Rambling Rundown

Not For the Money or the Fame

AKA Why the news/talk/variety genres of television actually matter. 

AKA what bothers me about pretentious film douchebags and why I’m not an artist.

I recently switched into a class called “Creative Principles and Practices” to finish my marketing minor. It’s interesting, because the whole reason I switched into this class was because I didn’t think I had the time to be creative. We were asked to write blog posts about anything that inspired us, and to the surprise of no-one, I find myself inspired by television**. I was originally in a directing class and there was something about the whole class just bugged me. All I wanted to do was learn more about basic framing and shot selection and everyone else was so concentrated on being an artist, something for which I had very little patience. It’s ironic in the least ironic way that I instead ended up in a class that is concentrated on just that, making us all artists.

In that one directing class I attended we were asked why we do what we do. Seems like a pretty simple question. We’re in a business that is cut throat, one that will take your mind, your body, and any semblance of a soul you may have and swallow it whole. Or at least that’s what I hear. You’d better have a damned good reason to stay in this business. And for most students, it was an easy question. “For art”, “for the raw emotion”, “for the character development”, “to do something that’s never been done before”. Sure, these are all good answers if want to be an auteur, a visionary, or if you’re simply a douche bag. The cries of “I don’t want to do it for the money or the fame, I want to do it for the art!” were followed by an hour-long discussion about selling out and losing your creditability as an artist. Yup, I dropped that class very, very quickly.

But it did get me thinking: what is “selling out”? It’s when you put money ahead of art, dollar signs above capturing your emotions. It all seems pretty simple if you live in the film world. You pour your life’s work into telling your story in a small picture, play it at a few festivals, and get along on your merry way of being smug and broke. Great, now go drink your soy latte in your studio apartment in peace. At least you’ll feel good on the inside. But what about us in the television world? Where do we fit into this whole idea of art and creativity and selling out and “success comes from within”? Well, we don’t. At least I don’t.

Television is a medium driven by money. Television is a business. TV isn’t a place for art, it’s a place for advertisers! The content is secondary to the ads. The piece you’ve just put all hours of the day into producing is secondary to a Doritos commercial. Feels pretty shitty, huh? Actually, no. Because I strongly believe that television offers something unique that film never could.

 Television is accessible. Television is reliable. Television is a part of your life, every day. It’s a form of communication. It’s about the audience.

Think about television without an audience. It’s pretty depressing, actually. You have a talking head, a cooking show where no one cares about the recipe. Take away the audience and you’re left with nothing. If you take away the audience of an art house film, you still have the “emotion” of the piece, you still have the concept behind the work, you still have what comes from within. You still have the purity of art. But I argue that television isn’t art. Television is mass communication. Sure, film is beautiful and film makes you feel and think. But it’s a different world from television. It’s not in your life everyday. Great and influential film is often hard to seek out and while it has the emotion and power behind it to make a difference, it often doesn’t. The audience just isn’t wide enough and if it is, the content is often lacking the power that could drive it in the first place.

So what is television? What can a morning talk show possibly offer that a cinematic piece can’t? It offers reliability. No matter what happens in your own life, you know that you can turn on NBC at 8am and the Today Show will be there. You know you can catch comedy at 12:30am. You know that a slew of talk show hosts will be around to introduce you to your favorite celebrities coinciding with their movie premieres. A morning cup of coffee and The Today Show become engrained in your routine.

Television offers mass communication. We live in a world that is abundant with mass communication. Yes, the Internet and the omnipresence of social media can serve much the same function of mass communication and connectiveness. But the mass media still holds a form of power in that it is simply…massive. Do you remember when Osama Bin Laden was captured and Obama addressed the nation? We flocked to our television sets. We needed information and we turned to the place where we could find it breaking as it happened: the television. Sure we all connected on social media to discuss it, but the information, the connectivity, all came from us tuning into the same program on CNN. Or what about when Kelly won American Idol or when Kim Kardashian got married? We all knew to talk about it because we had all seen it. Although on a different scale and level of importance, here was mass communication at work.

I know that in today’s world this is ideological. Our technology is driving us so far into the realm of isolation that this idea of mass communication and connecting on any level is becoming harder and harder to come by. I know this argument is outdated and will be completely invalid in a few years or maybe even months. But this is precisely why I would be so pained to see television go. We hide behind our screens; can those screens at least bring us together somewhere else? Can we still bond together on twitter over current events and Dancing with the Stars the same way we would over local gossip?  Is it worth saving mass communication for its power of offering a national or global community?

So this all brings me back to the original question: Where do I fit into this and why do I want to be a television director? Why do I do what I do and what is it that will push me through what is sure to be a very difficult-to-navigate industry? Why in the world would I choose to spend my life calling lower thirds and setting up frames? It can’t be for the same reasons as a film director. There isn’t nearly the level creativity in the style of directing I want to go into. There isn’t necessarily much to be said for the content either. But for me the reason is simple: I want to be a leader; I want to be instrumental in providing the aforementioned powers of television (reliability, mass communication and connectiveness) to the public. I want to be a slave to my audience and provide them exactly what they expect in the manner they expect it. In a way, it’s like being a general of an army. You know what you’re expected to do and you do it. You may find a new and better way to go about doing it, and for that your creativity and innovation should be rewarded. But when it comes down to it, your job is to lead the troops to get the job done. And for me, I find the job of television to be one that is beautiful and worthwhile. Yes, I also love the work environment. I love the collaboration, I love the adrenaline, I love the stress and the grey hairs I’m going to get. But when it comes down to it, just as it does for film directors, it’s all about the meaning behind the work. It’s just that the meaning of television is far different from that of film. Art versus communication, the beauty of emotion versus the beauty of connectivity

I could tell a few students were judging me as I mentioned all of this in class. They saw me as a sell out. They hate television. Television is everything that is wrong with entertainment and the industry. It’s an institution of money. An institution of money where there isn’t any money anymore! Pretty pathetic, huh?

So yes, I guess I am a sell out. I am working to be a slave to budgets, networks and giving people exactly the shit they expect. It may not be creative and push the envelope on new thinking. But it’s reliable, it’s connecting, and for now it works. So in that way, I guess it is important. And audiences love it. And I love it too.

**When I refer to television, I’m referring to news/variety/talk/entertainment/sitcom multi-camera style television more than single camera narrative. While single camera television is definitely different from film, it straddles this weird line between the two and can’t necessarily be classified into the “television” or the “film” categories for the sole purpose of this post.