Could filmmaking possibly get more commercial? Um, yes.

April 7, 2010

Harold Meyerson has a great/depressing piece in the Washington Post today on how product placement, or “brand integration,” (it’s a serious business these days) has become more important than ever to the funding of film. Now, he says, it’s not enough for one of the main characters to just be drinking a Pepsi. No, now a lawyer Company X has hired sits in on story conferences and suggests ways to integrate the products into scenes, action and dialogue. Sometimes these decisions can even affect casting and plot.

We used to have the studio system, and when it dissolved it was generally considered a good thing. And it was, for a while. But now that movies are more expensive and funding more difficult than ever to secure, the studio system’s starting to look not-so-bad. Most of our greatest movies (IMHO) were produced under it, after all. It doesn’t seem to have stifled creativity in the same way ridiculous amounts of money can.

But as Meyerson points out, no system designed solely to make money works all that well in the arts.

Every system has its own logic, but none of those systems — be they theocratic, feudal, capitalist or communist — has a logic that’s ultimately compatible with that of the artist.

It’s the age old problem, whatever the art, whatever the medium. How to make money and get audience without sacrificing integrity. The push and pull of business vs. creativity. We need both. But do we really need “brand integration?”