I am : Entertainment

LOCATION

This very casual & impertinent assertion is actually asking a real question about Altair’s location.

Apart from the title, it’s a serious article .

I’m currently trying to find funds to relaunch Virtual Reality prototypes. I won’t go back on the joys of the crisis on our finances, that’s ok.
But it allows me to verify what I already knew and what I hadn’t even tried until now. Altair in France would be a despicable and deformed little dwarf – that’s an image of course.
A company with its fists tied and completely atrophied.
Because of this factor: Entertainment.

To you, I suppose, it looks like nothing.
In France, it’s at least a shame.
In the performing arts world, it’s a vice.
An unforgivable vice – you don’t really work when you’re classified as “entertainment”.

To my misfortune, I’ve been labeled “entertainment” ever since I had the idea of not ranking too badly in an American screenwriting competition. I’ve condemned myself.

Entertainment is for Americans. It’s commercial. Pouah: making money instead of devoting themselves to Culture. Disgusting.

For a Frenchman, entertainment means: putting enormous financial investments to have: an impeccable technique – major artists – an ultra-efficient production; all this to produce a blockbuster that will make the “spectators completely idiotic“.

Basically: put a lot of money to get even more money back -> you can only achieve this feat if the audience is dumb to the last degree. More than 90% of the French think so. The saddest example of this is what happened to Luc Besson, when he wanted to give his impetus and energy to France. He has been “eaten” by that evil spirit.

There is a completely psychotic relationship between money and culture in my country.
If you’re a “real”, a “pure”, you must not make money. Otherwise, you’re some kind of low-class American.
That’s why we’re all poor like Job on the team. We’re “pure” pros.
– Don’t worry: I’m not setting up a jackpot to get my banker to like me.

I’m talking about that to answer the obvious question: you’re all French – it’s true.
The really big connection you’ve had is with Ubisoft.
Ubisoft, at the very top, they’re French. That’s true.
In the motion capture and what I want to do with VR, the best and cheapest (!) are French – I think that’s still true.

So why not make Altair in France?

I’m still “bumping” on that question, when the answer is obvious :

Because Altair is totally Entertainment.

We wouldn’t work three months in France. We’d have all the cultural journalists on our backs, explaining how lame – not to say demonic – we’d be.
Companies would have a hard time coming – it makes a bad impression on a CV when you have to tour elsewhere in France.
I’m not even talking about everything that is unbearable at the administrative level – and even less about taxes.

And basically, we were losing more than a third of Altair’s capacity.
All this because this theatre claims to earn a lot of money with Culture, by going to get the audience where others don’t go.

I’m not going to fight a whole country. There’s no point.

I still don’t understand why it was “evil” to invest a lot of money to get more back.

I am very sorry to find that American cinema, in general, rather respects its viewers and gives them a lot of value for their money. Even more sorry for having fun as a kid watching Bollywood blockbusters. I am dismayed to confess that I am still stuck in front of Cirque Du Soleil productions, or those of the Royal Ballet – to speak of live shows.

I like shows where the spectator is the focus.
I like shows where you don’t take people for morons to whom you can put the “light”.
And therefore, I also like AAA games – and not just independent games. It’s a snobbery I can’t understand.

But I know very well that Altair has two huge flaws that make his existence impossible in France:

• firstly the connection with video games and virtual experiences: it’s likely to be popular, it’s likely to bring in a lot of money: so it’s “evil”.
• then the – ridiculous – idea I have of wanting to place Altair in Dubai, when everyone knows that in Dubai, everyone is “evil” and “only thinks about money”. (After, they will tell you: “And the place of Woman?” – & no one will listen to your answer. Even if you are a woman yourself.)

Funny thing is, everybody knows that. Not a Frenchman asks me why I don’t dream of Altair for France from the moment I say the word “Entertainment”. It’s the “forbidden word.”
Even imagining a network and connections between Altair- at the bad guys land and theatres in France, it’s not really possible anymore.

I told you, it’s not that funny, that article.

Well, I’m going to continue learning to speak English.

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Featured Image : an ‘Entertainment’ stone : it looks nice, shiny, precious.