Noircast Special 4: TCM Presents Into the Darkness: Investigating Film Noir

Hello, Peril. You like that? We're going to put these on billboards after we open up. Saturday night.

So that's it. You're a bigger thief than ever.

That's it.

My instinct was right. You couldn't stop being a thief any more than a weasel could stop sucking chicken blood.

Thank you.

The official podcast of the Horrible Imaginings Film Festival right here in San Diego, California.

And as we do every spring when the Turner Classic Movies Film Festival hits Hollywood,

we're going to have a few more episodes that zero in on classic film,

specifically in this case, the classification of films that are known as film noir.

Noir is an interesting subset of classic films that is of great interest to those of you out there who listen to this show

who are genre film enthusiasts, because I think there are a lot of elements of noir

that, as I've said, are not necessarily the same as classic films.

As the word noir itself suggests, embraces the darker sides of human nature.

I'm sure that is something that will come up in the series of podcast episodes I'm going to do with my friend Will McKinley,

as I'll introduce here in a second, which will spotlight a unique new class coming to an internet near you.

Let's talk about that class for a second.

So Turner Classic Movies, with their commercial free and uncut presentations of classic films from a diverse set of eras and genres,

has been a bastion of film education for over two decades.

Almost everyone I know who loves film just leaves the TV on TCM pretty much in perpetuity.

So that is going to be taken to an interesting new level since TCM has collaborated with Ball State University

in order to tie their Summer of Darkness noir programming this summer into an online film course

that is not only open to the public, but also completely free of charge.

I decided to enroll myself in this class, as did many of my TCM party friends,

and also decided to analyze my experience with the class on the podcast in three episodes.

As a teacher myself, when we're lesson planning, we usually plan a before, a during, and an after the lesson,

and that's what I'm going to do with the podcast.

We'll have a before session, a during session in the thick of the class,

and then an after section as a sort of reflection of what we thought of the class,

and hopefully our hopes for future classes like this.

Joining me today for the before section are a number of students

of stellar guests, and I have a list of credentials,

but it's going to be much more interesting if they give me their credentials.

So I think we'll start with Shannon Clute.

So, Shannon, who are you and what are you doing here?

You know, that's really way too tempting because I didn't know there would be this setup,

but now I'm going to say former Secret Service agent.

There it is.

No, I'm the director of marketing and editorial for Turner Classic Movies,

where I'm in charge of marketing strategy and fulfillment,

as well as editorial content across platforms,

so web editorials, social content, publications, etc.

So that's sort of how I came to this project.

And Rich, why don't you go ahead and go next?

Well, I'm here today because I will actually be the person teaching the course

Into the Darkness, Investigating Film Noir.

My background is I have a PhD from USC School of Cinematic Arts,

in critical studies, and film noir was always my favorite body of film,

and I've been digging into it for over 20 plus years.

And along with Shannon Clute, we've had projects that have been ongoing

around film noir for about 10 years in our collaboration,

starting with a podcast project called Out of the Past, Investigating Film Noir,

that takes one film and looks at it in depth over the course of a 30 to 40 minute conversation.

And then that project resulted in a bookshop,

Shannon and I published back in 2011,

entitled The Maltese Touch of Evil, Film Noir and Potential Criticism.

So I believe that's why you have me on here today.

I think that's a pretty good reason. Should we call you Dr. Edwards from here on out?

No, please don't.

I couldn't take it either.

Yeah, you know, it's funny. I'm glad Rich pointed to that sort of shared history.

One other thing I should say that resulted in is not just that he's now at Ball State

and offering this class, but in many ways,

I think it's fair to say that that collaboration and the book that came of it

is one of the big reasons that I ended up at TCM.

So the Out of the Past podcast is the gift that keeps on giving.

Yeah. And it's always tough, Miguel, when I try to give these intros,

because you're right, Shannon and I are wearing a lot of different hats on this project.

And currently I am at Ball State University,

but I'm not technically teaching film noir there.

What my role is at Ball State,

my role is at Ball State University is innovation and online education.

And part of what so excites me about this collaboration that I'm doing this summer

with Turner Classic Movies is it's bringing together the two sides of my brain,

the part of my brain that works with trying to create very innovative online learning experiences

with my absolute fandom and interest in film noir.

I can relate to that because I am an educational technology resource teacher for K-12 here in San Diego.

So that's also right now this class is kind of colliding with my day job life as well.

Will, you and I have collaborated on podcasts in the past.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

We have. I am a writer and a blogger and a classic film fan, a lifelong classic film fan.

I also have an undergraduate degree in film and television from NYU Film School,

but that's got nothing at all to do with this.

But I feel like I want to throw that in, you know, with like all these academic types on the line with us.

But I'm a big Shannon knows I'm a big fan of Turner Classic Movies,

big supporter of everything that they do.

And I am a proud enrollee in this class.

And so you and I are going to you're probably going to be my partner in crime

in terms of analyzing the class and our experiences.

We're going we're going back to school.

I've got the spitballs ready.

I've got an apple for Rich.

I hope you accept virtual apples.

It's going to be fun. Excellent.

All right. Well, let's go right into this.

It's best to start with the conception of this concept.

I can't think of a time where a major television network has paired with the university to offer a free course to the public.

And obviously, you know, Rich, this this is really up your alley.

Was this conceivable just a decade ago?

No. I mean, we're not going to close.

I don't claim that we're the first network that's had a related educational experience.

But to the core of your question, a decade ago, this type of course just wasn't even feasible.

I mean, really, if you go back in time just a decade ago, YouTube really was just starting in 2005.

And so we've really had to wait for the Internet to mature, to become this type of social learning community platform that enables

the type of experience we're going after in this course.

Part of what is so thrilling for me as an educator is whenever I've tried to teach online before with film noir,

there's a lot of issues with trying to get the students to see the star of the course, which are the films themselves.

And what is so luscious about this collaboration with TCM is as an educator of a nine week course, I am going to have access to 100 plus films noir,

which is just amazing.

I mean, usually when I teach a film course, we watch one film a week.

And here we're going to really be able to delve in.

And so the part that I think is might be of interest to the larger audience is this fascinating partnership between a major media corporation,

Turner Classic Movies and a university, Ball State University, and trying to leverage what both of these partners bring to the table to create a very open,

vibrant,

and powerful learning experience that, if it goes correctly, will form this temporary nine week community that's all going to start investigating through a variety of means the phenomenon of film noir.

Shannon, can you talk about TCM's side of that equation?

Yeah.

You know, frankly, I think in many ways we have the easier job here.

This is not the first time that we've done Summer of Darkness.

It happened the first time in 1990.

And that first time around, it was a more modest festival.

It was essentially the spotlight for the month.

And so it was less than half of the scope of films that it is this time.

But this was something that our SVP of programming, Charlie Tabish, had in the works.

And a big part of my job is to figure out what is the right sort of context beyond the linear network.

Obviously, that's done by the studio group and the on-air group.

But what is the right context to bring?

What is the right context to bring in these other media to what we're doing in programming so that people who come in via web and social get a full experience and understand the programming as well as possible?

