>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. ^M00:00:05 [ Silence ] ^M00:00:20 >> Maria Pallante: Hi everybody. Welcome to the Library of Congress. Welcome to World IP Day. My name is Maria Pallante. I'm the head of the Office, the Register of Copyrights for the United States. I'd like to thank the Copyright Alliance, and their CEO, Sandra Aistars, who I will introduce shortly. This is the third time we've partnered with the Copyright Alliance for World IP Day, and it's always a great event, and we're very grateful to the Alliance for their help. I want to thank the Congressional staff that are here today for coming. We have the IPEC Office from the White House represented, as well, and if you're from another government agency and a colleague, thank you for coming here as well. And a warm welcome, of course, to the Copyright Office staff and the Library of Congress staff. I'd like to tell you a little bit about World IP Day, celebrated each year on April 26th, and of course we're a little early because we're ahead of our time here in the U.S. World IP Day allows us to celebrate the importance of IP regimes, including copyright, and how it enhances our lives. This year, the theme is Movies, A Global Passion. As WIPO Director General, Francis Gurry, has said, and of course we're honored to have him here with us today, quote, "From the very first silent movies, movies were watched across the whole world with fascination and with passion," end quote. Here at the Copyright Office, we understand the long tradition of movies and copyright law. Initially, movies were not protected by copyright law. It's hard to believe. Film makers had to attempt to secure protection by relying on the individual film images in a reel. Thus, the earliest copyright registrations in the U.S. for motion pictures were actually a series of photographs. As you may have seen during the presentation, these registrations were issued beginning in 1893, with the earliest surviving example being Edison's famous short clip from 1894, known as Fred Ott's Sneeze. Motion pictures began to flourish in the U.S., shown first in parlors on small machines known as kinetoscopes, and later, were exhibited in Nickelodeons, in which many people could watch a film at once. In the beginning of the 20th Century, our Congress took note, and amended the Copyright Act in 1912 to expressly include protections for motion pictures. Gone were the days of relying on individual still shots from films, and copyright began to protect the overall art form that was gaining notoriety around the United States and through the world. Quickly following on the heels of protection, film makers began registering their motion pictures with the Copyright Office, using our new designations of Class L and Class M. The first motion picture registration was issued to Republic Film Company in 1912, for Black Sheep's Wool. Interestingly, it took the courts awhile to accord movies First Amendment protection, another thing that's kind of hard to believe. In fact, it was not until 1952 that the Supreme Court explicitly recognized that motion pictures deserved the same free speech protections as books and other media. The court, in Joseph Burstein Inc. v. Wilson acknowledged, quote "[t]hat it cannot be doubted that motion pictures are a significant medium for the communication of ideas. They may affect public attitudes and behavior in a variety of ways, ranging from direct espousal of a political or social doctrine to the more subtle shaping of thought, which characterizes all artistic expression." These early years of film were filled with firsts. The first Technicolor film, including The Wizard of Oz, and Gone with the Wind. Films with sound, Don Juan and The Jazz Singer. And the first animation, Humorous Phases of Funny Faces. Among many others. During this time, film became intertwined with our national culture, both memorializing mores of the times and providing groundbreaking views that expanded the public's world view. As noted psychiatrist Carl Jung noted, quote, "The cinema, like the detective story, enables us to experience, without danger to ourselves, all of the excitements, passions and fantasies, which have to be repressed in a humanistic age." In recent years, the movie industry has remade itself time and time again. Today, it is possible to stream a movie on demand on your TV, on the go on your iPad, or even on your phone. The member states of WIPO have also played a critical role in protecting film. In 2012, WIPO adopted the Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances. This treaty provides much-needed protections to some of the hardest working people in cinema, the performers. Specifically, it provides performers rights in their performance in fixed audiovisual works, including the right of reproduction, the right of distribution, the right of rental, the right of making available, and certain moral rights. It also provides performers with rights in un-fixed performances, including the right of broadcasting, except for re-broadcasting, the right of communication to the public, unless the performance is a broadcast performance, and the right of fixation. This caught the attention of no less than Meryl Streep, who noted eloquently, quote, "This is a pivotal time in the performers' battle for intellectual property protection. While digital technology creates a wealth of new opportunities for performers, it also significantly increases the risk of performers losing control over their own work product through the unauthorized manipulation of their images or performances, in the same way that writers and composers depend upon royalty income for their survival. In the long-term, performers around the world must benefit from the exploitation of their work." In its closing statement in Beijing, the U.S. delegation observed that creating audiovisual works is storytelling. The film projector or television screen replacing the campfire of our ancestors. One great writer once said: "A story is a message from yesterday, destined for tomorrow, transmitted across today. A great film, a classic television episode is that kind of story. It doesn't matter whether it's a fantasy, like Star Wars, a beautiful parable like Slumdog Millionaire. The drama of the tele-novella, the grit of a Hollywood crime film, or the campiness of Dr. Who." Describing his craft, the American actor, Humphrey Bogart, once said: "The only thing you owe the public is a good performance." These days, there is no doubt that film continues to be centrally important to American culture and to us as individuals. In thinking about the film industry, I am struck by the kinds of creativity needed for an audio-visual work. From the indie film to a documentary, to the blockbuster, there is a screenwriter, there may be an underlying book, like in Harry Potter. There may be an underlying play, like in August: Osage County, there is music, perhaps an original film score, a musical performance, a director, the actors, the set designer, the cinematographer, and more. For all of this, the legal framework is essential and so many rely on copyright protection. And let's not forget the economic importance of the industry. Along with other core copyright industries, the film industry contributes enormously to the U.S. balance of trade. Consider these statistics. In 2012, movie-goers in the U.S. and in Canada bought a record $10.8 billion dollars in movie tickets, with the largest number of tickets sold in three years. Movie theaters continue to draw more people than all theme parks and major U.S. sporting events combined. Indeed, movies are a global and an American passion. Thank you. And now, it is my great pleasure and privilege to introduce our featured speaker, the Honorable Francis Gurry, Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization, Geneva, Switzerland. Dr. Gurry has served as Director General since 2008, and will continue in that role for the foreseeable future. He was recently re-nominated and re-elected to a second term, which will run through 2020. In this capacity, he has significant responsibilities, in the International application of not only the copyright laws, but also patents, trademarks and designs. For those of you who may not know, the World Intellectual Property Organization, which I have referred to as WIPO, and some refer to as W-I-P-O, is an agency of the United Nations, and has today 187 member states, including, of course, the United States. WIPO administers 26 treaties. These include, in the copyright space, the Berne Convention, as amended from 1886 to 1979, and the WIPO Copyright Treaty, and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty, both from 1996. Among its many expert bodies is the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights, which we call the SCCR. This group recently negotiated and adopted two new treaties. In June 2013, the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print-Disabled. And in June 2012, the year before, the Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances. These are significant leadership accomplishments for Dr. Gurry, for his senior management team, and for the member states of WIPO. I should mention that one person on his team is one of our own, Michele Woods, served here as Associate Register of Copyrights, until she joined Dr. Gurry in Geneva in 2012. Dr. Gurry began his WIPO career in 1985, joining the ranks of senior management in 1997, initially as the Assistant Director General, and then as the Deputy Director General, with responsibility for patents and the PCT system, the Arbitration and Mediation Center, traditional knowledge, traditional cultural expressions and genetic resources. Dr. Gurry is a national of the beautiful country of Australia, and has both practiced and taught law there. He earned law degrees from the University of Melbourne, and a PhD from Cambridge University in the U.K. He is the author of numerous publications and articles on intellectual property issues in international