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Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

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Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#631
post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He wants to kill Hollywood, not artists. Personally, I believe that the best way to do that would be to help the artists break free of the middlemen by giving them a better deal and helping them engage with their audiences. Ideally, it would make art an industry where more people make $100k instead of $30k.

But Hollywood funds artists. My issue with pg's post is it's a clarion call to kill an industry without considering what that industry does and who that industry supports. If someone can think up a better system I'm all for it. There's no shortage of startups creating media for online dissemination. But as of right now none of them manage to support artists like the traditional system. So I don't disagree with you. I…

> But Hollywood funds artists

I'm an artist, a musician to be precise. I've done ok for myself without Hollywood. I've known many artists that have been wrecked by Hollywood's promises of wealth and fame, far more than have benefited from it.

Hollywood needs to die and let the next model(s) of the marriage of art and business thrive. I actually envy the younger generation of musicians that have been raised to think of producing and distributing their own work rather than depend on a larger, centralized entity for their livelihoods.

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#632
Ok, here is the plan: cut them off from the internet:

1) Open source service that identifies every hollywood agency, movies studio, and major individual by IP. 2) Home IP address as well. 3) Attach tracking cookies to them 4) Open source API that operates just like an ad server does, and instead of checking home for ads to serve up to these customers, we serve 404 pages. Just black them the hell out.

The result: hollywood is now unable to use a sizeable portion of the internet.

They fired off the nuclear missiles first, fuck it, it's time for DEFCON-1.

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#633
post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is great info (that you gave in a reply about production costs), but I'm very interested in something which you may have some knowledge on. All of the production you're talking about is live (as in using real people, locations and equipment.) My question is, what about digital cartoon production, wouldn't the cost of producing a digital cartoon show or movie be dramatically less than the equivalent length live s…

Animation, especially CG is a wide field. As you may know animators are hardest bunch to find. Modelers are easiest to find, texture/shading guys and gals a little bit harder, lighting/environment artists a little bit harder than that and TDs hardest to find... with animators hardest to find. There is a slow production cycle (4-5 seconds of animation only per animator per week for feature quality and 15sec per week f…

Entrepreneurs should pay special attention to this post. There's a huge opportunity here. Technology can make content creation cheaper. As a graphical developer I can see a lot of areas which can be improved. And all that's missing is someone to actually go there and build it.

We need to bring content creation to the masses. Think of why can't casual users create their own movies, music and games. Then figure how we can fix those problems with technologies. The problem of distribution is reasonably well solved already in my opinion. Solving content creation is the last piece of the puzzle to kill Hollywood.

I'm talking about things like xtranormal or GameSalad. These guys are in the right direction. But are still too shy in their proposals IMHO. There's a lot of room for disruption and a huge market opportunity in content creation.

If we can turn creative content into a commodity then we'll kill Hollywood and replace it with the people. That's what my startup is trying to do, and there are room for many others in this ecosystem. Think about it :)

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#634
post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could have made the same argument against someone who wanted to abolish serfdom.

I'm sorry but you're wrong. Because serfdom was largely destroyed by the death of feudalism. Feudalism died largely because it couldn't compete with societies that were adopting open trade policies around the ideas of Smith's Wealth of Nations. That's important. Because the Wealth of Nations was an alternate philosophy. It was a way that everyone's life got better. You're looking to tear down something without sugges…

"You're looking to tear down something without suggesting something else to take its place. In fact if you succeed what you'll have done is to shift more wealth to people who are already wealthy (by societies standards). You will have destroyed a system paying thousands of people $30,000 in favor of a startup that pays hundreds of people $150,000 a year."

Tom, I'm sorry that this has just become apparent to you, but this has been the very purpose of a startup since the term was coined. Best case scenario for a startup is to spark a totally new niche and find a totally new audience, but this is rare. Most startups just end up replacing brick and mortar businesses of old and eating their paying customer base. This is economics at its finest, and most definitely leads to a poor outcome for the businesses which are cannibalized.

Labeling people as "good" and "bad" is a futile exercise. Capitalism is a mad scramble to extract wealth from everyone else as fast as possible, with whatever means necessary. To do this lawfully, you usually need to provide some value to paying customers. However, many businesses do it by simply convincing customers that they are receiving value, and do very well (e.g. Zynga).

