The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Thursday, November 15, 2007 - 3B
Video isn't just the
future it's vital
here's nothing new to
the idea that the world
is going the way of mul-
timedia. It has since the printing
press, the telegraph and now the
iPhone. Compa-
nies like Apple
and Google
have spurred
a marvelous
upheaval in how.,
we - the short-
attention-span,
oversaturated- ANDREW
with-infor- SARGUS
mation public KLFjN
- gather and
process even more information.
Google Reader, Second Life and
blogs are all examples of how the
Internet/information/media age
is coalescing into concrete quali-
fiers. Thanks to innovation, both
corporate and organic, the laptop-
toting masses have an easier time
catching up on celebrity gossip,
USB-gadget updates and breaking
news.
Thrown into the fray is the reas-
sessment of the role of newspa-
pers, our pillars of objective and
informed subjective reporting. My
last column nutshelled the blogs-
vs.-newspapers "debate." A crucial
extension of that dialogue is how
newspapers are adapting to multi-
media platforms beyond the use of
blogs, and they are - sort of. There
exists a hierarchy of media online:
Lead print articles are at the top of
the website, and videos and slide-
shows are rarely close to the top
and hardly included in RSS feeds.
In print, online content receives
marginal support.
The respective websites for The
New York Times and the Washing-
ton Post are chock-full of videos
and slideshows and links to dozens
of blogs. Though the Times's site is
better designed with a more effec-
tive integration of media, both sites
are heavy-handed in their attempt
to represent everything they have
to offer in one gulp. Aesthetics
of Web design and hierarchies
of information butt heads here.
Papers of this caliber are expected
to have the world within arm's
reach - hence the predominance
of written content. Breaking news
still follows the necessary template
of photo (if available), headline and
text. Since this news takes prece-
dence, for example, over an audio
slideshow on climate change's
impact on a specific community,
the link for the feature goes south,
so to speak.
There is no denying hardnosed,
on-the-ground reporting as the
foundation of great multimedia
features. But the features them-
selves, as a medium, have just as
much potential as a SO-point head-
line atop a 1,000-word article. We
love our YouTube and our blogs
and will stick to our favorites
(geekologie.com), but newspapers
need to prove they can do it better
than the rest.
They have all the street cred
their ubiquitous mastheads offer,
and to be fair, they've gotten off
to a great start. But the possibili-
ties need to be pushed. We should
see key Web videos featured on
homepages and reporting in blog
posts that trigger extensive debate.
Print teases (promotions) of online
content are alive and well, but they
could, and should, be bigger.
Up the stakes and put those
teases on the front page.
The top newspapers can hire
the top videographers and already
employ the best photographers.
Show that off. Print, audio and
video don't need to be divorced
from each other. A video can be
just as - and in many cases, more
- effective at directing Web read-
ers to front-page articles than
the headlines and pictures them-
selves.
The New York Times has dozens
of videos on YouTube gathering
hundreds ofthousands ofhits.Why
aren't they getting hyped more on
the main page? Web content as a
whole is always doubling back on
Push
multimedia to
the brink.
itself, always self-referential. But
not every website is The New York
Times or the Washington Post. We
look to these institutions for the
truth. Now that truth is even more
digestible by multimedia.
News editors, take a breath. I
want to see a video in place of a
photo on the top of a newspaper's
homepage. A video of on-the-
ground footage with AP photos and
a voice-over referencing relevant
print articles. Link a slideshow
right below a breaking headline.
Take the online elements that
first endangered your profession
and own them. Legitimize them
beyond their already crucial role.
One step at a time, newspapers
can be the flagships of the online
world, impossible to ignore by even
the casual Web surfer. Think of it
this way: Half the world gets its
news from the AP. We can do even
better.
- E-mail Klein and talk
to him about Geekologie at
andresar@umich.edu.
Culture
on the
export
Movies screened
overseas can be
destroyed on arrival
By BLAKE GOBLE
Daily Arts Writer
When "Pirates of the Caribbe-
an: At World's End" was released
last May, it was tough to find an
admirer, but it still grossed more
than $300 million in America
alone. That's a daunting figure
- until you consider that its box-
office revenue exceeded $650
million overseas. As with many
movies, a large chunk of profits
came from China.
But the "Pirates" the Chinese
people saw on screen was quite
different from the one released in
the United States, and it isn'talone
in that respect.
Dubious post-postproduction
choices are commonplace when
it comes time to re-sell a product.
Deconstructing a film from its
original intentions and context
is bad enough, but that's not the
worst of it.
