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How Hollywood stopped making movies in Hollywood

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Re: How Hollywood stopped making movies in Hollywood

#141

Post by EdwardDiego »

jmugan wrote: post #113

It really breaks the illusion for me when a movie is shot where it isn't set. I'm like, "What? They don't have pine trees in Austin."

I was watching a terrible movie, Wolverine, and the titular character is driving through Canada, we're told, and I found myself thinking that "huh, that bit of Canada looks a lot like New Zealand, interesting."

Then he drives across a one-way bridge, and tracking shot above the car captures the big arrow New Zealand paints on the exit lane indicating you should drive in the *left* lane (started doing this after few too many tired tourists from RHD countries reverted to habit upon leaving a one-way bridge causing a head-on collision further down the road). They could've edited the arrow out, surely.

TL;DR thought Canada in a movie looked like New Zealand, it was New Zealand.

Re: How Hollywood stopped making movies in Hollywood

#142

Post by 1-more »

expedition32 wrote: post #127
mc32 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also don’t like subsidizing sports teams. To me it doesn’t make too much sense. Yes I know fans can be pretty loyal and sometimes that team is sort of like a pet dog. They love it through highs and lows. It’s something that can provide some identity to some as well as live vicariously through them. I get it but I feel sometimes you gotta let boyhood ideas and dreams go. But hey sometimes people vote for their teams…

What is weird to me as a European is that sports teams in the US can move. Can you imagine FC Barcelona moving to Madrid?

We have funny examples a little bit like "imagine FC Barça moving to Madrid" in the US. Used for comedy (but these are all real examples) from the opening monologue of the film BASEketball

> The Minneapolis Lakers moved to Los Angeles, where there are no lakes; the [Houston] Oilers moved to Tennessee, where there is no oil. The [New Orleans] Jazz moved to Salt Lake City, where they don't allow music.

Other names like that are

- the Baltimore Colts (named for Maryland's thoroughbred racing tradition) moving to Indianapolis (more known for open wheel auto racing),

- the Vancouver Grizzlies moving to Memphis, Tennessee (which never had Grizzlies even in the post-glacial period)

- the Brooklyn (Streetcar) Dodgers moving to Los Angeles in 1958 right when the LAMTA took over the few remaining street car lines before replacing them with buses in 1963.

The closest thing I can think of in European sports, and it's a stretch, is cycling teams. I picked this teams as the first example I could think of, not because it's some egregious example:

1984–1986 Kwantum–Decosol

1987–1989 Superconfex–Yoko

1990–1992 Buckler–Colnago

1993–1994 WordPerfect

1995 Novell

1996–2012 Rabobank

2013 Blanco

2013–2014 Belkin

2015–2018 LottoNL–Jumbo

2019–2023 Jumbo–Visma

2024– Visma–Lease a Bike

via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visma%E2%80%93Lease_a_Bike_(me.... Also note that the team was newly formed from a schism in TI–Raleigh, where the other half of the riders went to Panasonic.

The parallel is that the name changes make tracking that team a real ship of Theseus problem: if the name, sponsors, riders, and staff turn over, is it worth calling it the same team? Similarly, if a football team changes cities, names, personnel, and owners, is it worth calling it the same team (Houston Oilers, Tennessee Oilers, Tennessee Titans)?

Re: How Hollywood stopped making movies in Hollywood

#143

Post by qingcharles »

wahern wrote: post #31
noja wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why though? I thought Hollywood had their own accounting rules which always meant movies made a loss. What are they paying the tax on?

Tax incentives these days include transferable tax credits. Even if your net tax rate was 0%, you can sell the credit to someone else, typically a bank. IOW, states and countries give you money, not simply give you a tax rate break.

What kind of dystopian fuckery is that?

It reminds me of the eBay market in bulk lots of used scratch-offs harvested from the trash:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2016/01/14/powerball...

Re: How Hollywood stopped making movies in Hollywood

#144

Post by robocat »

andyfilms1 wrote: post #102
montagg wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The future is probably not 100% generated, but probably a mix of generation + animation + motion capture. AI is not going to be able to replicate the deep and affecting performances you get from humans—I fully believe it can recreate some aspects of the visual arts, but no way is it going to get to the point where it will be the best of the best. It may become good enough, which is a thing and will make an impact, bu…

With a few notable exceptions (James Cameron) the film industry is largely unconcerned with "possibility." I think this is often why there is such a big misunderstanding from tech folks about how movies are made, since tech is very feature and tool driven whereas filmmaking is very much process-driven. The Odyssey was shot on IMAX cameras half the size of a car that weighed 400lbs. It's easy to call that out as being…

> half the size of a car that weighed 400lbs

Link please - saw nothing like that from a quick search

Re: How Hollywood stopped making movies in Hollywood

#145

Post by andyfilms1 »

dotBen wrote: post #125
andyfilms1 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, this is so misguided.... 1. Stagecraft/virtual production is a thing, yes, but the backgrounds are not "AI rendered," they're 3D scenes built in Unreal. They have to be, because they need to dynamically react to the camera moving to create parallax. 2. Yes, some people are using AI to plan scenes. With respect to your relative, those people are not the ones getting hired on large projects. When someone is hired…

Stagecraft is just one implementation but you don't think that the Unreal 3D worlds that are used behind it are beginning to be generated with AI? You're right that my relative probably isn't going to be at the top of the list to be hired for that work. He doesn't work in Hollywood level stuff and I also think that he knows he's going to have to fight to stay relevant and compete for the work that's available to him.…

> Stagecraft is just one implementation but you don't think that the Unreal 3D worlds that are used behind it are beginning to be generated with AI?

