Apocalypse Now: Will New Media Destroy Hollywood?
The real issue at stake in the two month-old Writers' Strike may very well be the future of the entertainment industry itself, writes Pajamas CEO Roger L. Simon. He predicts that the power of the Internet as a distributor of content may spell nothing less than the end of Hollywood as we know it.
Deep into the Writers’ Strike of ‘07-’08 – four major studios have just canceled dozens of television writers’ contracts for the next season – increased rumblings have been heard that the real issue at stake is not the representation of animation and reality show writers or even the vaunted problem of writers’ online percentages. It is something far more apocalyptic – the future of Hollywood itself.
New media is poised to destroy the entertainment industry, as we know it.
People as diverse as television writer Rob Long and Internet guru Marc Andreesen are talking about the end of Hollywood – and they have a point. Several, in fact.
Netscape’s Andreesen wrote extensively on his blog in November about how Hollywood – or more specifically movie and television writers, directors and producers – should emulate Silicon Valley and become entrepreneurial. And that this inevitable revolution has only been hastened by the writers’ walkout.
Indeed, there is some anecdotal evidence that this is already happening. One group, 60Frames, has posted a few short episodes by what they describe as “established Hollywood talent.” Another group, led by Aaron Mendelsohn, author of Air Bud, is shaking the venture capital tree to raise thirty million dollars for a company called Virtual Artists that is dedicated to “creating and delivering professionally made content directly to the end user, and who believe in the model of freedom and inclusiveness over the model of control that has been employed by the big media conglomerates for the past 100 years.”
Fighting words. Andreesen thinks those same corporations and conglomerates blundered by encouraging a strike now – pushing the writers to become entrepreneurs and produce and distribute their own material.
It’s not difficult to see why he thinks that, as a venture capital-oriented entertainment industry outsider, more able to take a global perspective than we long time film insiders. As one of those insiders, I don’t see it as quite that simple, although, in the long run, I am in complete agreement with the Silicon Valley guru.
Things will change – and possibly faster than I expect.
But, despite what Andreesen says, that may not be such a great thing for the current generation of striking movie and television writers any more than it is for the studios. Many, if not most, of those writers are ill-prepared, temperamentally and/or economically, for this new world. (More of that in a moment, but it’s worth noting now that immediately after making his big pronouncement, linked above, screenwriter Mendelsohn added that they’d better get their financing for their new company before the strike ends. “Otherwise we’re all just too damn busy rowing the boat.” Not exactly long-term thinking – or likely to encourage investment.)
But here’s what most Industry people understand – strike or not…
When it comes to understanding the entertainment business, all roads lead, as they always have, to the means of distribution. You can have the greatest show on earth, but if no one sees it, you just lost your investment, not to mention your time and dreams of artistic glory. The studios have had a lock on those means of distribution since the original moguls stumbled off the train near a real estate development then called Hollywoodland back in the early Twentieth Century. And they have been nimble too in maintaining their lock, adjusting well to the advent of sound, color, television, video cassettes, DVDs and…
Well, wait. I was going to say the Internet, but that’s not so simple. Controlling distribution on the Internet – where anyone can be a distributor, potentially anyway, for slightly more than the cost of a URL – is a wholly different matter.
And, with everybody and his sister having a home theater in his residence, the whole system is up for grabs. The cost of production too, as we all know, is plummeting. A thousand dollars buys you a camera with capabilities unavailable to the makers of Casablanca or even Star Wars. Editing is basically free on your Mac – all you need is the time and the software. (People have told me that our recent Pajamas Media high def interviews of the candidates appeared equal to the best network quality when connected via computer to their forty-inch home screens… and we produced these interviews for exponentially less than the cost to the networks.)
So, in the words of Sly Stone, in this Brave New Online World, “Everbody is a Star” (and a writer, director, producer, rock star, political pundit, talk show host, anchorman and maybe even a mogul). Again, potentially.
Steve Jobs understood that quickly, first with music and now with film and TV, and the studios are lumbering behind, attempting, as always, to lever their existing power and immense libraries to maintain control. They may be able to do it – again in the short run – but only with help.
Ironically, that help – the studio’s best allies – may prove to come from those same creative guilds (writers, actors, directors) that they are supposedly battling. The studios and the guilds have been part of a symbiotic industrial system that has functioned – quite well, thank you – despite work stoppages and publicly proclaimed mutual hostility, for over half a century. They both should have a vested interest in preserving it.
