The Convergence and Decentralization of TV and Film

I knew that broadcast TV was doomed, to be replaced by TV on the internet that can be viewed at any time (TiVo/DVR is a transition technology, like combination VCR/DVD players, that will be phased out). I didn't realize until recently the extent to which movies are going to be forever changed as well. The cost of shooting and editing high quality movies has radically decreased so that anyone with talent can make one, not just giant studios. And of course distribution is no problem on the internet. The term 'independent' may drop out from in front of music and movies, not due to a lack of independent art but due to the absence of anything against which to contrast it.

This realization came when watching short films that are better than almost anything that a production studio has ever put out. Projects like Future Shorts and films like these on Vimeo are creating shorts that have more beauty and power in each minute than the average Hollywood film has in the full two hours. Soon full length films of this kind will become common as well, or better yet, the idea of 'full length' will be lost altogether and stories will just be told in the length it takes to tell them, be that five minutes or fifty hours. Long form TV is becoming less episodic to the point where shows are only indistinguishable from absurdly long movies by the presence of theme song intros and the frequency of the credits rolling. The Wire, Rome, Mad Men, Boardwalk Empire, Band of Brothers, and the like may not simply be the future of television, but the future of audio-visual art.

I'm currently reading The Singularity is Near, by Ray Kurtz, which (appropriately) may be the last physical book I ever buy now that I have a Kindle. The central point of the book is that technology is advancing and growing exponentially, and we are just starting to enter the knee-bend of the parabola where it really begins to shoot upward. This will revolutionize every aspect of our lives, and we should remember that art is a part of that, which is all the more important since that new technology should also provide us with lots of time to pursue what we love.