In the United States, poor
translations offending smaller
audiences in foreign countries
are relegated to "amusing" blurbs
in Entertainment Weekly. Films
can be chopped down to noth-
ing more than a series of violent
action scenes, because it's easier
to translate a sequence with less
dialogue. Major studios like Dis-
ney, Fox and Warner Bros. create
cheap, straight-to-video genre
fare looking for a fast buck. They
do it all the time, and the money
comes back to the United States in
spades.
Most notably, Rupert Murdoch,
owner of News Corp., has been
accommodating the Chinese gov-
ernment's demands for years in
the manipulation of his company's
media. 20th Century Fox, the sub-
sidiary studio of News Corp., com-
petes directly with Viacom and
Disney, among others, in hopes of
making money.
According to The New York
Times, Murdoch's News Corp.
"Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" was an even bigger success abroad than it was in the United States, hut the
movie that played in some overseas markets wasn't the same one screened here.
sends more media to China than
any other group - at a price of $68
million - which in turn brings
Murdoch upward of $50 billion in
revenue.
So what do Murdoch and his
gang of suits change in their
product? Murdoch whole-heart-
edly abides by China's censorship
laws. Meaning, if a film is not of a
certain "discipline," it'll get taken
apart. Unfortunately, all big stu-
dios succumb to this.
Take "Pirates 3." Chinese cen-
sors, irked by the presence of
actor Chow-Yun Fat as a Singa-
pore crime lord, cut his scenes
by a whole 10 minutes. Disney
was content with the decision,
no doubt helped by the knowl-
edge they could offer more screen
showings with a shorter run time.
A Chinese cut of 2004's "Troy"
was also shortened, creating an
entirely new version of nothing
more than a series of fights and
provocative shots of Brad Pitt.
Action scenes are universal,
just not substantial. DVD enables
studios to produce and pump out
genre flicks thatare easily acces-
sible to other regions. Jet Li,
Steven Segal and Jean Claude
Van-Damme have benefited
greatly from this: Their suc-
cesses in the last decade have
been nominal, but notable in
their ability to water down
the market with cheap, crap-
py action flicks. That people
watch dumbed-down versions
of already simple material is
an afterthought when the stu-
dio can simply string together
a streamlined series of action
scenes. It's shameless.
The international market has
also been racked with scrutiny
over subtitling issues. American
films that have gone into theaters
overseas have been the subject of
criticism for poor translation and
inadvertently offensive texts. Yet
we either don't care or are com-
pletely unaware of it happening.
Studios actually tighten their
pockets come release time and
lower translator budgets. It's
called "machine translation," and
it involves complex computer sys-
tems that take sounds in numer-
ous countries and dump them into
generic texts tobe mass consumed.
With it comes the assumption that
the translation will be accurate
and cross-culturally understood.
Nuance? Accuracy? Forget it.
"What a lot of companies do
is use machine translation to get
the gist of something," said Roy
Tell, a representative of Applied
Language Solutions, in a phone
interview. "But then they could
have it proof-read, meaning have
a human translator go through it
and make adjustments."
Often, he said, that doesn't hap-
pen.
Tell said this can happen with
exported movies, but he couldn't
name specific cases, since the
occurrences unsurprisingly aren't
the subject of extensive research.
It's never clear who, if anyone,
takes the blame, but major studios
always walk away.
Hollywood movies aren't just
for Americans. The United States
is the biggest producer of movies
in the world, and for good reason.
People around the world love our
celebrities and the sight and spec-
tacle of a brand name logo in front
of a movie the same way we do. It's
why films are marketable. It's why
they make so much money.
But in order to keep people
coming, entertainment has to be
translated. This is culture on the
export, and though context will
inescapably be lost in many cases,
its spirit should not. It's unfor-
tunate that those translations
dismiss the inevitable human ele-
ments, and for little reasonbeyond
maximum profit return.
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opens for the season Nov.16:
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when it is over 50 degrees outside!
Bring a group of more than 20 people to Buhr, and
with ad, you'll receive a 20% discount. University
groups welcome! Admission cost, $5; skate rental $3.
Sunday:General Skate,3:15 to 5:30 p.m.(new time);Monday: Drop-in
Hockey,7:30 to 8:30 p.m.(women only);Tuesday:General Skate,7:45 to
8:45 p.m.(half price),Drop-in Hockey,9 to10 p.m.(men only);Wednesday:
Broom Ball & General Skate,4 to 5:45 p.m.,General Skate,7:15 to 8:45 p.m.;
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