Showing posts with label audience. Show all posts
Showing posts with label audience. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

LDS Audience Improvement

I have a question. It may be an old question, but I think it bears repeating. I suppose I'm asking this in tandem with this post from A Motley Vision. My scope is narrower as a result of being specific to this blog's audience. The assumption I'm basing my question on is that Latter-day Saints tend to view cinema in largely the same that the world presents it. We may or may not be more discriminating in what we will partake of, but we generally go for the same things in terms of what motivates us to see a movie and what reasons we give for thinking it worthwhile. We, as a people, tend to consider film watching a pastime - a break from the other parts of our lives. We go see movies for fun or for something to do and we think we had a worthwhile experience when the movie was exciting, we laughed a lot, there were cool special effects, the acting was good, we cried, there was some moral lesson, the company was enjoyable, and/or suchlike. I know there are strong opinions otherwise held by some who read this blog, but I'm speaking generally. This is my basic assumption.

It seems to me that a lot of thoughtful LDS filmmakers would like to change the way audiences approach the viewing experience. There is an apparent disconnect between the intentions of those who make the films and those who view them. My question is this: should this disparity be resolved and, if so, how? How can the LDS audience be improved?

We talk a lot about improving the art and the artists, but it seems to me that neither will flourish as readily without an equally improved audience. With whom does the onus for changing the perceptions of the audience lie? It is, in my opinion, a necessarily gradual process, but I was hoping we could have a discussion about that and what you all think can be done.