I can see that clearly as a member of the Writers Guild, the Hollywood union generally regarded as most militant.
It is true the studios have routinely and famously screwed the writers – “schmucks with Underwoods” turned schmucks with Apples – financially and creatively from the get-go. Still, schmucks or not, working Hollywood writers (emphasis on the working) are highly paid privileged individuals compared to most of the world. Even minimum wages – which few make – are decidedly upper middle class and include rather good health insurance and a decent pension plan (which, like almost all similar plans, is contingent on the continued health of that industry and union).
I profit from both and can assure you I don’t want to give them up. I would imagine few of my fellow guild members do either and I’m not surprised at Mendelsohn’s warning of a short-lived window quoted a few paragraphs back. To put it bluntly, most of us have been sucking on the generous glass teat of Hollywood for the better part of our adult lives – and like all people who have had it easy and pleasurable, we are spoiled. Change will not be simple for us. We are habituated. Those of us who want to be entrepreneurs probably have done so already – or were at least thinking about going the Silicon Valley route long before the strike.
Now, to be clear, when I say “easy,” I am speaking of the (relatively) “easy life.” I am not saying television and movie writing is easy. It clearly is not. Very few people can do it. The Writers Guild has only 12,000 members not because it is a difficult union to get into – it isn’t – but because few people are good enough to get hired by a signatory company, the minimum requirement for membership. I can attest to this. Years ago, when I wrote for Richard Pryor, I would occasionally dip into one of the literally thousands of unsolicited scripts pouring into his office. Not a single one was worth reading past page five. Years later, I taught graduate screenwriting at the American Film Institute, said to be one of our better film schools and certainly one of the most competitive in admissions, and hardly any of my students were able to succeed as professional writers. Much of this may stem from my limited teaching skills, but at least some of it is the plain difficulty of writing for the screen.
The studios know this and that is part of the reason why the Writers Guild has been attractive to them over the years. They have all – or most – of us in one place, working for them. As I said, a symbiotic system. This also may account, in a subliminal way, for the extraordinarily uniform political view in Hollywood. Everyone knows they are one of a lucky few along on a good thing. They don’t want to rock the boat. Again, not an entrepreneurial mentality.
As a Silicon Valley guy, Andreesen probably doesn’t see, or chooses to ignore, this. But from the inside it is obvious that senior studio executives are better business people than most writers and other creative types. That may not have not have been true during the Elizabethan Era when the likes of Burbage and Shakespeare evidently had more control of the means of production, but it certainly is now.
So I am not as convinced as Andreesen that the studios and their multi-national handlers like General Electric have made such a big mistake by encouraging the current strike. Indeed, some of them may have known precisely what they were doing. They recognize, as we all do, the changing entertainment landscape and the myriad and growing possibilities confronting the already busy consumer – reality shows, computer games, social networking, blogs, etc., etc. Bruce Springsteen’s “fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on” has morphed to a thousand and is about to morph to ten thousand and more. The corporations especially may choose to put their investment other places than the expensive production of live action television and films. They may end up essentially abandoning the playing field to new media (GE, after all, makes vastly more money from light bulbs than it does from NBC.)
This may be good for diversity of political opinion and for bypassing the stranglehold of mainstream media in news, but it is less clear the advent of new media is a good thing for the arts. Apple’s Garage Band has not proven a bonanza to music creatively and an entrepreneurial Silicon Valley approach may be even less likely to prove a boon to the art of film, especially in that area of live action. There is little likelihood that new media is going to produce a Lawrence of Arabia or a The Godfather any time soon. Even with plummeting technical costs, productions of this sort take a huge upfront investment in talent and personnel that would make little sense to Industry outsiders. Who could blame them for not taking that risk? The economic viability of online distribution of new films has not nearly been demonstrated. It hasn’t even been demonstrated for self-published books.
Of course, I am being sentimental here. I grew up on, and love, live action films. Animation – something that can be done by one person on a home computer – lends itself much better to the entrepreneurial model. This capability will only grow with the technology. Soon enough writer-director-animators will be creating completely viable human images on their PCs. They will be able to tell stories about people that look just like real human beings, fully invent and illustrate their own heroes and antiheroes. The era of the movie star will be over – a bonus to those of us who have labored under their whims for years. The movie stars of the future will be entirely the creation of the filmmakers who will own the copyrights, just as they do in Europe under “droit d’auteur.”
