My head recognizes that the camera, the technology, the software, etc. is all secondary to the story unfolding on the screen. I get that. Hell, even Greg Foster, CEO of IMAX Entertainment, acknowledges that the technology of IMAX exists merely to serve the creatives of Hollywood. The camera, and everything associated with it, is merely a tool used to tell an interesting story effectively. As someone that’s drawn to the creative side of Hollywood in the first place (and subsequently maintains a substandard, at best, grasp of the technical side), hearing that the story still rules all is affirming.

But in tracking the history of Hollywood, it’s pretty hard to ignore that the most significant shifts in the industry are ultimately driven by technology in the first place. It makes sense. The history of the film industry burgeons from the desire to use the technology of the film camera as a new method to tell a story. Then, down the road, we add synch-sound to improve the ability to tell a story. And then, color. And then, with greater resources, we invest in practical effects, special effects, digitizing everything, and on and on. And all of these leaps work to simply provide a more compelling, immersive, and realistic storytelling experience. It’s great, because ultimately, underneath all the technological developments and tricks, the story still rules all.

Over the past week, starting at the humble beginnings of Hollywood and the Silent Era, it’s become incredibly apparent just how unimportant the technology can be on some level. Many hundreds of people, on a Monday night, poured into a theater to watch a showing of Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. Dozens filed into the Egyptian Theater last night to watch 8mm D.W. Griffith silent shorts on a Friday night. Obviously, the popularity of silent films and these screenings are partly a result of the abundance of impassioned film people in Hollywood (seriously, some of the conversations overheard during last night’s screening were near the peak of film-nerd eclecticism), but they’re ultimately still people. We can debate whether the stories told during these screenings were actually good (personally, I think they were merely okay, on the whole), but they’ve endured and some people still want to see them, even as they exist as artifacts of the relatively primitive days of film. To me, that’s incredible.

But all of this begs the question: do some people still willingly watch these films because the stories are actually interesting? Or is it just the novelty of watching the medium of film stripped away from all the technological advancements of the last ninety-plus years that provides the entertainment? And what does all of this say about the potential for a singular film to create a lasting legacy in the face of the potential technological achievements of the next hundred years? Will today’s stories still provide excitement and resonate with a mass audience when the limitations of today simply won’t be able to provide the same entertainment value of the blockbusters produced fifty years from now?

Anyway, here’s a mediocre iPhone pic of the sunset at Venice Beach the other day:

– Geoffrey