Was Avatar too Costly?

Daniela Deane and Mairi Mackay Fox says 'Avatar' is costliest film it's ever made December 22, 2009 http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/12/07/avatar.gianopulos/index.html

Avatar came out with an estimated budget of $300 million dollars, and exceeded that limit.  James Cameron, the director, has made other expensive films in the past including Titanic, but this one cost more than ever before.  Avatar had a revolutionary plot, and the imagination was unbelievable.  It surpasses Pirates of the Caribbean at Worlds End, which cost $300 Million.  The article does not confront the matter of when is it too much to spend on a movie? Avatar was one of the top films of 2009 and earned lots of money, but is it good for movie companies to be spending so much on producing films.  Cameron's films have paid off in the past, but we will see if this will do as well as some of his movies in the past.

Avatar is a great movie.  I saw it and enjoyed it very much.  The imagination that it took to visualize, verbalize, and produce was incredible.  It was one of the best movies I have seen this year, and a good part about this movie was that it was unlike any other movie I have seen.  Pandora, the planet in the movie, seems real.  You leave the movie wishing you could go there and become an Avatar.  I think that this is what makes this movie immensely successful, however think about how much money it cost to make.  It cost just under $500 million.  At first I thought this was  ridiculous to spend so much money on a movie.  My first opinion was why not do something better with that money.  My second thoughts made me realize that this money spent on the movie is necessary.  Entertainment is one of the biggest parts of our society, and the net gain of movies shows that.  It a necessary part of our society to make such a movie, and the money made well exceeds the cost to make the movie, and so now there is more money to do some good with.  I believe that expensive movies like Avatar are a necessary part of our society because it helps us all to explore our imaginations and influence us in a positive way and if a movie makes more that it costs then it can never be too expensive.

New Moon--Third Biggest Opening Weekend of All Time

Scott Mendelson, "Weekend Box Office Review" November 22, 2009

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-mendelson/cedric-diggory-crushes-ha_b_366998.html

The Twilight Series obsession has hit and hit hard, with the movie of the second book in the series, New Moon, coming out this past weekend. Some people thought there was an obsession with the Harry Potter series, but it is nothing compared to Twilight. The teen girl/vampire/ware wolf story has captured the attention of millions of readers. New Moon's release has shown this obsession. Raking in an all time high of $72.7 million dollars in the first 24 hours. This was the most money made on a Friday movie on any single movie. Over the weekend it made a total of $140.7 million which puts it in third place behind Batman Dark Knight $158 million and Spiderman 3 $151 million. This movie's audience was was 80% female and only 20% male. If you need the movie to do exceptionally well you need it to appeal more so to both sexes. Although without the male audience it still would have come in 8th place of all time gross money made over the weekend.

This is very impressive. Although I have yet to see New Moon I plan on it tomorrow, or this weekend. It is very impressive that it made the all time most money for movies on the first night, and third most for a weekend. The movies appeals mostly to females, which is okay because the book does as well. The movie would definitely rake in more money if it did appeal to a more male audience, as well as female. Although I still will probably see it, if they made the next movie appealing to a more equal audience than it should make more money than even this. Then again it might not for many reasons like if the book isn't as good, and if the movie just doesn't go over as well as this one. The outlook for the Twilight Series is very good in the future, but only time will tell how it turns out. For now we have New Moon and Twilight and they are both fantastic (even though Jacob is portrayed as a sex symbol. it works for the female audience).

Newspapers Aren't Dying Off--They are Surviving

Daniel Gross, "Newspapers aren't doing as badly as you think."

November 16, 2009 http://www.slate.com/id/2233849/

In the past year there have been many people who are very skeptical of the future of the newspaper industry. There has been widespread discussion on whether it will totally disappear in a few years because the web out does the news paper, and fewer people are buying newspapers, and no one wants to pay for a paper anymore, but this is not true. News papers are simply a part of the economic downturn that our nation has experienced and been experiencing. Yes they have lost consumer numbers, but this has set them into survival mode. The newspapers have raised the cost to get a paper, or have a paper delivered to your house. It is true that raising prices will cause you to lose some of your consumers, but if you lose 10% of consumers by increasing the price by 11% you will be okay. Newspapers now have to print fewer copies and pay less for this printing and sell more at higher prices. They have found out a way to survive the economic downturn, and they are not dissipating forever.