So as soon as I saw that this was being planned, I immediately thought, well, I've got to reach out to Rich because I knew he had done a previous iteration of this course.

And that with a little careful planning, he could sort of modify what he'd done previously.

To really fit the scope of this year's programming.

And that we then on the TCM side could work to simply engage the incredible and knowledgeable fans we already have.

People like you and Will.

So that we would bring sort of the passionate, knowledgeable film public to a course that was already really designed smartly for that kind of multi-platform engagement.

And Shannon, if I can follow up on that.

I think for the TCM viewers.

In the listening audience.

We're very interested in this sort of, you know, behind the scenes component of the network.

Can you share a little bit about with a program of this scope?

120 films, nine full 24 hour days of programming.

How far in advance is something like this planned?

And at what stage in that process did the educational component become part of it?

Yeah, those are great questions.

I mean, I don't want to speak too much for Charlie.

Because I know that his programming methods can really depend on a series of factors.

We are always working to license from the widest variety of studios.

And a festival like this coming together, there's a lot of planning.

There's a question of what's already in window.

And then there's some kismet as you bring in as other things fall into place.

And you're able to sort of broaden the scope and bring in, in the case of this fest, some Fox titles.

Some more recent neo-noir titles.

Things that really amplify a match.

That really amplify and magnify the scope of what we could more routinely offer.

So I think this is one that's really was in the works for a number of months prior to locking down the schedule.

I believe it was six months.

The person who worked on this primarily was actually not Charlie Tabish.

It was Millie DiCirico.

Who also is the person responsible for our TCM Underground franchise.

So she has a passion for noir.

And was, I believe, just given the reins to really run with this fest.

So there's a lot to give credit for there.

Then in terms of figuring out what will accompany a programming initiative like this.

We really have a more limited scope on the back end.

To retrofit some of our contextual materials to what's coming down the pike, if you will.

And the earliest production schedule, generally speaking, beyond programming is the Now Playing Guide.

And that is one of the publications that falls in.

Within my group.

So as soon as we have the initial programming meeting.

That we go and we hear about upcoming programming.

Which is about three months prior to the start of that month.

We then start to really make our plans in earnest about how to feature things in various editorial platforms.

Or, you know, different types of editorial on various platforms.

And what sort of special experiences we can craft with the time we have.

And I think to have created a course like this from scratch.

Would have been nearly impossible.

But because I knew that Rich had already done a course that was fantastic.

And that could be modified to really fit this purpose.

We were able to put together something much more robust.

Okay.

So I think what I want to do now is back up a little bit.

I want you guys to talk about the podcast for a second.

When I first heard about the class.

I noticed that the class and the podcast have suspiciously similar names.

And I was wondering if the idea for this.

Had sprung from the podcast.

But it sounds like that might not be the case.

But talk about, you know, how the podcast has been going over the years.

And how that affects how the class might look.

Just because you've had all this time to really analyze these in a really structured way.

You're right, actually.

I think that this course is the latest iteration of a whole collaboration.

That had been using this metaphor of investigation to better understand noir.

Rich, do you want to sort of jump back and trace the evolution of the project from our earliest days of arguing for a serialized academic audiobook to what you're doing now?

Yeah, I think so.

Because part of what I think is sometimes difficult to convey to people who might be like, wow, TCM is offering a course.

What could that possibly be like?

And you can imagine that an academic course could take all sorts of different shapes and different foci.

But when Shannon and I started to collaborate.

We started to collaborate in 2005 when we were both faculty members at St. Mary's College in California.

We really had a passion to bringing our interest in film noir out in a more public stance.

We really didn't want to have a show that was heavily theorized with a lot of academic jargon that really we felt would distance the audience from the beloved films.

But we really wanted to bring a certain type of critical inquiry into the audience.

And the project really did take life when we really both agreed that the core value of what we were attempting to do was to investigate.

We weren't necessarily going to provide answers.

We weren't necessarily going to do this in a sort of predetermined linear manner.

And over the last ten years, our various collaborations have always emerged out of the positive energy of our shared love of noir.

And the podcast and the course are deeply related and that's why they have the same title.

I really feel that it's important for people who join the course to recognize that everyone who is enrolled in the course is going to be a co-investigator.

I will be the lead investigator that will try to set up a framework.

But ultimately the learning has to be personalized and the passion for all of the learning that has to come will come from the students.

And I'll be some type of ringleader hoping to keep it all stitched together.

And the other part that's just kind of fun is that really in all the work that Shannon and I have ever done together,

and this is what makes it such a great fit, I believe, with the Turner Classic Movies brand and audience,

is we are really interested in always putting the movies first.

And what excites me about the course is that the course,

the course is really designed to run Monday through Thursday,

so that students in the course are really geared towards doing what they should be doing,

which is watching these amazing films on Friday.

And the course in many ways, I'm hoping, the way I'm designing it,

will create that type of platform that will make viewing more enjoyable and more knowledgeable

for a certain type of person who's already watching and interested in both these films

and what TCM has to offer.

Yeah, and you know, if I could add just a quick comment to that.

Rich and I are, I think, better in some ways in our current jobs than we were as academics

because we were much more interested in having conversations that would lead to unexpected results

than we were in publishing neat articles that had very definite conclusions

and typically achieved those conclusions or those outcomes

through the application of a very well-defined critical approach.

We instead wanted to model what was closer to great books behavior,

and we were in a great books program at the time, teaching in their seminar program,

and we wanted the discoveries to be very sort of fluid and to always be rooted in the source text.

And I think, you know, Rich said that as he said, this is about the movies themselves,

and that's a hallmark of everything we've done.

And when we've tried to bring people into the fold, it's not as learners who are learning the basics.

It's as people who engage with the text and start to ask meaningful questions.

And in that sense, the investigation metaphor always fit our examination of noir

because literally it was about all of these people getting on the trail of these clues

that they were finding in the movies, clues that were of interest to them

and trying to piece together some sort of case that they found meaningful.

And we thought of it as sort of a engaging mass market public intellectualism

that had sort of disappeared from a lot of what we were seeing in academia.

Do you envision, when people see these films, this is what I'm seeing,

is there might be, you know, bringing some friends to their house or watching it with family

or watching it in a group for this class.

So in a way, it's like branching out and reaching even more people who are, than those who are enrolled.

Yeah.

I mean, do you think that might be a model that might be happening?

Well, yeah, I mean, I definitely think that in its basic design,

the goal is to really further public discussions around film noir

because film noir and why the festival, I think, is so important,

especially in our culture at this point,

is that these films are some of our best texts that we have ever authored

and what it means to understand a particular part of the American experience.

And I really would hope that if people start to really look at these films with fresh eyes,

really, even if you've seen The Maltese Falcon ten times,

I'm going to urge students the first week of the class to watch it again,

but this time take away all your preconceptions.

Watch it as if you're watching it for the first time

because I really do believe that these texts will tell us something about our current,

you know, social, political, economic conditions

because they're all inside these amazing texts.

Films are both a time capsule and a way to foresee the future

as long as we get into communities of discussion around them.

