VIRAL How big 3 grab copyright of UGC in promo campaigns

Interesting blogger in music industry worth following. Her major contention here is that the labels are quietly subverting notions of the fan/audience empowering potential of converged social media, angrily noting a Sony example of claiming a hashtag use as a binding legal contract handing over all rights in perpetuity with zero compensation (other than glory!).

The former audience as audience 3.0, working for The Man?

https://www.getrevue.co/profile/cheriehu42/issues/the-music-industry-s-inconvenient-truths-149151

CONVERGENCE, UGC Smule, You're on Candid Camera

Clip shows still thrive on mainstream TV, but a new app, Smule, brings yet further backing for web 2.0 enthusiast Gillmor's portentous phrase 'the former audience'. Formalising the type of UGC that the likes of Gaga has long been popularising on official social media accounts, Smule provides a platform for fans to duet with their idols.

And the response has been big ...

Jessie J tracks have racked up 10s of millions further YouTube hits (and the attendant revenue) as Smule videos have become popular, viral items. See article.

UGC FAN-MADE VIDEOS Sepultura use fan vid

I've mentioned this in another (under construction) post, but it merits singling out.
Before I give the actual example, here's what you can learn from this:

• don't restrict yourself to your preferred genre/s! the odds are that few of you are Sepultura fans, but you can pick up great ideas and examples by looking beyond the obvious (take the Morbid Angel [silent movies?!] or Rammstein [Snow White?!] or Rage Against the Machine [Beach Boys?!] examples...)
• embrace the random chances that web 2.0 throws up; I came across this only because I scrolled further into a lengthy web page, despite having found the information I was looking for. I didn't know these Brazilian thrashers had commissioned a competition for a fan-made video until I spotted it here! Some of the examples above come from videos I've spotted in e-zine articles I 'subscribe' to through FB
• when Gillmor writes of the 'former audience', Gauntlett of 'the end of audience studies' and Jenkins of 'convergence culture', these are not hazy ivory tower academics, but active researchers reflecting on clear contemporary trends; you need clear-cut examples to help illustrate such ideas and arguments in the context of the format you're working in
• examples such as this also help to justify any work you do on viral-style/UGC productions, evidencing that it is a very much real phenomenon
• could there be a better illustration of the concept of the 'prosumer'?

The actual video, and further details, are below the line...

Richard Dyer's star system

This is a simple but highly useful audience/narrative theory, which also reflects standard marketing thinking (question 1 a potential distributor will ask of a film production: who's the star?). Richard Dyer's (Amazon book list) landmark 1979 book Stars argued that the star system was central to how the media operate, and how we read texts. Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society (his 1986 follow-up) used case studies of Hollywood icons from the golden era, examining 'the ways in which audiences simultaneously construct and consume a particular star's persona' (Wiki). You might see parallels here with much later web 2.0 theorists such as Gauntlett and Gillmor and such declarations as "the former audience" (see this post for associated material on this).

The point here is that your text's narrative extends well beyond the film opening, 4 minute video, or even the wider promotional package.

I thought about this when reading a Film Guardian feature on Tom Cruise and director Christopher Nolan's insistence on diegetic as opposed to CGI stunts:

It goes deeper still though, into the weird contract we draw up with ourselves when we watch film. “Tom Cruise is doing that for real!” we exclaim to ourselves as we see Tom Cruise doing some casual rappelling. “Whoa!” We never truly watch blockbusters as pure narratives, but instead are constantly aware in their place in a wider ecosystem of celebrity, in which Cruise also has divorces and jumps on sofas and twinkles next to fans. We’re in awe of Cruise-as-Hunt rather than Hunt himself. (Tom Cruise, Christopher Nolan, and the new anti-CGI snobbery)

The excellent MediaKnowItAll site has a useful entry on this, considering not just the film angle but also how the music industry inculcates this approach to its modes of operation:

A star is an image not a real person that is constructed (as any other aspect of fiction is) out of a range of materials (eg advertising, magazines etc as well as films [music]).  

Their entry is copied in below, but is best appreciated on their site, where you can also click around and find further useful material.

YOU/audience are the product: Julian Assange

When we consider audience theory in Media Studies, the degree of flux and changing views on this is quickly evident, and a major theme in itself. Which, if any, of the long-established audience theories continue to hold true in the digital age, the web 2.0 era? Is it enough to write of "the former audience", Dan Gillmor's (2011) striking phrase? David Gauntlett even went as far as to declare the "end of audience studies" (2007, 2011), although Julian McDougall's (2009, in a very readable, student-friendly book) more moderate point that audiences are fragmenting, making it more difficult to meaningfully analyse or discuss/define audiences, is perhaps more useful.

There are those who see the blurring of the audience/producer line as full of democratic promise, not least Gillmor, though Henry Jenkins' Convergence Culture (2008) is perhaps the most striking statement of this.

Is Jenkins too utopian, optimistic? [image source]

CREATIVITY: Alex Cox on Groupwork dynamics

The following is extracted from the brilliant Indie auteur Alex Cox's X Films: True Confessions of a Radical Filmmaker (Soft Skull Press: Brooklyn, 2008). Writing about production of his debut feature, Repo Man (an archetypal cult movie - not to be confused with the Jude Law vehicle Repo Men), he recalls being challenged over portraying a key female character as a serial adultress. He thought his script was spot on, but then again ...

...I am a white male leftist, already guiltyu of the sins of sexism, racism, and generally wishy-washy-ism. As the days went by, I reflected regretfully on the adolescent sexism of my script. ... I [removed a] sex scene. Still I felt guilty: Debbie was still a poor excuse for a character ... I rewrote the liquor-store scene [giving her a heroic send-off].
This was a good idea. ... By alerting the director, the TV coordinator and casting director improved the picture. Could a film made by a group - where all take the role of a director, say - reach a decision like this? Presumably it could. Who knows? Maybe this interaction points to a more collaborative system, in which a group might make decisions more quickly.
(emphasis added; p. 59)

Have you reflected on the role collaboration played in your creativity? Remember, seeking out (at minimum) audience feedback implies that the audience/producer divide is questionable too! (cf. Gillmor's "the former audience" concept (2004))

If you're willing to try out something a little different, you might just enjoy Repo Man...