They are not. Source: I have run one of these LED volume studios for 4 years.

> Color management and maintaining context across multiple renders is actually the conversation we were talking about and the software that he is using has mechanisms to define context across a rendered shots and even across multiple projects. He just wasn't using them as it's an alien concept to him. My point is all of that is possible and solved and will become easier as the market matures.

These problems are solved...ACES, DRT, FDL, etc. exist, are open, and AI companies are welcome to utilize them. But for some reason, they don't (or can't.)

> I also have a friend who was significantly involved in Odyssey and I think the reason why so many films are made with film at the moment is because the industry is clinging on to what it believes is authentic when being pushed towards a commoditized race to the bottom.

The reason people are still shooting on film is because it forces you to slow down and think about every decision, because mistakes become very costly. The decision to shoot on film objectively does not make technical sense, and studios would much prefer people shoot on cheaper digital cameras. But filmmakers still use it because of the specific creative mindset it requires of you.

> The end goal of all of this is actually customized content where the film that I see and the film that you see is different because it's rendered to our tastes. There's a whole school of thought there around a collective experience versus an individual experience, but the technology will allow it if it's completely digitally created and one would assume that will be where it will go.

The end goal...for who? Totally fine if this is something you want and interests you, but unless you have a time machine, this is just speculation.

Re: How Hollywood stopped making movies in Hollywood

#146

Post by qlte »

mvkel wrote: post #88
jezzamon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people, especially left leaning and young people, are very against any AI use and especially for AI pictures or video. For them it's very cringe-worthy. So that would all need to change somehow. Remember that a lot of the people driving opinions on stuff are the artists that would be displaced by this technology. Also... Actors aren't hired based on acting skill. AI can't replace the notoriety part of why st…

Actions matter more than words. Sure, they're complaining about AI, but consuming AI content more and more. It's a bit like people who complain that everything on the news is always bad. Everyone hates it, yet it's what everyone consumes.

  > YouTube starts shoving AI generated shorts into my feed every time I login

  > Accidentally click every once in a while or out of perverse curiosity
Tech Industry logic: revealed preference shows that despite user's "legacy content preference signals" via ad partners, AI slop clickthrough has increased 500% this month, increase recommendations to 3/4 of timeline surface accordingly. Their hypocrisy has also been noted.

Re: How Hollywood stopped making movies in Hollywood

#147

Post by andyfilms1 »

robocat wrote: post #144
andyfilms1 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a few notable exceptions (James Cameron) the film industry is largely unconcerned with "possibility." I think this is often why there is such a big misunderstanding from tech folks about how movies are made, since tech is very feature and tool driven whereas filmmaking is very much process-driven. The Odyssey was shot on IMAX cameras half the size of a car that weighed 400lbs. It's easy to call that out as being…

> half the size of a car that weighed 400lbs Link please - saw nothing like that from a quick search

https://www.reddit.com/r/cinematography/comments/1p2exyx/che...

Re: How Hollywood stopped making movies in Hollywood

#149

Post by butlike »

dotBen wrote: post #125
andyfilms1 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, this is so misguided.... 1. Stagecraft/virtual production is a thing, yes, but the backgrounds are not "AI rendered," they're 3D scenes built in Unreal. They have to be, because they need to dynamically react to the camera moving to create parallax. 2. Yes, some people are using AI to plan scenes. With respect to your relative, those people are not the ones getting hired on large projects. When someone is hired…

Stagecraft is just one implementation but you don't think that the Unreal 3D worlds that are used behind it are beginning to be generated with AI? You're right that my relative probably isn't going to be at the top of the list to be hired for that work. He doesn't work in Hollywood level stuff and I also think that he knows he's going to have to fight to stay relevant and compete for the work that's available to him.…

Your last sentence there seems a little too 'high fantasy' for me. People want a shared experience. Talking about the Odyssey and saying "I liked it, but with the rom com lens" is not a unified experience. Also it kind of shits over the director's vision, which they probably won't stand for. The whole point of art is a framing of an idea. If you add these different lenses, you remove the framing; they become distinct things in and of themselves.

Re: How Hollywood stopped making movies in Hollywood

#150

Post by alephnerd »

dominotw wrote: post #71
AlexB138 wrote: post #13

The article repeatedly mentions how production moved to Atlanta due to tax incentives. Even that is a race to the bottom, as Disney moved production of Marvel movies out of Atlanta last year to the UK where they got better tax incentives. Even the undercutting cities are being undercut.

soon they will be filming in mumbai. already setup for movie making.

Much of the VFX and CGI industry is already in India.

Movies and shows like Inception, Interstellar, Ex Machina, Tenet, Dune 1&2, Odyssey, Chernobyl, Foundation, and The Last of Us were VFXed in large part by Indian companies like Prime Focus, Makuta, Phanton, and their subsidiaries.

A number of these overlap with HPC and Distributed Systems with a number of major players in the space coming out of the GPU design space like Raja Koduri (AMD, Apple, Intel). Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Apple, and others having dedicated GPU design teams in India since the early 2000s also helped.

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