Simply put, from TCM's perspective,

I think we're a brand that exists to share our love of films.

We are driven by a love of films.

Everyone who works at TCM, just as much as the people who view TCM

are driven by their love of films.

So if we can do anything from the standpoint of on-air scripts

or the standpoint of festivals and activations

like the TCM Classic Film Fest or the Cruise

or any of the other things we do,

right down to new sorts of contextual materials we create for web or for social

that gets people involved in discussing these films and appreciating these films,

then we've done something right, I think.

On that note, with people jumping in,

what has the enrollment been like so far?

And this is something, as an educator myself,

how on earth do you assess, like, a huge mass audience of a class?

Well, I'm sure Shannon's going to defer that one to me.

Oh, yeah, never be sure, Edwards.

Okay, you can take it, Shannon.

Well, the good news is, actually, the good news here is that I get to defer that to him

because it's really his problem how he gets this graded.

No, you know, from an enrollment standpoint,

it's been really strong.

We were seeing and have been seeing about 1,000 people sign up each day

since we launched promotion about a week ago.

So enrollments have been strong.

They continue to grow steadily.

And we're really excited about the implications of that

and the way that these people who are in the course

can engage in social platforms that are established in the topic within the message boards

we've set up specifically for this course

through the special hashtag Noir Summer

that we've set up for the course.

And, you know, we're excited to see how that plays out.

You're right, though, that you put your finger on two things here.

One is getting people involved.

The other is really keeping them involved

and then sort of assessing their involvement.

And that's where Rich and iLearn are the experts.

So definitely I'll step out of the way they are.

Yeah, I mean, we're going to have an extremely large class.

I mean, in the contemporary parlance, this will be a massive open online course

that will have tens of thousands of students when it is live.

That is typically what we call a college campus, not a single course.

And so one of the things that I always prefer is referring to this type of experience

as an open online community

because it clearly breaks through whatever previous notion we had

of a classroom with four walls and an instructor standing at a lectern in the front of it

because this will be a course that when it's finally all said and done,

all of the students wouldn't even fit in Madison Square Garden

if we could physically bring them into one location.

And so, you know, we're talking about a massively distributed group of learners.

The course is open globally.

We're teaching it on a platform created by an instructor called Canvas.

And historically, 40% of the learners in a Canvas course

come from outside of the United States because they're interested in online learning generally

and like taking courses.

So we're teaching courses of this kind.

And you are correct.

There's clearly an assessment issue at the heart of this,

especially if you recognize that this course is teaching a humanities subject

where if we were to do this in a conventional method,

I would ideally want 25,000 papers written on people's favorite films noir.

But unless I was going to have a due date of 2080 to return all those with my instructor sign,

I just don't think I can already imagine my retirement being,

wow, finally got that last one graded.

You know, so we can't do that.

And I've done research.

I've been involved with online experiments for close to 14 years now.

And there are certain things that I just don't think work as well.

So in terms of creating an experience in this class,

I really have focused on, you know, having some straightforward assessments,

in this case, multiple choice quizzes and exams,

which can be machine graded.

But I hope that I'm writing them from a fairly interesting standpoint

that will allow people to feel that it's a genuine test of what they've been learning each week.

But even more than that,

the part that I'd like to just express is that when I taught this course back in 2013,

and it was also a massive open online course,

but without the TCM connection,

most of the learning happened

in interesting social media spaces such as Twitter.

And there's no real way to assess that,

except that there are ways of a course like this,

in its most ideal form,

creates relationships,

relationships between individuals in the movies

and relationships between different individuals.

And while I might not be able to put a quantitative metric on it,

I believe that at the end of these nine week experience,

most of the people who will keep with the entire experience

will recognize that their knowledge

and their ability to appreciate film noir

has elevated to a different level.

And, you know, there'll be some quizzes that will give us some confirmation of that thesis.

But at the end of the day,

something like this has a bit of a feel of,

I would argue, like a convention almost.

Like, you know, Shannon and I are conducting almost like a film noir convention

with just some moments where people can check in,

learn about what a lot of very smart people

have previously said about film noir,

learn about some of the major issues

that have been a part of how we have understood

and appreciated these films for the last 70 years.

And that, to me, has a value in and of itself,

even if it can't be fully assessed,

if that makes sense.

Yeah.

And one thing that fascinated me about the,

you know, and I wrote about this a week ago,

and that article has gotten a huge number of hits,

so there's obviously a huge interest in this.

But one thing that fascinated me

was that you or Ball State is offering a certificate of completion.

So I'm curious if that certificate has any sort of academic value,

or is it just bragging rights?

And along the lines of the sort of monitoring of participants' activity,

you know, will there be specific metrics

that people need to fulfill in order to get that certificate?

Well, yes.

So to answer your question in the order you laid it out,

it is called a certificate of completion

for a very specific purpose.

This is not an accredited Ball State course.

That would have involved having to enroll everyone

into Ball State University and pay tuition dollars

to get actual college credit for that.

And this is actually a free learning experience.

So the certificate of completion

is evidence that you have fulfilled

all the requirements of the course.

And to choose your words, it would be bragging rights.

The way that I would probably refer to it

is it would be evidence that you did participate fully

for nine entire weeks,

and you have this type of learning experience now under your belt.

In order to make it fair

that the certificate is something that one earns

rather than something one is just bestowed

for no apparent criteria,

there are five major content modules over the nine weeks.

Each of those content modules ends in a quiz

that has to be passed at 70% or better.

And then there's also a final exam.

So the grades of the five quizzes plus the final exam

will be 100% of your grade,

and you're going to have to average 70% across all six instruments

in order to get the certificate.

If I could jump in quickly,

I would just stress that one of the challenges for Rich

was to figure out the metrics of completion

and satisfactory completion.

The good news from TCM's standpoint

is that MOOCs are, you know, Massive Open Online Courses,

generally speaking, are an environment

that encourages much more casual participation than completion.

Why I say that's positive

is because anybody who simply loves movies,

is encouraged to dip a toe in the waters here.

So we recognize that from Ball State's standpoint,

there has to be some measure of rigor

that gives a satisfactory result and a certificate of completion.

But from our standpoint, what we want to see

is lots of people dipping a toe in the waters,

learning something about noir,

leaving with an appreciation of some sort

that they didn't have previously,

speaking with other classic movie fans

in these different social environments

to just generally foster the love of movies

and noir specifically.

So the good news is this course is a great option

for those who really want to dive in and learn a lot,

but also for those who want to sit back,

sample some great course videos,

you know, see a good movie or two

and get a better appreciation for it

and just sort of dip a toe in the waters.

Right, and I'm designing it that way

so that it is both types of courses.

So for those who are interested

in going after the certificate in week one,

I lay out exactly what steps have to be completed.

But for what we're calling the more casual adopter

or the flexible learner,

there are going to be alternative pathways

that aren't going to be as time-consuming

that we still hope people participate in

because Shannon's correct.

Even a little bit of engagement in the course

will go a long way.

I'm going to break up some of the academic talk a little bit.

Yeah, great.

And let's talk a little bit about noir itself.

