Part 2: Rave reviews, history and arts on the Internet

The movie has received many rave reviews in quite a few business journals, like the write-up in the Industry Standard. Did you envision it being embraced by the business side so enthusiastically?
I'd hoped it would be, but it's so surprising how much interest we're getting from the business world. The write-up in the Standard was a really great tribute to the film and what we were trying to show.

The art press has been much more cynical with the film, because they really weren't a part of it. From the art press, there's a feeling of "that group" playing with all "that" money. There was this journalist talking to me in San Francisco who was saying, "I never really liked the dot-comers, they ruined everything. I couldn't even afford my house anymore because all those kids moved in and the real estate went up and everything went up."

That kind of resentment has been also sort of surprising.

What was the feeling you took away from the film about the Internet?
I think this invention called the Internet is still so early in fulfilling its potential. A lot of the younger people have rage or anger toward their CEO's as companies go down, but I really believe a lot of that will fade as time passes. I think people will begin to understand how very remarkable it was, that they got to be a part of this historic start of the market on the Internet. It's something truly revolutionary that they can ultimately tell their grandchildren about.

And even for Tom and Kaleil with govworks.com, someone will make that work and we will access our government in that way. And they will get to say they were the pioneers in that.

And are you filled with great excitement about the impact of the Internet on the arts?
Well, it fills me with a lot of things, sometimes excitement, sometimes with dreaded fear. You know, we joke that our film company has stayed alive through our "dead rock" archives, because we had the opportunity to film so many amazing people, musicians who aren't with us anymore.

But really for me, if it becomes where everyone can access all of it for free, it's both wonderful and yet very complicated. I take it (the Internet), as it is what it is and you have to wade through it all. It's inevitable and some of it will be incredibly exciting.

And yet, there's the whole challenge of it being free to have; it's really complicated in the United States, as opposed to other countries who have more endowed systems to support their arts. Because we have almost no endowment programs in the United States, we really depend on making the money from the theatrical release.

So you have that looming ahead as well, where you have to figure out how you would generate money back from a documentary if it was just on the Internet.

And therein lies the challenge of the Internet, no matter what the product, you still have to figure out how to generate the money back.
Right! And that will continue to be the challenge for the arts as well.