Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood. • Hacker News Board

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#461

Post by TomOfTTB » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 9:40 AM UTC

Natsu wrote: post #449

TomOfTTB wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get pissed because of the rhetoric. Not just from this side. I have many friends in the entertainment industry and from there it's all about "thieves". So you have "hate" and "kill" on this side and "theft" and "arrest" on that side and I'm sick of all of it. The most effective solution to problems with the media industry has always been the same: Collaboration. Look at allthestepisodes.com. This is a site that all…

They're working to kill Netflix, though. First by restricting just how early it could get videos, then by making them pay for streaming on every user, not just those who stream. I understood that to be the whole point of the ill-fated attempt at splitting the company, in fact.

Follow the logic here. Denying Netflix content for a little longer might hurt Netflix because people will come to Netflix during that time, look for the content, and not find it. So if that's true wouldn't it just be easier to never give Netflix the content. I mean, if they're trying to kill Netflix that would seem the way to go.

The truth is they aren't trying to kill Netflix they're trying to maximize profit which is what every company does. They are delaying movies to Netflix because they've found people will buy the movies from iTunes during that time period.

If that will kill Netflix it's their job to say "hey, we're a revenue stream for you and we're going to go away if you delay these movies" and then a negotiation will ensue. This is how capitalism works with each company trying to make as much money as they can and companies negotiating with each other to do so.

Having said that I've always believed media should be treated as a monopoly and regulated accordingly. The current law treats media like just any other product where the free market can decide the price. This works with most products because there isn't that much of a difference between one brand of Vanilla Ice Cream and Another. But there is a big difference between different bands and since labels sign bands exclusively they should be regulated like monopolies

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#462

Post by TomOfTTB » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 9:42 AM UTC

timknauf wrote: post #452

TomOfTTB wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get pissed because of the rhetoric. Not just from this side. I have many friends in the entertainment industry and from there it's all about "thieves". So you have "hate" and "kill" on this side and "theft" and "arrest" on that side and I'm sick of all of it. The most effective solution to problems with the media industry has always been the same: Collaboration. Look at allthestepisodes.com. This is a site that all…

Well, Netflix still isn't available to most of the world (even with its recent international expansions), so I wouldn't say that everyone is happy just yet. And I'm sure it's not technical issues that make going truly global so difficult for them - it's the machinations of old-guard media companies.

But it isn't. It's the machinations of SOME of the old-guard media. Other parts of the old-guard media, who want those extra revenue streams, feel the same way you do. That's the problem with wanting to kill the entire industry. You lose the good and the bad.

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#463

Post by bambax » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 9:42 AM UTC

rdl wrote: post #207

Sometime over the past year I went from thinking YouTube content was insignificant compared to Hollywood, to the point where I'd happily give up all broadcast/cable/DVD/Netflix content for YouTube type user generated content. I suspect this will be more widespread in a year or two more.

Really? I've never seen anything of value on Youtube, but I never tried very hard.

If you're right, it means what's needed is a way to find good videos on Youtube.

Some combination of Reddit + a personalized recommendation engine (ala Netflix) plugged into Youtube. I would use that constantly.

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#464

Post by Natsu » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 9:46 AM UTC

TomOfTTB wrote: post #456

Natsu wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're looking to tear down something without suggesting something else to take its place. That's why he's asking for people to give him ideas to fund. > There's no point to add more hate to the world. On that I can agree, but I would note that I believe that pg is acting out of self preservation rather than hate. > I know record executives. I know executives at movie studios. And guess what, they're good guys. Wel…

> Well, then they should be running honest businesses that won't be disrupted by some startup trying to give artists a good deal, rather than the raw deals they so frequently get, and they will therefore have nothing to fear. But see that's the difference between "kill the industry" and "lets beat these guys". Kill the industry empowers people to do other things like pirate media because "this is war". But if people…

> Look at that in comparison with all the hatred and anger around here directed at the record companies and you can see why I find it so disturbing.

I wonder how much of that is from media influencing society, which in turn influences media, looping it back around. Compare US media where almost all bad guys suffer and die painfully to those of some other countries, where few people are wholly evil and decent people are able to come to an understanding in the end, after fighting out their differences.

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#465

Post by TomOfTTB » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 9:48 AM UTC

bermanoid wrote: post #458

TomOfTTB wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re an ass. Pardon the bluntness of that statement but I’m home right now because this pissed me off so much. So my tone is less measured. Have you even contemplated all the things the industry you’re trying to “kill” does? Make note of something: Hollywood is one of the most unionized workforces in the United States. This isn’t a story of rich studio heads taking advantage of people. Actors, Writers, Stage Hands,…

Yes, the media industry can help to create stupid laws. I don’t deny that. But it isn’t because they’re evil or mean. For the most part it’s because these companies are run by 60 year old men who don’t understand the nuances of technology. But their intentions are good. Oh, okay. Well, as long as their intentions are good, then it's fiiiine that they keep trying to ram bills through Congress that would destroy jobs i…

The point is people who have good intentions can be reasoned with. The Cold War didn't end with bombs it ended with talk. Because the intentions were good on both sides.

Someone like pg could just as easily go to media companies and say "what you're doing here is stupid. Allow our startups access to your catalog for a reasonable price and let us try to create startups that will give people what they want and still ensure you make a profit"

I know he could do this because...that's exactly what Steve Jobs did. And now I've cancelled my cable, I buy shows off my TV and I can re-download them to any device I want as many times as I want.