Rich, I think you already brought up

some interesting points about noir

serving as a telescope to, you know,

what the American experience in a way.

But there's a lot that it can offer.

So I think, let's start with Shannon, I think.

To get your input about film noir as a genre

or as a classification of film era,

what do you think that it has to offer

that not only drives its continued popularity,

it's still, for a classic film era,

it's still a very populist era,

but what also makes it the focus of a class this unique?

That's a good question.

I think I'll just go ahead and give an answer

that is no more succinct

or any less bombastic and enormous than Rich's.

Let's go with this.

I think that along with jazz,

noir may be one of America's

two greatest cultural contributions to the world.

And here's why I say that.

I think that noir and jazz have a great deal in common

as ironic as this may seem

in terms of their development,

their iteration,

and the way they then spread.

And here's why.

Both were really born at the crossroads

of a number of influences,

literary influences,

filmic influences,

historic influences,

and it's important to note,

both domestic and foreign influences.

But they really found their full form

and their rhythm and their voice

once they found the perfect mix,

here in the US.

And that's always, to some extent,

a matter of luck.

To some extent,

it's the mix of cultural geniuses

that are working in any powerful industry.

And I think what's so interesting about noir,

like jazz,

is that it actually works

on a pretty limited number of riffs.

It's got a few character types

that populate this world.

It's got a few story types

that tend to get recycled over and over.

But what it proves,

is that if the music is just right,

if you mix these factors just right,

working through those constraints

is actually more powerful

than having absolute freedom.

Which is actually my take

on the studio system, too.

I will always champion

studio system filmmaking

over independent production.

Because I think that working

under certain constraints

produces additional genius.

One of the great geniuses

that that kind of constraint produces

is rhythm,

that can never be produced

by people who don't work together constantly.

And here I think noir had a real advantage

because it not only had

the rhythm of studio-era production,

but it had the source material

of hard-boiled literature.

And those two combined,

along then with the artistic influences

of these immigrant directors

who fled the rise of Nazism

and the outbreak of World War II

and found themselves in Hollywood,

to create something that was quick,

that was powerful,

that would riff on similar themes

powerfully over and over,

but then had this incredible stylistic veneer

that matched the conceptual underpinnings.

So that it wasn't just a style,

it was a style and a substance.

And I think that's why noir

is so powerful in ways

that a lot of film genres aren't.

And I do consider it a genre,

because it didn't translate

to my mind successfully

to, say, noir western

or noir melodrama.

And some of the other sort of genres

that people talk about,

there was kind of a core,

fundamental story type,

and it was told in a specific,

rhythmic sort of way

to make it a noir.

And just because Shannon was mentioning

that I probably am predisposed

towards going towards the bombastic,

I'll try to go with

the slightly simpler take on it.

No, man, you gotta one-up me.

We're always better when you one-up me.

No, well, I'm gonna one-up you

by going down.

And stepping down a full note.

But the part that I love

about film noir is,

you know, film was 40 years old.

I mean, really, from the first time

we had a moving image in 1895

to 1941 is just four decades.

The reason why film noir

is so important to me is,

in my estimation

of cinematic history,

this was the first time

the full, mature power

of cinematic storytelling

really reared its head.

When you watch these films,

these can only be films.

These are no longer just

the amalgamation of sources.

And like Shannon's jazz analogy,

what is so amazing

about the combination of these films

is that they are played flawlessly,

but they are played in only one key.

These are truly a deep cinematic key

that only exists in these films.

And that's why they're still so powerful.

You really have a system in Hollywood

that's pre-noir and post-noir,

because after these films

were demonstrated,

that showed the full range,

power of cinematic storytelling,

Hollywood itself was never the same.

Yeah, and it's always seemed to me

that as much as the films

of the noir era are of their time

in terms of music and clothing

and vernacular,

the themes are more timeless.

The films themselves

and the stories themselves

don't feel as stuck or in their time

as, say, Rebel Without a Cause

is a little bit a film of its time.

No, it is timeless

because these are films

of the human condition.

And when you start to epicenter

a cinematic style and genre

around fate and doom,

you're doing exactly what Greek playwrights

were doing 2,000 years earlier.

These films will always be timeless

because they connect

to a part of our souls

that frequently we are too scared

to look at.

And part of what is so amazing

is people who are willing to go

into these shadowy worlds

will find out so much in them

about what it means to be human.

And that's where I get

the timelessness of noir.

Richard, I'm going to have you keep going

in terms of films

and The Summer of Darkness on TCM.

How have you decided to structure

the syllabus?

I know, of course, this follows

and is concurrent with

The Summer of Darkness programming

of noir on Turner Classic Movies.

But did you have input

on that programming at all?

Was it difficult to fit

or create a chronology of your class

with that programming?

How did that all work?

Yeah, no, the schedule of films

was presented to me by TCM.

And in typical fashion,

no educator could ask

for a better curated list.

Each Friday is put together

so exquisitely,

I have no problems teaching from it.

It's really magnificent.

The early part of the first Fridays

really start a chronological journey.

And you can watch it.

And I really urge people to do this.

Start watching on June 5th,

June 12th, June 19th,

and you will actually see noir evolve

in front of your very eyes

because we start in the 30s

and we get slowly into the post-war period.

Part of what is so exciting

just about The Summer of Darkness

is that it is very rare

for the fan of film noir

to be able to watch these films

literally in the order

that the first audiences saw them.

And it is such a gift.

I look at the films of June 12th,

for example,

and you can really see

all of the major films

made during World War II

as a single block.

And that's before

we really fundamentally have a sense

that noir is even happening in Hollywood.

And to be able to watch them

one after the other

will allow individuals

to really see how each of these studios,

each of these directors,

each of these screenwriters,

cinematographers, editors, et cetera,

were all starting to tap

into this same vein of interest

that we are now calling film noir,

but to see it before

really even the craftspeople themselves

understood what was going on

is just a delightful treat.

I structured the course

that each of the subject matters

is going to help elucidate

core ideas that will help

each block of film each Friday

have a different resonance,

but clearly in something

that's as messy as analyzing 120 films,

I'm also encouraging people

to kind of go off script

and just watch these films

first and foremost with fresh eyes

and then secondarily

try to connect it back

to some of the major debates and ideas

that have percolated around these films

for the last seven decades.

We've talked about the structure

being Monday,

roughly Monday through Thursday,

coursework, Friday,

everybody calls in sick at work

and watches 24 hours of movies

back to back,

but can you talk a little bit

about the elements of the class?

I've read things about video lessons.

I've heard mention of Google Hangouts

providing an opportunity for interaction

both with you and with our fellow students.

So can you talk for a minute

about how those components will work?

Yeah, certainly.

This is intended to be a self-paced course

so that between Monday through Thursday,

you have a lot of flexibility

on how and when you engage with the course.

The materials will all be available

in the Canvas platform.

And then individuals can pick and choose

what times.

And I've set it up so that

it shouldn't take more than one to two hours a week

to do the core work of the course.

What that entails is

you'll watch a video lecture

that my team at Ball State

helped make with me.