journals. Ladies and gentleman, please give a warm welcome to Director General Francis Gurry. ^M00:11:04 [ Applause ] ^M00:11:18 >> Francis Gurry: Thank you, very much, Maria. Ladies and gentleman, a very good afternoon to you all. I can't see you, unfortunately, but I know that there are some people here. So it's really an honor and a great privilege to be present here and to have this opportunity to speak to you on World Intellectual Property Day, here in the Coolidge Auditorium of the Library of Congress. And thank you, Maria Pallante, the Register of Copyrights, and thank you, also, to all of your staff, the Copyright Office, for giving me this opportunity and for the wonderful show that you have put on. World Intellectual Property Day provides us with an opportunity, not just to focus on the increasingly important economic role of intellectual property, but also to pay attention to the economic and the social and the cultural activities that are enabled by intellectual property. And it's these that I think create the most close connection for people with the importance of intellectual property. As you know, this year, movies is the theme, the cultural and economic activity that we've chosen to focus on. Movies which we think are a global passion. There always have been, I agree entirely with what Maria has said in quoting Carl Jung, movies are a way for us to experience the full gamut of emotions, whether it's joy, sadness, laughter, happiness, love, all of the emotions we can experience through watching movies, and this is why they have been a passion for everyone, I think, from their very first inception. And it's really a privilege, of course, to be in the country that hosts the largest, the most vibrant, the most innovative, the most profitable also, and the best known movie industry in the world. And Maria Pallante has quoted some of the figures of the economic contribution of that industry. I've looked at The Motion Picture Association website, and they mention, amongst other things, that the industry contributes $41 billion dollars to over 300,000 businesses throughout the country, and supports, directly or indirectly, 1.9 million workers. So it's an extraordinary contribution. I think movies really are collections of IP. I'm sorry that's not going to be very satisfactory for the artistic contribution to movies, but they're really collections of IP. I think they're a very good example of the way in which IP, intellectual property, and intangibles, are increasingly central to all economic activities in the contemporary economy. All economic, and I'd say social and cultural activities. Maria Pallante has mentioned already some of the contributions of copyright. You know, you have to have an author. You have an author or a script writer. You have a composer of music. You have performers of music. You have the actors. You have a whole range of artistic creators involved in the production of the movie and for whom copyright is essential. But you also have, increasingly, innovation. Enhanced performance. The more sophisticated productions that you get. So technology and patents are also extremely important to the contemporary movie industry. And product placements have always been a part of movies, actually from the very first days. Product placements are increasingly important, and they rely on trademarks. And of course, merchandizing of characters, merchandizing of titles, is also very important and form the intellectual property. So I think they really are, movies, the example par excellence of a collection of IP and how IP can support a cultural and social activity that brings enormous joy to everyone around the world. I think these collections of IP in movies face, of course, and let me say something very obvious--an environment of enormous change, and two features of that environment to which I would point, in particular, are the migration of course of all content to digital formats, the digital revolution. But I'd say also the globalization, not only of commerce, but the globalization of fashions, of trends, and ultimately, therefore of cultural and entertainment consumption. Those are two enormous challenges I think that we face. And they're producing, on the one hand, great opportunity and on the other hand, great threat or great danger, I think. Great challenge. The great opportunities, of course, lie in the democratization of knowledge and culture that the digital environment gives us. The great threat is it renders creative works much more vulnerable. And in particular, we have this phenomenon of an extraordinary disjunction between the cost of production and the cost of reproduction. The cost of production in human and financial terms of a movie may be several hundred people working for a period of up to 18 months, 12 months, 18 months, on a production. Maybe several hundred million dollars. And all of that cost of production can be reproduced in a few seconds at near zero marginal cost and made available on the most important distributional, most powerful distributional mechanism that we have ever seen. So this is, I think, a great opportunity and a great challenge that we live in particular for movies at the moment. And I think it's particularly dramatic for movies. With other forms of creative content, there are other ways to monetize the content. There are, for example, a possibility of live performance for many performers. But for movies, there's really only one way of monetizing it. I think there are some reasons why we should be more positive now about this revolution, this digital revolution. Digital sales are rising throughout the world. We have many new legal business models for distributing content that are available. These are all, I think, giving us hope. However, we are not, we are losing some value in the process because digital sales are not rising by as much as analog sales are falling. So some value is escaping in the process, and we need to pay attention to this question, I think, because it is ultimately about the way in which we finance cultural production and copyright is the model for financing copyright--uh, cultural production. Part, and I would emphasize only part, of the answer to the challenge lies in the development of the global legal framework for which W-I-P-O, WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organization, is responsible. And has been responsible since the Berne Convention on Literary and Artistic Works was concluded in 1886. And that was concluded in a period of fairly intense globalization, with much greater increases of trade, and the movement of persons and goods, in the last part of the 19th Century. And that led authors, like Victor Hugo, to militate for some form of international protection, which ended in, resulted in the Berne Convention. ^M00:19:47 I think the current, the current wave of globalization that we see as well as wireless technological change, you know, emphasized the need for us to have a rules-based system for global economic behavior, for global economic competition, and a technologically adapted rules basis. Let me, since we're in the Jefferson Building, quote Thomas Jefferson in this regard. I think he saw it in many things, if I may say, so clearly. And one of the passages from one of his letters that is reproduced on the 4th panel of the Jefferson Memorial, and he said, "I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand-in-hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered, and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times." The task of adapting the international legal framework is, of course, a very difficult one. To adapt it with the change of circumstances as Jefferson said, it's particularly difficult because of the asymmetries of wealth, of information, and of knowledge around the world. Nevertheless, as Maria Pallante has mentioned, the member states of WIPO were able to conclude two new treaties in the copyright area in the last two years. One of those, the Beijing Treaty, had, we hope, an enormous impact on the movie industry around the world, because it brought, it remedied an injustice. That injustice was the exclusion from the international framework of actors, if you like, or audiovisual performances, more correctly. The Beijing Treaty brought audiovisual performances into the international legal framework, and it's an extremely important step. The Marrakesh Treaty was a treaty which is also a very important step, because it, in particular, facilitates the cross-border exchange of creative works, published works, in accessible formats, formats that are accessible to visually impaired persons. I would like to acknowledge here the extraordinary leadership and the constructive engagement of the United States of America in respect of those two treaties. The United States was not just, I think, constructively engaged, but it was a leader in forming cross-regional alliances, cross-regional groupings, and that created the shared understanding that led to the consensus that enabled us to have two new treaties. I hope that we can count on that engagement of the United States of America, and the leadership of the United States of America in the agenda of the future where we try on the slow process to adapt the global legal framework in accordance with the change of circumstances, as Jefferson said, and the most immediate task for us is a proposed design law treaty, and beyond that, a treaty which will bring broadcasters' rights, broadcasters' organizations, into the digital environment. Into an environment which all the other aspects of the copyright system have been brought into over the course of the last 20 years. Once again, it's really a great pleasure, and a privilege for me, to have been able to participate in this ceremony today, to mark the, I think, the social, the cultural, the economic importance of movies, the great joy, I think, that they bring to us all around the world, and the very important role that intellectual property plays to ensure that we have a global