From the tone of your article, it appears you have just understood that this system will lead to severe wealth inequality spanning orders of magnitude. This is again, a perfectly well understood outcome of the system. The societal and moral ramifications have been largely ignored due to the imbalance of power between owners of capital and those without. Thus, to have a say in the game, one must play it, and become very successful (i.e. a billionaire). In the process of becoming a billionaire, you will find that your views on this matter will change very rapidly in tandem with your net worth. Before you know it, you are advocating for less capital gains tax, more free trade and reduced government. You will see those Occupy Wall St. protesters as pathetic hooligans and low lives, who simply lack the motivation and willpower to make something of themselves. You will petition congress to protect your business interests, and pay handsomely to do so. You will support politicians who maintain order and those who crack down fiercely on all forms of business which are in direct competition to your own. If you are a film industry exec, you will lobby very hard (with SOPA and PIPA, perhaps) against new distribution channels such as Megavideo, Piratebay, etc. which give content away without due royalties. You will be apathetic to anyone who does not understand how this world works, particularly those with low or no net worth who have no say in these important decisions.

Welcome to the game of life. There are very few winners, and most people are losers. The only salvation for the losers is ignorance; to understand the game is to hate it. There is only one other way...play, and win.

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#635
post #382
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There are many reasons why it feels good, many of which have nothing to do with sex. For example, creating things asserts one's existence and, by feeling alive, one is able to avoid thinking about your own mortality, if even for a moment. Having another person acknowledge your creativity or your work has all kinds of positive effects not having to do with sex. People trying to shoehorn motives into sex (or tangential…

I think there's a bit of confusion about what we're talking about when we say "sex." I'm not talking about the conscious desire to have sex. When I talk about sex, I'm talking about sexual selection which is the competition between members of the same species for sexual partners over many generations.

I'm not talking about the conscious motives of individual artists. Their conscious motives for creating art may be to "assert [their] existence," as you say.

I would argue that all of our physical and mental traits have arisen from the process of natural and sexual selection. If you accept that, you can also accept that over the generations, we have evolved the ability to be artistic, in many different ways. An individual who has inherited the ability to create good art, and does so, may not (and probably is not) creating art with the conscious goal of using it to attract sexual partners. However, if individuals of the opposite sex do find this ability (or side effects of this ability) attractive, they will be more likely to mate with the artistic individual, perpetuating the artistic genes. This is how I see art coming about because of sexual selection.

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#636
post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You balk at DSLRs but (whilst not the go-to option) they are increasingly being used by the industry. This[1] is an article just about the use of cannon's 5d mkII. You can add Slumdog Millionaire and 127 hours to this list. If it's good enough for an oscar winner? 1. http://canon5d.wonderhowto.com/blog/canons-5d-mark-ii-invade...

Those were just reference images for the lookdev and environment mapping (at least in Iron Man) or set background plates in the compositor - feature films are generally recorded at 2K (2048x1556) or (these days moving to) 4K (4096x3112), DSLRs aren't capable of that resolution for movies.

That's not always the case, scenes of Slumdog millionaire (in the streets) were filmed purely with DSLR, same for the subway scenes of Black Swan. Not a feature film but the entire season 6 finale of House was exclusively shot on a 5D mkII, and a couple of small BBC series have been.

I appreciate that of course 'proper' digital cinema cameras are better, but this shows that DSLRs are very much competent, and they are only going to get better.

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#637
post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not talking about natural selection, I'm talking about sexual selection, which is a completely different animal. Sexual selection leads to really bizarre adaptations, like male peacock tails and mating dances that seem maladaptive in the context of natural selection. Natural selection is about finding enough food to live long enough to mate. Sexual selection is about competing within the same species for mates. B…

Sexual selection also requires reproduction. Whatever way one sees it, the data doesn't support the view that nature selects for creativity.

Homosexuals also have eyes. Does this mean that nature doesn't select for eyes?

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#638
post #413

I believe that the first step is to shrink the role of the middlemen by enabling content creators to distribute and market their content effectively online. In fact, the internet has provided a great way to do just that (it is the perfect distribution and marketing channel)! All of us are constantly sharing and reproducing the content and this helps expose users with all sorts of content. Now if there is a startup wh…

Check out Feed-Forward.net, I'm the founder and CEO I think you'll like what we're doing, given your interests.

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#639
post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This post nails it. You're talking about disrupting two things, neither of which are entertainment: distribution of finished goods (external), and the system within that's been in place since the fall of the studio system in the '60s (internal). Neither of these things have that much to do with entertainment. Technology has made being a filmmaker far, far cheaper than it used to be even in the heyday of indie film in…

Don't forget the infamous Film Actors Guild.

You need to be in the content, distribution, marketing/PR, talent (writing, acting, tc.) business to kill Hollywood. Thn You need to have billions to pay movie stars, scripts, movie rights, distribution, marketing, crew, equipments, etc. you need to have distribution, marketing,etc. muscle worldwide. Then you need to deal with agents, publicists, cast, crew, writers, etc. unions.

You can disrupt technology, but its hard to disrupt content (there are exception ofcourse (3D, IMAX, Pixar,etc.)

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