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Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

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Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#111

Post by marquis »

akg wrote: post #63

Has anyone tried out Amazon Studios: http://studios.amazon.com/ ? That seems to be a big step in this direction. Amazon.com has already created a big threat in the publishing industry with e-books and self-publishing. I think hollywood is next with the democratization of content and technological tools. It used to be that to create "Hollywood grade" movies would require tons of expensive equipment and capital. I don'…

Many artists steer clean of Amazon because it is trying to democratize art through crowdsourced development. Can you imagine what would have happened to Blade Runner if Ridley Scott had even less control on the final cut?

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#113

Post by awt »

gfodor wrote: post #107
awt wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is insightful. Along the line of discussing what art is really about (not money), I would say that it is about sex. Art will not go away if it's no longer possible to become a millionaire doing it. Some evolutionary psychologists propose that art is a never ending game of creative one-upmanship. Women find creative men sexy, men find creative women sexy (the reasons for this are complex and have to do with the m…

I don't think it's about sex, the answer is a lot less Freudian and a lot more obvious: it's about the joy of being able to make an imprint on another human being's mind & soul. It's as old as humanity itself is.

Who said anything about Freud? In any case, you need to ask yourself why it feels good to make an imprint on another human being's mind and soul. There is a reason. It's not random or unexplainable.

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#114

Post by untog »

socratic wrote: post #27

I agree that Hollywood is evil, however, is the argument that it has peaked really accurate? ("Hollywood is dying.") This RFS doesn't really give any statistics (perhaps because it will be up for longer than those statistics will be current). That said, based on a few minutes of Google searching, the average American apparently watches 150 hours of TV per month, and every few years there is a new "biggest grossing fi…

and every few years there is a new "biggest grossing film of all time."

That, at least, can be accounted for by inflation: http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm

Titanic (1997) is the most recent in the top ten (at #6). Avatar is the most recent at #14, and one of only two movies from the 2000s in the top 30. Movie revenue is dropping. Roger Ebert has a rundown of why 2011 was such a terrible year:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20...

As for TV- no, it isn't in such a decline. But more and more people are watching online, and the existing TV networks don't have the stranglehold on content that they do on cable/etc. A lot of people watch stuff on YouTube, Netflix is making original content... there is space to disrupt TV watching yet.

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#115

Post by reinhardt »

malkia wrote: post #35

Here is what Francis Ford Coppola has to say on the matter: http://the99percent.com/articles/6973/Francis-Ford-Coppola-O... "We have to be very clever about those things. You have to remember that it’s only a few hundred years, if that much, that artists are working with money. Artists never got money. Artists had a patron, either the leader of the state or the duke of Weimar or somewhere, or the church, the pope. Or…

I find this opinion more honest and convincing than the "it's not stealing if you both get to keep a copy" argument. The latter fails to account for the time, money, effort, inspiration, talent required to create the original work that is subsequently copied millions of times. When the issue of how are artists supposed to make a living in an copyright-less, free-filesharing world is brought up, proponents come up with limited band-aids (live concerts, donations, SaaS, etc).

At least Coppola doesn't beat around the bush: filesharing may mean that professional artists may have the fate of buggy whip makers. Regardless of one's stance on this prospect, this is where the debate should focus, not on the semantics of stealing or new business model cop-outs.

Interesting thought experiment: how would the world look like if all art was created by hobbyists? (honest question)

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#116

Post by bunderbunder »

socratic wrote: post #27

I agree that Hollywood is evil, however, is the argument that it has peaked really accurate? ("Hollywood is dying.") This RFS doesn't really give any statistics (perhaps because it will be up for longer than those statistics will be current). That said, based on a few minutes of Google searching, the average American apparently watches 150 hours of TV per month, and every few years there is a new "biggest grossing fi…

If you adjust for how ticket prices have grown over the years, the highest-grossing films of all time are:

1. Gone with the Wind

2. Star Wars

3. The Sound of Music

4. E.T.

5. The Ten Commandments

So in those terms, we haven't actually had a new highest-grossing film of all time for seven decades. The nominal biggest movie ever, Avatar, really only comes in 14th.

Source: http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#117

Post by jamesgatz »

malkia wrote: post #35

Here is what Francis Ford Coppola has to say on the matter: http://the99percent.com/articles/6973/Francis-Ford-Coppola-O... "We have to be very clever about those things. You have to remember that it’s only a few hundred years, if that much, that artists are working with money. Artists never got money. Artists had a patron, either the leader of the state or the duke of Weimar or somewhere, or the church, the pope. Or…

I love FFC. I'm a current UCLA film student - Coppola's alma mater. One thing to think about: UCLA has always been the "indy, intellectual" film school. It's our rep, internally and (to an extent) externally. When Coppola left UCLA to work in Hollywood, he was branded a sell-out by his fellow students.

