SXSW11-PressPausePlay (2010)

Directed by: David Dworsky/Victor Köhler

Media has taken a dive lately…but it’s booming in a way that it never has. People are able to indulge their creative impulses at the touch of a button and allow millions of people to have access to it. Is this a good thing?

That’s what Dworsky and Kohler are trying to figure out with PressPausePlay, a documentary that examines our new culture of instant creativity. They interview everyone from Moby to RIAA employees to producers to up and coming musicians to try to find the happy medium that will allow media to survive this new age.

The problem is that no one can agree. Moby (the person they interview the most) seems to be on both sides of the coin. He sees it as incredibly empowering to the individual, but also very scary to the art.

Here’s the deal: I am not a particularly creative person when it comes to music. But I could write a song, record it and release it all within the space of about an hour and a half and it might sound just as good as the latest Britney Spears single. I could tweak it enough to make it sound like I can sing and play an instrument. I could over-produce it enough to where people could think that it was produced by Butch Vig. I could make my mediocrity sound amazing.

BUT, that song that I just produced and released all on my own would get lost in the swamp of millions of other folks doing exactly the same thing. About two percent of those folks have MUCH more talent than I do, but they have just as much of a chance to be heard as I do. One of the talking heads in the movie says that a young Scorsese or Spielberg will never be found because of the sea of mediocrity that we’re being inundated with and, without the studio system or the music industry, there won’t be anyone to really promote any of this new art.

So, what’s the answer? Are we headed into a new Renaissance where art is easy to come by? Or a new Dark Age where everyone is an artist, but no one is particularly good? The filmmakers seem to be on Moby’s side. It’s somewhere in the middle. And that’s fine. I don’t know that we’ll really figure this stuff out until we’re about 20 years away from it all. We’ll have to look back to see. I doubt that the folks in the Renaissance knew that they were in the middle of such a fertile period.

The movie is quite good, but it really did feel like the hour and twenty minutes dragged on for a while. A bit of tightening up could have done wonders. I felt like they belabored a few points. Overall, though, it’s a very interesting question that deserves to be looked at.

Thus endeth my SXSW11. It was a fun festival, but I did have a few problems. First off, the quality of the films has gone WAY down in the last few years. Is it film overall? Or is it the choice of films? Second, parking and transportation is becoming more and more of an issue. They had a shuttle running from downtown to the two theatres that weren’t close enough to walk to, but that shuttle shut down on the last day…meaning that, because I didn’t know that, I missed the last movie I was going to see. There was just no parking near that theatre because the free shows were going on right next door.

Then, of course, my damned injured foot kept me from seeing Yoko Ono. Goddamit!!! I really wanted to see her tonight, but I just couldn’t stand for two or three hours in a hot, sweaty club waiting for her to come on.

Oh well. I saw some good movies and discovered some new music from those movies. I guess I’m good.