This was an interesting article because beforehand I was one of those people who was a bit skeptical about newspapers future. It seemed that there was no reason for us to have newspapers if we could get all of our news from offline, but I was wrong. Newspapers are smarter than I thought. These newspaper companies have figured out a way to continue selling their product and maybe, after the economic recession, earn more money in doing so. Newspapers are a vital part of our society, It is a very basic way in which we get the news of the days and weeks before. Newspapers, for this reason, will always be around and will always survive, no matter the economic conditions. The increase in price is genius, at least for the 10% loss and 11% increase that is. Newspapers have discovered a solution to surviving when everyone thought they would be destroyed, and now that they have made it this far they will be able to survive anything. Newspapers are stronger than ever, and they will never simply die off they will survive.

Blog Overkill--Not Quite What its Craked Up to be

Jack Shafer, "The danger of hyping a good thing into the ground" October 12, 2009 http://www.slate.com/id/2112621/

Blogging is a very effective form to get news out, but will never replace the news. Although in the past there have been a few outlandish claim that new technology and such would out-do the media in news and in entertainment, but sadly it isn't and never will be so. As we obtain these modes to get news and whats juicy to the people, the media gains these modes of communication and entertainment as well. The media evolves so that we will never be able to overcome it by our own means. It is similar to when the video camra was invented, we would eventually become better than the movie makers all becoming directors and film makers. This never worked, although the videos that we can make now days are much better than some of the movies in the past we cannot trump the media of the present. It is the same with blogging. Blogging is a creative means in which anyone can say anything they want, and they can expose any sort of news much faster then the news coorperations that do, the next day. Im afraid, however that we will never become better than these newscastors and journalists and so our mode of information still loses.

I believe that this is very true. There is a lot of hype about how then new and next big thing will be what outdoes the media in reporting, or in film making, or in journalism. We will somehow better these professional business by all working together, but that is the problem. We are not all working together in the blogging world. We all may help to inform others through one means or another and can only hope to someday be as good as the pros. The biggest reason this is, is that we the people may believe that we can get along better on our own, but we do not get paid to do what we would do. If news was left up to blogging we would never know what goes on because there would be no drive to do the work. Journal enteries online and news column frauds would be biased and misinformed often. The biggest barrier to us becoming better then the pros is money. It is simply not our profession, so we can critique, but we will never be as good as them because we don't recieve the compensation that they do for writing their articles. We overhype the blogging world because we think that we can do better, but in reality we will never defeat the strong media powers.

Whats Good About the Web--Advertisement's Various Attacks

Robin Hafitz “Will the Internet Become a Significant Advertising Medium?” Slate. Sep 20, 2009. http://www.slate.com/id/2076621/

The internet is a very effective advertising medium. Online advertising is effective because in our generation today everyone is online all the time. This online advertisement has begun to get too cocky in a sense that they believe they are the only effective means of advertisement. What must be realized is that this advertisement is only successful as a form of repetition of advertisement. Advertisement is successful because there are multiple forms of advertisement attacking the consumer at all times. Ads on the internet, therefore, are just a repetition of something that the consumer has seen before dozens of times. This online tactic just provides a more convenient way for the consumer to obtain the product, buying online. No form of advertising can survive without the others, interwoven to support each other. Although at times we feel like we are overwhelmingly bombarded with ads and only one means of advertisement would be sufficient, these multiple advertisement tactics are what sell the products.

I agree with this article in the sense that if we are going to be convinced to buy something, it has to be something that we have seen and heard time and time again. We need repetition of a product that attracts us so that every time we see an advertisement for the product we get one step closer to purchasing it, and we do so when the purchase is most convenient. We are a technologically advanced age and as a result our generation is online at all times. Therefore it is probable that the most effective form of advertisement could be online. This effective form of advertisement, however, is not solely responsible for the consumers purchase, but rather the constant repetition of the ad that made us buy the product. We see advertisement in billboards, on the radio, on television, in newspapers, and in multiple other ways as well. It is these multiple different modes of advertisement working in unison things get sold, and only with various styles of advertisement can the merchandise be sold.

