The Screengrab

You know, you spend the best years of your life arguing against the conservative notion that academia is full of navel-gazing, pointy-headed nudniks so out of touch with the real world that they suck up millions to pursue theses that anyone with an ounce of common sense could disprove in thirty seconds, and then something like this comes along.

In a story that smacks equally of grant-chasing and pure desperation, the Massachussets Institute of Technology -- providing dynamic proof of what happens when people trained in science attempt to apply objective standards to subjective fields of study -- has collaborated with a number of Hollywood big-shots to create something called the Center for Future Storytelling.  The premise behind this colossal boondoggle is pure crankery:  the movies, they say, are running out of stories.  Despite record profits at the box office, we're apparently running dry of narrative (an argument their spokespeople bolster with such fist-shaking geezer logic as blaming text messaging, <i>Guitar Hero</I> and cell phones). It's basically an updated version of the argument advanced in the 1970s that thanks to the proliferation of rock 'n' roll music, we were rapidly running out of melody, and within thirty years there would be no such thing as a new song.

The whole thing is patently absurd.  Narrative is a rhetorical device, not a natural resource; it can't be depleted like a coal mine.  We'll no more run out of stories than we'll run out of metaphors.  Even the act of defining different types of stories in order to prove that we're running out of them is a form of narrative.  Do we see an increasing number of shitty movies based on old TV shows?  Sure we do.  But it's not because there aren't any original stories; it's because Hollywood keeps financing hackwork.  And why does Hollywood keep financing hackwork?  Because people pay to see it.  Blaming some kind of imaginary depletion of the Narrative Zone on scriptwriters' inability to write decent endings ignores the fact that the whole thing is largely a business transaction, not a creative endeavor.  And even if the ridiculous claim were true -- which it isn't -- it ignores the fact that there are other ways to tell innovative stories on film than narrative, and Hollywood has shown precious little interest in them, either.

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As you probably know from the last hundred or so articles about the very big business of video games, they're no longer a niche market.  The biggest titles routinely outgross Hollywood movies, and major motion picture studios are beginning to tailor their releases so as not to conflict with the street dates of huge video game titles like Halo and Guitar Hero.  More and more, video games are being treated like movies:  the scripts get more complex, the special effects get more elaborate, the money gets bigger, and release dates become more important.  There's one way in which the two industries aren't exactly the same, though, and that's in the way they pay their actors.

The bigger video games get, the more they begin to attract brand-name Hollywood actors to do voice work.  Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto franchise pioneered this, getting big stars like Samuel L. Jackson, Peter Fonda and Ray Liotta to provide the voices of characters in previous installments.  This time around, with the critically acclaimed and best-selling Grand Theft Auto IV, they went the opposite direction, hiring a cast of relative unknowns to play Eastern European immigrant Niko  Bellic and his rotating cast of friends and enemies.  But one thing has held true, as the New York Timesrecently reported:  unlike with television, film, and all other media, actors in digital media receive no royalties or residuals for their work.  As a result, Michael Hollick (who plays Niko Bellic, and received $100,000 for a little more than a year's work) finds himself starring in the most popular entertainment product in America -- and isn't getting a single dime more than he was originally paid.    It's an unusual situation without an easy solution, and Hollick doesn't blame Rockstar -- he blames the Screen Actor's Guild, which hasn't been especially forward-looking in its negotiations over digital media.  Indeed, if predictions of an actor's strike this summer come to fruition, it's likely that, just as with the writer's strike earlier this year, digital media royalties and pay rates will be the central issue.  Meanwhile, Hollick and thousands of actors like him will have to suffer through getting no royalties for their video game work, regardless of the product's success.

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Have any of you ever heard of this band? Every now and again, a book or movie comes out documenting the career of some unsung band from yesteryear, their influence reaching into more popular groups than your average Brooklynite could namedrop over beers and Guitar Hero.

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