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Hollywood is on strike because CEOs fell for Silicon Valley’s magical thinking

latimes.com

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Re: Hollywood is on strike because CEOs fell for Silicon Valley’s magical thinking

#161

Post by enterprise_cog »

WalterBright wrote: post #80
theptip wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression was that Netflix came along with up-front pay packages because taking a residual-heavy deal was not attractive back when streaming was unknown. No mustache-twirling required, just a business model that made sense then and is no longer equitable. The other point is that extras are getting full-body 3D scanned for a day’s pay, licensed in perpetuity. That is an existential threat to the profession; no act…

If Hollywood wants to full body scan me so my likeness becomes famous forever, I'm all for it. Fly me down, give me a day pass to Disneyland, and I'm good.

No one wants to see you, so this is a meaningless statement.

Re: Hollywood is on strike because CEOs fell for Silicon Valley’s magical thinking

#162

Post by WalterBright »

enterprise_cog wrote: post #161
WalterBright wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Hollywood wants to full body scan me so my likeness becomes famous forever, I'm all for it. Fly me down, give me a day pass to Disneyland, and I'm good.

No one wants to see you, so this is a meaningless statement.

Extras are ordinary looking people, too. The director probably doesn't want them to outshine the stars.

Re: Hollywood is on strike because CEOs fell for Silicon Valley’s magical thinking

#163

Post by johnnyanmac »

taeric wrote: post #5

I support the strikes and hope it comes to a good conclusion; but this feels a touch forced, honestly. I get that it is in vogue to blame silicon valley, but hollywood has a littered history of killing their goose, as it were. For fun, consider that if netflix had stuck to the DVD model, they could still be profitable. You don't need a special license to buy a dvd and rent it out to anyone. Just as you don't need a s…

I didn't read the article that way. I think that SV is simply the current catalyst of tech being used to try and justify decreases in quality and/or number for labor. Hollywood seems to either be huffing the same AI fumes or at least want people to believe they have for this iteration.

I guess we'll see how the dust settles

Re: Hollywood is on strike because CEOs fell for Silicon Valley’s magical thinking

#164

Post by johnnyanmac »

phpisthebest wrote: post #152
contravariant wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currency is the lifeblood of the system known as a state, what exactly would you consider an alternative? Surely you're not suggesting a gold standard would solve the issue?

>>Currency is the lifeblood of the system known as a state, Correct, which is the primary reason I oppose it. I consider the state to be part of the problem with human society >>what exactly would you consider an alternative? I dont proscribe a single "alternative" nor do I believe an single alternative should be mandated by a state, nor do I believe it is the proper role of a state to control the medium of exchange

So you're just blaming a Complex and ingrained societal concept without offering a better model(s)? It's fun to do it with small tech projects but world commerce probably needs a bit more thought considered before attacking it.

Re: Hollywood is on strike because CEOs fell for Silicon Valley’s magical thinking

#165

Post by johnnyanmac »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #16

"The boom times are over. Executives know it. Wall Street knows it. And the story that we're in a revolutionary moment of technological transformation will run out of gas soon." "Wildly profitable tech companies are citing an as-yet notional recession to make deep workforce cuts. They may have another agenda."

Are we doubting in a tech oriented community that software had a big boom during the pandemic and that we're returning to industry norms post pandemic? You'd think the near daily large tech layoffs would clue one into the situation.

Re: Hollywood is on strike because CEOs fell for Silicon Valley’s magical thinking

#166

Post by johnnyanmac »

pcurve wrote: post #32

The amount of money plowed into creating new content that nobody watch is the hollywood equivalent of the Bridge to Nowhere project, except on the private investors' back. The volume of content that has been made in the past few decades is enough to keep the entire world occupied for probably the next couple decades. Human attention is a finite resource and it directly correates to and puts a ceiling on how much the…

Attention is a finite resource but Hollywood has traditionally been very good at grabbing that.

Re: Hollywood is on strike because CEOs fell for Silicon Valley’s magical thinking

#167

Post by johnnyanmac »

nine_zeros wrote: post #31

Time for SV to go on strike too. Far too many companies have promised far too much to investors. Now that it's harder to get the same meteoric growth, they are resorting to squeezing workers, RTO mandates and general hand flailing at the expense of employees.

At least SV compensates well. Sure you get laid off in 3 years but the gravy train was pretty good in the meantime.

Hollywood, not so much if you're not an A list actor.

Re: Hollywood is on strike because CEOs fell for Silicon Valley’s magical thinking

#168

Post by johnnyanmac »

dehrmann wrote: post #92
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #59

It's worth noting most of this article is spelled out by Adam Conover, the ex-CollegeHumor star of Adam Ruins Everything. Generally speaking, the man does his research.

> These companies blew up a successful business model that the public enjoyed, that was immensely profitable, and they replaced it with a mishmash that we have now They were only "immensely profitable" because they were in an oligopoly with 4.5 players. Netflix disrupted that, and then it was a race to the bottom. Saying the "public enjoyed" network TV is a bit of a stretch, too. For the most part, it was just adequa…

>Saying the "public enjoyed" network TV is a bit of a stretch, too.

They may not have profited as much as they would have from cable, but the number of viewers seems to speak for itself. I know they aren't the HN audience but surely we can see wider than that.

Re: Hollywood is on strike because CEOs fell for Silicon Valley’s magical thinking

#169

Post by johnnyanmac »

chris11 wrote: post #109
taeric wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extras have always gotten basically nothing, though? Quite often extras are "allowed to stand around" for filming of a scene that doesn't have a star in it for the chance of being on the big screen. Or is that no longer the case?

It's not just extras. Jet Li turned down The Matrix Reloaded because they were requiring that he also sell the rights to the martial arts moves used.

What? How does that work? Did Jet Li actually invent some techniques? Can you copyright martial art to begin with? Does Hollywood sue some kid if they do a flying drop kick on the playground?

Re: Hollywood is on strike because CEOs fell for Silicon Valley’s magical thinking

#170

Post by slowmovintarget »

WalterBright wrote: post #157
slowmovintarget wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what on earth you're talking about. I'm talking about how billionaires like Bob Iger are essentially trying to squeeze "labor" to extract more profits, which is what Wall Street did to the newspapers, to radio, to television, the music industry... We're getting ever crappier products in nearly every consumer category, because short term profits for shareholders are prioritized over the long term viabilit…

> I don't know what on earth you're talking about. I'm talking about your statement: "Maximum profit extraction, the kind of product is irrelevant, as are the customers" The Soviet movies were not about profit at all. Why didn't they make better movies than Hollywood? > We're getting ever crappier products in nearly every consumer category, because short term profits for shareholders are prioritized over the long ter…

Proctor & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, and any company that sells appliances made in China these days.

I don't short stocks, requires way too much attention.

> The Soviet movies were not about profit at all. Why didn't they make better movies than Hollywood?

Because they were propaganda, which is a lot of what Hollywood has been producing. Since it's failing, the execs are moving to squeeze out writers and actors rather than make better product.

You read an awful lot into me being against ruthlessness in business. I'm not in favor of communism; it's been dangerous and a colossal failure everywhere it's been implemented.

I am saying that today's Hollywood execs don't understand story, don't understand viewers, and don't care to build that kind of understanding. They only think in terms of knobs they can turn to get more money pouring in: "X marketing dollars yields Y revenue... Hmm... why didn't that work. Looks like we need to lower wages."

I'm kind of echoing what David Simon (creator of The Wire) is talking about here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C0c8rzOlUA

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