Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood. • Hacker News Board

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#251

Post by marquis » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 2:02 AM UTC

lukeschlather wrote: post #208

marquis wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many artists steer clean of Amazon because it is trying to democratize art through crowdsourced development. Can you imagine what would have happened to Blade Runner if Ridley Scott had even less control on the final cut?

Can you imagine what the complete works of Shakespeare would look like if he were responsible for releasing any of the folios we use today? The whole idea of being absolutely loyal to the artist's intent is a cultural idea that has come in and out of vogue, but is largely an artifact of 20th century America. Really, art has always been crowdsourced in some sense or another, and any work of art is in some sense an ama…

Sure, crowdsourced over time (the bible..). But what is wrong with wanting to understand the author's original intent? There is plenty of time over the next hundreds of years for the work to be re-interpreted.

Didn't some of our greatest open-source tools start from a single source before being disseminated among us to evolve?

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#252

Post by cop359 » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 2:03 AM UTC

marshray wrote: post #212

jamesgatz wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love FFC. I'm a current UCLA film student - Coppola's alma mater. One thing to think about: UCLA has always been the "indy, intellectual" film school. It's our rep, internally and (to an extent) externally. When Coppola left UCLA to work in Hollywood, he was branded a sell-out by his fellow students. One thing to think about w/ this whole "crush Hollywood" thing is this: most of your favorite movies (assuming you'v…

There would be no Godfather without Hollywood. No Apocalypse Now. (also no Taxi Driver, no Star Wars, no Indiana Jones, no MASH or Nashville) So what have they done lately? I think you're proving the point. They're an empty shell of their former greatness and should be put out of their misery to make room for whatever great thing is to come next.

All the animated movies; some of which I think are absolutely great, would not have happened.

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#253

Post by whatusername » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 2:06 AM UTC

zerostar07 wrote: post #167

ender7 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, but you have to understand that there is a phenomenal amount of talent locked up in Hollywood. I'm not necessarily talking about directors or actors, but camera men, DPs, best boys, set dressers...the list goes on and on. These people have skills that require many, many years of on-site training. (Don't forget about producers, line producers, production managers, site scouts, and all of the logistics pe…

Question: Mega-productions like avatar rely mostly on special effects than storytelling. Are people still impressed by special effects and stunts? Aren't video games becoming more impressive to look at than movies? As a result, are these technical skills becoming less important?

Don't forget: Video Games face the same problems that Hollywood does. And games like Skyrim are starting to have pretty massive development budgets.

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#254

Post by derekp7 » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 2:07 AM UTC

reinhardt wrote: post #115

malkia wrote: post #35

Here is what Francis Ford Coppola has to say on the matter: http://the99percent.com/articles/6973/Francis-Ford-Coppola-O... "We have to be very clever about those things. You have to remember that it’s only a few hundred years, if that much, that artists are working with money. Artists never got money. Artists had a patron, either the leader of the state or the duke of Weimar or somewhere, or the church, the pope. Or…

I find this opinion more honest and convincing than the "it's not stealing if you both get to keep a copy" argument. The latter fails to account for the time, money, effort, inspiration, talent required to create the original work that is subsequently copied millions of times. When the issue of how are artists supposed to make a living in an copyright-less, free-filesharing world is brought up, proponents come up wit…

My general retort to "it's not stealing", is that it is theft of service. Say you went to get a hair cut, and didn't pay for it. That would be stealing the service. Same applies if the provider of a service splits the purchase among multiple buyers (like an actor in a play, performing for a 1000-seat audience). Anyone that snuck into the theater would be stealing the service. So by extent, the same should apply to the larger case of produced works (single creator, multiple customers splitting the cost).

On the flip side, it doesn't necessarily follow that every one who enjoys the benefits from a created work actually owes the creator anything. Like if you are listening to a CD at a friends house -- does every one in the room then own the artist? Or anyone who admires public architecture. So historically, it has come down to that if there is money to be made off of a created work, it is the original artist that should benefit from it (in the case of publishing books, music, etc). That model works (morally) as long as producing copies of a work requires enough capital investment & individual unit costs so that the publisher is almost guaranteed to need to turn a profit off of each unit -- some of that profit should go to the creator. But that model breaks down when you have zero cost / no profit sharing between individuals. Now we are back to the pre-publishing era again.

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#255

Post by Samuel_Michon » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 2:07 AM UTC

marshray wrote: post #212

jamesgatz wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love FFC. I'm a current UCLA film student - Coppola's alma mater. One thing to think about: UCLA has always been the "indy, intellectual" film school. It's our rep, internally and (to an extent) externally. When Coppola left UCLA to work in Hollywood, he was branded a sell-out by his fellow students. One thing to think about w/ this whole "crush Hollywood" thing is this: most of your favorite movies (assuming you'v…

There would be no Godfather without Hollywood. No Apocalypse Now. (also no Taxi Driver, no Star Wars, no Indiana Jones, no MASH or Nashville) So what have they done lately? I think you're proving the point. They're an empty shell of their former greatness and should be put out of their misery to make room for whatever great thing is to come next.

