Slated aims to disrupt Hollywood as the AngelList for film funding

Post by smoody » Thu, Jan 26, 2012, 5:14 PM UTC

Post by jonnathanson » Thu, Jan 26, 2012, 5:36 PM UTC

DevX101 wrote: post #20

rockarage wrote: post #7

"A good example of “Hollywood accounting” would be “Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix”, which took in $938 million in revenue, yet still produced a $167 million loss. In cases like this the distributor, Warner Bros., still makes a bundle, but the film and its backers, set up as a independent corporation, wind up in debt. How is this possible? You can get a more detailed picture in this episode of Planet Money…

If by 'film backers' you're referring to the executive producers that pay money for the movie, I highly doubt they're stupid enough to fall for hollywood accounting and actually lose money. Their fee is in that $938 million somewhere. More likely, the losses are probably for tax reasons or to screw over anyone involved in the film that signed a 'percent of net' rather than a 'percent of gross' deal. EDIT: See link be…

Post by ericd » Thu, Jan 26, 2012, 5:45 PM UTC

kthakar3 wrote: post #21

rdouble wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than emulating Stanley Kubrik, I think young people armed with 5Ds want to make music videos, comedic shorts and skateboard films... all of which have improved to an amazing degree over the past decade. I'm not so sure startups changing financing for feature films will "kill Hollywood." The preference of the newer generation to watch shorter bits of content that don't require such financing in the first place,…

I see a lot of great (spectacular in some cases) videos being posted on vimeo. Most of these are as you said, young people with 5Ds making short films. However, it is still a leap of imagination to think that people will switch to shorter content over films and TV.

Post by seizetheday » Thu, Jan 26, 2012, 5:56 PM UTC

DevX101 wrote: post #20

rockarage wrote: post #7

"A good example of “Hollywood accounting” would be “Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix”, which took in $938 million in revenue, yet still produced a $167 million loss. In cases like this the distributor, Warner Bros., still makes a bundle, but the film and its backers, set up as a independent corporation, wind up in debt. How is this possible? You can get a more detailed picture in this episode of Planet Money…

If by 'film backers' you're referring to the executive producers that pay money for the movie, I highly doubt they're stupid enough to fall for hollywood accounting and actually lose money. Their fee is in that $938 million somewhere. More likely, the losses are probably for tax reasons or to screw over anyone involved in the film that signed a 'percent of net' rather than a 'percent of gross' deal. EDIT: See link be…

Post by roc » Thu, Jan 26, 2012, 7:51 PM UTC

jonnathanson wrote: post #6

sunchild wrote: post #2

This idea has been kicking around since the late 90's. The difference is that production costs have (in theory) gone way down since then. The flip side of that is everyone with a Mac and a Canon 5D thinks he's Stanley Kubrick, so it's harder to spot real talent. Either way, it's an inevitability that the market for financing feature films and "television" series will spread horizontally as the costs keep coming down.…

"The difference is that production costs have (in theory) gone way down since then." What's actually quite interesting is that there's been a bifurcation in production costs. The physical costs of production -- equipment, editing software, distribution, and so forth -- have come down dramatically. But Hollywood's cost structure has increased in this same timeframe, because the costs of big talent have gone up. Top ac…