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What if Hollywood had to use tech like we have to watch movies?

aaronklein.com

91–100 of 115 posts

Re: What if Hollywood had to use tech like we have to watch movies?

#91

This is just sad, I get the impression from the comments and up votes that tech does not get Hollywood. Hollywood business only work because only Hollywood is willing to give Christopher Nolan 200+ million dollars to make Dark Knight, ditto with James Cameron's Avatar. When Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook or Yahoo decides to give a Christopher Nolan or James Cameron $200million+ to make a movie, things will be dif…

I for one think it'd be really interesting if a tech conglomerate paid for a bunch of moderate-budget movies and distributed them exclusively through YouTube or other online sources, or distributed them to cinemas but did something Google-y with admissions and tickets. If Google just took 50% of opening revenues I am sure the cinemas would be thrilled to accommodate. Hollywood would seriously wig out. That is the kin…

Like? Require all ticket purchases be done on a G+ account and before you get to the theatre. Mine the purchases for the most relevant ad from all the people who purchased tickets (80% of the G+ accounts like..., 50% like..., etc). Show the ads in stock that are most relevant and also re-sell the ticket stats back to the advertisers. Offer a discount on your next ticket purchase if you blog/comment/review the movie (and feed that back into your G+ data-mine profile).

Feedback to advertisers will increase relevant ad pool to make better matches from ticket purchases. Advertisers get more data to target their ads to a better audience. G+ profile gets more data for profiling. Win win win. ;)

Re: What if Hollywood had to use tech like we have to watch movies?

#92

This is just sad, I get the impression from the comments and up votes that tech does not get Hollywood. Hollywood business only work because only Hollywood is willing to give Christopher Nolan 200+ million dollars to make Dark Knight, ditto with James Cameron's Avatar. When Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook or Yahoo decides to give a Christopher Nolan or James Cameron $200million+ to make a movie, things will be dif…

>This is just sad, I get the impression from the comments and up votes that tech does not get Hollywood. Hollywood business only work because only Hollywood is willing to give Christopher Nolan 200+ million dollars to make Dark Knight, ditto with James Cameron's Avatar. Your comment is somewhat ridiculous because these examples are not risks. Christopher Nolan was well known before Batman Begins in writing Memento. J…

I never said anything about risk, I said willing. The tech world giants so far has not been willing to produce a Hollywood type blockbuster film. I think it is a matter of will not risk.

Re: What if Hollywood had to use tech like we have to watch movies?

#93
It's mind boggling that people treat being able to consume (fettered or not) media as a god-given right. The suggestion here is that our best option is to 'be terrible' to old media until they understand what it's like to be treated poorly?

You want to know how to fix things?

Stop buying what they sell.

Re: What if Hollywood had to use tech like we have to watch movies?

#94

I love this article for its irony, intentional or no. The author cites perfect examples of why the software industry is exactly like Hollywood with its products. Word? Need a license key. Can't open or save ODT files without annoying popups. Apple? Don't even try to partition the system or it will break, and don't use the software on non-Apple hardware. Certainly don't try jailbreaking it. Google? Can we talk about p…

"Certainly don't try jailbreaking it. Google? Can we talk about privacy policies?"

Could you explain that? I've been jailbreaking for, maybe five years now, and it's very easy. And I think Google's new privacy policies are an improvement over the old.

Maybe that's your point, but I'm not sure what you're getting at.

Re: What if Hollywood had to use tech like we have to watch movies?

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silicon Valley doesn't have to take on Hollywood head-on. That's almost always the wrong strategy to try to beat an incumbent. The way you beat an incumbent leader is by changing the rules of the games so it's very hard for that company to play that new game, whether it's because they lack the competency or because the have internal conflicts of interest for doing that (think of the TV networks not really wanting to…

Significantly, tech already has. How often do we hear numbers quoted that the gaming industry now grosses more than films? Displacing the influence of the old leader in the community mindset is certainly a known problem and one that we've seen in other sectors. But, there's no disputing it - the kids are spending their time playing games rather more than watching films, and Hollywood isn't set up to produce interacti…

What is "tech"? I think the game development world, at least big console games, is mostly closer to Hollywood than it is to the "web startup" world. Hollywood uses and develops plenty of technology too (e.g. in computer graphics) - it's silly to talk about "tech" as something cohesive.

Re: What if Hollywood had to use tech like we have to watch movies?

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blockbusters are not the only movies that get made. Let Hollywood keep Batman. In the meantime, it's not hard to imagine a new way of making and distributing Mad Men and Portlandia.

Mad Men is a big-budget TV show. Its per episode budget is north of $2 million.

Mad Men produces 13, 45-minute episodes a season. 13 hours of content for $33 million (at 2.5 million an episode.)

That's $55,000 a minute, versus $1,462,962 a minute for Avatar. An order of magnitude difference. Each minute of Avatar cost nearly as much as a small episode of Mad Men.

That's exactly the kind of feature a shrunken Hollywood, not focused on blockbuster hits, might produce.

Re: What if Hollywood had to use tech like we have to watch movies?

#97
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you seriously believe that a $200 million movie is ten times better than a $20 million movie? Or a hundred times better than a $2 million movie??

It surely takes less time to see than on hundred $2 million movies. I'd much rather watch one good movie than 10 decent ones. Not that movie budget has anything to do with quality, but still.

Exactly this. A big budget is not required for a movie to be good. Even dramatic special effects no longer need megabucks.

Good writing, good acting, good cinematography, are all pretty cheap, relatively speaking.

Re: What if Hollywood had to use tech like we have to watch movies?

#98
That article is dumb in its examples, lets consider something more realistic.

Every developer from this point onward adds a licensing clause for holywood execs - if that product is showcased during the movie a certain amount is owed to the developer at this point. Start putting it in every single app they will start making mistakes.

The other day I saw Open Office 2.0 in Girl with Dragon Tattoo - Libre office could easily add this clause.

Re: What if Hollywood had to use tech like we have to watch movies?

#99
post #98

That article is dumb in its examples, lets consider something more realistic. Every developer from this point onward adds a licensing clause for holywood execs - if that product is showcased during the movie a certain amount is owed to the developer at this point. Start putting it in every single app they will start making mistakes. The other day I saw Open Office 2.0 in Girl with Dragon Tattoo - Libre office could e…

>Libre office could easily add this clause.

That clause is incompatible with the LGPL, and Libre Office doesn't do copyright assignment, so there are many copyright holders, all of whom would have to agree to the licensing change. Not so easy.

Re: What if Hollywood had to use tech like we have to watch movies?

#100

I love this article for its irony, intentional or no. The author cites perfect examples of why the software industry is exactly like Hollywood with its products. Word? Need a license key. Can't open or save ODT files without annoying popups. Apple? Don't even try to partition the system or it will break, and don't use the software on non-Apple hardware. Certainly don't try jailbreaking it. Google? Can we talk about p…

"Certainly don't try jailbreaking it. Google? Can we talk about privacy policies?" Could you explain that? I've been jailbreaking for, maybe five years now, and it's very easy. And I think Google's new privacy policies are an improvement over the old. Maybe that's your point, but I'm not sure what you're getting at.

Well, the Google privacy policies have been consolidated, which means less piecewise freedom for people who use one or two Google products. I, for example, use Mail and (barely) use Search. I don't need to agree to things about Google+!

And jailbreaking Apple devices, while possible and, in some cases, easy, has never been encouraged by or even considered by Apple. In order to jailbreak, you have to find exploits in the software. This is opposed to free software, where you are able to do anything you want with the phone's software from the start--no exploits, no jailbreaking, just freedom.

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