Ahoy, On Wednesday 30 August 2006 08:37, David Berry wrote: > > You've rumbled me. I'm a consumer automaton in need of salvation. > > But that's what is funny, Tom. You give a load of spiel about the > fact that the documentary is not edgy, catchy or full of pretty or > interesting enough people which oddly reflects the culture > (consumerist, commercial, surface) that you are in. You are not > talking about documentaries in the Reithian sense, but rather docu- > soaps. Doesn't that strike you as a little bit strange?
What's so funny, David, is the way your brain filters emails to completely distort their content, so that you can launch your shouty email attacks. I never said the Steal This Film documentary wasn't edgy, catchy or fully of pretty or interesting people, nor did I say that was the aesthetic I required in order to make it watchable. The only specific example I gave was the style of subtitles, which are actually more "interesting" than boring old static text on the screen, but for me very annoying. I actually really dislike the shaky camera and docu soap approaches. I saw a documentary about travelling salesman from the 1950s recently and it was brilliant. No voiceover, no snazzy graphics, the camera just patiently illuminated the men and their lives. The clincher was that it was well made, it kept me interested by the choice of subject, good camera work and clever editing. With Revolution OS the film makers had the potential for a great film. A good subject, plenty of interesting people to interview, lots of background materials to draw on, and lots of interesting potential tangents into ethics, politics, technology, etc. But what we got was lots of people being given too long on dull subjects, and a focus on one aspect of the story that I suppose appealed to a certain demographic that neither me nor anyone I showed it to fell into. To reach those people they didn't need pretty people or slick production techniques, they just needed to be better film makers or to make a different film altogether about hackers and GNU/Linux :-) This is a bit like your imagination dreaming up my "moral assumptions". I assert that I made no assumptions at all. You deliberately misinterpret again and say "oh, so what *kind* of assumption was it if not moral?" and enjoy another self-satisfied smirk at the expense of your credibility. > > Next time > > I'll show my friends the most obscure, poorly produced documentary > > I can find > > and shout "join the common!" at them until they capitulate. > > Well I would prefer that you were honest about your attempts to > explain the commons rather than hiding the message in slickly > produced docu-soaps. Here's a crazy idea: maybe they could enjoy watching a documentary *and* learn from an honest attempt to deal with the issue of the US govt. strong-arming the Swedish govt. over copyright law? That is perhaps your worst slur yet, David, suggesting I'm not honest because you like to pretend I like "slickly produced docu-soaps". What do you think you achieve by insulting people via misrepresentation? > > that go so far into absurdity as to deny the truth to be found in > > liberalism > > Is that *really* so absurd? Yes, it's utterly bonkers to suggest that I cannot have my own opinions (albeit heavily influenced by outside factors), just as it's bonkers for radical libertarian types to deny those outside factors. Regards, Tom p.s. to Tim, it would be interesting to produce a documentary but it would be good if we could find some experienced film makers first :) My talents, if I have any (David might contest this), lie elsewhere. -- The task of critique is not to denounce the ideals, but to show their transformation into ideologies, and to challenge the ideology in the name of the betrayed ideal (Fromm – Beyond The Chains Of Illusion) _______________________________________________ fc-uk-discuss mailing list fc-uk-discuss@lists.okfn.org http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/fc-uk-discuss