production of movies, and a production of movies which rewards all of the creators who were involved in that production. Thank you very much. ^M00:24:23 [ Applause ] ^M00:24:26 >> Maria Pallante: This panel is not only very accomplished; they're just kind of cool [laughter] as you'll see, as I introduce them. I'm going to introduce all of them at once, and then get off the stage so you can hear some really interesting things. Let me start with Sandra Aistars. Sandra is the Chief Executive Officer of the Copyright Alliance, a non-profit, public interest organization that represents the interests of authors and artists across the creative spectrum. She has more than a decade of experience in the intellectual property field, as a lawyer, a manager, and a government relations expert. Working on many legal business and technology issues raised by digital distribution platforms. Before being named to her current position, she was Vice President and Associate General Counsel at Time-Warner. And before that, an attorney with the law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges. Throughout Sandra's career, she represented numerous artists on a pro bono basis. On a more personal note, let me say that Sandra is an engaging and creative leader of the Copyright Alliance. I've been very impressed by her leadership, and I'm very pleased to partner with her for the third time on the occasion of World IP Day. Sandra will moderate our panel discussion today. Matt Harrison, Matt, do you want to wave to people? >>Matt Harrison: Hi! Hi everybody [laughs]. >> Maria Pallante: Matt Harrison's feature film, Kicked in the Head, was executive produced by Martin Scorsese. I told you they were cool [laughter]. It was released theatrically by Universal, and premiered as an official selection at Cannes. His network and cable television directing credits include Sex In The City, for HBO, Matt's feature film, Rhythm Thief, won a jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Matt recently completed his new comedy, My Little Hollywood, and is now preparing his sixth feature film, Mentirosa. He has served on film festival juries around the world. He currently teaches film at UCLA Extension, and has taught graduate film at Cal-Arts. He lectured at NYU's Tisch, Sao Paulo School of Film, Syracuse University, and the New School for Social Research, among others. He has won a full scholarship at the Cooper Union School of Art, where he completed his BFA, and completed post-graduate studies at NYU. Matt is a feature film director member in good standing with the Director's Guild of America. He was sponsored by Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. Robert, want to wave? Robert Newman is perhaps best known for his 28-year run as Joshua Lewis on the longest running program in broadcast history, The Guiding Light. The role garnered him two Daytime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. More recently, he has appeared on Homeland, Criminal Minds, NCIS, and Law and Order. You can see him in the upcoming Amazing Spiderman 2, the sci-fi film, Dracano, and his short film, Deadline. He's made his mark on the stage as well. These credits include Perfect Crime, She's of a Certain Age, and Sessions, the Musical, Peter Pan, Man of La Mancha, Curtains, The Full Monty, Barefoot in the Park, and The Glass Menagerie, to name a few. >> Robert Newman: No full Monty today [laughter]. >> Maria Pallante: In his spare time, he's also a leader. He is the SAG-AFTRA National Vice President for Actors and Performers, as well as a member of the SAG-AFTRA National Board of Directors. Mike Mashon is head of the Moving Image Section of the National Audio Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, Virginia. And he's been with the Library of Congress since 1998. A native of Baton Rouge, he received his BS in Microbiology from Louisiana State, an MA in Radio, Television, Film from the University of Texas at Austin, and a PhD in Radio, Television, Film from the University of Maryland. Kind of inching your way across the country. He has written and presented extensively on issues surrounding media history, preservation and access, and works at the Library's Packard Campus, where he works, for example, with everything from nitrate film to modern digital cinema. Welcome, everyone. Thank you. ^M00:29:06 [ Applause ] ^M00:29:09 >>Sandra Aistars: Well thanks very much, everyone, for coming and for celebrating World IP Day today with us, and thank you to Maria Pallante, Register Pallante, and all of the Copyright Office staff for inviting us to join you and I'd be remiss if I did not thank the Copyright Office staff for everything that they do on behalf of artists and creators of all types, every day. We know that the work you do here is incredibly important to our members, and to their successes, so I do want to extend those words of thanks to all of you as well. The opening remarks, I think, gave us a great legal and economic framework for thinking about cinema, but I have the fun part of the job. I get to talk to the cool people, as Maria said, and add the global passion part to today's discussion. So I'd love to start off the conversation by asking each of you to talk a little bit about how you entered the film world and your respective professions within it, and then we'll go from there. >> Robert Newman: Sure. I'm very intimidated by the coolness thing. I'm thinking now I have to be something that I actually probably am not, at least to my teenagers. >> Matt Harrison: Come on, Robert, you're cool. >> Robert Newman: So I was born and raised in Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley area, and took my degree at Cal State University Northridge in Theater Arts which, in retrospect, I think probably was not a great thing to take a degree in, but it was what it was [laughs] and shortly after I graduated, I actually have a very quick story of coming into this crazy business that we find ourselves in. I took a--I did a very quick season of Summerstock Theater in Michigan, right after I graduated, and then went to New York for just a week or so, just to sort of, you know, see what might be available, and it turned out that they were casting this role on a soap opera. I had never seen a soap opera in my entire life. I didn't really necessarily have any interest in that particular field, but they offered me, within a few days, a three-year contract to move to New York. >> Sandra Aistars: Wow. >> Robert Newman: And start working on Guiding Light. And I said, "Sure. Why not?" You know [laughter] >> Matt Harrison: Yeah! >> Robert Newman: Yeah, you think? [Laughter] >>Sandra Aistars: Did that work out for you? >>Robert Newman: That's a yes [laughter]. I didn't have any idea at that time, of course, that I would spend most of the next 28 years of my career playing the character of Joshua Lewis. But I think most actors in my business, most of the members of SAG-AFTRA would probably love to have a career similar to the one that I've had. When Guiding Light left the airwaves in 2009, I was asked if I was upset that it was going off the air, and I said, well, you know, "I signed a three-year deal 28 years ago, I don't think I have a lot to complain about," [laughter] and anyway that's my journey into the business. >>Matt Harrison: That's a good story. Hi everybody, I'm Matt Harrison, and I got started, I was kind of a weird, shy kid in grade school, which I think, you know, we can probably all related to that. But we were, my parents brought my brother and I up in downtown Manhattan, so I was going to a school called PS41, which was a great school, like Robert DeNiro went there, the Beastie Boys, you guys heard of [laughter], but I was kind of this weird kid, and they always just--I got, it was really surprising to be tapped by, there was this kind of very experimental teacher teaching a 5th grade class, and he approached my mom when I was in 4th grade, and said "I would like to have Matt in my class," and I'd heard about this kind of wacky class. You know, this was the 60s, so I was like "Wow, that's pretty cool!" I wasn't doing so well in school, so I was excited to be invited to this class, and he had some movie cameras. And because I knew how to handle cameras, because my dad had cameras, he noticed that. And he asked me to be the Director of the school project, which was The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire [laughter]. Which we were shooting, in 5th grade! And he said, "Well you're the Director." And I had this idea, I went to the Principal, Irving Kreitzberg [assumed spelling], and I asked him if he would play Nero [laughter]. Because he had a fiddle, and I was like--because I had figured out you could wind the camera back, so we shot some flame, and then wound the film back, and then I filmed my Principal wound in a sheet, playing [laughter] and everyone in the school was flabbergasted. But I had the whole of PS41 at my beck and call. I was like Erich von Stroheim [laughter] and so it really went to my head [laughter]. And I just never stopped [laughter]. I was awesome! [Laughter] I think it's when I discovered I could get girls to wind themselves in sheets [laughter] and it got really--[laughter]. >> Sandra Aistars: So, Mark, I really hate to ask you to [inaudible]. >> Matt Harrison: Really not fair at all [laughter]. >> Sandra Aistars: But as a film scholar I'm sure that-- >>Mike Mashon: My name is Mike [laughter] and I'm a film geek. You know, I started my professional life as a microbiologist. I'd gone even to--I got my, I got a microbiology degree at LSU, go Tigers! Where I also started watching Guiding Light [laughter]. >> Robert Newman: That thing put my children through college. >> Mike Mashon: I know. I was so excited [laughter] when I found out who my fellow panelist would be. And I was working, I'd gone to Texas for my Masters, and was working at the Texas Department of Health. And I just couldn't envision life as a microbiologist. You know? Life is too short. You want to be excited