Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

This is a meme that comes up every few years like clockwork. Unfortunately, this one, like others before it, just shows how little people know about Hollywood. I guess it doesn't matter, as it makes for great link-bait. So maybe they know more than they let on, but dumb it down to "mean" people and "dying" industry. Yet, if that were the case, no one would want to take it over. The industry is, however, closer to a zero sum game than not. Offers to be a "partner" are offers to "take" some of the revenue.

There are two "modes" of entertainment (I am not counting learning or socializing, which are separate): "games" and "story-telling". I've pitched ideas on a cross-over between the two (over ten years ago), but really the two are very different, right down to how the brain behaves in each mode. Music is interesting because it doesn't take our full attention -- it would interesting to see other entertainment that had that same quality.

But anyhow, that doesn't mean that there aren't opportunities in the space, or opportunities for other ways to spend our time.

Take music, for example. Drive a brand that curates indie music, and let people invest in the bands (real money), drive that band to their friends, and eventually take a token of their success some day (a 360 deal, not just records, but everything including merchandizing, live performances, etc -- that way each band can determine the best mix, which may be all album sales or free music distribution). Early fans have skin in the game, bands that pick up fans get money to accelerate their reach, and everyone can have fun in the process since they are all partners.

And as far as time, think of teenagers and college students (and 20 somethings), hormonally driven to socialize. It was a huge catalyst for AOL (chat rooms), Friendster/MySpace/HotOrNot/Facebook, etc. Later in life there are children, and the need for everything to be all about them, understand them, get away from them. But competition for time is such an open thing, that it seems out of scope unless it is a form of entertainment, even if it is entertaining, like sex.

It would be nice to get people to vote on movie selections so a theatre could get it and show it knowing that there is an audience. I'd love to see "Go!" again. There is a business idea for you.

So instead of "killing Hollywood", I'm going to see Rocky Horror Picture Show in PacHeights next weekend. It is not an iSomething, it is not virtual, it means real warm bodies and a preset schedule. See ya there!

1) Find innovative ways to reduce production costs. Production is expensive. Unimaginably so. This can be things like: a) Redesign physical set equipment. Ex: Set lights are expensive; a single light can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Design a new light that takes advantage of modern LEDs or something, or that can be deconstructed to serve multiple lighting functions (beyond what exists today). b) Design automation to replace physical support crew on the set. Payroll is an enormous cost. Ex: Invent a tracking system that would make the boom mic not require a person to physically move it around to follow the actors. Yes, mechanization would eliminate jobs - such is the nature of creative destruction. c) Innovation in use of set design and photography to make things look much more expensive than they are. A shining example of this was how Orson Welles shot Citizen Kane. Another example is what Spielberg did with the nonfunctional shark in Jaws. For those two, you're probably going to have to check out a book to learn how they did it. And more recently the impressive-looking but cheap sets and photography in Underworld (2003). These directors did unbelievably good things with constraints. Find a way to systemize this. To study what could be made cheaper, look at films that cost way too much, and see how each shot could've been cut down to bare bones - the absolute minimum dollar amount required to make the exact same look and effect.

The most choking example of waste I've ever personally witnessed was on the set of Van Helsing (2004) in Prague. The entirety of Old Town Square was cleared, about a hundred security held people out around the perimeter, and giant cranes and lights lit a scene of Hugh Jackman leaping in the air. What was the end product that appeared in the movie, you ask? A two-second shot of Jackman leaping in the air above some cobblestone. The whole thing could've been accomplished on a 10' by 10' mockup of cobblestone in a studio, or a cobblestone street somewhere cheaper to rent the entirety of than the Old Town Square of Prague.

2) As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, marketing costs are gargantuan. You have to get eyeballs on your enjoyable entertainment. I watch independent film. The difficulty of going into a little-known film, even one that's received some good notice, is that I generally don't know a thing about it. People enjoy trailers. Create trailers. Once production is complete, making a trailer for it is essentially free - it requires the software you used to edit the film and your own time and effort. Run strings of trailers for unknown films on IFC. Run a 30-minute block of 30 to 45 second teasers with links to the film's site, where you have the 2 1/2 minute trailer and more information. Get eyeballs on productions. Right now getting eyeballs on productions is forbiddingly expensive. Revolutionize it. Cheapen it.

I don't think innovating other entertainment will kill Hollywood any faster. You have to innovate the film industry itself. Every human culture throughout history has enjoyed watching performers enact a story, of some kind or another. Moving pictures of performers enact a story isn't going anywhere in popularity. There's a reason it's such a profitable industry. Technology has advanced to the state it's in today where moving pictures of performers enacting stories are easily viewed the world over, but I don't think you should think about changing the type of entertainment so much as the mechanics of the medium.