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Investment Firm Y Combinator Goes on Offensive Against Hollywood

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Re: Investment Firm Y Combinator Goes on Offensive Against Hollywood

#21

Post by inkaudio »

eck wrote: post #11

I am sort of surprised that pg chose movies rather than music. Movies are hard . You need a lot of things to make a movie. I liked Avatar. You can't do that kind of thing on the cheap. Actors, sites, makeup, lighting, special effects, etc. For music, you need the band, which are essentially founders from an equity standpoint, and own their own instruments already since they know how to play them. You need like $1000…

A $1000 recording won't give you great sound quality, not 24/96 K. It easy to marginalize a recording engineer until you try to record an album yourself. To get the the sound you want there are number of things you want to get right, the right equipment, the right space, mic placement, recording levels. Still not as expensive or hard as making movie, but not so easy either.

Re: Investment Firm Y Combinator Goes on Offensive Against Hollywood

#22

Post by softbuilder »

inkaudio wrote: post #10
softbuilder wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to ponder the inefficiencies of an ecosystem that supports a $200 million movie. I'm reminded of Firefly. Such a great show, with lots of loyal fans. I guess it just wasn't a big enough fan base for Fox. I thought at the time that the producers should go independent and distribute straight to the consumer. Maybe that was too risky in 2002. I don't think it would be today.

Not risky, it's just that back in 2002 there were less people watching videos online, many people still had dialup.

I was thinking DVD distribution at the time. I had used Netflix for a while by that point and could imagine subscribing to get a DVD in the mail from Joss Whedon every week.

Re: Investment Firm Y Combinator Goes on Offensive Against Hollywood

#23

Post by edge17 »

eck wrote: post #11

I am sort of surprised that pg chose movies rather than music. Movies are hard . You need a lot of things to make a movie. I liked Avatar. You can't do that kind of thing on the cheap. Actors, sites, makeup, lighting, special effects, etc. For music, you need the band, which are essentially founders from an equity standpoint, and own their own instruments already since they know how to play them. You need like $1000…

games used to cost a lot of money and used to be hard. now they cost nothing to make except your time, and you can do it in your garage.

let people have the opportunity to access the distribution channel, and they will figure the other problems out.

people in this community seem to think that they're the ones that are going to solve all the problems in an industry to move it forward.

colleges have access to expensive equipment - if students have access to quality distribution channels, they'll take time to produce high quality content.

my first company made software and hardware; we started in my dorm, used electronic equipment (scopes and power supplies and stuff), and build a product and company that made money. if I can do it with technology, someone else can do it with cameras, recording equipment.

music has itunes, software has app stores, artists/painters have the web, online retail has warehouses without floorspace (and in some cases, not even warehouses). there is absolutely no reason movies don't fit into the equation.

Re: Investment Firm Y Combinator Goes on Offensive Against Hollywood

#24

Post by ajb »

I think what we need to work on is improving the political clout of engineers, not destroying hollywood. We've won this one (I hope) but it took rather extreme measures. Blacking out wikipedia isn't something which can be done every time congress threatens to do something stupid. It's a bit like going on strike - a negative act which can turn people against us if overused. We need mechanisms which can influence politics on a day-to-day level, so we don't need to do these last-ditch operations.

Nevertheless, defeating SOPA is hugely significant, because it shows that we CAN be politically effective. Politics can operate as a kind of nonviolent intimidation: if our opponents have the reputation of being politically effective, and our group has the reputation of being politically ineffective, individuals think it's not worth their time trying to influence politics.

Take software patents. Whenever this comes up, there are always gloomy posts saying that we will never defeat the patent lobby. This perception deters everyone from trying to.

EFF does a good job. But I think more of us need to be active as individuals, on a day to day basis rather than just when the trumpet sounds like this. Suppose there was a website where you could sign a pledge which said: "I will spend 1/2 hour a week working against internet censorship". and then provided stack-overflow-like facilities whereby activists could suggest useful actions and vote on which are the best; and collect data on which arguments seemed most effective. Not only would this make us more effective, it would declare that we were a force to be reckoned with.

Anyone up for making such a website?

Re: Investment Firm Y Combinator Goes on Offensive Against Hollywood

#25

Post by molmalo »

ajhit406 wrote: post #3

What hollywood has going for it, is a track-record of executing on the operations behind producing movies that make money. People who invest in movies invest for the same reasons all of us invest in anything-- to make money. Hollywood is a business, albeit one rooted in entertainment, but let's face it-- many artists are also just in it for the money. I don't think our world view of "entertainment" is going to shift…

That's the problem. We can't aim to make $200 M movies from the start.

But I think it is pretty much possible to build a platform where we can finance a TV series like The Big Bang Theory, by charging only $1 per episode to the subscriber. Just cutting the middle man and setting a deal with a dumb pipe channel like Google (YouTube), where they can make money from ads, and paying the creators some more money... That would be only $4 a month for a series you REALLY love. [1]

And of course, the public wins A LOT, by avoiding unexpected cancellations, time slot changes, etc!

I'd definitely pay for series like Battlestar Galactica, TBBT, MacGyver (lol! how would it be today)...

And of course, if you make it GLOBAL, erasing regional restrictions, you can increase your audience at an enormous level!

I see this model as something ABSOLUTELY plausible today. Why are we still paying to the middle men?!?! Let's make this happen.