And to just keep a few secrets to myself,

I don't want to reveal the full extent

of those videos just yet.

Just trust me when I say

they're very beautifully made.

I'm very proud of what my team does.

I'm proud of what my team was able to put together.

But I still want that to be a bit of a surprise

for people who come into the course.

But they're very professionally produced

video lectures with an added twist.

And they're all about 20 minutes long

to set up the major topic of the week.

Then I delve into a series of conversations

that I've written up as basically HTML pages.

Think of it almost like a blog

that extends the ideas during the video lecture

and leads to open questions

that people then go discuss on Twitter

using the hashtag Noir Summer

or go over to the TCM Summer of Darkness message board

and discuss it in a more threaded

discussion board manner.

And then there's also going to be

a weekly viewing guide that I wrote

that helps orient people

because this is a lot of films to take in.

So I wanted to give a little bit of a setup

on how I understand the organization of these films.

And that might be slightly different

than TCM's arrangement.

But I wanted to give a little bit more like

blurbs about each of these films

that people who haven't seen some of these titles

would have some sort of entrance or excitement

about seeing it.

And then I'm also introducing a feature in my course

called the Daily Dose of Darkness

where I'm going to have a five minute learning moment

Monday through Thursday

so that even if other people

can't commit to the entire course

I hope they sign up for the Daily Dose of Darkness

and I will send everyone each day

just a five minute meditation on Noir

to just really create the learning habit

over the nine weeks.

So on one level this course

if you don't decide to do all the quizzes

and all the discussion board stuff

you could probably do the entire course

each week in 20 minutes.

And that Daily Dose of Darkness

gets delivered via email?

Well it can be.

It's a setup feature in Canvas.

I'm leaving it up to each individual.

It will be delivered to Canvas each day

but students can opt in

to have it delivered to any email address

they want daily.

But that's an opt in.

So one other thing that I would just add to that

that I think is important.

There's one additional tool

that will be used in conjunction

with the video viewing

that is something that Rich and Ball State

I think should be very proud of.

And Chris Turvey

who is one of his lead programmers

did a brilliant job

in the actual development of this.

And it's a tool called Otto.

O-T-T-O.

And it's an online

tool for annotating

or commenting upon video.

So a video annotation tool

is something that

academia has been chasing a good

application for this for a while.

But it really in many ways

the inspiration for this tool

started with conversations Rich and I

were having way back at St. Mary's

when often times

as we talked about the podcasts we were doing

or the conversations we were having in class

we were trying to find ways

to get

learners

to be more willing to interact

with the source text

be those film texts or literary texts

and leave a trail of clues

if you would for other students

to investigate and to follow.

It was a really democratic impulse

I think behind this tool

that Rich and Ball State should be proud of

because the idea was

like Wikipedia

why don't we crowd source criticism?

Why don't we make it a democratic process

where we open it up to everyone

and decide what these film moments mean

and leave a record of that

instead of supposing

that film criticism

and film theory

are the purview of critics

and professional writers

and academics.

And so this tool

Rich can speak more to the actual way

that it works

that it pops up an annotation field

but it allows you to connect your comments

to an exact moment in the film.

And I think that just the impulse behind that

is one of the most interesting parts

of this course

because it was the tool that I think

showed why Rich wanted to develop

a course like this in the first place

why he and I had worked on these podcasts

in the first place

because we wanted film

substantive film discussion

to be for everyone.

And just to jump on what Shannon's saying

just really quick

if I'm going to bring together

tens of thousands of people

in this archive

this is not just a one-way street

there are going to be so many

knowledgeable students in this course

I'm speaking to two of them right now

in Miguel and Will

that we should be leaving behind

a trace of what we know

and so the goal behind Otto

which is just an open text tool

for online video

is for people to leave those marks

leave their observations about the films

actually on the films themselves

and we're only going to do a couple of films

and we're only going to be able to watch the film

and turn the annotations on or off

but if you kept the annotations on

you would have a running record

of how many, many people viewed this film

and what they thought were important insights

or moments in the film.

And I should note from TCM's perspective

I should note that these are public domain films

this is not material that

we were able to provide

we obviously don't have that ability

but with public domain films

that are existing

in online locations for plenty

for playing and for streaming

this tool is a plug-in

that then works with those

so that those rights issues are sidestepped

and people can really interact

in a substantive way around film

in a very, I guess you would say

a community way.

Will the same kind of archiving aspect

apply to the videos you've made

or the online discussions

and the Google Hangouts

and that kind of stuff?

Yeah, no, it's a great point.

I'm actually having students leave

their discussions at a public site

TCM.com

not at Canvas

because if we had all the discussions

at Canvas when the course wraps

on August 4th

all those discussions are locked away

when the course is locked away.

Instead I'm going to have a redirect link

over to the moderated TCM message board

so that the conversations that are spurred on

by this course

that's being produced

will be left behind at TCM

for other people to read

well after the course is gone.

When I use Google Hangouts

to do similar types of reach outs

to the people enrolled in the course

it's going to be just like the Skype conversation

we're having here.

I want to use just Google Hangouts

and Google Hangouts On Air

to have a present voice in the course

so that not everything is pre-recorded

and it's just a really simple way

for me to push out my voice

when the course is happening

and all that will be just archived on an open Google Plus page.

So that would also be accessible

after the course is wrapped as well.

What are some of the films

you're most looking forward to discussing

and as a teacher how often are you surprised

by insights of your students?

Okay I'm assuming that one's coming to me.

Yeah

but the other one can go to everybody.

Yeah so I love

teaching courses like this

because when you actually

open a course

to anyone to enroll

it is so amazing how many

unique learners

you meet out there

and they run the whole spectrum

from people who signed up for the course

because they know nothing about noir

to people who are world class experts

in this idea

and I love both sides of the coin.