about what you do when you wake up in the morning. And ever since I was a kid, I've loved movies and TV, so I thought how can I get paid for talking about movies and TV? So I talked my way back into graduate program at UT to get a Masters in Radio, Television and Film, wound up in Maryland. That's how I got to this area. Got my doctorate. Over there, I thought I was going to be an academic and teach, and write, but I wound up working in Archives, and then came to the Library in 1998, and now I work at this amazing facility in Culpeper--y'all come! Where you know, we've got responsibility for acquiring, storing, cataloguing, preserving, and making accessible the world's largest collection of film, video and sound recordings. I mean, I'm one of those people--well sometimes, I will always joke with people, my job is--I'm a mid-level government bureaucrat. But really, my vocation is my avocation. And I'm really, really fortunate to work with wonderful collections and really great people, and helping preserve our audio-visual heritage, which, you know, my colleagues and I view as frankly a moral obligation. It's really very exciting what we do. >>Sandra Aistars: Uh, so-- ^M00:37:19 [ Applause ] ^M00:37:26 >> Sandra Aistars: You might think that there are vast differences between the worlds that Matt occupies and that Robert occupies, if you're looking at a very indie film director and an actor who has worked for 28 years in daytime TV, what could be more different, in terms of the types of audiences, the types of projects, but I think there's probably some unifying themes that we can find here. And maybe the way to do this is for Matt to start and talk a little bit about some of the challenges that you face as an indie director, based on budget challenges, and what kinds of creative opportunities that actually provides you with. You know, how do you approach shooting films, based on what your budget affords you. >>Matt Harrison: Yeah, I've worked with multi-million dollar budgets, and I've worked with budgets in the very low five figures, or three figures, I think the first picture I had that won some prizes was, I think, cost me $300. But Robert and I were talking before this, and you were describing that set out in New Jersey-- >> Sandra Aistars: Mm-hmm. >> Matt Harrison: And I think it's surprising for everyone, when they start to dig a little deeper in some of their favorite movies, to realize often how simple the production was, and how simple the tricks are that get used to make films. Because it's not all as fancy and expensive as you think. A lot of the money really ends up getting used to support the people and all the technical people you need to bring together. So as a film maker, which is a little different than a film director, because when I'm a film maker, I'm bringing in producing skills, directing skills, production managing skills, and finance skills. I have to fit those things together. I'm going to show--we're going to show a clip from a really important picture for me. It was a breakthrough film for me. Rhythm Thief. I made one feature. It had, for me, a high budget. I didn't--wasn't able to sell it the way I had hoped, so I made a second feature of a much lower budget, which ended up being a really breakthrough picture for me, and what I had learned when I made that second picture is the idea must fit the budget, must fit the cast, must fit the locations, and the whole design of how we're going to do this. Like you were saying, one side of the building for this family, one side of the building for that family. For me, that's a really fun part of film making. It's how I put those pieces together. That's film making. A little different than just film directing. When I got hired to do Sex In The City, those aren't my concerns. I'm just the director. The film director. It's not my job how the people get there, how it's financed. So I like doing both. >> Sandra Aistars: Right. Do you want to show the clip from Rhythm Thief now? >> Matt Harrison: We could. Should I set up a little more? >> Sandra Aistars: Yeah, yeah, why don't you set it up. >> Matt Harrison: Ok. Interestingly enough, this is a story about a music bootlegger. We're talking a little bit about what happens with intellectual property, right? I'm a strong supporter of intellectual property. At the time - I'm a New York City native -- and this is in the early 90s, when music, there was a sticker campaign going on around the east village, it said "You bootleg, we break your legs," [laughter] and I thought, wow, that's really--because I'd seen these guys. >> Sandra Aistars: Would have been different on the Lower East Side than it is here in D.C. >> Matt Harrison: Selling bootleg music, and I thought, that's very interesting for a character, because it's in a very morally--he's, there's a lot of moral ambiguity in this guy, and so I wrote a story about it, in a particularly bad part of Manhattan, that I know very well. Sandra asked me, "What ties your movies together?" And it's a love of New York. New York's a tough place, but it's when that toughness cracks, and love kind of comes through, I think that's a theme in my films. The clip we're going to show is right about in the middle of the film, when a tough bootlegger, a girl from his hometown, has found him, and she's giving him all this information about his mother, who passed away, and so you'll see some of the writing, and you'll see some writing that gets used, and that's probably a good way to set the clip up. >> Okay. Great. ^M00:42:20 [ Music ] ^M00:42:33 [ Background Sounds ] ^M00:42:40 >> Why'd you do this? Why'd you go through my stuff? >> You never opened them! >> Never mind, I could do what I want with them. ^M00:42:48 [ Background Sounds ] ^M00:43:41 [ Music ] ^M00:43:59 [ Silence ] ^M00:44:06 [ Music ] ^M00:44:17 [ Applause ] ^M00:44:18 >>Matt Harrison: So just to--this is very much done in the traditions of like the new wave, it's standard 16 mm, black and white negative, so it's very much done the way the films, some of the films in the 50s were done, because I kind of wanted to quote that when we made the film. >> Mike Mashon: You still have the negative? >> Matt Harrison: Oh yeah! >> Mike Mashon: Okay, good. >>Matt Harrison: Oh, are you kidding? [Laughter] >> Sandra Aistars: So, I mean, what I loved, and I asked you to show some of those clips, because those were some of my favorite, you know, images of that particular character, of Marti, the girl from the bootlegger's past, and you know, I love them because they're such, you know, beautiful visual images of the character, and I thought that it really helped with the character exposition and also, you know, linked her from scene to scene, where you see her throughout the film, and it, you know, really kind of helped with the graphic, graphical storytelling throughout, throughout the film. >>Matt Harrison: Thank you. >> Sandra Aistars: So just, you know, as a non-expert watching the film, it was-- >> Matt Harrison: You noticed a lot [laughter], she wrote me this long e-mail, wow, it's just very thorough, she knows her film. >> Sandra Aistars: But so one thing that I noticed, and maybe you could comment on too, is the way that a lot of the scenes are shot, they're actually very long takes, you're not cutting very, you know, frequently. You've got these scenes, and we really didn't show any of those, but you've got scenes where you're, you know, filming a character and a character is walking to you, and I think actually the first scene where you see Marti, she's like coming down the street, and she like comes around the corner-- >>Matt Harrison: Yeah, it pulls her around the, yeah-- >> Sandra Aistars: Yeah, that's--so you know, talk about the challenges of that, and working with an actor, like what does that take from an actor. >> Matt Harrison: Yeah, that's interesting, we screened the film on Monday night at the BAMcinŽmatek, they were honoring it, and the British company blew it up to 35, so I also have a 35 mm fine gray master. >> Mike Mashon: We should talk [laughter]. >> Matt Harrison: And we showed the 35 mm print and somebody came up to me afterwards, "about that scene on the wall," and he said "I never noticed her in the distance, when I watched it on the small screen, but on the big screen, I really noticed it." One technique we did, and this is a great low-budget technique for anybody out there who's interested in making a low-budget feature, write this down [laughter]. If we're working with a small amount of money, traditional coverage is you shoot a master of the scene, you shoot the coverage, so basically you're shooting a scene over and over and over. We used what's called moving masters, which is where the DP, you block the action and then the DP follows them, and the DP might swing around so that you get one side, and then he or she might swing around so you get the other, but it's all done in one take. And so it's really fun to watch. They can be very beautiful, but it's a ballet that takes a little practice, and if you get it wrong, there's nowhere to cut. So you've got to be clever. I'm really lucky that I have a very talented DP. Also we rehearsed, with the cameras. >>Robert Newman: I would imagine. >> Matt Harrison: Yeah. >> Robert Newman: A thousand times over. >> Sandra Aistars: Right, so I mean, well kind of teasing out some of the similarities between-- >> Robert Newman: Well yes-- >> Sandra Aistars: Your work. >> Robert Newman: The soap opera world, it really is unlike anything else in the entertainment industry because we shoot more dramatic programming than any other area. I mean, Guiding Light, first of all, Guiding Light was the longest-running program in the history of broadcast. It began on the radio in 1937, and ended in 2009, 72 years of broadcast for this show. Where many night-time shows celebrate their 100th episode, Guiding Light's final episode number was 15,762 [laughter]. We shoot, we were talking earlier about Homeland, which I think you'll see a clip from as well later