tv or movies

tv = less letters so it wins

I think the problem w/ sustainednarrative tv is that there are usually so many writers involved that someone ends up fucking it up along the way, it's a lot easier for a movie to be perfect than a tv series

not all shows work like this, not all shows have to work like this. actually can you clarify that you're not assuming that a show's story is tossed around from one writer to the next episode by episode without any leadership or communication, cause i'm not sure

serialized television getting better will happen as long as shows keep getting more centralized leadership from talented writers (ie louie, the semi-auteurs of HBO). but having a room filled with talented writers backing the author up and providing salient perspectives and filling in the empty spaces and writing glorious dialogue where the author might be better at story = potential greater than most glorious films. rarely reached tho

also wtf, why is television less capable of achieving moments of beauty? it has happened much less with television but it's a young and slowly growing medium

no it's not

and i agree that tv isn't in a renaissance at all, ppl just have too low expectations for it. if breaking bad is the best drama on television we're definitely not in a renaissance. i think tv has to outgrow its current format fully for that to happen

tv will not outgrow its current format it will just stop being ""tv"" and start being media that gets put on the internet in various formats

iatee can you try explaining why television is inherently incapable of cinematic-level beauty

it's not inherently incapable it's just even less likely due to the way it makes $

xp so why exactly will internetized tv fail to continue growing? piracy?

ya i agree, but the way it makes $ is evolving

piracy, long-term problems w/ making money through traditional tv commercials, people being increasingly unwilling to pay for cable due to the way we consume media

movies are pirated too, i don't think it's as damaging as you think it is. advertising doesn't need to be a part of tv's future -- premium cable networks are still getting by fine without it. i'm an optimist but i think tv will get a successful itunes treatment before it fails and dies. and subscriber cable will still support networks.

er, cable networks i mean. ABC and them will do what they do and not necessarily have a major impact on the evolution of cable.

hollywood will have problems too but people are willing to pay for 'the moviegoing experience', the 'tv experience' can be pirated. premium cable networks still depend on having a huge base of people w/ large cable packages who 'watch tv', I don't think that will exist in the same sense in 20 years.

I would love to see Louie become a more prevalent model for future shows. Made on the cheap by one central dude with complete creative control. I feel like we'll see a lot more of this as subscription fees for various services increasingly supplant advertising dollars (there's a pretty direct causal link explaining the disproportionately high level of quality of HBO's original programming, f'rinstance). That day can't come soon enough, by christ.

fwiw, i get more pleasure out of watching episodes of breaking bad and parks and recreation than i do out of watching most movies. 10 years ago, i would have said the same thing about the sopranos, 5 years before that i would've said the same thing about the x files and 5 years before that twin peaks and the early episodes of the simpsons. TV has gotten better over the past ten years, i agree, but even before that in the "dark ages" there were TV shows i liked way more than most movies ... so it's a long way of saying that yeah the tv renaissance is kinda overblown.

besides, even most good tv shows lose steam after the third season. it's cliche, but it's true and even more true nowadays.

and i don't even ask for "art" in either movies or TV shows ... i just ask to be entertained!

the thing is that a 'tv show' fundamentally just doesnt seem that concerned w/imagery or the way it looks &c &c and in order to be successful you can be so ugly and formulaic, no one watches 'seinfeld' for the way it looked but its about as good a sitcom as you can make. even shows that had real visual style and grace like 'the sopranos', some of their best episodes are still about dialogue, character, plot and some of their weakest episodes were the most cinematic. (whats the one w/carmela in paris called?)

you could make like non-narrative tv that addressed the role of the camera but then would it really be a 'tv show'? its not even that tv is junk food or a narrower format or w/e its just... its not concerned w/images and the senses the way film can be, its sorta a hybrid medium that has its own strengths but its limited too i guess

xp can't really pirate a big-screen football game w friends, families are never going to crowd around the computer screen to watch their shows, etc. daytime talk shows, late night shows, soaps, sports, maybe even the crap reality shows on Bravo, i don't think these things will ever be fully relegated to the internet. and if they do, they'll find a way to strive there. there's no reason a netflix model can't basically replace cable as long as it costs as much as cable. if/when free ad-based sites like hulu either die out or become entirely subscription-based, that model would make sense. and piracy hasn't killed netflix, etc

basically, there are a million things that can happen. tv's survival and continued evolution (haven't even mentioned the internet's capability to foster low-budget indies) is more likely than its death imo

TV has sports.