One thing to think about w/ this whole "crush Hollywood" thing is this: most of your favorite movies (assuming you've got a boner for the New Hollywood period like I do) were a result of an aging, out-of-touch entertainment monopoly making desperate, reactionary moves to save itself. The old system didn't work, the people in charge had no idea how to fix it, so they went crazy taking risks on young directors. FFC, Scorsese, Spielberg, Altman, de Palma, Lucas - all the really top-drawer American filmmakers, honestly - were a result of this period of blind desperation.

There would be no Godfather without Hollywood. No Apocalypse Now. (also no Taxi Driver, no Star Wars, no Indiana Jones, no MASH or Nashville) In the absence of Hollywood, you get movies like Youth Without Youth and Tetro - two wonderful oddities, but you'd be hard pressed to make the case for them against Coppola's early masterpieces.

The beautiful and horrible thing about Hollywood is that it's a system designed to throw huge stacks of cash at storytelling problems. It's fucking absurd, because money has never been capable of solving those kinds of problems - practice and gut instinct are what create good stories. But when strong storytellers are placed in an environment which supplies nearly unlimited resources, totally amazing things happen. Yes, we can all point to Heaven's Gate, New York New York, and Coppola's own One From the Heart, but flops like those are the inevitable flip side of the system I've just described: talented people can abuse unlimited resources just like anybody else.

I guess what I'm saying is: I'd be seriously depressed if Hollywood were to vanish. Yeah, it produces a lot of shit, but its high water marks have never really been replicated by any other mode of production.

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#118

Post by harshreality »

pg wrote: post #18
oldstrangers wrote: post #6

"The people who run it are so mean and so politically connected that they could do a lot of damage to civil liberties and the world economy on the way down. It would therefore be a good thing if competitors hastened their demise." This seems hypocritical considering YC's funding of companies like Cloudant that go on to work with companies (Monsanto) actively engaged in the worst kind of subversive geopolitical work.…

That's the sort of disingenuous remark a politician would make. It's hypocritical of us to want to fund companies doing good things because one of the 383 companies we've funded has one customer you don't like? We don't have any control over who companies we fund do business with.

You may not be able to control them, but you can influence who YC startups do business with. You screen founders heavily based on perceived intelligence, and probably based somewhat on perceived ethics as well. You probably have some sense, before you fund them, whether founders would be willing to do business with the RIAA or MPAA.

You could be doing something to dissuade YC-funded startups from engaging with Monsanto. I think it's a valid question why you're putting significant effort into fighting the MPAA and RIAA, even banning SOPA supporters from demo day, while you do not take a visible stand regarding Monsanto.

Genetic engineering is outside of YC's core competency, but there are strong parallels between trying to exert tyrannical legal control over digital IP, and trying to exert tyrannical legal control over genetic IP. Unlike copyright infringement which at least requires an infringer, genetic IP spreads itself, and embeds itself into other [public domain] IP that was not originally infringing.

Since you've opened the door by taking a stand regarding the RIAA, MPAA, and draconian copyright laws, you shouldn't be surprised when you get flack for being silent on other issues: Monsanto, companies (including Monsanto) directly involved with the drug war... perhaps even private security contractors which operate in war zones, the private prison industry, big pharma, or environmental polluters.

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#119

Post by jasonabelli »

WesleyJohnson wrote: post #96
jasonabelli wrote: post #56

EdTV. But interactive also with multiple Ed’s (channels). Free to watch. With adds on the parameter or occasionally a commercial during slow moments. How would it be interactive? There can be options for what your Ed might due. People could “donate” a micro-purchase towards making that option happen. Options, get a new car, go on a trip, get jewelry. Friends could chat while watching a particular Ed and get momentum…

I came here to post something similar to this. With all the adoration over so-called "Reality TV", I'm surprised there isn't more of a movement towards true reality TV. JenniCam and other sites from days gone by come to mind. That sort of thing's entertainment value is questionable, but then so is watching the Kardashian sisters.

If you can watch 24/7 you really get the life drama. Not the BS for TV stuff. Even if the influence of the viewers would be huge at least it would be honest. "everyone will have their 15 minutes of fame" Andy Warhol

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#120

Post by dboat »

I'm a pretty massive gamer, and one thing I think bears mention is that game companies show similar signs of customer-contempt as the Hollywood middlemen. This leads me to think that the problem is not the people who are creative, the problem is the middlemen who have found exceptional margins and do not want to let them go.

For signs of game publisher contempt, see safedisc, securom and similar cases in which game performance, reliability and convenience (in other words, the user experience) have been compromised in order to ineffectually impede piracy.

Rather than kill Hollywood, producers of things many do so enjoy, I think startups need to focus on finding ways to allow the creative network of the industry to thrive by reaching people without the need for the collective organizations and legacy businesses who are willing to attack the end-users.

Issues or morality and legality aside, suing your users, interfering with their freedom by legal meddling and otherwise tarnishing their experience is a poor choice for purely pragmatic reasons.

Killing, ever a tempting solution, is not the best answer here.

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