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Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

ycombinator.com

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Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#621

Post by dcosson »

TomOfTTB wrote: post #456
Natsu wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're looking to tear down something without suggesting something else to take its place. That's why he's asking for people to give him ideas to fund. > There's no point to add more hate to the world. On that I can agree, but I would note that I believe that pg is acting out of self preservation rather than hate. > I know record executives. I know executives at movie studios. And guess what, they're good guys. Wel…

> Well, then they should be running honest businesses that won't be disrupted by some startup trying to give artists a good deal, rather than the raw deals they so frequently get, and they will therefore have nothing to fear. But see that's the difference between "kill the industry" and "lets beat these guys". Kill the industry empowers people to do other things like pirate media because "this is war". But if people…

I can see where you're coming from, but I have to disagree. For one thing, I think you're reading too much into the word kill. In the the startup vernacular you always hear things like "company X promises to be the Y killer", and I really don't think "kill" in this context has any kind of mean-spirited undertones. It's just business. (Perhaps you'd like to make an etymological argument about the connotations of startup/business terminology being unnecessarily hateful, but that's irrelevant to the argument here).

As for your earlier point that disrupting Hollywood would mean replacing thousands of people with $30K jobs with hundreds with $150K jobs, that may very well be what happens. But the same argument could be made of any industry that gets infused technology or new ideas. Instead of taking such a reactionary approach and fighting to keep a seemingly dying industry alive just for the sake of the status quo, why not have a more productive discussion and think of real ways that the sometimes corrupt and, more importantly, no longer effective Hollywood model can be improved? Whether or not it comes from a trendy new YC-funded startup, it certainly seems like it's coming.

Personally, I find the idea of technological growth to the point of a "singularity" in the coming decades pretty compelling, and I think one of the biggest challenges we as a society will face is maintaining employment rates as technology continues to make things more and more efficient. Protecting those on the lower rungs in Hollywood and the music industry is certainly an important part of this.

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#622

Post by spinfrontier »

In my mind, there are two ways to "kill" the movie and TV industries:

1) Replacement of the medium--have movies and TV go the way of Vaudeville through a more popular form of entertainment. Comcast makes upwards of $150/month per customer (2010 data), so there's money waiting to be made, and

2) Competition in the medium--low the barriers to entry for movie and TV production to displace today's power centers. Data from GE shows consumers are willing to spend $15-16/month for VOD-like services, so there's a market to foster alternative content in the medium.

That said, it's a difficult market. People's habits don't change easily. I worked for a Sequoia-funded streaming movie startup that just went out of business.

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#623

Post by [deleted] »

TomOfTTB wrote: post #465
bermanoid wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the media industry can help to create stupid laws. I don’t deny that. But it isn’t because they’re evil or mean. For the most part it’s because these companies are run by 60 year old men who don’t understand the nuances of technology. But their intentions are good. Oh, okay. Well, as long as their intentions are good, then it's fiiiine that they keep trying to ram bills through Congress that would destroy jobs i…

The point is people who have good intentions can be reasoned with. The Cold War didn't end with bombs it ended with talk. Because the intentions were good on both sides. Someone like pg could just as easily go to media companies and say "what you're doing here is stupid. Allow our startups access to your catalog for a reasonable price and let us try to create startups that will give people what they want and still en…

[deleted]

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#625

Post by andrewem »

TomOfTTB wrote: post #388
pg wrote: post #9

Incidentally, Paul Buchheit deserves all the credit for this idea. The YC partners were having lunch yesterday and he suggested posting this RFS. Whereupon we all turned to Jessica, who is usually the one who talks us out of doing crazy things. I was kind of surprised she didn't try to talk us out of it.