They will tell whatever stories please them and not have to answer to the moguls. And those stories could have a diversity the current stultified system rejects. Who knows? You might even find one or two in support of the USA.
Roger L. Simon is an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter, novelist and blogger, and the CEO of Pajamas Media.
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29 Comments
1. Rubicon:Gosh, the “movie stars” of the future may not be the pampered elite who are now indulged & caved in to by profiteers who all drink the same political kool aide.
Jan 17, 2008 - 5:10 am 2. Zendo Deb:My heart pumps purple panther p*** for them.
Perhaps America will again get entertainment that includes human beings who love & respect this nation, and those with decidedly socialist bents will enter into the real world of working for a living like the rest of us!
Tough!
This is a bit like saying that movies will kill live theater. Or that TV will kill the publishing business.
Hollywood appears to be all worried about declining DVD sales.
Well the price of a DVD went from about 15 bucks to 25 bucks, because I only count the “2 disk special editions.” A lot of what gets produced in Hollywood is schlock. The only reason for looking at the DVD is for the “extras.” So yeah, that high a price increase, will lead to lower sales. I guess those in movies are too “cool” to have studied economics.
Add to that the continuing (and it is continuing, but probably about to be over) saga of Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD and I am surprised anyone is buying any DVD. I’m not. I may start again, once the price of Blu-ray players is reasonable. (400 – 500 dollars isn’t) But only if some of the problems with Blu-ray get sorted out. (I don’t want to be forced to watch previews = advertisements every time I put a disk in the player.) Still, knowing that I’m not buying the next Betamax, may help.
I hope the writers get their contracts, since I think that writers are what start most movies worth seeing. (When I think of a concept film, done with a “star” in mind, I always think of something like Waterworld or The Postman etc. And I think they could have used a writer or 2 not in love with the star or their own cleverness.)
But don’t don’t kid yourself that yours is an industry devoted to art. (If you think movie making is all about art, watch Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3, or Matrix 2 and 3, or at least half of the sequels/prequels out there.) Or just about anything by Uwe Boll – though he manages to not make any money, so maybe he is about art. He certainly makes schlock. Resident Evil is about watching Milla Jovovich. Rambo or Die Hard, is about watching things blow up. Very little of it is about art, and almost none of the true art comes out of the studio system anyway.
Jan 17, 2008 - 7:40 am 3. martin bebow:I agree that live action and the ‘movie star’ era are passing. I’ve recently become interested in Anime and Manga. In India they are animating the Mahabharata! Hollywood is dead and just doesn’t know it yet. The new centers of entertainment will be Japan, China, India and eventually Iran when the mullahs are finally driven out.
Jan 17, 2008 - 8:04 am 4. huxley:I hear from people that I trust that if Hollywood–for all its idiocies, excesses, and shlock–were to collapse, it would not be easily replaced with a system that could produce movies as good and enjoyable. Aside from the occasional exception, there’s not much that I want to watch from small indies or Europe.
The falling technological costs are an inviting hope for a better future, but I can’t help but notice how little this has helped popular music. I don’t know if this is an aspect of the “long tail” phenomenon or just a fallow period for music, but I would be very surprised if much being played today will still be listened to in ten years or even two or three.
Jan 17, 2008 - 8:27 am 5. A. N. Pierson:Interesting analysis. I too would be interested in cyborg movie stars over the unpleasant contemporary ones (loved the sly link to the Cruise video).
Here’s a thought – since the movie stars of the past… Bogart, Bacall, Peck, etc. … were so much more engaging than present ones – why not resurrected them in computer form. These days we certainly need more Katherine Hepburn movies
Jan 17, 2008 - 8:52 am 6. Jane B.:Don’t forget a virtual Cary Grant. (and he wasn’t a Scientologist)
Jan 17, 2008 - 10:58 am 7. David Thomson:I recently read somewhere that the typical computer can now be used to edit major films. No longer does one need to spend thousands of dollars on equipment. Something purchased at Walmart for under $500 should be sufficient. But less expensive equipment isn’t everything. There are still the other fixed costs that have to be paid.
Jan 17, 2008 - 11:26 am 8. Ennis:As far as I am concerned Hollywood is already dead and for all I could care it can rot.
I canceled my satTV subscription about 4 years ago. I can not receive broadcast TV because I live too far away from the TV stations. The last movie I saw in a theatre was “The Return of the King”.
From what I gather I am not missing out on anything.
