NEW TUBE, OLD TUBE

Here’s a movie idea. In a hundred different countries a cat gets stuck up a tree. Imagine the hundred little scenarios that unfold as a result. Ask yourself, which one of these cat-up-a-tree stories will catch the attention of the world’s media? Is it random? Is the cat with a PR company behind it more likely to catch your eye? Or does the cat that was rescued by a 6-year-old blind kid from a poor area make for the better story?

No, I’m not on drugs. This week YouTube announced it will now pay for content. Meanwhile old media, ie. The Scotsman - reports today on computer science student, James Provan, who has been “spotted and signed by the media giant Time Warner”. Good for James. His YouTube videos – short pieces of stop motion camcorder jinks backed with his own music – are apparently getting millions of hits. And the deal with Time Warner? Well, he’s getting a whole two grand for his efforts, so that TW can use his ‘Garden’ video as part of an ad campaign to launch one of their businesses, along with 19 other YouTuber’s clips, which in advertising budget terms is the equivalent of chucking a penny into a busker’s bunnet.

I’m sure James isn’t complaining. Neither would I. But it raises some interesting questions about the idea of filmmaking and the notion of what the Scotsman quotes as (yawn) the "democratisation of opportunity" for filmmakers, which if you ask me sounds a bit like the democratisation of Iraq, a meaningless bit of blah when over 65,000 clips are going up on YouTube every day. The odds of getting blown to bits in Baghdad are shorter than getting your movie seen.

I wonder, at what point do you become a filmmaker? Is it the moment you take the camcorder out of its box? Is it when you get your pals together and perform in front of the camera? Is it when you upload your video to YouTube? Or is it when some lazy-minded hack can’t come up with anything better to say?

In the world of YouTube, if all filmmakers are equal, then how come James got 1.5 million hits for his ‘Pancake’ video? And even that doesn’t top ‘Bride has Massive Hair Wig Out’ which so far has had 2,009,357 hits. Or the recent one featuring two rabbits staring dumbly at the camera, watched in offices worldwide by bored drones staring dumbly at the screen.

It’s random, that’s what. When the makers of say, The Blair Witch Project, got lucky, were they the only people with a cheapo horror film? I doubt it. Did people watch the rabbit clip because it was good filmmaking? Or did they watch because 3 million other people watched it? It’s the old tipping point syndrome, where for no reason, a three minute clip turns into a phenomenon.

If there’s something that has less value than entertainment, it’s amusement. It’s the puggy with the million quid jackpot. Human nature being what it is, we just keep pushing the button, hoping we’ll get a payout. So it goes with YouTube. We just keep clicking on clips, watch mutely, maybe get a laugh and move on. For the pundits to suggest that there’s a living to be made out of uploading daft wee movies is absurd. Nobody’s filling their boots with this rubbish. Maybe that’s why Google (who bought YouTube for a gazillion dollars) is drumming up headlines while they figure out how to cash in on it before the site turns into OldTube.

For James, getting a pittance for his old movies isn't democracy of opportunity - how can it be when he's been plucked out by an oligarchy like TW? And as for the 'deal' as reported in the Hootsmon, it's hardly likely to involve handing a few million to an emerging film talent to do the same thing. No, it's the usual old wishful thinking by a lazy-minded, poverty-stricken press.

If you look at James’ website - www.gir2007.com – you’ll see he’s got a donations page. Here he makes a refreshingly direct plea to punters – ‘it costs me money to amuse you, so please, cough up’. He’s had a single figure response so far – not enough to give up computer studies – and a wee bit disappointing considering he’s had millions of hits. I watched his ‘I can’t believe it’s Christmas’ clip and it’s nicely done - up to a point. I wonder what Sight and Sound would make of his effort?

Here the auteur, in his attempt to consolidate the metatextual resonance of his subject matter and to challenge our preconceptions of the ritualistic mores of Western society, ie. the season of Christmas, with a reference to primitive, even pagan symbolism, subverts his subject by the intervention of socio-realist imagery, placed to provoke in the viewer a disquieting response and a stark reminder of the unpalatable realities of late capitalism.

Du-uh… Maybe there’s mileage in the cat-up-a-tree idea. After all, it can’t be any worse than Babel, can it?