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How Hollywood stopped making movies in Hollywood

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Re: How Hollywood stopped making movies in Hollywood

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost every time I see a Canadian character actor I guarantee the film or show was shot there. Shows like X-Files, BSG reboot, The Expanse.. all loaded with Canadian actors

Most of the Stargate series were filmed in Canada too. If you pay attention you'll realise the planets they visit all look like Canadian forest, or an old quarry filming location.

Makes me want to move to BC :D

Re: How Hollywood stopped making movies in Hollywood

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to this article about 1/3rd as many movies are made in LA since the 90s. They were only making 30% of films in LA in the 90s so your experience still matches with the data but having 2/3rds of the local film production move elsewhere is significant.

Before the 1990s CGI did not exist yet. You really had to film stuff outside.

Seriously? Up to a certain point filming in studios and backlots was pretty much the norm.

Re: How Hollywood stopped making movies in Hollywood

#173

To be fair: the quality of movies produced by Hollywood has gone rapidly downhill already in the 1990s. You only need to compare the movies Quentin Tarantino makes; now personally I think Pulp Fiction is still by far his best work, but I concede that the movies he created lateron were above average (though I would not go as far as many others, who'd rate these in the 8 to 10 point ranges; I'd go more between 6 to 7 o…

Investment-driven development. When it's no longer about creating something compelling, but about convincing the investors that banking the production means a fairly safe ROI, you stop getting creative works by auteurs and you start getting sequels, remakes, and low-stake, inoffensive, mediocre, forgettable, bland sludge. At the upper end, investors give directors checklists and guidelines to limit their authorial vo…

I think discovery via streaming services also contributes to bland sludge. Decisions are made based on a name, category, maybe an actor and a single "cover" art image.

Re: How Hollywood stopped making movies in Hollywood

#174
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…

> Nolan could have shot it on anything he wanted, and he chose the less convenient way, because that is his process.

Kinda. There are also interesting technical reasons. From my lay person understanding:

  1. IMAX film is physically larger and creates a higher quality image
  2. Because of the size and machine noise close up dialog is normally redubbed.
  3. Nolan (and team?) came up with a method of sealing off the cameras' noise that made them even larger, so they had a system of mirrors that allowed the actors to interact in a more natural way and allowed close in capture by IMAX with integrated sound.
The system of mirrors reminds me of Errol Morris' Interrotron which allowed him to film an interviewee's face directly from the perspective of the interviewer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interrotron

Re: How Hollywood stopped making movies in Hollywood

#175
Tangential to this, I worked in Hollywood for a while. The studio I worked at had a gaggle of unpaid interns. There was a mix of normal kids and the sons/daughters of prominent Hollywood execs.

I would agree, in many respects, that unpaid internships are glorified daycare. It isn't like a tech internship. No one gets a project to own. The reason these roles existed at all was because it didn't cost anything. Paying them would've required justifying the cost, and there was no way to justify these kids.

I'd say interns were productive maybe 15% of the time. They just hung out and if you needed something done you didn't want to do, you could pull one to do it. Usually physical tasks (track down a wig) or internet research. Yes, they'd occassionally do coffee/lunch runs.

In my experience, I found the nepo babies to be the least entitled workers. They never balked at what you asked them to do, and understood the assignment quickly. They had a great attitude. They often went beyond what you asked. By contrast, other interns usually had some kind of attitude about it or required way more hand holding. I was pretty surprised; common wisdom would lead you to expect the opposite.

I looked them up recently, and many of them are doing small film stuff shooting in LA.

Re: How Hollywood stopped making movies in Hollywood

#176
> Perhaps I have gone to great lengths to prove something studio executives already know: the average viewer is not scrutinizing every frame for telltale glimpses of the Toronto skyline.

Or you know, even knows what the toronto skyline looks like.

I used to live in vancouver, tons of films are shot there. Unless they are pointing the camera at a famous landmark, i probably can't tell. If anything the forest is more of a give away then the city (if it looks like an alien planet in star trek ToS, then its LA. If it looks like an alien planet in stargate then its vancouver)

Re: How Hollywood stopped making movies in Hollywood

#177
post #27

An interesting read but also feels like the rearranging of the deckchairs on the Titanic given the forthcoming disruption from generative AI in this industry. I spent some time last month with a relative in the industry (camera operator and producer) and he already uses some very sophisticated AI to map out scenes and shots in gen ai full video before they shoot IRL. It's mostly a cost saving exercise as well as occa…

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…

>the results can't be copyrighted

Remains to be seen. If you read the full thing from the copyright office they left a massive window open for anything with significant human involvement.

Re: How Hollywood stopped making movies in Hollywood

#178
post #174

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…

> Nolan could have shot it on anything he wanted, and he chose the less convenient way, because that is his process. Kinda. There are also interesting technical reasons. From my lay person understanding: 1. IMAX film is physically larger and creates a higher quality image 2. Because of the size and machine noise close up dialog is normally redubbed. 3. Nolan (and team?) came up with a method of sealing off the camera…

I swear I watched a 1930s hollywood film where a guy died inside the box they built to soundproof the camera.

Re: How Hollywood stopped making movies in Hollywood

#179

With a very few exceptions, I don’t watch anything made past 2016. Not sure what happened in Hollywood then, but it’s just seems that they are constantly making some sort of public service messages that they need to pay me to watch. Not the other way around. That goes even if I agree with some of the messages.

It was Netflix. Only the most milquetoast pablum gets made over there and it’s all shot with the same cameras and settings and it all looks the same and every idea is ripped from either an HBO show if it’s a series, or an older film if it’s a film. They sprayed Marvel content everywhere to my dismay, I can’t think of a less interesting universe or setting than “gritty version of reality except with superheroes”. Netflix hasn’t made a single TV show or film worth watching.

It really killed filmmaking, I’ve only seen ~5 movies released since 2016: Parasite, Backrooms, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Get Out, Don’t Look Up. I watch plenty of movies, there are more great movies from the 1940s to 2010s than I’ll ever have time to watch. I hope interesting movies start being made again.

Hollywood also went into sequel overdrive and released very few original properties and milked X-men, Harry Potter, Star Wars, etc. That didn’t help.

Re: How Hollywood stopped making movies in Hollywood

#180
post #27

An interesting read but also feels like the rearranging of the deckchairs on the Titanic given the forthcoming disruption from generative AI in this industry. I spent some time last month with a relative in the industry (camera operator and producer) and he already uses some very sophisticated AI to map out scenes and shots in gen ai full video before they shoot IRL. It's mostly a cost saving exercise as well as occa…

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…

>Also... Actors aren't hired based on acting skill. AI can't replace the notoriety part of why studios hire actors.

This.

The reason Tom Holland and Matt Damon are in a Greek myth film is because they put bums in seats and give Nolan extra money to work with.

And AI lookalikes arent a guaranteed success either. Robert Bronzi hasn't been able to revive interest in Charles Bronson.

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