I love sharing my passion

and interest and knowledge on noir

to get people into the tent

and I also love shop talking

with people who have a lot of the same background

and interest that I already have

and they're just different conversations

and there's no doubt

that part of the joy for myself

and I think this is true of anyone enrolled in the course

especially on the Twitter stream

and at the message boards

you will be so pleasantly surprised

at how you are going to find

relationships you never expected

in this class

because when you bring people together

with such a marvelous loving object

such as film noir

you already have that built in connection

with another person you might not know yet

but after three or four tweets

three or four discussion boards follow

you'll start to learn something about these people

and it's very powerful

in terms of films

I'm going to kind of avoid answering that

to this extent

I've never been any good at that

it's the same one that every time I tell people

I have a degree in film

everyone's like oh well what's your favorite film

and I don't have a favorite film

I do have favorite filmmakers

such as Orson Welles

but I don't have favorite films

and I feel the same way about the Summer of Darkness schedule

this is a field of my expertise

to have seen almost all of these films

already

there's a few I haven't seen

that I'm looking forward to

but ultimately

what is amazing to me about this

is just every Friday getting my noir on

and just being able to really

soak in

just the magnitude of this festival

if I had to just say

what my favorite type of films are

and it's going to be obvious

in my first lecture that this is true

I'm a particular fan of the heist film

I love heist films

Asphalt Jungle is absolutely

one of my favorites

I never get tired of watching it

Kansas City Confidential, Armored Car Robbery

there's something about the heist film

in particular that connects to me

so I definitely

will have all those either

viewing them in real time or set up on my DVR

because I can't wait to see those again

I think I'm going to color the question a little bit here

by saying it doesn't have to be your favorite

but it might be one that is

underappreciated

or one that is not as talked about

as others for Shannon or Will

if anyone wants to jump in

I'll always throw in Gun Crazy

Gun Crazy is the movie that

whenever people sort of question

old movies and the relevance of

old movies

I love to direct them to a movie like Gun Crazy

because inevitably they'll watch it and they'll be like

wow this completely alters

my view of what an old movie

what I think an old movie

looks or feels like

and that's a fantastic choice

and I couldn't agree more

I think without Gun Crazy and Re Fifi

you don't have the French New Wave

frankly I think that you see films like that

that are so ahead of their time

and so sort of groundbreaking

another one which is not part of the fest

but is like that for me is The Killing

the Kubrick film as well

but from my point of view

again it would be really hard for me

to point to individual films

if as a film professor Rich gets asked

that question a lot you can imagine

how much I get asked that question

working at TCM

and it's kind of like naming your favorite children

you might actually secretly have one

but you're probably publicly not going to say it

what I think I really am excited about

with this festival

is if you look at the lineup

it goes from some of the earliest

and clearest precursors to noir

things like M

and early German Expressionism

all the way up to great experiments

in neo-noir

and kind of throwback neo-noir

so I'm excited about the scope of it

I'm also excited that

within the central part of the lineup

in the middle weeks

you have films from

pretty much all the major studios

and several of the minors

which I think is fun

you've got a glamorous film like

Nightmare Alley with Tyrone Power

next to

or not literally next to

but in the same lineup as Detour

which was of course a very low budget picture

that featured much smaller stars

but to my mind

is one of the great films noir

so I'm excited about the scope of the fest

and it's got a little of everything

to just throw one other thing in

the other part that I love about this fest

is how many films are not really yet

that popular on say

DVD box sets and stuff

so one of the great joys

of the festival is

a film like Johnny Eager

which you're not going to get it

on Netflix

you're not going to be able to rent it

and you just realize

it's part of this important conversation

of what's happening in 1942

in Hollywood

and if I had to just do one other shout out

I am a person who loves

the more experimental films noir

so I'm always pushing people

who haven't seen a lot of films noir

to check out films like Our Passage

with Humphrey Bogart

or Lady and the Lake

because they're experiments in first person point of view

and if you haven't seen a film like that before

it's just amazing just how

noir was at its core

yeah I think that should give people some films to look out for

and to really anticipate

because I think hearing some titles

is always a nice enticement for people

well okay if we're going to play that game

I'm going to admit my favorite child

there are a couple films in the fest

that I really do love

I just have to admit that if I were stuck on a desert island

one of the films noir

that I would take with me and have to watch

until the end of time is The Killers

and the reason

I love this film so much

is it I think is one of the best

illustrations of

one of the most defining characteristics

of noir which is a lot of

films noir or their narratives hang

in the balance between the moment of a fateful

decision and the moment of resolution

when the protagonist pays the

consequences for that

fateful decision and

as a result

many times these are told in flashback

and I think The Killers has one of the

greatest flashbacks

narratives I've ever seen

flashbacks within flashbacks

it's something that Tarantino

would have been absolutely proud of

in terms of its narrative design

and it's just superb on every front

the cinematography is great

the cast is phenomenal the script is top notch

that's just one that never fails

to please me same with Nightmare Alley

to be honest and I'm so glad that

that ended up being part of the festival

one of the great concluding lines of any film

I'll say no more but it's a great lineup

and those are a couple that I would really

hope people would see

but of course see all of them

yes

do you think this could happen again in the future

perhaps with other film eras

or other types of films

well you know this is an interesting one

that's probably mostly a question for TCM

it's hard to say

we would

we're really going to be interested in seeing

how this experiment turns out

who's involved what the reaction is

there are no formal plans

for a further iteration

and part of it is

it goes back to what we talked about previously

about the interim that we typically have

between when programming is locked down

and when we actually are live with a festival

and time often wouldn't allow

I think for the development

of a full fledged course like this

it was just opportunistic here

knowing that Rich had developed something

that could be adapted

so easily and so well

to the festival we had assembled

and Charlie's group had put together

but I can tell you from my perspective

in this role

I'm always looking for opportunities

to curate

editorial content

in some way that really excites

and engages people

whatever that might be

and if there's some other iteration of that

that could be course like

I think it's something that I would love to pursue

and you know with Rich I always like

exploring new ideas

I have to admit that I'm on the phone with this guy

almost every single morning on my way to work

and we're always just kicking ideas around

how many times they result

in some sort of collaboration

no matter where we are in our careers

so I'll keep kicking ideas around with Rich

I'd love for there to be other opportunities like this

if people enjoy it

but nothing on the books right now

and just to throw one other wrinkle out there

which is just like one of those weird things

you don't think about in terms of film noir

but film noir as opposed to today's

like you know Marvel Cinematic Universe

it wasn't a film form that had a lot of sequels

I mean there's really almost no famous

sequels in film noir

because these tales were

told once and told correctly

and that's it

there's nowhere to go at the end of Detour

you know that foot of fate stuck itself out

and movie's over

and what's fun about your question is

yes I just believe that

experiments like this are meant to be

embarked upon

and who knows where this will lead in the future

but it's just always exciting in the way

that like standing on a film set

the first day of a new film

just right before the camera rolls

that you know you're doing something

and the fun part about a course like this

is putting it out there and seeing what happens

and who knows where it will go in the future

but we at least know for nine glorious weeks

this summer it will exist

beautiful

so I think Rich and Shannon

thank you for joining us

can you just tell people where they can find

your online work like the podcast

blogs and that kind of thing

sure do you want to take that Shannon

or do you want me to do it

sure I think the best repository of our work is

noircast.net

n-o-i-r-c-a-s-t dot net

and there you'll find

the podcast series we did in the past

which included Out of the Past Investigating Film Noir

Behind the Black Mask

