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Why the Film Industry Hasn't Been Disrupted Yet, Part 5
21–30 of 92 posts
Re: Why the Film Industry Hasn't Been Disrupted Yet, Part 5
#22It might help if "disrupt the film industry" would be defined. Seriously, what does that even mean? Disrupt it so "the little guy" can make movies? You can put together a feature-length movie with an iPhone, a good microphone, and free editing software. Actors might help, too. Want some snazzy vfx? You can do your own. Want your product to be seen all over the world? Thanks to the magical internet, you can have it up for sale on numerous sites. So what do we mean by "disruption"? Oh, you want people to actually see your masterpiece? That doesn't require disruption; what you're talking about is old-fashioned marketing. You need a "Paranormal Activity"-style marketing campaign (a movie, BTW, which cost $10K to make).
Chances are, though, your movie is crap (as 95% of anything is) so nobody is going to want to see it anyway.
Re: Why the Film Industry Hasn't Been Disrupted Yet, Part 5
#23One factor that I didn't see mentioned in this post or the author's previous post is the strength and influence of the union. I lived with an actress who had moderate enough success to do acting full time, have an agent, and be in the Screen Actors Guild. I was amazed at how much money she could pull in for just having a split-second role in a nationally broadcast ad, when it seems likely a company could finds hundre…
> I don't understand why people are so thrilled to pay money to see a new movie when there are so many great movies in the past few decades For me, it's HD. Old movies look... old.
It's not aesthetics for me as much as sufficiently older movies are a lot closer to stage plays in how they're filmed and storyboarded, and I generally dislike plays and musicals whatever the content is (case in point: I don't have any interest in Hamilton nor Disney movies). Then comes a lot of older movies having pacing that doesn't fit the time and mental energy commitment I am capable of making.
I can appreciate classics like Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Zhivago, and the Deer Hunter, but I generally don't have 3+ contiguous hours to do anything anymore let alone watch a movie and I feel ashamed I can't honor such works with a proper, conscious viewing either. For "pop" arthouse movies closer to something like Begotten or Valhalla Rising, the effort to get value is even worse because I am not understanding what the symbols are and it becomes more of an exercise in "let's analyze scenes!" than "let's watch a movie to stimulate our minds." Some people don't like video games for similar reasons I feel - they want passive, decision-free entertainment.
Re: Why the Film Industry Hasn't Been Disrupted Yet, Part 5
#24-
Film has shown through history that it's a robust medium. Film has already been disrupted a bunch of times through technological and cultural change. It survived the arrival of color and sound. It survived TV and videocassette. It survived all sorts of changes to its cultural and social context. It has also disrupted.
The article notes a lot of things about the film industry which have analogies with industries in other mediums. (Note the parallels with the game industry!)
Re: Why the Film Industry Hasn't Been Disrupted Yet, Part 5
#25One factor that I didn't see mentioned in this post or the author's previous post is the strength and influence of the union. I lived with an actress who had moderate enough success to do acting full time, have an agent, and be in the Screen Actors Guild. I was amazed at how much money she could pull in for just having a split-second role in a nationally broadcast ad, when it seems likely a company could finds hundre…
> John Resig seems like a great human being but that's not the main reason for jquery's dominance But if John Resig released something new that isn't jquery, and does a useful thing, it would immediately be a lot more popular than if Random Joe Programmer releases the same useful thing. Celebrity does work in the programming world as well. It's a type of distribution channel. The more eyes are on you, the more audien…
True. And in the movie industry, it's not unheard of for nobodies to become superstars (JLaw was apparently spotted by a talent scout during a NYC family vacation). But I think film has inherently bigger barriers to entry, from top to bottom. At the blockbuster level, which is where some disruptive action would have to happen before the mass media starts declaring the disruption of film, I don't see any films while skimming over Boxofficemojo [0] that aren't either part of a franchise, anchored by an A-list actor, or based on a property like Marvel or a popular book/toy.