Jan 17, 2008 - 1:55 pm 9. Dave_Violence:There are plenty of people who will go see all the crappy movies, written by crappy, talentless F-school writers H’wood poops out no matter what.
For the rest of us (who can make better movies with their rearends), there’s the vast number of GREAT movies that have been made and deserve to be seen over and over again – and thanks to internet distribution, cost pennies to view.
Jan 17, 2008 - 4:28 pm 10. Roger Godby:I think Magnatune.com might be an example of what’s coming: A company that releases its music in multiple file formats, none protected, allows you to choose what you’ll pay for the music, gives half your payment directly to the musician(s), and allows you (on trust) to give your purchase to up to 3 people. They reject plenty of the music sent to them to be marketed and thus ensure some level of quality.
Might a similar model work for short films and serial programs?
Jan 17, 2008 - 5:28 pm 11. David Govett:Best news I’ve heard all day. Die, Hollywood! Die!
Jan 17, 2008 - 5:40 pm 12. ajacksonian:“The Revolution Will Be Animated.” – SIGGRAPH 2003
The concept of ‘animation’ when you can get software to model multiple layers of skin, each with its own reflectance and hue makes light of what we think of as ‘animation’. Human figures, complete with hair, skin, skin texture, pores… that *is* available in animation *today*. Getting it to look *good* is something else again.
That said the ability to do decent High-Def recording and editing shifts the tools downwards and outwards. Blogs have not replaced the MSM, but now offer alternative channels for creation and presentation of text, audio, video and multimedia that are not available via television or movies. So, too, does the digital revolution start to eat into ‘films’. Why not give a choice of FPS or third person? Let a viewer shift from immersive to overview as a story is told and let that happen seamlessly.
That is something a standard film cannot do but digital entertainment can, will and already does in games. Games picking up on kinematics, human modeling and exploiting that digital capability to present more and more realistic individuals and settings. Soon, with an immersive setting, a story can be created along multiple paths. Why see a story *just* from the heroic perspective? Why not go at it from the villainous? Or let the viewer shift as they want as the story unfolds… or follow secondary characters, like doing ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead’, save that you can shift to go through a story via any of the characters… now its not just one person’s story, but that of all of the characters and how the driving forces affect them all.
That is *not* traditional filming, and traditional storytelling via the MSM is ill-suited to do it. The digital realm is perfectly set up for it… so writers, actors and animators can go through their paces and let out multiple, interactive versions of a story allowing those going through it to see how complex the lives involved really are. Far more than just ’soap opera’: but the portrayal of life stories effected by events and influenced by those in the story. Throw in some AI (which does need to get better) and let the viewer take part and change what happens.
If writers want to tell real stories, not just the same-old, same-old, then they should be willing to give up some of the ‘easy pay’ for deep creative expression and the chance to gain an audience that appreciates the new stories that they can tell. Homer gave us glimpses of many lives of many heroic figures on both sides of the Trojan War and each of those had their *own* traditions leading up to that conflict… we only get a couple of months out of a 10 year war that was not a seige. Imagine telling that from Helen’s view… and that of Priam… and Odysseus… and Achilles… and Memnon… a previous age can be brought to life in many ways, or a completely new world similarly given a view that is not prescribed by just one part of a set of actions.
Why restrict yourself to known and dull formats and story types? Authors, writers and artists are supposed to be *inventive*, and demonstrate that compelling works will gain an audience and support.
Fine.
Prove it.
If folks haven’t noticed, Hollywood has about the same sort of numbers that the nightly news has: abyssmal. Films will be around a long time as one format of telling stories, but they won’t be the only one and possibly not even a primary one in the future. The future being 10-20 years. Not the far future at that… and that transition time to that future is *now*. Time to get away from being writers and start looking to become bards, again… folks who can give a stemwinder of a deep story for deep and satisfactory entertainment with each bard’s own spin on things. And let the talent show itself via that. Just like the bards did. And they made a living doing so, too.
Jan 17, 2008 - 6:12 pm 13. Mister Snitch!:When you see Apple TV on your TV screen, and notice an abundance of quality podcasts (amid much dreck, for sure), you realize that it’s a new age. On cable, Hollywood controls what you’ll see (the latest releases, and whatever makes them the most money). But from Internet feeds, Hollywood no longer controls the pipeline. New forces will come into play (blogs, etc.) to serve in the critical filtering roles. During Macworld’s keynote, Jobs mentioned the site “Rotten Tomatoes”. Such sites will come into prominence in this new age, appearing as part of your online program guide on your Apple TV, Tivo, or other device. They will steer you to reviews of content according to your previous picks, or other content you’ve selected.