Mystery Writers Revealed

which was an author interview show

and Yaddo Cast

which was actually a series

we were commissioned to do for Yaddo

the great artist's retreat and cultural institution

in upstate New York

on the anniversary of their

or actually the occasion of their

first big public presentation

of Yaddo's history at the New York Public Library

so that's one place you can easily

find all our podcast work

and then some of my writing has appeared

in various places online including

I've had a few entries on the Morlocks blog

at TCM and so that's probably

those are the easiest ways to find me

and if you haven't had enough of our voices

yet you can always pick up our book

anywhere they sell books

it's also available on

Kindle and Google Play, Maltese Touch of Evil

Film Norm, Potential Criticism,

which is part of the way

Shannon and I investigated film noir

and I'll have links to all of those

on the show notes online at

hifilmfest.com

thank you guys so much

I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to this

well thank you

I'm glad to hear it

having you and Will in the course is really exciting for us

because there are those people that have

written about TCM and things we've done in the past

who are so engaged and so knowledgeable

that knowing you're in a course like this

I know it's going to bring the level up

so thanks for taking the time to talk with us

about the course

and I can't wait to heckle Rich from the back of the class

just like you

this is the first time I haven't actually had to teach with him

so this will be fun for me too

and Will if you're going to give me that apple

if it's going to be a true noir apple

it better have a worm in it

or cyanide

don't actually eat it

I won't

but thank you for talking with us today

it's been a pleasure

thank you guys

and finally do you have any thoughts

about the conversation we just had

I always have thoughts Miguel

I have many many thoughts

and my overall feeling about this

is that if you

enjoy TCM

this initiative

deserves your support

even if you're not necessarily

you know sort of up for the

you know the idea of doing

whatever

what do you say like one to two hours per week

of work

and I think that's a good thing

because everybody who listens to this podcast

everybody who's involved with

you know the TCM party hashtag

everybody who's a fan of TCM

to enroll in this course

and participate at least

to some extent

at least watch some of the films

yeah well I mean watch some of the films

is a given

but they need to see

participation metrics

and as both Shannon

and Rich pointed out

you can participate to the extent

that you are interested

in participating

inevitably with anything in a fan

community there's always going to be

a percentage of people that are like rah rah

and then a percentage of people who are like

ugh

who are going to manage to find

somehow the dirty

lining in the beautiful

white cumulus cloud

and you know I would say that if you love

TCM you have to participate

in this to some extent

because even if you're not necessarily a huge

noir fan a home run

on this means a

lot of other things

that we could get

and I love

noir I enjoy noir

I don't consider myself an expert in it

whatsoever but

if this course is a huge hit

and a year from now they decide

to do it with pre-code movies

I will have a heart attack

I mean I will be

so excited and

you know I will literally call in sick

every day that they air those movies

there's a huge potential here

for the extension

of TCM as more than

just a television network

and you know it's I mean it's already

happening to some extent

with the film festival

and the cruise

and they're talking about

other initiatives now that are

going to further extend the

TCM brand into other

experiences and other

parts of your life

I don't know any old movie

weirdo who would

not appreciate that

you know even if every single

iteration if every single brand extension

doesn't necessarily grab you

one of them is gonna

but the only way you're going to get

that is by participating

and showing up and supporting

this as I said before

Miguel when we talked at the TCM film festival

you know TCM is a

corporate entity it's a for profit

corporate entity but they

function in a way that

is unlike just about

any other television network

that's ever existed and

that's why I support them

with the things that I tweet and what I

blog about and write about and talk

about online so that's the big picture

that's the overall support this

because it's going to be good for all

of us yeah I agree 100%

that is kind of why I had to ask

the question about you know do you see something

like this happening again and I

mean obviously they couldn't really answer that but

I just want to plant the seed

that seeing something like this

which is so unique and so

beyond the scope of what a

television network actually usually

does is exciting and it's

also it encourages

looking and analyzing at these films

in a more sophisticated

way and I really would love

to see this

extended and

I mean just talking your language

what if they did it with classic

horror what if they did it with

you know universal monster movies

what if they did it with I mean

they could do it there's a literally

an endless list of genres

that they could do something like

this with I agree yeah

and I'm such a film nerd

that I would participate in any of them

you know classic musicals

the pre-code that you talked about I

would love that the shift in

the 60s and 70s mostly

the 60s the zeitgeist shift

from 1960 to 1969

is really interesting you know I'd love to

see them do something

like that right and

let me add something here that this may go

a little bit off the message

reservation but we are at

a turning point

in TV history

in media history and

potentially in TCM history

at some point in

the not too distant future

TCM will

probably exist

as a stand alone

subscription video

on demand service that people

can subscribe to

without a cable or satellite

subscription

we've all been praying for it

yes and once that happens

TCM is to some

extent freed from

the content

restrictions that exist

as a basic cable

network there are some

contemporary noir films in this series

but with the newer ones they're typically

on late at night

because they often have content

that TCM chooses

not to air during the day

or in prime time

because they don't cut anything

but when TCM becomes

something that is accessible

in a non-cable or satellite

environment that changes

those parameters a little bit

the idea of a course like this

or of genre based courses

can extend even further

than what

you could conceivably do on TV

right now I mean I don't want to go

like too big picture

and too pie in the sky but

the playing field is so wide

open and that's why I say that

get in on the ground floor here

support this and it's going to be

good for all of us well the pie

in the sky and encouraging support

is all appropriate for

a before podcast where

we are anticipating

starting the class the class hasn't begun yet

and that's because we want

a huge movement behind

this at the beginning

and hopefully we can foster

the determination to get through

the course to the end Shannon

said something I think it was Shannon

who said something interesting about

access and

about wanting to create

a welcoming environment

for people who

are you know noir

aficionados or people maybe

who have never seen a film noir

before so along those lines

you will get a huge disparity

in the people

who are participating in this

and the only that's kind of exciting

too well it is exciting but the only

analogy that you know I can

draw for this and it's a little bit of a cautionary

one is two years ago TCM

did a series based on the story

of film the 15 part

documentary series from Mark

Cousins the Irish film critic I

remember yeah there was a lot of

enthusiasm for that but then there was also

a lot of or at least an amount

of you know

negativity because people either

weren't on board

with the sort of Mark Cousins approach

or with the educational approach

the didactic element of it

right and you know you occasionally

would have uninformed people on

social media making comments

and it's hard sometimes

to rectify the scholarly

and the uninformed

but I think that's one of the truly

great things about TCM is that

it creates a welcoming environment

for film fans

of all ages and all

experience levels so

if you have a situation like I've seen

this with TCM party where someone gets on

and says something uninformed

about whatever Casablanca

you know well instead of

mocking that be

joyful about that

because we got a new

person on our team you know

we got

there's so much there's

the tendency when you have

highly specific knowledge to

occasionally be exclusive

or exclusionary and

that just with

a niche interest like this that

all of us are invested in

propagating I think that

serves nobody

you're right I mean it's my least favorite thing about

fandom in general whether it's classic

film or whatever

comic books or anything is that

element of almost bullying or

trivia hounds or

starting sentences with actually

it's this you know

forgot to mention that

or um dot dot dot

exactly yes that very

my least favorite

online you know social media

phrase is um dot dot

dot hey stupid I know more

than you well great you know

more than you know I

know more than some people about

some things and I would

love for there to be more people who know about

those things as well exactly

yeah and it's not

it's just so funny to me that

the bullying of fandom in that