Let's imagine that a group of immensely talented and attractive folks have a brilliant video series idea, manage to attract the technical resources and funding to bootstrap it, and it becomes a hit on YouTube. Granted, that's a fantasy scenario, because as much as YouTube has democratized video-making, it is absolutely dominated by corporate content [1].
What's more likely, that this plucky group remains on the independent path while continuing to remain popular? Or that they choose to join the club and follow the rules so that their revenue and exposure can increase by several orders of magnitude? It's not just the movie-making part of film that is entrenched, it's the distribution networks that have longstanding ways of doing business, things that occasionally piss people off here (region-locked content).
On the other side of things, there isn't much motion like there is in tech, e.g. Facebook and its open source projects. The only thing that comes to mind in entertainment (besides actors doing stints at Shakespeare in the Park) is Louis C.K. setting up his own production and distribution channel. The work is great, but it is definitely not scalable in any forseeable way [2]
[0] http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?view2=worldwide&y...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_viewed_YouTube_vi...
[2] http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/4/10918924/louis-ck-horace-an...
Re: Why the Film Industry Hasn't Been Disrupted Yet, Part 5
#26-
> most people get into cinema for love, not money
Isn't that part 4? http://endcrawl.com/blog/film-not-disrupted-yet-part-4/
Re: Why the Film Industry Hasn't Been Disrupted Yet, Part 5
#27Megan Ellison's had a pretty good stab at breaking into film financing. I don't think it's impossible as long as you have, say, a hundred million dollars at your disposal. If you don't, that's basically game over as that's what you need to finance a handful of decent indie films.
Re: Why the Film Industry Hasn't Been Disrupted Yet, Part 5
#28Always troublesome trying to balance art and commercial value in a discussion - film, music, whatever. Want to see what disruption of a formerly 'high barrier' artistic industry looks like? Photography. I'm pretty sure the ubiquity of cameras and the assists and tricks and filters that are available now have had a significant impact on the income of professional photographers. The last elephant in the room is that a…
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Re: Why the Film Industry Hasn't Been Disrupted Yet, Part 5
#29Film isn't being disrupted by new ways to make the same old film product, it is being disrupted because they time and money that used to be spent watching movies is now being spent in other ways, like watching game streams on Twitch, or YouTube personalities.
I seriously doubt Twitch and YouTube personalities have had a significant impact on movie watching. What I could believe but don't have numbers to prove is that subscription streaming TV--much of which is in serial form--is pulling audiences away from film especially given that subscription streaming movie catalogs are pretty thin.
I agree, and that matches my own behavior, but I was looking more at what kids are doing as a sign of the disruption. This is just anecdotal observation as a parent, but I see my kids and their friends spend hours a day watching YouTube and Twitch, rarely Netflix, and never broadcast/cable TV. They'll watch a movie once every couple weeks, and go to a theater a few times a year. To them Rosanna Pansino is a HUGE star, and they don't know who Steven Spielberg is.
Re: Why the Film Industry Hasn't Been Disrupted Yet, Part 5
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
> John Resig seems like a great human being but that's not the main reason for jquery's dominance But if John Resig released something new that isn't jquery, and does a useful thing, it would immediately be a lot more popular than if Random Joe Programmer releases the same useful thing. Celebrity does work in the programming world as well. It's a type of distribution channel. The more eyes are on you, the more audien…
True. And in the movie industry, it's not unheard of for nobodies to become superstars (JLaw was apparently spotted by a talent scout during a NYC family vacation). But I think film has inherently bigger barriers to entry, from top to bottom. At the blockbuster level, which is where some disruptive action would have to happen before the mass media starts declaring the disruption of film, I don't see any films while s…
Here's a counter example: Casey Neistat.
He might not be a blockbuster movie superstar, but he does have the most subscribed YouTube channel (5mio subs) and he won GQ man of the year. For doing 10min vlogs.