[1] http://www.tvguide.com/News/Top-TV-Earners-1021717.aspx

Re: Investment Firm Y Combinator Goes on Offensive Against Hollywood

#26

Post by nextparadigms »

ajhit406 wrote: post #3

What hollywood has going for it, is a track-record of executing on the operations behind producing movies that make money. People who invest in movies invest for the same reasons all of us invest in anything-- to make money. Hollywood is a business, albeit one rooted in entertainment, but let's face it-- many artists are also just in it for the money. I don't think our world view of "entertainment" is going to shift…

Think in a disruptive way. Actors don't have to be paid $10 million. Special effects don't have to cost tens of millions. Equipment doesn't have to cost millions either.

Make the movies the way you would build a lean start-up. And bank on innovation in the movies and scripts, rather than recycling popular content and make it very flashy.

But as I mentioned in another comment, I think to kill Hollywood you need incubators like YCombinator to seed the initial team and script, and attract young talent, and then help them find investors who would put a few millions into the movie, and also build a platform for distribution, like a Youtube for these movies, and a good business model to monetize them.

Some kind of news/community sites would help too, not only to share information about the projects, but also get feedback and build a group of "early adopters" who will evangelize your movie later.

Re: Investment Firm Y Combinator Goes on Offensive Against Hollywood

#27

Post by kooshball »

edge17 wrote: post #23
eck wrote: post #11

I am sort of surprised that pg chose movies rather than music. Movies are hard . You need a lot of things to make a movie. I liked Avatar. You can't do that kind of thing on the cheap. Actors, sites, makeup, lighting, special effects, etc. For music, you need the band, which are essentially founders from an equity standpoint, and own their own instruments already since they know how to play them. You need like $1000…

games used to cost a lot of money and used to be hard. now they cost nothing to make except your time, and you can do it in your garage. let people have the opportunity to access the distribution channel, and they will figure the other problems out. people in this community seem to think that they're the ones that are going to solve all the problems in an industry to move it forward. colleges have access to expensive…

> games used to cost a lot of money and used to be hard. now they cost nothing to make except your time, and you can do it in your garage.

Let's not go overboard here. Just because there is a growing market for indie games like Minecraft does not mean big budget productions like CoD, WoW or Skyrim is at all feasible for a single person to design, code, test, and support from a garage.

Good games are still very hard to make. They dont have to cost a lot of money but if you want to make the next WoW, you better have a big budget.

Re: Investment Firm Y Combinator Goes on Offensive Against Hollywood

#28

Post by inkaudio »

edge17 wrote: post #23
eck wrote: post #11

I am sort of surprised that pg chose movies rather than music. Movies are hard . You need a lot of things to make a movie. I liked Avatar. You can't do that kind of thing on the cheap. Actors, sites, makeup, lighting, special effects, etc. For music, you need the band, which are essentially founders from an equity standpoint, and own their own instruments already since they know how to play them. You need like $1000…

games used to cost a lot of money and used to be hard. now they cost nothing to make except your time, and you can do it in your garage. let people have the opportunity to access the distribution channel, and they will figure the other problems out. people in this community seem to think that they're the ones that are going to solve all the problems in an industry to move it forward. colleges have access to expensive…

Indie movies have itunes too. Still, just getting your game in the app store or your music or movie in itunes, doesn't mean it will sell well. Angry birds cost over $100,000[1] to make and those Modern Warfare games cost tens of millions of dollars market and produce. The big budget production typically dominate mind share in these markets.

[1] http://mobilewebgo.com/how-did-angry-birds-become-blockbuste...

Re: Investment Firm Y Combinator Goes on Offensive Against Hollywood

#29

Post by tikhonj »

inkaudio wrote: post #17
ajhit406 wrote: post #3

What hollywood has going for it, is a track-record of executing on the operations behind producing movies that make money. People who invest in movies invest for the same reasons all of us invest in anything-- to make money. Hollywood is a business, albeit one rooted in entertainment, but let's face it-- many artists are also just in it for the money. I don't think our world view of "entertainment" is going to shift…

You pretty much nailed it. YC don't understand entertainment, just like the entertainment industry refuse to understand web technology. Transformers is really an edge case, many hollywood films can be made for half of that[1]. Not your typical YC type of investment, but still doable by tech industry, after all we have tech startups like color getting 40 million for an app. The question is will the Tech industry be wi…

I think you missed a level of indirection: YC does not want to revolutionize entertainment. YC just wants to fund a company that would revolutionize entertainment. I imagine that YC is not exactly full of healthcare or education experts, but they are perfectly happy to fund companies working in those fields; this is the same.

Re: Investment Firm Y Combinator Goes on Offensive Against Hollywood

#30

Post by inkaudio »

nextparadigms wrote: post #26
ajhit406 wrote: post #3

What hollywood has going for it, is a track-record of executing on the operations behind producing movies that make money. People who invest in movies invest for the same reasons all of us invest in anything-- to make money. Hollywood is a business, albeit one rooted in entertainment, but let's face it-- many artists are also just in it for the money. I don't think our world view of "entertainment" is going to shift…

Think in a disruptive way. Actors don't have to be paid $10 million. Special effects don't have to cost tens of millions. Equipment doesn't have to cost millions either. Make the movies the way you would build a lean start-up. And bank on innovation in the movies and scripts, rather than recycling popular content and make it very flashy. But as I mentioned in another comment, I think to kill Hollywood you need incuba…

This could work, but how good is YCombinator at judging an initial team & script ? The investors YC knows and work with, invest primarily in tech not entertainment. Will the investors be willing to take risk in a different sector ? Not every great talent has a hit on his/her first or even second try.
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