You’re an ass. Pardon the bluntness of that statement but I’m home right now because this pissed me off so much. So my tone is less measured. Have you even contemplated all the things the industry you’re trying to “kill” does? Make note of something: Hollywood is one of the most unionized workforces in the United States. This isn’t a story of rich studio heads taking advantage of people. Actors, Writers, Stage Hands,…

On the topic of residuals and the intentions of studios ("Their intention is to keep money on the table of all those creative people. To keep paying residuals to actors who might not find work for years at a time."):

First, in 2007 the CEO of Warner Bros., among others, called for an end to residuals [0]. Second, studios are notorious for creative accounting which results in people with residuals on "net" profit being paid nothing; for instance, one of the Harry Potter movies grossed $938 million worldwide but "lost" $167 million [1], [2] The latter link cites a court saying the way Hollywood determines pay for authors was "unconscionable" (I wish its citation was to a source that's online). And third, I don't have a reference at hand for this one because I heard this on NPR years ago, but there was a trial where a studio accountant was questioned about the accuracy of movie profit statements, and he said that in his entire career he'd never seen a single movie where the accounting was accurate.

[0] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/11/business/media/11cnd-guild... [1] http://www.deadline.com/2010/07/studio-shame-even-harry-pott... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buchwald_v._Paramount

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#626

Post by caseysoftware »

Gravityloss wrote: post #545
sanjiallblue wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, so some ruminations: To create a film/television show you are generally going to need these things: Script Time Reliably Available Crew No matter what you do, you will always need money to accommodate these three needs to produce a project in any kind of time frame that could allow such productions to ever turn a profit and allow you to keep making films. Even if everything is going to be CG and you don't need…

Generally agreed. You need to pay for people's time. That is 100% certain. (There can of course be exceptions with lots of volunteer time like Iron Sky.) Is equipment so expensive nowadays anymore? I don't think so. You can buy most with one month's median salary. You can use still cameras nowadays, as their sensors and processors have sped up and they've overtaken traditional cinema cameras of a few years back alrea…

Check out Browncoats: Redemption on how a movie can be produced relatively inexpensively.

iirc, they received ~$100k in cash and $250k in donated resources, equipment, etc. Yes, $350k is a good amount of money but compared to the production costs from a major studio, this is probably the catering budget.. and it's nothing for most of the VC's we read about around here.

(Disclosure: I was an extra and a buddy of mine was the producer.)

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#628

Post by bad_user »

awt wrote: post #113
gfodor wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In my country we've got a saying: you're a nobody until you've raised a child, built a house and planted a tree.

There's an universal truth that won't go away soon: we are dying, second by second. We feel good when we "create" something meaningful as it prolongs our existence and it gives us happiness as suddenly we aren't breathing the air for nothing.

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#629

Post by codex »

Mankind has an evolved evolutionary need to tell and listen to stories. Before writing, it was the primary means of knowledge transfer across generations. Most human conversations, in fact, consist of telling stories to one another.

Hollywood fills the storytelling need. It's so primal that I think there will always be an industry manufacturing stories, and thus there will always be content owners who want to get paid when someone consumes their work.

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#630

Post by cmars »

TomOfTTB wrote: post #388
pg wrote: post #9

Incidentally, Paul Buchheit deserves all the credit for this idea. The YC partners were having lunch yesterday and he suggested posting this RFS. Whereupon we all turned to Jessica, who is usually the one who talks us out of doing crazy things. I was kind of surprised she didn't try to talk us out of it.

You’re an ass. Pardon the bluntness of that statement but I’m home right now because this pissed me off so much. So my tone is less measured. Have you even contemplated all the things the industry you’re trying to “kill” does? Make note of something: Hollywood is one of the most unionized workforces in the United States. This isn’t a story of rich studio heads taking advantage of people. Actors, Writers, Stage Hands,…

When the current entertainment cartels are replaced by lighting and shading algorithms, algorithmically generated or enhanced sets and story lines, artifically-intelligent actor agents and remotely live-actor operated machinima drones, the world will be a more creative and entertaining place. I for one welcome the coming Diamond Age.

To quote Public Enemy, burn Hollywood burn!

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