.m. Curtain
so much of the box office revenue going to pay for costs and back-end fees for actors, directors, and producers). Home video revenue dropped 9 percent in 2009 and is expected to drop a further 12 percent this year. The industry says it lost $1.3 billion domestically and $6.1 billion worldwide due to piracy. These numbers translate into over 141,000 jobs lost and $837 billion in tax revenue and they are throwing the industry into a tailspin. And we’re just at the beginning. For most people, the reason they don’t pirate movies the way they do music is because it takes so much longer to download and steal. As the technology improves, this hurdle will fall and piracy will only increase. Here’s why this matters to you. Because of reduced profits from home video, executives are cutting fees across the board and making decisions of what feature films to produce based almost entirely on what movies sell well on Friday nights. Based on ticket sales, by early Friday evening, a studio can generally determine how much money a movie will make, not only over that weekend, but through the entirety of its run. Now, sometimes these estimates are wrong. Sometimes a smaller film will surpass its estimates because of good reviews or positive word-of-mouth. But executives aren’t interested in these anomalies because executives are fearful and running publicly traded companies
and, instead, are looking for a fixed game. So, they put their money on black and make movies they know will sell to a Friday night audience. And who goes to see movies on Friday nights? Fourteen to 25 year-olds. The combination of hard times and home video taking such a hit has led to a change in the industry that seems irrevocable. Coming from someone who makes the bulk of his living from the entertainment industry, I’m sure this sounds like a selfish plea. And it is. But here’s why it matters for you, my entertainment-thieving friends. Quality goes down. It has gone down and it will continue to. When half as many movies are being made this year than were five or six years ago, and those movies are created more than ever to appeal only to the young (and generally male) demographic, where will you get your entertainment that is not pure product? Where will you find a movie that’s not based on a comic book or video game or board game? When writers, directors, musicians, and other creators are spending the majority of their time fighting twice as hard for half as many jobs, they don’t have the time to create better work. When the creators spend their days not practicing their craft, or creating a form of their craft that is pure commerce, the quality of the work diminishes. And in those cases, it’s not just the artists who suffer; it’s you.
follows meal. Murry’s Dinner Playhouse. 6323 Col. Glenn Road. murrysdinnerplayhouse.com. “Let Go.” Drugs, peer pressure, unemployment and suicide are explored through the eyes of a teenage girl in thsi play, written by Pine Bluff native Warren L. Booker, Jr. Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, Sat., Oct. 23, 7 p.m. 501 W. 9th St. 501-376-4602. www.mosaictemplarscenter. com. “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” The famous story of good and evil hits the stage as a “steam punk, pulp noir” play. Royal Theatre, through Oct. 23, 7 p.m.; Sun., Oct. 24, 2 p.m., $10. 111 S. Market St., Benton. “You Can’t Take It With You.” The Conway Dinner Theater presents the Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy about two families and their search for the American dream during the Great Depression. Oak Street Bistro caters. For tickets, call 501-3397401. Wesley United Methodist Church, Sat., Oct. 23, 6:15 p.m.; Sun., Oct. 24, 12:30 p.m., $30. 2310 East Oak St., Conway.
GAllERIES, MuSEuMS New exhibits, gallery events ARKANSAS ARTS CENTER, MacArthur Park: “A Century of Revolution,” lecture by Sarah Holian, guest curator, 6 p.m. Oct. 21, $5; Conversation with Tim Spleth, ceramicist, 6 p.m. Oct. 24, $15 for Friends of Contemporary Crafts members, $20 non-members, reserve at focc@arkarts.com; “A Century of Revolution: Mexican Art since 1910,” work from the collection of the University of Texas, through Nov. 21, Winthrop Rockefeller Gallery; “Bigger, Better, More: The Art of Viola Frey,” large-scale ceramic figures, through Nov. 28, Jeannette Rockefeller and Townsend Wolfe galleries, $7 adults, $5 seniors, $4 youth; “Currents in Contemporary Art,” “Masterworks,” “Paul Signac Watercolors and Drawings,” ongoing. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun. 372-4000. ARKANSAS GOVERNOR’S MANSION: “The
Continued on page 31
Common
“The King of Conscious Hip Hop” TUESDAY, OCT. 26
7:00 p.m. M. L. Harris Auditorium Philander Smith College · www.philander.edu All lectures are free and open to the public. For more information call 501-370-5279. No tickets or RSVPs required. www.arktimes.com • OctOber 21, 2010 29