today. They shoot 12 episodes a season, I think, right? Most night-time network programs shoot 23 episodes, or 24 episodes a season. We shot 250 episodes a year, 51 weeks out of the year, 70 pages, usually a day. What's the normal day number of pages for a day? >> Matt Harrison: On a feature, the normal is like two or three, right? >> Robert Newman: Yeah. So you know, what Matt and I were talking about earlier was particularly toward the last few years of Guiding Light when the budget was getting tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter. As many of you probably know, many soap operas have sort of gone away over the last few years, and I'm very sorry for that, for any fans in the room, but that's just the way the business works sometimes. And in those last couple of years, we were trying to sort of save Guiding Light, by changing up the format. And we shifted from a traditional--normally a soap opera would shoot almost a theater style, where you'd have three walls, we'd have three cameras that, to me, were always house center left and right, and a couple of booms that would follow you around, so it was as if you were shooting a play every day. And we would actually cut in real time. When we changed the format, we went to hand-held cameras in permanent sets that were often enclosed to be four walls and a ceiling, which is very unusual for any kind of shoots, closer to what you were doing in that scene we were just watching, with the straws, which I love. >> Matt Harrison: So they would shoot-- >> Robert Newman: So we would shoot, we would now shoot, we usually had two cameras floating around, but we would now shoot a master, and then we would shoot medium shots and close-ups and things like that, and they'd put it all together on the--I was about to say the editing room, but the editing room has really become a laptop. >> Matt Harrison: Yes. >> Robert Newman: You know, you'd see, you'd walk by producers' offices, and they were editing, you know, a show from a week ago on their laptop. And more of what you were talking about earlier, we--also made a deal with a town in New Jersey. Peapack, New Jersey, which is about 40 minutes west of Manhattan. We made a deal with basically the entire town, that we could shoot anywhere in the town. ^M00:50:54 Giving us unlimited exteriors for the soap opera, which normally has no exteriors. And we also leased a house and on each side of the house, we doctored the house to make it look like somebody else, a particular family's, entryway. So if you approach the house from this direction it was the Spaulding house, this side it was Josh and Reva's Cross Creek Cabin, and this side over here was [laughter] Harley's whatever, over here, and this side was Frank's thing over there. And inside the house, we--different rooms were for different people. One, we made the living room into Josh and Reva's--and I played the character, Josh, Kim Zimmer played the character, Reva, for those of you that don't know, that was their little living room in their cabin, and another room would be the Spaulding, the rich family's dining room, so that looked completely different. And even the cafeteria, they had a large area in the house that was sort of a cafeteria style place, where we all actually took our meal breaks. And even that, they would shoot. They made it look like it was some kind of diner, or something like that, and they would shoot scenes even in there. And we would go out there, from one to three days a week, and shoot on location, at a thousand miles an hour. With literally no rehearsal time. When I first started the show, we would have an early morning couple hours of what we called dry rehearsal, where we would get our blocking and things like that, and then for each scene we would have what they call a camera blocking, so the cameras could see the scene for the first time, then a dress rehearsal, then notes, then we would tape a scene, usually doing it in one or maybe two takes at the most. By the time we finished the show, all of that was gone. And the two of us would walk onto a set. Well, let's think of it this way, the two of us would walk on [laughter], I was going to put in a bedroom, but we'll put it in an office [laughter], and you know I-- >> Sandra Aistars: Just don't use me-- >> Matt Harrison: [Laughter] I, you know-- >> Sandra Aistars: You did-- >> Robert Newman: And they'd say, "Okay Rob, you're behind the desk. You enter, you walk to the desk, you have the scene in this configuration, then you're going to turn around and walk out, and she's going to stand up and do one of those long-ending soap opera takes that, you know, we were so famous for. Go." And that's how we would shoot the master. >> Matt Harrison: Wow. >> Robert Newman: And they would shoot a wide shot. And that was the first the cameras had seen it, the booms had seen it, anybody had seen it. And all of this was budget driven. All of it. We tried to sort of make a public face idea that it was driven by artistry. This was an artistic choice that we were making, but it wasn't. It was all about trying to deal with an increasingly small budget. And somehow trying to keep our show alive. Obviously it didn't work out that way [laughter], we were replaced in 2009 by a game show. Because we need more of those in the world. >> Matt Harrison: Bring back Guiding Light! [Laughter] Bring it back! >> Robert Newman: And since I've left the show now, I've done such a wide array of different kinds of projects, you know, from the higher budget stuff like Criminal Minds or NCIS, I'm talking about television specifically now, to a web series that I shot last year, that I'll probably talk a little bit more about later, in a different segment. But, and then also shooting very, very high budget, like Spiderman. Just a little bit in the last few minutes of Spiderman, but my daughter is a huge fan, so had to do that. >> Matt Harrison: Not just a little [laughter]. >> Robert Newman: And then Homeland, which had a higher budget, but a different kind of deal than Criminal Minds, because Homeland is cable, and Criminal Minds is network. And then a low-budget sci-fi film called Dracano. By the folks who brought you Sharknado. So [laughter] you know that's going to be good [laughter] and then last season [laughter]--this is being recorded? >> Sandra Aistars: Yeah, it is [laughter]. >> Robert Newman: Fantastic. >>Sandra Aistars: No worries. >>Robert Newman: You know that's going to be good [laughter]. >> Sandra Aistars: Yeah, there we go. >> Robert Newman: Because it's dragons and volcanoes! >>Matt Harrison: Alright! >> Robert Newman: You probably didn't know that dragons are born in volcanoes, and have been hatched there for many years, and the military has been keeping it a secret [laughter]. And I actually, uh, in that film, sacrificed my life. >> Matt Harrison: No! >> Robert Newman: So you're welcome [laughter]. Lots of different things. >> Sandra Aistars: Let's pause, because there's just so much, I think, for a film scholar to comment on [laughter]. >> Mike Mashon: What this film scholar wants to say is next time, I'm going first [laughter]. >> Sandra Aistars: But seriously, I think the one thing that I do want to ask you to comment on is that both Matt's film, Rhythm Thief, and Robert's work on Guiding Light, have had incredible longevity, and there's something, diverse as those projects are, there is something, some quality to those projects, that made them last for as long as they lasted. There's something to Rhythm Thief that still makes it vital and fresh and interesting, and you know, it's only 20 years old, but there aren't any, you know, cultural references that make you kind of giggle. What do you look at as somebody who is a film scholar, interested in preserving cinema, as kind of touchstones for, you know, making preservation decisions, and what advice would you give creators in terms of preserving their works and creating works with longevity? >> Mike Mashon: Well, you know, our perspective, I should start by saying that the collections that we're responsible for are built on copyright. And I really appreciated the terrific slide show, before this program started, that sort of marched through the history of motion pictures and copyright. I thought that that was quite good. So, you know, our collection has grown since the oldest surviving copyright registration in 1894 through the material that we're getting today through film and video, and of course, you know, copyright continues to be the primary driver of our collection, although we go out and purchase material and get other collections through gifts, you know, we have 35 mm print of Kicked in the Head, registered for copyright. We have several of your other works, Robert, we have a fair number of the episodes, the shows that you have been on have been registered for copyright, but I have to say I was telling Robert this before this program, I mean he mentioned this insane number of episodes of The Guiding Light. You know, it's important as a scholar to be able to see and access material that you want to, you know, that you want to study. And we get, I promise I will get back to my point in a minute, but you know, it's hard for us, we don't even really try to anticipate what research trends are going to be, in the out years. It's very difficult to do that. So we collect broadly. We preserve broadly, and try to make as much of the material we have in our collection as accessible as possible. I stopped by the motion picture Moving Image Reference Center on my way over here, today, and I just asked the Reference Specialist what they were working on. They said, "Well, somebody wants to know what we have about gypsies in our collection." Well, we have films about gypsies, we have television about gypsies, we have films made by gypsies about gypsies, so we've got a lot of that in the collection. You just literally never know. But you know, you can't--it's hard to research what you can't see, and Guiding Light's a really good example of this. I mean, when you