Marketing will still get people into the theaters, at least of what is marketed is what the public wants to see. There are still a limited number of movie theaters, and Hollywood money still controls that market. But beyond that it’s a whole new game, and new players are already positioning themselves to control it. The discriminating viewer will be the winner here.
Jan 17, 2008 - 6:19 pm 14. JeremyR:The thing is, not everyone has the same access to the internet. Lots of places, even now, don’t get broadband or even really lousy broadband which has a bandwidth cap on it – 5 gigs a month. (I finally just got broadband last month, depsite being only 30 miles south of downntown St. Louis. And it’s cellular broadband, which sucks a lot of the time)
It’s also not nearly as easy to use the media. You buy or rent a DVD, you can pop it in any DVD player. But how do you watch a movie off the internet? You need a computer for that. And then a way to hook the computer up to the TV. Not everyone has that.
Sure, if you are rich urban city dweller, this is no problem. But look at music – despite the small size of the files and ease of piracy, cd sales completely dominate the charts. Sure, they are down, but downloads are almost neglible as a percentage.
Jan 17, 2008 - 7:42 pm 15. James Hudnall:Maybe, no…we will, see some diversity in ideas and stories and world views for a change. Not the one sided drek we’ve had shoved down our throats by clueless Malibu colony clowns.
Jan 17, 2008 - 7:47 pm 16. ic:Hollywood has been dead for a long time. Hollywood existed because nobody else could produce those epics and musicals. Audience enjoy Judy Garland’s, Fred Astaire’s, … dances and songs. They were doing something that no one else could do. Audience enjoy Casa Blanca, they enjoy the story, the beautiful Ingrid Bergman, the memorable music. Audience enjoy Gone With the Wind, enjoy Vivian Leigh’s beauty and glamour, enjoy the story, the movie set. Audience enjoy Betty Davis’, Barbara Stanwyck’s acting, Gary Cooper’s, John Wayne’s screen-heroism, Jimmy Stewart’s “Americanness”.
What does Hollywood have now? Their “stars” are not particularly talented, nor are they particularly glamourous. There are no memorable stories, no non-computer generated extravagant sets, no memorable music. What they have are brainless arrogant over paid under talented loud mouths. Why would anybody want to pay to see them?
Jan 18, 2008 - 12:13 am 17. Matt Erni:“Still, schmucks or not, working Hollywood writers (emphasis on the working) are highly paid privileged individuals compared to most of the world. Even minimum wages – which few make – are decidedly upper middle class and include rather good health insurance and a decent pension plan (which, like almost all similar plans, is contingent on the continued health of that industry and union).”
Out of curiosity, could you share the compensation range from minimum to greatest for our gifted guild of screenwriters, as well as their median income? I’m interested to know what you consider to be “upper middle class.”
Jan 18, 2008 - 12:46 am 18. howard lohmuller:Like the 4 blind men whom felt a part of the elephant and described it differently from the others, the writers strike leads people to different opinions about the future of the entertainment industry. Just 100 years ago, technology morphed still photographs into motion pictures and a new industry was born. Movie theaters were built and people hired to produce the films that would fill the movie house. TV came along as and became an alternative and more important form of entertainment. Today technology is morphing movies, TV, books, and information into the internet for delivery to consumers. And different talents will be needed. Writers will still be in the mix as they always have been. But new types of talent may become the most important. The new virtual entertainment center will be part movie house, movie set,TV set, PC, publisher, teacher and maybe even to some extent, writer. The writers union leadership made a mistake by striking. Their efforts should have focused on keeping what they have left and building for what could be had tomorrow.
Jan 18, 2008 - 6:28 am 19. Larry J:A lot of what gets produced in Hollywood is schlock.
I have over 200 DVD titles in my collection but I doubt I’ve added 10 titles in the last 2 years. So few of the movies made in the past few years are worth watching, much less buying.
Recently, my wife and I went to a video rental store because we were given a gift card. It took about 15 minutes to find anything worth a free rental (we got “Rescue Dawn” and it was quite good). We aren’t in any particular hurry to use the rest of the gift card.
