User Generated Content & Its Effect On Film

I like how Larry Lessig in his TED video "Laws that Choke Creativity" gives us examples of how many of the things we see and listen to today are remixes of previous work. It's very difficult to come up with truly original work, and even Hollywood, the professionals, are struggling to do so lately. Letting regular people borrow and use other work to make their own creations should be allowed in my opinion, except for if they are trying to make money off of it. This gives not only young people but all creative people the chance to showcase their vision and creativity by using elements from other mediums. There have been plenty of music videos that have been made by fans who many argue were done better than the actual professional music video, this is an example of how user generated content is a positive force and should be allowed to continue.

With film, just like any other sort of entertainment industry, reviews and ratings are a huge factor that effect whether or not people will go spend the money and time to see the finished product. I know many people, myself included, who will wait a couple of days to see how the ratings of a movie have done. There have been times where the critics ratings have swayed me to not see a movie, and although I follow the ratings of popular sites such as rottentomatoes.com, Imdb.com, and Metacritic I have still watched movies that even all three of those sites have deemed "rotten." On the contrary, I haven't seen movies that all three of those sites have deemed "classic" "fresh" "oscar worthy" or given very positive ratings. While it's true that there have been times where I may not have seen a film that I would have liked to experience and seen films that I probably shouldn't have wasted the money on. I'm sure that there are plenty of people out there who have only gone to see movies that critics and users have given favorable reviews. I usually am one of those people too. This has the potential to effect the box office and cause studios to try and get as positive reviews as possible for their movies. There has been talk that Marvel/Disney has paid off reviewers to give their films higher ratings while the critics have constantly bashed DC films, and while I find this train of thought silly and almost conspiracy level garbage, it is kind of fun to imagine. Is it too much to believe that maybe the DC films are just not as well made in general as the Marvel films? Or is there really an actual conspiracy going on? All of this talk originated from user generated content.

Technically Metacritic is arguably the best since it averages the rating from multiple critics sites and sources. It also takes user review scores and displays them next to the critic's score. There have been times where the professional critics have been wrong and a movie has ended up being more popular with audiences than the critics ever thought it would be. Even in recent memory the movie Batman Vs. Superman had initial pretty bad reviews and was getting 27% on Rotten Tomatoes while a majority of audiences enjoyed and liked the movie and is currently sitting at a decent 64% user rating.

I have problems with the way some of these sites allow aggravating reviews. Imdb.com for example, allows users to post and rate a movie before it has even released in theaters. This should leave the assumption that the ratings that have been posted are from early screenings of the film. I would like to see Imdb provide a better system that reduces aggravating ratings and forces users to submit a small review and give reasons why they gave the movie the rating they did. With a 50 word minimum, and an intern or employee who screens the reviews, so the copy and paste reviews don't slide by. If a site wants to have it's ratings be taken seriously they have to make users put a little more effort into their ratings. This not only would reduce the troll ratings who only give 1/10 ratings because they hate the director or an actor/actress. but it gives the site a little more credibility as well.
The forum boards are no worse, users are constantly posting aggravating posts and seem to be looking for attention more than actually discussing the film. There are multiple ways that a site can grow it's credibility and the example I gave is just one of many.

All in all, user generated content has the potential to be a great tool. I think it is usually used in a negative way though, more than it should be. We can't control everything that people post using the internet, we can't control how people view something, or their experience with it. However, I do think we can control the way users can post and express their opinions in a more efficient and credible manner.

Social Media & Relationships With Regards to Film

When it comes to film and movies (which are generally used interchangeably). Movies are considered feature length films that exceed 45 minutes and are meant for audiences in larger scale, while films are a cinematic representation of a story, drama, episode, event etc. everyone has their own opinions and some even have a special relationship with films. I'm in no way an expert on film although I've taken many classes as a student, however, I consider myself fairly informed and usually up to date when it comes to watching the latest blockbusters, or the more popular Indie/short films, or even the latest films that have been oscar nominated.

Throughout my years of watching movies and using social media networking sites, mainly Facebook, I have noticed some trends. My friends and family, as well as myself, are somewhat influenced by how many of our Facebook friends go see the latest movies. They usually post a quick little impression of what they had and then that's it. Then you'll see a number of likes and comments from their friends who mention whether they went to see it or not or whether they even want to see it.

In this way, I do believe that we as pretty social beings do tend to be influenced by what social media suggests. There have been multiple times where one of my friends said they went to see the latest movie and said it was trash even if I thought it looked good from the trailers and I ended up not going to see it in theaters. Likewise, I've seen posts where a movie I wasn't initially interested in got praise from a few of my friends and I ended up going to see it. I'm sure that this applies to everyone who uses social media.

My biggest complaint about the use of social media and its influence on people's perception or relationships is that people tend to be almost exasperatingly and overtly cynical and pessimistic on certain sites. Youtube, and IMDB are notorious for attracting cynical/pessimistic users that post nothing but negative comments on the pages. It's not always full of negative comments, and rightfully some things do deserve criticism, however, when it's nothing but biased negative fluff that contributes nothing to a civil debate of criticism, I tend to get irritated and have found myself getting involved with these posters when I clearly shouldn't be wasting my time.

I am ferociously defensive of Star Wars and have always been. I accept that not everyone likes Star Wars and is open to criticize it as a series. My friends know that I am a huge Star Wars fan and some of my Facebook friends have even used me as a means to get more information or used me as reference to promote discussion or speculation. I don't consider my knowledge of films, especially Star Wars, to really provide any sense of social capital but perhaps one day my knowledge will have an effect on people or provide an opportunity to gain monetary funds.

Social Media and Film Blog Introduction/First Post

My name is Austin McComb, and I'm currently a Mass Communication Design major at CSU Chico, CA. This is my educational blog for CDES 219 where I will be posting, discussing, and commenting on Social Media and it's connection to Film.

Many people enjoy watching movies for different reasons. Some people enjoy the themes, the stories, the characters, the music, the symbolism, some even enjoy the complex under the surface philosophical ideas that only a very select few of individuals would ever notice, understand and contemplate, and lastly some people just enjoy the large explosions and loud noises (and that's okay!) :)

Almost all of us enjoy film/movies is my point. We all enjoy taking a break from our day to day lives to watch a bunch of animated pictures combined with music and sound to tell a visual story. Stories have been capturing our imaginations for as long as we've had the ability to communicate intelligently with spoken language. It's no wonder that over time our ability to improve and master the use of communicating stories has led to the multi-billion dollar industry of film entertainment today. It's something that many of us just enjoy given the time to do so.

You want to know what else many of us enjoy? Social Media... we love to post to Facebook what movie we just finished crying over, send snaps with Snapchat of our favorite moments during a movie at home, take a picture and heavily modify it's look using Instagram filters, and finally write blogs about what movie we just watched to analyze and discuss what the directors and writers were trying to convey (Kind of like what I'm doing here).

My hope is that many people will enjoy discussing the use of social media and film since it's something that pretty much applies to everyone in the developed world. If I had to choose one ideal reader of this blog, it would be someone who understands, is knowledgeable, and is open to the idea of film, (who really likes Star Wars like me) and that still likes to use social media to communicate his or her feelings and ideas.