I really enjoyed the opportunity to get off campus last Saturday on the Fischer Old-Growth Forest field trip. Special thanks to Rose House Fellow Todd Bittner for leading the trip and for all of the information he shared with us about the geology and history of the forest. One of the things I found most interesting was the differences we were able to see in the vegetation between fields of different ages. The first field on the outside of the forest had been farmed up until fairly recently, so shrubs/trees/etc. hadn’t taken up root yet; the next field had been abandoned earlier than the first, and it had been overgrown by a thicket of invasive shrub; the next field was older still, and was more of a forest than a field by now: it had tall trees and some underbrush; the last environment we saw was the old-growth forest, which was populated by evergreen trees that are hundreds of years old–because of the denseness of the canopy, this section of the forest had little undergrowth, because there wasn’t enough sunlight to support it. The delineation between each of these different environments was very clear as we walked through them. It felt a bit like entering a textbook diagram. Considering that the old-growth forest is one of the spaces Cornell uses as an “outdoor classroom”, I guess it’s pretty ideal that that’s the feeling it gives. At any rate, it was exciting to learn how to read the signs given by the landscape and vegetation to make inferences about their development. I think I will look a the local landscape with a slightly sharper eye now.

I really enjoyed Saturday’s  tour (/discussion) of Cinemapolis! I was particularly interested to learn about the difference in film distribution models between chain commercial cinemas (i.e., AMC, Regal) on the one hand and independent or not-for-profit cinemas like Cinemapolis on the other. For those who weren’t at the tour, the director explained to us that commercial cinemas tend to play big Hollywood blockbusters (the example the cinema he gave was the new Superman v. Batman movie) and make huge amounts of money in ticket sales in the first few weekends, after which point interest in the movie and revenue quickly drop. To raise such interest for the opening weekend, the film distribution companies, which own the rights to show the movie, have to launch an extensive marketing campaign for the film many weeks or months in advance. To cover these marketing costs, they charge the theaters showing the movie a higher percentage of their sales. Smaller films, on the other hand, tend to be produced by smaller production companies, bought by smaller distribution companies (often just arms of larger companies), and less heavily advertised. Rather than their own internal marketing, these films rely on media coverage by newspaper and magazine critics, word of mouth, etc. To allow time to generate this kind of buzz, the distribution companies introduce the films over a longer period of time – say, several months – starting in large cities like New York and L.A. (where there is a thriving media scene to give coverage) and then trickling down to smaller cities. Because this approach requires less marketing effort and thus lower costs, the distribution companies charge the independent theaters a lower percentage of their ticket revenue. I haven’t given that kind of thought to the movie industry when I’ve gone to see movies in theaters in the past. It was really interesting to hear about the process that brings the movies to us and it was particularly relevant to me this semester because I am currently taking a marketing course, so much of the framework was familiar. I wonder if there is a similar distinction between how the different types of movies (blockbusters vs. smaller indie films) are marketed online.

I hadn’t considered the relationship between humor and environmental concerns before last week’s Rose Cafe with Prof. Sachs. In his talk, Prof. Sachs noted that environmentalists rarely poke fun at themselves or their campaigns. To go by the stereotypes, at least, they prefer a preachy and serious self-righteousness. Noting that other groups who are fighting for change still take a step back to laugh at themselves, Prof. Sachs wondered why this might not be equally true of environmentalists. I wonder if maybe it is because, being a long-term and gradual problem, climate change so often takes a back burner to more pressing issues. Maybe activists feel that by cracking jokes about their concern and their efforts, they might be trivializing the topic and letting it slip even further down the list of priorities. Maybe the best way to continually emphasize the seriousness of climate change is continual seriousness. What do you guys think?