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. With Art v. commerce: When to walk away
Maybe this should wait till AntiFriday, but …
Via ArtsJournal, here’s Mark Ravenhill in The Guardian:
Recently, I became excited about the possibilities of creating a drama serial on the internet: thrice-daily instalments in a fresh medium. But I quickly discovered that the only source of funding lay in business. There are no ad breaks in internet drama. If money is forthcoming, the only option, at the moment, is for the drama and the advert to become one. Current internet dramas are funded by – and feature characters prominently using – a particular type of mobile phone or sanitary towel. The drama’s hero, driving the action of the scene and determining the final cut, becomes the product, not the character.
If this is the only choice available, then I figure, as a dramatist, it’s best to walk away.
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Kim Fellner's book 
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Reader Comments
Rob, historically, products were how media came to be,
eg. the soap opera. True, product placement has
reached annoying levels, mostly due to thoughtless
pairing of the product and the vehicle in which it’s placed.
But if a storyline remains intact, doesn’t interfere with the work’s
visual flow and packs the punch the author intended, what the hay?
What do you think?
best,
bonnieL
richmond, VA
USA
Hi Bonnie,
Two things.
1. “if a storyline remains intact, doesn’t interfere with the work’s visual flow and packs the punch the author intended.” In my experience, those are big ifs. And what tends to happen is a the front end the understanding is that all of that will be true — and when the contracts are signed, well, just a minor change here and there …
2. I’m not against soap operas and all their descendents, but that’s not the only way culture comes into existence, and I am also not against the view of this guy, or any creative person who chooses to do their work without any corporate support at all. In fact I think it’s vital that we continue to have at least SOME creators who insist on working that way.
Now I’m obviously not an artist, but one reason I sympathize with this view is that I believe in it myself. Clearly my day job is ad supported. On the other hand, I like to have other venues that are not. This site, for one. (There are others.) I’ve had multiple offers to fold Murketing.com into one or another media entity or ad supported network or whatever. I would love to defray the cost of the time I spend doing this site — but I choose not to do so in that way.
I don’t want to have conversations with anybody about what I can and can’t do here, and how often. Maybe if I cut one of those deals, it would be great, and I’d make some cash, and nothing would change.
Am I being dumb?
Another example in the context of Murketing.com; Somebody invited me to come talk at their marketing event, and said they’d buy a hundred copies of Buying In for the event — if I’d promote the event here.
I said no. I only post what I want to post here, and I’m quite certain this event is not something I would have been telling people about under normal circumstances.
Again: Dumb?