Are the movie studios doomed? Perhaps. If they keep turning out crap like they’ve been doing for the last few years, then they deserve to fail. If someone can come up with better products then they’ll likely do quite well. If not, well, there are still books…
Jan 18, 2008 - 6:37 am 20. howardhughes:Like the 4 blind men whom felt a part of the elephant and described it differently from the others, the writers strike leads people to different opinions about the future of the entertainment industry. Just 100 years ago, technology morphed still photographs into motion pictures and a new industry was born. Movie theaters were built and people hired to produce the films that would fill the movie house. TV came along and became an alternative and more important form of entertainment. Today technology is morphing movies, TV, books and information into the internet for delivery to consumers. And different talents will be needed. Writers will still be in the mix just as they always have been. But new kinds of talent may become the most important. The new virtual entertainment center will be part movie house, movie set, TV set, publisher, teacher and maybe, to some extent, writer. The writers union leadership made a mistake by striking. Their efforts should have focused on preserving what they have left and building for what could be had tomorrow.
Jan 18, 2008 - 6:55 am 21. Gringo:Some years back, I spent a week watching ~20 films at an independent film festival. While the indie films may not have had the special effects of a Hollywood production, from the visual and story-telling end , they were quite good. You don’t need $50 million or more to make a good movie.
Jan 18, 2008 - 6:56 am 22. Ann C:Roger,
For someone who is involved with new media, you are very backward thinking when it comes to the future of Hollywood. We both know that Hollywood is losing buckets of money yearly. Before the strike it was losing 6 billion a year alone in piracy and who knows how much in declining ticket sales. And while you are right about who controls distribution controls the industry as it stands, you have to admit, that like the music industry, the film and tv industry are losing control.
“Now, to be clear, when I say “easy,” I am speaking of the (relatively) “easy life.” I am not saying television and movie writing is easy. It clearly is not. Very few people can do it. The Writers Guild has only 12,000 members not because it is a difficult union to get into – it isn’t – but because few people are good enough to get hired by a signatory company, the minimum requirement for membership.”
If this were the case, then every movie and every tv show should be a classic. Funny, the example you, yourself give of great movies that can’t be made at home, are films that are over 30 years old. But there are no hacks in Hollywood, are there? Air Bud indeed…
“But from the inside it is obvious that senior studio executives are better business people than most writers and other creative types.”
Really? Obvious to whom? Are you aware of the profit margins of studios? The internal rate of return of these studio units on average are in the single digits and sometimes not even that. They have no vision on how to handle piracy and no future vision. I know of a few who don’t think Hollywood studios will be around in 10 years. They are as clueless as the music industry execs. Look at production costs for most major motion pictures, the more technology makes post production easier and cheaper, the more these great business minds spend on films. It’s like a big junket party for the producers, directors, and their friends. Go try pitching an effects film with a constrained budget (ie if you say you can do more for less with technology), they look at you like you just told them that Bush was the greatest human on earth.
Look to the music industry to see which way the wind is blowing and ask yourself how many A&R guys felt the same way you do now 5 years ago.
I think the unions and agency system have stifled any entrepreneurial tendencies in the rank and file, but as younger people start wanting to get in the business how many of them will by pass this process and start making films on their own? The Red Camera is a 4k digital camera that is about $16k, something that anyone with decent credit can obtain. Some one will figure out a smart way to distribute product over the internet using smart software to match viewers to product that will interest them. The theater experience is so dismal for most people that this will be a much preferred way to get entertainment. And don’t get me started on the future of gaming, cause I could write for hours about that and how that will develop.
But Roger, you hang on to the old way of thinking and the old model and see how well that works out for you.
Jan 18, 2008 - 7:01 am 23. Ann C:Jeremy:
“But look at music – despite the small size of the files and ease of piracy, cd sales completely dominate the charts. Sure, they are down, but downloads are almost neglible as a percentage.”
Are you crazy??? Have you really looked at the numbers in the music industry? I used to work in that industry and still know people in the highest levels and believe me they are singing a much different tune, pardon the pun. Why do you think Jay Z just left as the head of Def Jam to go full time into the hotel business. And although download sales are up a bit, the industry is in decline over all.
You should do much more research before making statements like that:
http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2007/12/volume-goes-up.html
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB117444575607043728-lMyQjAxMDE3NzI0MTQyNDE1Wj.html
Jan 18, 2008 - 7:58 am 24. Ann C:ajacksonian:
You are spot on…
Interactive story telling through gaming is the future.