case because it doesn't allude

to any kind of specialness on

your part it's just you just simply

watched more things maybe right

or you're older or you

were exposed to it at a younger

age or whatever there's so many

so many variables you know

no exactly I whenever I talk

to someone who hasn't seen

a film or read a book then I

get excited because when you can

share and I think this is kind of your

point too when you can share the love

of say Casablanca

your example and bring it

to someone who hadn't seen it before

it's like you're seeing it again for the first time

through their eyes and you feel that original

joy again and I mean

I learn things about movies that

I've seen a million times even just on

Twitter I learn things because of

what a fresh

eye sees

that I have long since stopped

looking for that's exactly right

and I would say separate from

course I think it was

Rich who made this point that

they're showing something like a hundred and

twenty films over

nine twenty four hour

periods nine Fridays

obviously nobody is going

to watch all of those

in a linear fashion

but a lot

of these movies are not

easy to find

anywhere else now

those of us that have access

to the watch TCM streaming

app will have seven days

after the film airs

to catch up but I

would seriously recommend

that everybody who has an interest in

film noir clear off your

DVR and

record these things because

you may be seeing them

for the in some cases the first time

on TCM potentially in

some cases the only time

but certainly the only

time where they're all going to be available

in such a tight timeframe

and you'll see them in context

at a time when they'll be

discussed specifically so

yeah it's a rare opportunity

so you know get one of those

like you can get the gigantic TiVo with

like a trillion hours of recording space

you know just record all

this stuff get keep it on your DVR

forever and then when they're running

you know whatever Finian's Rainbow for the

800th time you can

watch one of these totally

obscure noirs you can probably see

two or three noirs in the time that shows

exactly and

also mad props to TCMA

for opening this course up

to non-subscribers

what other cable channel would be

like hey people who don't pay us

come on in nobody

nobody and also

the fact that this course is available for

people internationally and

that they're curating a collection of

public domain films that are

no longer controlled by copyright

holders that's going out

of their way in a pretty

substantial fashion in a way

that's not going to bring any

quantifiable money

or assets to

a for-profit brand and that's huge

that's a hugely

laudable concept

it's clear that the motivation here

is sincerely about

keeping the

study of film alive keeping these

films alive for future generations

it really is and you know

Jennifer Dorian who is the new

general manager of Turner Classic

Movies who we met at the

TCM Classic Film Festival I think

one of her missions and she

said this in the press conference at the

TCM Film Festival is

building these on-ramps

for new

viewers and one of the ways they're doing

it is with the TCM Movie

Camp franchise that's beginning

in June every Sunday night

in the slot that used to belong

to TCM Essentials Junior

creating on-ramps for people

who either are adults who

are not necessarily classic film

fans or for young viewers and

honestly for younger viewers

noir is a great

on-ramp to classic film because

there's content as we said with

Gun Crazy there's content

that is surprising in

it's frankness in it's darkness

I can see like a teen

viewer digging

film noir and becoming

a classic film fan because

of a series like this

well yeah and I agree and

it would be great to talk about how

noir had entered the public consciousness

of younger viewers historically

Edward G. Robinson as a

gangster would end up in Looney Tunes

and things like that

it was such a cultural

saturation with

this image I would love to watch

a noir film with a younger viewer

and pair it up with that Looney Tunes

episode yeah I mean you know this

is just there's so many great things

that can come from this and

you know as we said the

more that we support

what TCM does the more likely

they are to give us these gifts

you know and that's what they are

they're gifts for classic film fans

that's what it feels like obviously

as you said free of charge

even to people who are not subscribers

to a cable package

and all you have to give is

time and

it's time that's going to be highly

enriching in my opinion I think to

wrap up I want to

just ask you for your

own personal take on what you

plan to take away from

this class at the beginning and we'll

see if that changes over time but

what are you planning to take away at this point

well you know Shannon or

I think it was Shannon mentioned

the social interactions

and how relationships

will form because of

participation in this and

because I have

formed so many friendships

just from using the TCM

party hashtag on

Twitter I really have to back

that up because you know for a lot of us

when we have interest

in obscure

things or niche

content or programming or movies

or TV shows it can be a lonely

thing because everybody

you know wants to talk about whatever

is the hot thing right and you

want to talk about that crazy

whatever pre-code movie from

1933 and

it can be lonely

to love something

that is unusual

and something like this

gives you an opportunity to interact

so I would say to people

don't just participate but interact

and tweet and go on the message

board and whatever because

not necessarily just as a

way to pay homage to TCM and

what they're doing here but because

there's a very good chance that you may meet

people who share your

unique wacky

individual interests

in strange

off the beaten path things

and God when you

find those people in life

it's invigorating

yeah it's a bit

cliched or maybe even

cheesy to say this but

there is some spiritual

fulfillment that comes from that

it really is and it can mean so

much to people and that's

why yeah I mean

is it good for the TCM brand to

create new social media

activations of course it is but they're not

a charity they're not a non-profit

they're doing this for a reason

they're doing this to further engage their

viewership and potential viewership

but on the other side of that

you may make some friends

you know and that's pretty cool

and you may I mean not to get all like

super shrinky about this but

you may maybe feel less alone

in something that you love

and that is huge

I agree I think you know

it might be harder for millennials to really

understand that maybe not

maybe I'm being judgmental about

this or not judgmental but

making assumptions but you know you and I

remember a time when

it was harder to find people

who had your particular interests

because these kinds of

social networks didn't exist

sure yeah at most

you were able to write into a letters page of

a fanzine you know

but other than that yeah so

this kind of thing really does open up

a world of community

if I was a 14 or 15 year old

rock shadows fan you know watching the mail

every month from my fanzine

from my newsletter you know

and finding people who maybe I

could be pen pals with

or if I was really

lucky maybe meet them at a convention

and you know and now that kind of

thing exists 24 hours

a day you know on the internet

and that's such a great thing

you know and anything that encourages

people to be less

mainstream I'm all for that

exactly I'd definitely rather talk

about Why Be Good than Avengers

Age of Ultron

exactly we're going to have our work cut out

for us this summer yeah and the great thing

about it is that I'm not necessarily

ready to

commit to being like yeah

I'm going to do this and this and this and this

because I want to feel it out too but

you know as long as I participate

to some extent I feel like I'm

giving back to them

exactly you know and everybody can do

the same you know you do it at your own speed

yeah you know I'm in the middle of planning for

a film festival so again

it depends on my level of participation

is going to depend on my amount of time

we're all constrained by

time limitations but sure and

I think that they understand and appreciate that

and that's why it's great that

it's sort of self directed and

that you can devote however

much time you have

or you feel like you want to

yeah as an educator I'm interested

in this video annotation thing they keep talking about

so curious about that we'll see

yeah I mean there's lots of different components

to it some will probably work

great some will work less great

and you know they'll learn from this

and hopefully you know

use that knowledge in the

next one indeed well

well thanks for joining me in the

conversation and sharing your thoughts about

this whole thing as well as your anticipation

for the class

it's happening next week I believe the

actual course work is available

as of June 1st

and of course the films begin

at 6am on

Friday June 5th with

M from 1931

which is a great way to start

and just that day

it ranges from M at

6am to LA Confidential

at 3.30am so

I mean what a great

you know way to kick it off

all I could think of is

when these films were being made if someone

had told them something like this was going to happen

it would be such an alien

concept especially a film like Detour

you know Ulmer was you know

this film will be released and then it will

be forgotten forever and I'm so

glad that that's not the case yeah

I agree I agree thank you sir

I'll see you in the classroom

alright my pleasure take care have a good night