Because Collaboration works, War just destroys

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#466

Post by Natsu » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 9:49 AM UTC

TomOfTTB wrote: post #450

joelrunyon wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can lose your temper as much as you want (nothing wrong with being angry). Being disrespectful to others and making personal attacks on the other hand, is well...just disrespectful.

Two wrongs don't make a right but for the record pg started it. If you call the people in Hollywood mean and advocate taking their livelihood away and I have friends in Hollywood that means you're disrespecting them. Second I don't think calling someone out is disrespecting them. Disrespecting them is letting them be an ass and not saying anything. Because calling them out means you care enough about them as a person…

> Two wrongs don't make a right but for the record pg started it.

I thought you were calling on people to cut the chain of hatred a bit further up, but I do recognize that it's easier said than done.

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#467

Post by vidarh » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 9:53 AM UTC

underwater wrote: post #192

nkassis wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think movies have to dye for this RFS to work just that the business model that Hollywood uses isn't working. Putting a ton of money in a few blockbusters and trying to squeeze every last penny from DVD/BR sells isn't the way to go.

Isn't that the way gaming is headed too, though? You have massive companies like EA publishing blockbuster hits built by huge development teams.

But that is the result of the cost of making games more "movie like" in the scale and complexity of the art and technology. As more and more of the technical complexity goes away and the cost of the art as well will drop, these big productions will start to face immense pressure from smaller teams.

You already see more and more games use licensed engines, and eventually the power of the platforms we deal with will intersect with rising quality of low cost or free engines at point where most people can start with an existing low cost engine and compete technically.

We started with a situation where off-the-shelf game engines was unthinkable, because game engines were optimized for a specific gameplay and intertwined with the game logic, but already there's a huge market for games made on licensed engines (and as far back as the 80's you had the first attempts at making "game maker" programs that used off the shelf engines and tools to cut the effort of making games)

Similarly on the art side you can expect to see more and more advanced tools that take away technical complexity of working on the art and return the focus to the art process itself and even simplify that.

E.g. consider a hypothetical tool where an artist creating a new character can pick from a catalogue of hundreds of pre-made skeletal structures, choose characteristics of the muscles and size, movement characteristics etc., pick from pre-made physical characteristics as a starting point for alterations, pick from catalogues of clothes, hair, eyes and so on - even other parts like the voice of the character, and have the software fill in the rest in terms of animation and other aspects.

Imagine a cottage industry of artists that design catalogue items for tools like this - you can already license tons of ready-made 3D models, after all, as well as specialized software for things like creating landscapes, plants, trees and a bunch of other 3D structures.

Of course none of this would remove the need for developers or artists, but it will free them to focus on game play and the actual art rather than how to work around technical limitations, and it becomes a massive leveller for smaller teams if you can start with an off the shelf engine, and populate your game with a bunch off catalogue item characters and then customize rather than having to start from scratch.

Incidentally a lot of these changes will eventually benefit independent movies as well in terms of making advanced CGI and postprocessing cheaper and more accessible.

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#468

Post by foxit » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 9:54 AM UTC

anactofgod wrote: post #417

pg wrote: post #9

Incidentally, Paul Buchheit deserves all the credit for this idea. The YC partners were having lunch yesterday and he suggested posting this RFS. Whereupon we all turned to Jessica, who is usually the one who talks us out of doing crazy things. I was kind of surprised she didn't try to talk us out of it.

The original post ends by asking the wrong - and an extremely limiting - question. Technological innovations of camera/film/projectors (and later broadcast & receivers) made motion pictures possible . These came first. The current "Hollywood" production-distribution-revenue model came after, as a result of the economics of what it took to make motion pictures profitable . So, "Hollywood" is less the entertainment, an…

This post nails it. You're talking about disrupting two things, neither of which are entertainment: distribution of finished goods (external), and the system within that's been in place since the fall of the studio system in the '60s (internal). Neither of these things have that much to do with entertainment. Technology has made being a filmmaker far, far cheaper than it used to be even in the heyday of indie film in the 90s, though there is still a high financial barrier to entry to pay for all the quality things you need on a set (oh, an idea!). Entertainers absolutely embrace innovation, both creative and technological. It's structures that don't.

Here's two specific targets: Creative Artists Agency and the Screen Actors Guild. Good luck.

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#469

Post by faramarz » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 9:54 AM UTC

Fix the way the Electoral College works, and you've liberated the market. Only then will good ideas actually flourish, and bad ideas/companies fade away.

Until we abolish the "first-past-the-post" system and adopt Proportional Representation, there is no hope in fixing the corruption that takes place in Washington.

Re: Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

#470

Post by Natsu » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 9:55 AM UTC

Samuel_Michon wrote: post #284

Retric wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Prestige and The Departed are from 2006 and I would say 1/2 of what's left sucked. Still, listing a few movies that don't suck is hardly a ringing endorsement. Pixar demonstrates that it's possible to make 10 movies without 5 of them being terrible. If the rest of Hollywood knew what it was doing you would expect the same quality from Sony pictures etc.

Do you really think there was a time in which every new movie was a masterpiece? I seriously doubt it, and I don't think movies are worse now than they were 10 or 20 years a go.

There's an inherent survivorship bias that makes past art look better. The good art survives because people make copies of it, reference it, etc. The bad art just gets forgotten because nobody even wants to make fun of it any more.