have well over 15,000 episodes of the program, in the library's collection, we have 64 episodes on radio, from the mid-1940s, and we have 40 television episodes. Forty! And those come mostly from the 60s. And none of that, we got, through copyright. We actually got it as part of other collections, and I don't know how people came up with the kinescopes of Guiding Light, but they had them. So there are 40. I even talked to somebody at CBS yesterday, and I said "How many episodes of Guiding Light do you have?" He said "We have 350." And they date mostly from the 50s and 60s, and Proctor and Gamble owns that show, and P&G may still have copies. We don't know. But the fact is, of the 15,700 episodes of Guiding Light, maybe 100 or so that are available in public archives. And you know, that's a real cultural loss to us. I think. I mean, the thing, I'm sorry--oh, I promise not to get too worked up about this [laughter] but I love, I love daytime serials. The very idea that you had a story that was 72 years in the telling. Seventy-two years! To tell that story. And that man right there was in the very last scene. I cried, when-- >> Robert Newman: Aww [laughter]. >> Mike Mashon: That's really--I would think that that would be quite an honor. >> Robert Newman: Just a second [inaudible]. ^M01:01:07 [ Laughter and Applause ] ^M01:01:11 >> Mike Mashon: It was, well, I was really happy for you and Reva, but you know, still. >> Robert Newman: You know, I am a soap opera actor, so crying is-- >>Mike Mashon: Natural for you? [Laughter] But, Guiding Light, Guiding Light, first show, this happens in daytime serials all the time, they deal with more topical issues before primetime does. So Guiding Light dealing with--we have breast cancer before other shows, they're dealing with spousal sexual assault, in 1979. I mean, you talk about stories ripped from today's headlines, that's, and they could react very, very quickly to things that were going on in the culture, at the time, so they're very reflective of what's going on in culture, and that makes them really rich text for people to study if they can see them. Now there are a handful, maybe 30, 40 episodes of Guiding Light that are available on DVD, and you can actually get the episode in which Roger sexually assaults his wife, Holly. But that's just one episode. Okay? That story line stretched over months. Well, you know, everything takes a long time on a soap, but it's just--that's what you want to watch. Not just that one episode, but you know, where are you going to find it? And so you know, it's one thing for a creator like Matt, who has taken advantage of the copyright system, and registered your work for copyright. And that's fantastic. And that's, you know, I hope, I want everybody to do that. Because, you know, we're keeping that material, we're preserving it, we can make it available for future generations. We're still respecting your intellectual property. If somebody walks into the Reference Center today and says "I'd really like to get a copy of Rhythm Thief," we're coming back to you, to grant permission for that. We don't just make this stuff available willy-nilly to everybody. You know, we would love to be the archival home for your other pre-print elements, if you like. And, you know, so I think copyright is a very good way to protect your work. When you're an actor, you're kind of at the mercy of the people who are producing the material, in which, you know, you've been hired to give a performance. And I just wish that more of that artistry that you devoted to Guiding Light, and it is artistry, we've all seen enough bad acting to know when you see good acting. And there's really, really--you're great. I'm sorry, I'm a fan boy, I'm a fan boy, what can I tell you. You're great! And I just, I wish more of that was available for researchers to have access to. >> Sandra Aistars: Great. Should we set up the second clip-- >> Matt Harrison: Oh, Kicked In the Head? >> Sandra Aistars: Kicked In The Head, and talk a little bit about the contrasts between working on a super low-budget film, and then working on a project where you've got a little bit more budget flexibility, and what that, you know, what that affords you, and whatever else you want to say about that clip before we set it up. >>Matt Harrison: Sure. So I was telling you guys about Rhythm Thief. We ended up being accepted to the Sundance Film Festival and winning a jury prize, much to our amazement. It's about, I think our total--our total on Rhythm Thief when all was said and done was about $35,000. Very low-budget feature. And like I said, it ended up going all over the world. It was picked up for foreign, I filmed four in England, they blew it up, it was distributed here in theaters in the United States, and the interesting thing that happened for me, though, was one day the phone rang, and it was Martin Scorsese, who really liked the picture, and he said at the time I was in Los Angeles, and he said "Matt, you made a great picture." "Thank you, Mr. Scorsese," and he said "Where are you?" Marty's a hard-core New York guy, you know, and I said "I'm in Los Angeles." He said "Los Angeles! That place is no good!" [Laughter] >>Robert Newman: I was born and raised there, and I agree [laughter]. >> Matt Harrison: And then he said, "What are you doing there?" And I had just signed with William Morris. >> Robert Newman: Yeah. >> Matt Harrison: They were doing all that stuff, so I was in Los Angeles, kind of, I said "Well, I got signed with an agency and I kind of want to see what they do," and he said "Agents - those people are no good!" [Laughter] So anyway, he said "What do you have?" I said, "I have a script for Kicked in The Head," a story that I'd written with Kevin Corrigan [assumed spelling], the actor. He plays the lead, and he's also a very good writer. And we'd written a story about a kind of a young New York City kid who gets involved in a love affair with a world--a much more worldly airline stewardess, who's kind of out of his league. And we just thought, we had written a comedy, really. It was kind of a black comedy. And Marty liked it a lot, so he produced the picture. And so I went from a $35,000 movie to a $3.8 million dollar movie. So for me, that was a big jump [laughter], and this was a number of years ago, and it was great to have all those toys. I'll show you a clip. And I'm--I think I'm continuing. I remember, I mentioned to you guys that a lot of my stories are about New York City, really, and it's a city I grew up in. I always found that when I was a kid, it was really a great place to be, but a very harsh--so my stories tend to be about that harshness of the city and how it, like I said before, is kind of how it cracks, and so I'll show you a clip. What happens, he's with his friend, and then I--I'll talk you guys through it. It's a short clip, and we can just see what we did. We're downtown again. It's the lower east side. >> Yep. ^M01:07:30 [ Music ] ^M01:07:37 >> Why are you so afraid of everything man? If only I knew you'd been afraid of shit. >> Does it show so much? >> Yeah man, it shows. >> You must get afraid. You ever get afraid stretch? >> Afraid like how? >> Afraid, like--of getting hurt, of hurting someone's feelings, you know? >> Not like that. >> Afraid of being alone? >> No man, I get afraid of things, but not like you. You reek of fear. How can you live your life like that? >> It's why I hate myself, man, I'm afraid of everything. >> I read a bumper sticker once that said "Life is what happens to you," or some shit, I can't remember the end, but it was something like "life is what happens to you while you're being afraid of shit." >> Hey did you call your mom? >> No, I forgot. >> You make a note? >> A note? >> Yeah, you know, a note. To write things down you won't forget 'em. You should fuckin' write it down. >> I didn't think of that. Oh yeah, okay, I'll write--I'll write it down. >> What kind of trouble you in? >> I have this crazy guy chasin' after me. >> Just one? >> One's enough. You ever have a crazy guy chasin' after ya? >> Yeah, all the time. >> Well this guy, this crazy guy's chasin' after me with a bottle of hairspray. >> Hairspray [laughing]? >> That's it. Yeah. >> What do you mean? >> I can't--I--I'll explain it later. It's just--oh. >> Chasing you? >> He thinks I ripped off his boss. >> And did you? >> No! I didn't. It's a big mix-up. ^M01:09:15 [ Music ] ^M01:09:25 >>Matt Harrison: It was a lot of fun to make. We had, we had this time we had the MTA, as our toy. Before we had to steal the shot. But this time, they were actually working for us. So it's nice to have money [laughter]. >> Robert Newman: I was about to make a Chris Christie joke, but I won't [laughter]. >> Matt Harrison: Sure. Let's hear it. >> Sandra Aistars: So maybe let's run, also the clip that we have from Homeland, of Robert and then we can talk about the contrasts and the challenges of shooting what's relatively short scene in a show like Homeland. >>Robert Newman: I played a good guy on Guiding Light for all those years, now I get cast as nasty characters all the time. And this guy is financing terrorists. It's a banker from New York. ^M01:10:21 [ Background Sounds ] ^M01:10:28 >> I saw you at Langley the other day. >> [Background sounds] Sorry, I don't remember. >> It's understandable, you've been pretty busy lying your ass off. >> What? >> You lost a colleague this week. >> That's right. >> He was gunned down, shot in two, it was a horrible mistake. I hope it's not repeated. >> Tell me who you are. Who are you? >> It's aggravating, isn't it? When someone won't answer your questions. >> Talk to my lawyer. >> I'm talking to you. And I'm telling you, you have a choice. You can give us the information we're asking for, or you can keep up your stupid charade, but if you pick the latter, I want you to know, I tried very hard to be patient with [inaudible] shit heads like you. But I can only do it so long. And you don't want to find out. ^M01:11:31 [ Background Music ] ^M01:11:43 [ Background