Category Archives: Film

Perfect Days – and the Analogue Life

Posted on by
Reply

Last week I watched “Perfect Days”, Wim Wenders’ lyrical film about a gentle soul who diligently goes about his daily labour accompanied by a soundtrack of classic songs. Most of the featured music is 50-60 years old, and all of it heard via cassette tapes – no radio stations or internet streaming services were harmed in the making of this film!

Not only does our hero cling to cassettes, we never see him use the internet, e-mail or a smart phone. We don’t even know how he accesses his money – presumably he gets a weekly wage packet containing cash, so no need to visit an ATM or pay with a credit card. To cap it all, he doesn’t own a TV, and his hobbies include reading second hand paperback books, taking photos with a 35mm film camera, and cultivating plants from cuttings he finds in the course of his daily routine.

We don’t really need to know his backstory, although we get the occasional glimpse. What we are presented with is someone who is living an outwardly simple life, almost exclusively analogue, and with very little technology involved. (In fact, the public toilets he cleans for a living are far more hi-tech than anything in his personal world.) I suspect for many people, our empathy for the character’s disposition may easily become envy at how stripped down and uncluttered a life he leads. The fact that he doesn’t appear to have any family or other obligations (and doesn’t have to spend hours in pointless team meetings or on endless Zoom call) no doubt help facilitate this state of being – yet we suspect there is a lot going on in the inside.

But it is certainly a parable in favour of all things analogue.

In fact, as I write this I am listening to a recent album by Tarotplane on a cassette player. He is one of many contemporary musicians who choose to release their work in this format, and along with the recent vinyl revival, they are helping to keep analogue alive. It’s a trend we can see in events like Record Store Day (and it’s younger sibling, Cassette Store Day), books by Damon Krukowski and Robert Hassan, and symbolic vinyl moments in recent film and TV shows such as “Leave the World Behind” and “Ripley”. In the former, the absence of internet and streaming brings a turntable into play; in the latter, a clutch of 7″ records (in picture sleeves!) are among the few possessions the eponymous hero chooses to take with him. Elsewhere, Lomography continues to find new fans of film photography, and on a recent visit to Hong Kong, I was surprised at the huge display of Polaroid cameras and film at Log-On department store.

Not all this fascination with analogue is about nostalgia, fashion, or fadism (or even fetishism). In some quarters, people are becoming concerned that their favourite films, TV programmes, music and video games may disappear from hosting services and streaming platforms, or their cloud storage may get wiped. So they are keeping analogue versions and hard copies as a back-up.

Finally, and picking up a thread from “Perfect Days” itself, I’m not entirely convinced that a 1975 Patti Smith cassette is worth $100, but I do own an original copy of a very rare cassette that has sold for as much as $180… probably because it has never been reissued, is not available to stream or download, and is a great example of early, DIY electronic music made on basic synths in the early 1980s. You couldn’t imagine an mp3 ever commanding that sort of price, unless it was in the form of an NFT, of course.

Next week: False Economies – if it’s cheap, there must be a reason!

Sakamoto – Opus

Posted on by
Reply

Live concert films are mostly formulaic. The audience filing into the venue. The performers warming up backstage. The band close ups, the cutaways to the wings, then zooming out to the ecstatic crowd. The sweaty and exhausted atmosphere in the dressing room afterwards. Sometimes the live footage is inter-cut with interviews, location footage, and the “making of” narrative. Occasionally, there will be scenes shot on the road, revealing the inevitable tedium and monotony of live touring.

A few notable exceptions have tried to break with this format, to present something more dramatic, more mystical, even mythical – think of Pink Floyd’s “Live in Pompeii” (knowingly echoed by Melbourne’s own Mildlife), Talking Head’s “Stop Making Sense”, and David Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars”.

Often, the concert film becomes a souvenir. For those who were there, it enables them to relive the experience. For those who weren’t, they may get some vicarious thrill, but they won’t get to experience the performance as it was fully intended. These films can make us feel we missed out on an historic event, but they can also remind us why we are glad not to have been there at all (the Rolling Stones at Altamont?).

