There’s been plenty of discussion about how the film industry can learn from what happened to its sister, the music industry, over the past decade or so.

The combination of new systems of delivery, digitisation and changing consumer behaviour basically changed the face of the way music is now packaged and sold. In many respects, it has seen musicians go back to counting live performance as their main source of income because sales of records have brought drastically lower returns.

While it’s doubtful that all Hollywood superstars will be treading the boards of local theatres in the future, one way films have tried to stem the tide is by utilising 3D as an ‘in cinemas only’ experience (despite the recent development of 3D TVs).

Elsewhere the rise of Netflix and other major streaming and download sites mean that more people than ever are watching big-screen offerings on their own range of screens at home.

 

Elephant in the room…

The elephant in the room that rarely gets mention is that TV is now the go-to environment for writers, directors and actors who see how ‘box set’ viewing has opened up new creative opportunities.

HBO have always led the way with shows like The Sopranos which used Hollywood quality levels across the whole production with the results piped through TV screens over several consistent seasons. With True Detective, the company took things up a level, kicking off a title that will feature an anthology format which will see each new season feature a different cast, location and storyline.

In the debut season, the twin leads of Matthew McConaughey (as Rust Cohle) and Woody Harrelson (as Marty Hart) are a police partnership that eschews the usual ‘buddy’ approach and lays bare the weaknesses and vices that they both have.

McConaughey in particular has been singled out for his performance. Having won the best actor Oscar earlier this year for his role in Dallas Buyers Club he also picked up another in the same category at the fourth annual Television Critics’ Awards for his portrayal of Cohle.

McConaughey highlighted the way many big screen actors are now thinking when he said that television is currently “raising the bar for character-driven drama.”

Written and created by Nic Pizzolatto (The Killing) and directed by Cary Fukunaga (Sin Nombre) True Detective’s coastal plain setting of South Louisiana offers up opportunities for big screen cinematography and uses luscious colour and the unique local natural habitat to full effect.

A psychodrama that unfolds over a tightly focused eight episodes; it occupies a strange new space between a film that isn’t quite long enough to develop a theme and a TV series that needs unnecessary filler.

Perhaps it is actually the start of a whole new genre that we are more likely to find at Amazon than our local cinemaplex. Whatever it is  – we’re big fans!

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