Sounds and Music ] ^M01:11:47 >> Robert Newman: That was about two and a half or three pages of dialogue right there, with just two guys walking and talking on the sidewalk. And they called me--they shoot that in Charlotte--and they called me to the set at 6:00 p.m., and we wrapped at 2:00 a.m. Eight hours later. Just to shoot that little piece right there. Just to put it sort of, again, in context with what you do in the lower budget situations you're working, and what we did with Guiding Light shooting--we could have shot almost the entire, an entire episode of Guiding Light in that same eight-hour period [laughter]. >>Sandra Aistars: And as an actor, what do you find more challenging? The having to do it all in kind of essentially one take? You know, not a lot of opportunities to kind of go back and not a lot of opportunities to rehearse or having to keep your delivery fresh, you know, saying the same line a thousand times over. >> Robert Newman: Yeah, challenging is a difficult word, because I like being challenged, that's what I like the most as an actor is being challenged. But you know, sometimes you're challenged in a really great way, and other times it's in a way that can just drive you absolutely insane. And quite frankly, this kind of shooting makes me a little bit crazy, because you really are repeating those same lines of dialogue, and to a certain extent, exactly the--at some point it has to be almost exact, pretty much exactly the same way on every take, because it's all got to match in a similar way. So what you were doing on the first take at 7:00 p.m. has to be similar to what you're doing on the last take at 2:00 a.m., and you've gone through it, you know, 50 times. You know, during that time period. I'm a--I do a lot of live stage work now, as you heard, La Mancha and Full Monty, which, just as a side note is one of the most fun shows you can ever do on stage. And one of the things that I love the most about live theater is that it's all happening in the moment, it's happening right now, and so in a weird way, it's the things that go wrong throughout each performance. People think that when you do 8 performances a week or something it's all the same and it's got to get repetitive, but the fact is, different little things happen that hopefully the audience is not aware of every single time, every single performance you do it. And those things have to be fixed in real time, they have to be fixed right now. And it was a similar feeling on the soap opera, where we really didn't have enough rehearsal time, you were constantly sort of flying by the seat of your pants, but somehow, you had to make it work and make it good, and that happens in low-budget films that I shoot now, and I did a short film last season in New York last fall, that we shot in a two-day period. That was a 30 minute script that we shot in about a two-day period. That's the kind of work that I really love. And I feel like there's something extraordinary that can happen in a performance when it's not 100 percent polished. I feel like if you're at about 80 percent, then that leaves some room for something to happen that's not necessarily written in the script, and not necessarily expected by the director or by the other actor that you're working with. There's these magic things that happen, and many things that happened between Josh and Reva on Guiding Light would fit into that mold. There were things that we weren't even aware was going to happen in the scene, and then all of a sudden it happens and everybody goes, "Ooh! That' was special!" But it wasn't really necessarily in the script. So sometimes I feel a little constrained by that kind of, by shooting in that way. >>Mike Mashon: But if I can ask a question about Josh, who's somebody you played, somebody you played for 28 years. It's like a coat. Is it like a coat you take on and off at the beginning and end of the day? You talk about the challenge, I mean this is somebody you know very intimately, and where were you looking to find new things about that character? >>Robert Newman: Well, you know, people think of it as playing. It's, in fact, yes, it's playing the same character for 28 years, but Josh changed throughout the course of those 28 years. You know, he was different when he was 25, and then he was when he was 35 and 45, and in the same way that I am. So the stories change. His values change. You know, you're constantly challenged by working with different actors. I worked with Kim Zimmer for about 25 of those 28 years, but they were married to and divorced from each other three times over that course [laughter]. Josh was married 9 times total [laughter]. >> Matt Harrison: Oh! >> Robert Newman: We went through the absolutely insane years where we had a storyline where I cloned my dead wife [laughter]. We had the time travel storyline. I don't probably have to describe that in detail. And then another story where I think it was something about a mind control drug. I also had three wives return from the dead, I mean [laughter] you know, soap opera just changes so rapidly that really what you're focused on is just the script of the day. And getting through that script today. And I'm not worried about what I shot three months ago or what I'm going to shoot six months from now, it's just happening in the moment. And because it's such a sort of, it's again, flying by the seat of your pants feeling most of the time, there's not--there's not room for sort of settling into a performance in the way I think you're talking about. >> Mike Mashon: Yeah. >> Robert Newman: It has to be fresh all the time. >> Sandra Aistars: I'll use your cloning and time travel references-- >> Robert Newman: Please don't [laughter]. >> Sandra Aistars: Very smooth transition to, you know, copyright issues. I think those could actually have very important copyright implications as technology, length of term, and [laughter] that kind of thing. >> Matt Harrison: Cloning [laughter]. >> Sandra Aistars: Impact of technology and new business models is what I want to talk about actually. I think at least as somebody who is an avid fan of movies and I'll say I was not as avid of a fan of TV, whether cable or broadcast TV, until probably within the last, you know, five, ten years, where I think there's been some blurring of the lines between what is, you know, what had traditionally been viewed as feature films, kind of, you know, people who both made and starred in those appearing more and more frequently in television productions, and also the benefits of technology in terms of how we experience filmed entertainment. So the fact that you can see an entire episode of, you know, sorry an entire season of a show like House of Cards, or, and watch it at your own pace, and interact with those characters, and those storylines on a, you know, daily basis, much like you might read a book, has really changed the way, you know, I interact with that type of a show. I wonder how it is for you as actors and directors, has it changed your set of opportunities? And has it changed your perception of challenges and risks? As creative individuals, as you are? >>Matt Harrison: You know, maybe what we're seeing is just a continuing evolution, because in the early days, American producers didn't think that American audiences could watch anything longer than two reels, right? They call them two-reelers, how long was a two-reeler? >>Mike Mashon: If features really started around 1914, 1915, so they were 20 years of, one and two reels. >> Matt Harrison: Like you're, like American producers are like "Oh no, Europeans have these long attention spans, but not Americans" [laughter] no, no, you can't do that. But then a few people did it, like Griffith. So maybe what we're seeing is, as we all learn more about this moving image format, maybe we're able to have much longer story arcs, to go 13 or 26 episodes, and you can--because literally you didn't have, when you were locked in to only watching your show on Tuesday night, or even if it was just once a day, now we can get the DVD or internet and watch, sit and watch three, four, we can--what are we all saying now, binge view, right? We can binge view the whole arc, so maybe that's why we're moving towards that. The opportunities that are coming my way are everyone right now in Hollywood seems to be, overnight, it's weird, like everyone was "Yeah, TV's great, but." But. But then it's like boom, every day, it's like TV. Maybe that will change in a month, because Hollywood's like that. >>Sandra Aistars: As a director, are you getting-- >> Matt Harrison: The projects I'm being approached with, yeah-- >> Sandra Aistars: So, but are the projects still kind of episode by episode? Because just to explain for people how, you know-- >> Matt Harrison: I'm being approached with both. Just to direct episodes, but I'm being approached to produce whole shows, like to pick shows, and produce them. >> Robert Newman: Yeah. >> Matt Harrison: So those are the opportunities--and it's just getting harder and harder to put together features. Right now. At the DGA, I was--the producer was talking about it and said he does both, he does features and television, I say "What is the difference for you?" And he said "When you work on TV, the producers see this date, you know, whatever it might be, May 8th, and it's rushing towards them, it's just a piece of static." So they have to fill it with programming. Whereas features, it's very different. There's no compelling reason to make that feature, other than the creative people who want to make it. So they're very different. This is the way he put it, I feel a little differently, but it was interesting to hear it talked about that way. >> Sandra Aistars: What about from an actor's perspective in terms of opportunities? >> Robert Newman: Well, actually I think, you know, for me this is putting on my hat now as Vice President of SAG-AFTRA, because, you know, we are constantly being challenged as we negotiate contracts, you know, on behalf of our members. With