Zoetrope and the Zeitgeist

Is the Web about to become the new venue for screenwriters? More than a few striking Writer's Guild members are entertaining the idea
of their possibly brighter future online. I wished to address this issue when I was discussing the Well during the last class.

Never mind the slim pickings on TV these days. The screenwriters contributing to the pre.vue.144 conference at the Well are already planning posssible futures without Hollywood Industry executives. According to this article in The Los Angeles Times, many Writer's Guild members are now working with Web venture capitalists to present their content online.

Will this give a major boost to independent film makers? Is the whole industry going indie? We'll see. Web Video start-up companies are already forming to create what may be the new film industry standard: Web-based video production and distribution.

Did Google's $1.65 billion purchase of You Tube foreshadow this event? Time will tell. In any case the Well screenwriters in the pre.vue.144 conference appear to be taking enlightened self-interest to the next level. In discussing how they will cope with an uncertain future, they provide a unique perspective that news producers might miss.

Conference pre.vue.144 speaks directly to the purpose of the Well too. On the "Learn about the Well" page, we are told that, "for members," The Well "is a way to come up with the next interesting thing and a way to live." The spirit of solidarity within the pre.vue.144 seems to reflect this, providing fellow screenwriters ideas on how to roll with the changes.

I don't imagine that I would ever visit Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope Virtual Studios website and find the same vitality. The nine year-old site's name is quite visionary though. Coppola founded Zoetrope as a way to both encourage and mine new talent, offering online writing workshops and prize money for the best screenplays.

Coppola does promote his own products here, mainly Zoetrope All-Story Magazine and the Coppola wineries. Though I'd rather pay my twenty bucks per month to The Well and view the banner-free Salon Premium site whenever I choose, Zoetrope Virtual Studios exemplifies a good use participatory media, whether it speaks to Coppola's enlightened self-interest or ours.

The roster of members with archived screenplays, photos, novellas and short stories is enormous.
Looking at the site, however, I don't sense that levelling that distinguishes the Well, where members may freely communicate with highly-seasoned writers from the Hollywood studio trenches.

The member dialogs posted on Zoetrope are helpful and often polite, yet, unlike The Well, we don't see many comments hyperlinked to other sites outside of the community. Perhaps such connections are made through Z mail, Zoetrope's internal e-mail application. The Coppolas appear to be focused more on their craft than its buzz.

How do screenwriters manage their careers in uncertain times? In The Well, we find them sharing this knowledge with whomever chooses to enter the pre.vue.144 conference. Not a bad watering hole for a citizen journalist trying to get the inside scoop on writer's strike woes.

In this respect, The Well has an intimate presence in cyberspace that Zoetrope lacks. A missed opportunity for Zoetrope? Not necessarily. Zoetrope was set up to educate screenwriters in their craft. The Well writing conferences are less clearly defined, serving as networking platforms .

Both sites serve their purposes. Somebody should mention Zoetrope's fatal usability flaw, however. Coppola creates a huge advertising space for himself on the homepage, narrowing the already tiny text within the left side's vertical navigation. We get a clear sense that, though we're viewing a community website, we're asked to be ever-mindful of the Coppola brand.