Many concerts these days (and the accompanying Blu-Ray discs) are all about the spectacle, sometimes at the expense of the actual music. Choreographed to within an inch of their lives, these shows leave very little to chance or the unexpected, with their troupes of dancers, video backdrops, somersaults and acrobatics, multiple costume changes, “forced” audience participation, and the “surprise” guest appearances during the encores….

So the footage of the final live performance by the late Ryuichi Sakamoto goes against this trend. Filmed alone, on piano, in stark black and white, and with no audience, no voice-overs and no talking heads, “Opus” is not strictly speaking a concert. Due to his failing health, Sakamoto was unable either to withstand the rigours of touring or to perform a single concert. Instead, these performances were shot in stages, and edited together to form a seamless programme, with nothing but Sakamoto, a piano, and the music, plus some very subtle lighting and framing. The sound recording is brilliant, and the content covers most aspects of Sakamoto’s illustrious and prolific career. It’s a fitting tribute, and a perfect counterpoint to “Coda”, the documentary he made when he had just come through an earlier health scare.

Sometimes, less is more.

Next week: Severance….

AI vs IP

Posted on by
Reply

Can Artificial Intelligence software claim copyright in any work that was created using their algorithms?

The short answer is “no”, since only humans can establish copyright in original creative works. Copyright can be assigned to a company or trust, or it can be created under various forms of creative commons, but there still needs to be a human author behind the copyright material. While copyright may lapse over time, it then becomes part of the public domain.

However, the extent to which a human author can claim copyright in a work that has been created with the help of AI is now being challenged. A recent case in the USA has determined that the author of a graphic novel, which included images created using Midjouney, cannot claim copyright in those images. While it was accepted that the author devised the text and other prompts that the software used as the generative inputs, the output images themselves could not be the subject of copyright protection – meaning they are either in the public domain, or they fall under some category of creative commons? This case also indicates that, in the USA at least, failing to declare the use of AI tools in a work when applying for copyright registration may result in a rejected application.

Does this decision mean that the people who write AI programmes could claim copyright in works created using their software? Probably not – as this would imply that Microsoft could establish copyright in every novel written using Word, especially its grammar and spelling tools.

On the other hand, programmers and software developers who use copyright material to train their models may need to obtain relevant permission from the copyright holders (as would anyone using the AI tools and who uses copyright content as prompts), unless they could claim exemptions under “fair dealing” or “fair use” provisions.

We’re still early in the lengthy process whereby copyright and other intellectual property laws are tested and re-calibrated in the wake of AI. Maybe the outcomes of future copyright cases will depend on whether you are Ed Sheeran or Robin Thicke….

Next week: Customer Experience vs Process Design

 

Eat The Rich?

Posted on by
Reply

There has recently been a spate of satirical films and TV series that take aim at the vanity, self-indulgence and sense of entitlement of the uber-rich. I’m thinking in particular of “The Menu”, “The Triangle of Sadness”, “Glass Onion” and “White Lotus”.  You could also include “Succession” on that list (especially in light of the latest revelations from the House of Murdoch), but this is more of a traditional drama than the others, both in terms of format and content.

Nothing radically new in these stories, their themes or the way they plot their narratives. What is perhaps surprising is the fact that these are not small, independent, art-house productions. They have substantial budgets, exotic locations, stylish design, creative cinematography, and some big names in the credits.

Plus, they receive major theatrical releases, or are luring audiences to premium streaming services. So, they are generally commercial. Best of all, they are attracting awards and nominations – which should hopefully encourage studios to invest in more projects like these (rather than green-lighting yet another sequel in the never-ending round of comic book and super hero franchises).

Of course, these particular stories could simply represent a sign of the times, reflecting current world events, and holding up a mirror to our social-media obsessed age. They also resonate with audiences who are looking for some escapism in the form of critiques of the upper classes, the filthy rich, the social elites, the global power brokers, and those hangers-on who hover and follow in their wake.

I wouldn’t suggest these productions are waging a form of class war, but they represent a kind of morality play: why would anyone want to feel jealous of, let alone become, these people?

Next week: A Journey Through England