Once upon a time, a young man found a story in the woods. He fed it and raised it and, when it had grown, he let it out into the wild. Later, a band of merchants tamed the story and took it with them on their tour of the world. Boys and girls everywhere loved the story and dreamed of the story and began, in their own way, to look after the story, until it grew into a legend. Two intrepid podcasters then heard of the story and asked each other, "Okay, but who owns it?"
And that, dear listeners, is how Tim and Nick came upon this episode's Story School. Scout's honor.
Afterwards they tackle their annual "Take on Tales: Summer Movie Edition," so you can bathe in the last remembrances of summer days before fall. So whether your enjoying an early pumpkin spice latte or still desperately trying to sunbathe, this is our podcast, and you'd best listen to it.
© 2015 Loco-Notion Productions
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And now for another comment from Nathan "Listener Feedback" Marchand!
ReplyDeleteOh, where do I begin on story ownership? It's one of the things that muddies the waters of storytelling the most. I've experienced, in one form or another, the good and bad of fan ownership, corporate ownership, and creator ownership. I'm not sure which I find the most problematic. I'd say, overall, creator ownership is the fairest and least damaging (though I speak as a creator myself). The only time I can think of where it was a problem was *possibly* George Lucas with Star Wars. Despite making a movie with a major studio that created a mega-franchise, Lucas retained sole ownership of it until he sold it to Disney. Any and all Star Wars products had to be approved by him, and he made money off of all of them. Now, many fans grew to hate him because of the sometimes infamous special editions of the original trilogy (Han shot first, dangit!) and then thought he lost his touch with the prequels. I give him credit for one thing: he did what he wanted with his creations regardless of what pressure was put on him. There was no way he could make all the fans happy (honestly, I find hardcore Star Wars fans to be impossible to please, and it's because of them that many outside the geek community have negative associations with those within it).
Speaking of fans, while I've often made my thoughts known about my fandoms, including my disappointments, I'm not a pretentious troll who goes on the internet and demands that certain creators be fired (or even killed). The rage and ignorance I see from people who are like that, even if I agree with them, bothers me more than the (supposedly) bad storytelling they're decrying. The most frequent and recent example I can think of is Steven Moffat, the showrunner for Doctor Who. I've gotten into many arguments online with fellow Whovians who want him gone because they insist he's ruining the show. The dumbest reason they gave was that he kills characters constantly. I try to point out that in most of Moffat's episodes, it could be argued that *nobody* dies, while Russell T Davies, the previous showrunner, had episodes with body counts Shakespeare would envy. But those same fans seem to have trouble with letting facts get in the way of their rage. Sometimes I want to ask them, "Are you a writer or an actor? Could you do this any better?" I assume the answer is probably, "No." Sometimes giving fans what they want, as you discussed, is creatively stifling. Better to give them what they need and hope they'll learn to like it.
Corporate ownership is a sticky thing. While they can often curtail possible problems, I usually find them to be meddlers who don't understand storytelling. Take the infamous "Clone Saga" from '90s Spider-Man comics. That was dragged out not by the creative teams, but by Marvel's marketing department. They saw how "Age of Apocalypse" succeeded for the X-men, and forced the Spider-Man writers and artists to do the same. The problems was the former was planned out in advance and the latter had to slap stuff together on the fly to make the marketing department happy. The result was a convoluted, overlong mess. Corporate owners concern themselves with making money and not telling good stories.
::steps down from soapbox::
Anyway, you guys are right on the money with your summer movie reviews. I still demand that the podcast--your TARDIS, if you will--take you to Riley's "train of thought" to record an episode!