Newer digital TVs with a good sound system kind of makes going to a theatre not as big as big a deal as it once was.

the thing is that a 'tv show' fundamentally just doesnt seem that concerned w/imagery or the way it looks

this is a trend based in a history of ad-based, network-meddled-with television, not an inherent fundamental truth. a tv show isn't a sentient thing, and if a showrunner/head writer wants and has the capability to concern the show w imagery, no reason why not. i would if i could! also not buying that there aren't shows right now that achieve beautiful imagery. even the x-files was pretty capable of it at points.

people already watch stuff on their ipads / the internet is easier than ever to connect to someone's tv screen. owning a large tv screen, computer screen or projector or whatever =/= "tv"

xp to lamp

its limits are 100% commercial I think, something is a tv show because it is X minutes long (w/ or w/o commercials) - beyond that there is nothing really that defines tv as an art form when I watch a daily show clip on youtube it's not 'watching tv' but if I watch the whole episode it is.

xp to my last post: i'm no film historian but i imagine you might be able to say the same thing about film in the 20s/30s, before studio productions were overtaken by (at least the concept of) the auteur

voted tv just to enrage morbs like everyone else

its limits are 100% commercial I think, something is a tv show because it is X minutes long (w/ or w/o commercials) - beyond that there is nothing really that defines tv as an art form when I watch a daily show clip on youtube it's not 'watching tv' but if I watch the whole episode it is.

true, but this seems like arguing the difference between a short story and a novella and a novel and a flash fiction.

television is a medium that includes serialized stories, mini-series, made-for-tv movies, etc. not to mention a million other bits of non-fictional media. so maybe the comparison between "tv" and movies doesn't work unless you specify what kind of tv. all i know is that film is basically always 90-120 minutes, while television offers the possibility of every single other narrative length/scope, and that is necessary.

cmon bro nothing is sadder than when 'breaking bad' tries to get cinematic or visually inventive its just like jeez tell yr stories, this is so embarrassing grandpa

also film was p much always visual tv is abt words but it cant actually use words as effectively as books

i know i basically said that too upthread, but tv just uses words differently. also words are better than images.

sure thats why books are better than movies but cmon

haha wait are you granting my five-year-old "argument" that words are better than images? i am really embarrassed that i still think that, but i do. maybe there's something wrong with my eyes.

I think the fact that tv doesn't have the image-thing going for it is mostly due to realities of cost and the production schedule. but again, just like the fixed time, it proves to be an artform that can only be defined by the limits of a budget.

it doesn't have to be like that tho? i think i am alone here in seeing serial tv drama as a very young thing. not in terms of years alive but actual development.

for the record i think that breaking bad is an overrated show and i agree that its visuals are not very great

the sopranos had plenty of both and time and money in its later seasons its just intrinsic in the way a tv show communicates its purpose like i sd the most 'cinematic' episodes of the sopranos were not nec its most 'successful' or enjoyable, tv tells stories and presents its ideas diff than film

does every beautiful image in film exists because of a high budget tho? or even most of them? it's a subjective thing of course. not sure why this is such a huge deal either, didn't know beautiful images are the only judge of a film

above: ya your last part is what i'm getting at, agree. but that doesn't mean television in incapable of 'cinematic' beauty. maybe just indicative that the good cinematographers are in film or that tv suffers too much from serialization, which could possibly be rooted out eventually (like it was in novels).

no Lamp's right what's good about tv is not the cinematic beauty stuff.

an artform that can only be defined by the limits of a budget.

how cynical and rong is this? i mean, apply this to Taxi

to clarify my second part so it makes sense -- i think weeding out ad-based broadcasts = less importance given to serialization = dramas running more fluidly with episode lines blurred and more like chapters in a book that finds chapters arbitrary. i think there might come a point where seasons of television are released all at once rather than week-by-week, which would make tv dramas more novelistic in scope and cinematic in presentation.

how cynical and rong is this? i mean, apply this to Taxi

how long were episodes of taxi? how much time did they have to make new episodes? that's all I meant.

ernest dickerson and agnieszka holland directed several episodes of the wire (which most certainly had some "cinematic" style). neither is ingmar bergman or martin scorsese, but juice and europaaa, europa were solid movies!

Newer digital TVs with a good sound system kind of makes going to a theatre not as big as big a deal as it once was.

I love seeing things in cinemas because it can be so joyous to surrender to being part of ~an audience~

I hear the director of Bridesmaids is thinking about doing some slumming in tv yo

I heard that about the star, too.

want to cosign lamp's points abt movies doing imagery etc better and tv doing plot, character etc better.

Why this could ever be a point in favour of movies escapes me.

bridesmaids is tv xxpost

(oh and stupid thread)

(but movies obv.)

also there is no golden silent era of television

films every time. i've never fully been able to get into tv as a regular thing (wasn't brought up in a tv-heavy household, living in a few houses with no tv at all completely weaned me off the habit). i actively resent it when tv is default "background noise" in a house.

i'm kind of all-or-nothing when it comes to getting into things, and tv series aren't very conducive to that. remembering to be around for it every week is a massive commitment! and the minute i miss an episode that's it, have to stop completely. last time i tried to do this was the lost/desperate housewives era and i didn't even make it to the end of the first series.

which leads into the most important point to me - films = socialising for me. you go out to the cinema, meet friends, maybe go for a meal or a drink, you talk about it afterwards. tv = a block on socialising. instead of going out you have to stay in at the same time every week.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Lex have you heard of VCR, Sky+, Tivo, iPlayer even? Totally removes the need to be in a room at the moment something is broadcast.

VCR - never could work out how to record on videos
sky+ - haha I haven't heard of this
tivo - didn't think we had this in the UK?
iplayer - oh god this just makes me too lackadaisical about catching up and then when i finally get round to it the programme's been taken off iplayer the day before. EVERY TIME.