the producers, of trying to sort of out-guess, and so are they, by the way, this is happening on both sides, of trying to out-guess exactly how this--where this business is going to go. You know, we've been calling it new media, and I just actually remarked at a board meeting recently, "When are we going to stop calling it new media? Because it's not really new media anymore." But in a way, it is. What we described as new media say three or four years ago has now become old, but there just seems to be this endless parade of new media, where you know in areas that you never thought that it would go, and for us, it creates all kinds of logistical problems in terms of the contracts that we have in place, you know, just to--and I'm not talking about the kind of contracts that Tom Cruise signs, where's he's making, you know $15 million dollars for a movie. You know, we represent at SAG-AFTRA about 160,000 members. And you know, maybe a couple hundred of those fall under the category that I've just described. The rest of us are really just, you know, really middle class, well, it runs the gamut, actually, but most of us are just trying to raise our kids and pay our mortgage and, you know, that kind of thing. So we're very dependent on not only on how we get paid when we actually work, but then on a residual structure that we get where we're making money as they continue to make money, we continue to get a piece of that as well. You know? The very simplest form of what we all do, is we put on a show and people pay something to go see it. That's as simple as it gets, and you know, when you guys were showing the Nickelodeons in 1905, that's what people were doing. And if they wanted to see the show again, they'd go back and they'd pay and they'd see it again, you know. But that structure is really falling apart with what we used to call piracy. We don't like that term anymore because that sounds kind of cool, to be a pirate, but when intellectual property is being really stolen, on a regular basis, through the internet, and we're losing complete control over the show that we've created, the product that we've created, then that starts creating issues for how people are going to, really what it goes back to is how people are going to make the product in the first place. You know if we don't--if we're not going to make money on your $35,000 film, how can you even make it in the first place? And that's the end game that I'm really afraid that we're going to get to. Is if the idea is that everything should be free, then it costs money. And I'm going to go back to what I mentioned earlier, this web series I did last season, Venice. It's in its fourth year. It's doing well. They have a format where you join their website. For $9.95 a year, I think, which gives you the 12 episodes, plus it gives you the community, it gives you blogging, and chat rooms and all kinds of things. And I got into a thing with a fan on my fan Facebook page, where you know, I just posted a thing about "Hey, go see season 4 of Venice, I'm part of it, and know a lot of people on the show," and all that. And one fan struck me saying, "Yeah, I'm going to watch it, but I'm not going to pay for it." And I thought--or, "I want to watch it, but I don't want to pay for it." And I thought--just on that example, how do you think it gets made? I mean, it's not like we're all a bunch of high school kids getting together and putting on a movie and shooting it in the backyard, you know? These are, you know, seasoned actors, and good cameramen, and good crew, and great directors and storytellers. A lot of people involved. We're shooting all over L.A., and it costs money to do that. So if somehow we're not going to--there's no money to be made at the other end, then the product's going to go away. And so in the long-term, I don't think that's the issue at this particular moment, but I feel like that's where it's going. That the idea that it's--and I have this argument, particularly with the younger generation all the time--the idea that, you know, it's art, so it should be out there, and it should be free for the world to see. And not have to pay a dime to do that. That's where I'm afraid we're going, and that's why what you guys do is just incredibly important, and it's a battle that we actually fight alongside the producers, who, in our contract negotiations, very often we're facing off against. But in this case, we're working with them to really try to figure out this growing issue. That's what I think of when you--that may not be the question you asked, but that's my answer [laughter]. So if you edit this later, you can put in whatever question you want [laughter]. I've had that happen at interviews before [laughter]. >>Sandra Aistars: I think a good way to kind of close out this discussion and maybe afford the audience an opportunity to ask a question or two-- >> Matt Harrison: I like that. >> Sandra Aistars: Would be, though, to still ask Mike one more question. We started with this great presentation about interesting things from the Library's archives, but I know there are some interesting things that weren't highlighted in the slide presentation. Can you, you know, name one or two of your favorite items, or things that would, you know, surprise people that are in the archives? >> Mike Mashon: Well, you know, it's part of the glory of our collection, the surprising things that get registered for copyright, but also that we've received from rights holders, so I mean, I'm very proud of the fact that we have a copyright deposit of the Star Wars holiday special, which we're one of the few places to hold that. I remember I showed a clip from it at a conference presentation, I had somebody from Lucasfilm come up to me afterwards, and I thought he was going to like punch me, but he said "That's awesome, can I get a copy?" I'm like, "No!" [laughter] No, talk to your boss! But we have, you know, you saw there was just one slide in the show earlier that talked about the era of paper registration after the copyright law in 1912 allowed for motion picture film to be registered for copyright. The Library did not keep copies of the film that came in to us for registration because it was printed on very flammable nitrate film stock, we didn't have any storage for that. Wasn't until the 1940s that we acquired some vaults out in Suitland, Maryland, to keep the nitrate that had come in. But of course, we've gone back and retrospectively collected during that period, in the Golden Age of Hollywood, and we have almost 140 million feet of nitrate film in the collection, and a lot of that comes from studios. So our biggest studio collections come from Sony, the Columbia collection, we have a lot from Warner Brothers, Paramount, and from Disney. We have all the original camera negatives for all of the films that Walt Disney released in the nitrate era. I always tell people, "We have the film that was going through the camera when Bambi was acting on the other side--" [laughter]. But my favorite thing, in the nitrate collection, actually comes out of our Warner Brothers collection, and some of you may be familiar with the 1933 film starring Barbara Stanwyck, called Baby Face. It's made in what was called the pre-code era, before the introduction of production code administration. She plays a bootlegger's daughter who sleeps her way to the top of a banking empire. It's a very provocative, racy kind of film, and it's often credited with being one of the films that prompted the formation of the PCA, to begin with. Well, several years, about ten years ago, I asked for a new print of Baby Face with the original camera negative, and that is the film going through the camera when Barbara Stanwyck was on the other side of it. We have the original camera negative for Baby Face. I wanted a new print made for the London Film Festival. We show a lot of pre-codes out there. If any of you are in London next Friday, I'm doing a lecture there about pre-code. >>Matt Harrison: In London? >> Mike Mashon: At the BFI--yeah. >> Matt Harrison: Wow! >> Robert Newman: Let's go. >> Matt Harrison: I would love to. That would be-- >> Mike Mashon: And so anyway, I asked for this print, and then our people in our nitrate vault called me and said "We have this other version of Baby Face, a fine-grain master positive, and it looks to be a little different, we're not sure what it is," so we went and watched that. And within like the first five minutes you could tell it's another version of Baby Face. It was actually the pre-censored version of Baby Face. >>Robert Newman: Oh, ooooh. >> Mike Mashon: It's even more racy than the version of Baby Face that we know. >>Roger: I actually want to see it. >> Matt Harrison: That's the one! Amen brother! >> Mike Mashon: Uncut. >> Mike Mashon: It is, it's the uncut version of Baby Face. Now, it's 1933. But, but, we--that's the version that we preserved, showed it in London, and when you watch Baby Face on Turner Classic Movies now, and it's on all the time, you're watching the original version of Baby Face, that we found in the collections, of the Library of Congress. So we're really glad that Warner Brothers kept that nitrate to begin with, and we're glad that they gave it to the Library in 1969. Because they were just looking to get rid of their nitrate film. They didn't want the storage anymore and the Library took it in. So I'm really, really grateful for that. >> Robert Newman: Wow. >> Matt Harrison: That's a really cool story, oh my God. >> Sandra Aistars: So I'm told that we are actually out of time, unfortunately. >>Matt Harrison: Awww! >> Sandra Aistars: Thank you very much, all three of you have been incredibly entertaining, and very gracious with your stories and your experiences, and thank you so much for inviting us to take part in your celebration, Maria. >> Maria Pallante: Well, a huge, huge round of applause please for Sandra, Matt, Robert and Mike. ^M01:33:35 [ Applause ] ^M01:33:37 >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov. ^E01:33:47