"Television at an End"--the result of insufficent advertizement

Stevenson, Seth "Is Television Over." Slate. 13 Sep. 2009.http://www.slate.com/id/2224464/pagenum/all/#p2

Television is a large source of entertainment in our society. What is it that everyone will do when there is nothing to do? Sit down on the couch flip through channels and watch brain melting shows with no point and little appeal. This is what has happened to television viewing with our generation. There are very few shows that actually grab the viewer’s attention. This popularity is a necessity in television shows in order to make money. If a television show is popular then it is more widely viewed by the public at any given time. This viewer number is what gets advertisers interested. The more viewers the more people will see their advertisements and the more these advertisements will cost. This is the reason that advertisements in the Super Bowl are upwards of $4 million, people will see the ads, see the product, and hopefully want to buy it. Our nation is viewing less and less of the same broadcasts on television so advertisements are striking fewer eyes. As our nation views more various television broadcasts the advertisement will change from all shows to the popular ones. This absence of advertisement will cause budget cuts in the less popular television broadcasts resulting in poor quality, fewer viewers and a termination of that show. This will lead viewers to find different forms of entertainment, and advertizing to find that form of entertainment as well. This could be the end of television.

I think that this article has a very valid point. Our nation watches fewer and fewer of the same shows, so advertisement is not getting the publicity that it would hope for. Television is run by the advertisers and advertisers are run by the people. If television does not have the necessary numbers of people then advertizing will eventually pull out and find some other form of advertisement that will get more people's attention. This will lead to funding problems and poor quality in TV programming. As our nation diversifies in interest of entertainment, ironically entertainment will diminish, leaving us without the television that we hold so dearly to our hearts.

"The Diagnosis"--addictions become disorders

Lane, Christopher. "Bitterness, Compulsive Shopping and Internet Addiction." Slate. 4 Sep. 2009.

http://www.slate.com/id/2223479/pagenum/all/#p2

The world has become an addictive world. As we live our lives we seem to become addicted to more things like shopping and internet addictions. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and the fith manual is expected in 2012. It seems that there are more and more small simple addictions that they are beginning to classify as mental disorders. At first the DSM was simply a guideline to the diseases and classifications of which diseases are which. Later when the DSM-III was published multiple ridiculous "mental disorders" were added some of which included: "caffeine intoxication disorder, mathematics disorder, sibling relational problem, and frotteurism, the "intentional rubbing up against or touching of another, usually unsuspecting, person for the purpose of sexual arousal." As time goes on the APA is classifying more and more nitpicky things as mental disorders and if this continues, soon over half the country will be defined, as by the APA and DSM, mentally ill.

I believe that this is a serious problem with the media today. We will see actions and tendencies that people have and will immediately decide that we have to classify them with some sort of disorder. The mentality that we have is that if they are not perfect, which no one is, then they must have some sort of mental disorder. Our nation is destroying itself. I think that this is very evident in an addiction to computer technology and cell phones. It seems that every time we hear about someone who is on their computer for hours at a time has an addiction. I know of very few people not guilty of this. It is easy to sit down and watch videos on youtube and hulu for hours, or to spend days looking at itunes searching for new songs and naming old ones, and one of the most common is wasting away time on facebook or myspace. We all do this. Only if you are expecting someone to hang out do you ever pay notice to it. We immediately wonder what is wrong with this person and that they must have some sort of disease. In reality we have no disease at all, and so should not be classified as having a disease. We are trying to find reason behind the things we waste our time away on. We can use these disorders as an excuse to waste away more time. “I have computer—video disorder, so it is okay that I am wasting all my time away, I’m mentally ill.” I believe that this is the mentality of our nation especially of the APA, and we need to move past it and realize that what we are doing is wasting our time, we may have better things to do and should be doing these things, but we should not make excuses such as disorders for our addictions. We can beat these addictions very simply with a little effort, and if we do not put forth this effort, with the way that the DSM manual is headed half our nation really will be classified as mentally ill.