As I transition from management back towards being a full-time writer and student and more increasingly a digital writer/student, the decline of the book and the rise of the digital , the ebook, blog, and microblog interest me greatly. This still doesn't stop me from questioning whether I would be wiser and more fulfilled concentrating my energies away from such PC & On-line centric activity. After the arrival of my 1700+ follower on Twitter yesterday and that odd ranking stuff I posted here, my faith in the social networking tool was quickly rekindled this morning.
I first connected with Joel Gunz on Twitter. Now this intelligent gentleman conforms to my understanding of a genuine Fan. He's a writer and a dad, so while he's across that large Atlantic pond with some remote but fundamental things in common, we also both apparently share an appreciation for 20th century film directors. I'm a big Billy Wilder fan at heart...( less later maybe)
In Joel's Case he is a fan of Alfred Hitchcock and his work, so much so that he has an excellent blog here. I always wondered whether Hitchcock began using his cameos as simple physical aids to his cameramen, experience taught me that something technically challenging that isn't getting absorbed first time, is best conveyed through demonstration. Film sets ain't cheap ergo maybe easier, cheaper & faster, (at the beginning of Hitchcock's career)to offer simple framing instructions and become the panning or ref guide in wide or dolly shots. Joel has a slightly different take. He also dug out this rather excellent youtube compilation of said cameos.
The thing is, quite a while ago I picked up most of the series of TASCHEN books on film directors, (beautifully produced) including those on wilder and Hitchcock No disrespect intended to Paul Duncan, the people at taschen or booklovers in general, but I've read and enjoyed their particular 'product' several times yet each time, as it remains static and there is less and less to discover, that enjoyment diminishes a little.
While these books are wonderfully satisfying pieces of print that border on the artistically sublime, perhaps as a result of the design awareness; tastefully exploited black & white and color photography, white space, type and other subliminal visual construction and design intuition, these professionally delivered books are inferior artefact's to Joel's Blog. Now the old can't take the blog into the bath argument (excuse the pun) just doesn't hold water - in the 21st century 99% of people shower.
So I'll go on, continue to, revise my opinion and understanding, wavier and fluctuate and wobble about this new networked paradigm but (in Beckett's Words) I'll go on.
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