Jan 18, 2008 - 8:06 am 25. Ann C:My last post, sorry.. I forgot to give you the most startling number of all:
World of Warcraft has 9 million subscribers who paid any where from $20-50 for the software another $50 for the expansion (don’t have the numbers on how many bought the additional expansion) and pay $15 a month subscription fee. The net earnings per quarter was in the $100,000,000s range. Studio execs would cream for those numbers.
Jan 18, 2008 - 8:12 am 26. Sandra Mendoza:In the past year, I’ve seen one great war movie on DVD: Frank Miller’s THE 300. I had to go on hiatus on Netflix for several months because there was nothing coming out that I wanted to see. Comedy has become juvenile and vulgar. Drama for adults is virtually non-existent.
Award shows became so ubiquitous that I stopped watching. And I generally skip the previews on the DVDs I rent.
What a change! I spent my Junior year in High School playing hookey and going to the library in the morning and the movies in the afternoons. .
I worked in Hollywood writing, directing and producing on air promos for CBS and ABC TV movies but before going to Hollywood, via a lover in Mallorca, I learned of the climate of fear in Hollywood where you could so easily get blacklisted (for everything BUT communism) It happened to me later.
The reason movies are so bad is that “Produders” exercise their non-existent creativity by rewriting what they don’t have the talent to write in the first place. It happened to me. It happens to everyone.
When Mel Gibson couldn’t get his movie THE PASSION distributed, so he found alternative methods of distribution and made a fortune.
Tyler Perry, a black writer-producer did the same with his plays, showing them in movie houses and other venues. Now, he has a series on cable on his terms as well as several successful films.
Writers have never had power in Hollywood. They were seduced with swimming pools and lavish lifestyles but never given power. You hear Robert DeNiro (as Irving Thalberg) say it to Jack Nicholson in THE LAST TYCOON.
The studios always had power of distribution which gave them an iron grip. Now, you can make a film and sell it on Amazon.com. You don’t need to show it in movie houses to get it seen.
I sometimes watch a series called THE DIRECTORS and it seems to me that writer-directors whose work I admire can’t get jobs.
Well, be creative, guys. Do a single set film, pay everyone scale and points on the back end, and use the profits from that film to finance your next film.
Your audience awaits you.
Jan 19, 2008 - 1:50 am 27. Mr Ed:I have difficulty feeling any sympathy for the studios, the distributors, and those who run the and benefit from the system.
In the last two or three years I have purchased a number of DVDs, none of which I watched more than five minutes of. I just don’t care anything about the story line or the characters and watching becomes more of a chore than entertainment.
Lets face it – The plots are stale and predictable and the characters are usually uninteresting and full of modern Liberal angst so representative of the Liberal, politically correct thinking of “enlightened” (presumably) artistic types.
I for one am sick to death of being lectured and hectored in all forms of media by Liberal sychophants sucking up to their progressive betters. I know it’s wrong, but I feel so much satisfaction watching them twist in the wind.
Jan 19, 2008 - 4:36 am 28. purblind:Hollywood is already near dead. Video game sales in the US just hit $17 billion. Peer-created entertainment like all the trash on youtube already out-draws studio movies by a long shot. Not to mention the explosive growth of internet porn. The battle is for entertainment interest, dollars, and time, and hollywood has already lost. Not that the writers will understand this in the least.
Personally, I dont like what is replacing Hollywood any more than I liked Hollywood. But I do enjoy seeing the demise of these arrogant narcissistic Hollywood pukes.
Jan 19, 2008 - 5:42 am 29. harmonicminer:Synthesized music is much farther down the road towards replacing “real musicians” than animation is towards replacing “live actors”. What that experience has revealed is that there are very many “humanizing” elements in real humans with instruments in their hands that synthesists simply cannot recreate, not for lack of technology but for lack of imagination and the experience of BEING the kind of musician they’re trying to synthesize.
I doubt that writers, producers and animators will, anytime soon (read, the next hundred years or so), be able to produce pure CGI performances with the depth, nuance and general sophistication that the best acting provides. But that doesn’t mean that a great deal of throwaway story telling won’t be possible with CGI “actors”, just as the basic quality of an orchestral composition can be heard by a good synth mock-up.
We still need real guitarists, and real trumpet players, with all the power of modern synthesizers and software plug-ins. Some of them continue to be in high demand, and command considerable celebrity power in certain quarters. The same will be true of good actors for quite some time, I hope.
Jan 19, 2008 - 7:41 pm