"So what have they done lately?"

Not even counting foreign films, here are some darn good productions from the past five years:

Midnight in Paris, Hugo, Drive, Warrior, Black Swan, Inception, Inglourious Basterds, Up, Whatever Works, The Limits of Control, The Dark Knight, WALL-E, Gran Torino, The Wrestler, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Into the Wild, Ratatouille, The Departed, and The Prestige.

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#256

Post by whatusername » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 2:08 AM UTC

cop359 wrote: post #252

marshray wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There would be no Godfather without Hollywood. No Apocalypse Now. (also no Taxi Driver, no Star Wars, no Indiana Jones, no MASH or Nashville) So what have they done lately? I think you're proving the point. They're an empty shell of their former greatness and should be put out of their misery to make room for whatever great thing is to come next.

All the animated movies; some of which I think are absolutely great, would not have happened.

Does Pixar count as Hollywood? I guess it does -- but it feels somehow separate.

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#257

Post by JamesLeonis » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 2:09 AM UTC

jamesgatz wrote: post #117

malkia wrote: post #35

Here is what Francis Ford Coppola has to say on the matter: http://the99percent.com/articles/6973/Francis-Ford-Coppola-O... "We have to be very clever about those things. You have to remember that it’s only a few hundred years, if that much, that artists are working with money. Artists never got money. Artists had a patron, either the leader of the state or the duke of Weimar or somewhere, or the church, the pope. Or…

I love FFC. I'm a current UCLA film student - Coppola's alma mater. One thing to think about: UCLA has always been the "indy, intellectual" film school. It's our rep, internally and (to an extent) externally. When Coppola left UCLA to work in Hollywood, he was branded a sell-out by his fellow students. One thing to think about w/ this whole "crush Hollywood" thing is this: most of your favorite movies (assuming you'v…

I believe the problem isn't the existence of Hollywood, but that too much power is centralized in the hands of too few. Competition within the city can be likened to a Duopoly; competition in name, but far from it in practice.

I remember reading about how the RIAA companies engineer their licensing contracts in a way that forces maximum payoffs [1], and I wouldn't be surprised to find those problems in Hollywood as well.

[1]: http://gigaom.com/2011/12/11/why-spotify-can-never-be-profit...

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#258

Post by wavetossed » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 2:09 AM UTC

Here is a free idea that I tried to get implemented in another country while working for a telecom company that was branching into TV services over their DSL connections.

Simply build a site like YouTube with lots of content to view. But unlike YouTube, this site would be pay per view and 100% of the content would be provided by teams of content creators. No backroom licencing deals.

The end user pays a fixed monthly fee for what they watch. After you watch a show, you must rate it before you get to watch another. That means 100% of viewings are rated. At the end of the month all the shows are ranked according to the ratings, and the portion of the monthly fee that goes to content creators, would be divided according to the rankings.

OK, maybe this is more like Netflix than YouTube. The UI is not as important as the system of acquiring and paying for content which is directly tied to viewer rankings. You would need to have a multiple factor ranking system so that cat videos with shot with a shaky video camera can rank high in entertainment value but low in quality and thus earn less. Also a longer show should earn a bigger share than a 2-minute short.

There are other types of things that would also work for this YC request, but I hope to see this as one of the ones that YC funds.

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#259

Post by wavetossed » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 2:12 AM UTC

malkia wrote: post #35

Here is what Francis Ford Coppola has to say on the matter: http://the99percent.com/articles/6973/Francis-Ford-Coppola-O... "We have to be very clever about those things. You have to remember that it’s only a few hundred years, if that much, that artists are working with money. Artists never got money. Artists had a patron, either the leader of the state or the duke of Weimar or somewhere, or the church, the pope. Or…

That is because the distribution channel is skimming all the profits. If YC'ers made a new distribution system for content creators it would start with young people fresh from film school doing all the work. But after that takes off you will see the Coppola's of the world doing the math, and shifting their allegiances away from the studios and towards the new world.

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#260

Post by sambeau » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 2:13 AM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #245

sambeau wrote: post #214

Here's my suggestion: Trailer Pitch This is a simple design for a site and business where filmakers can crowdsource investment. It uses a simple mechanism to sell tickets and shares in advance based on the popularity of premade movie trailers. It uses a mechanism based on ideas tried by Pinboard, Kickstarter, YouTube, Vimeo, Betfair and Louis CK. One: filmakers make compelling trailers for films they would like to be…

Who's going to return the money if it runs out before finishing the work?

Its an interesting point but one I guess may not be needed. These are real shares being sold so they must come with inherent risk. The hope would be that 1) the film already has momentum and market because it got to funding 2) the Trailer Pitch community (and investors) would be there to watch over it 3) if it can't be finished before the money runs out then some money could be returned, if not its up to the investors to pull the plug when more money is asked for (in the form of a dilution of current shares and a new funding round).