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Why the Film Industry Hasn't Been Disrupted Yet, Part 5

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Re: Why the Film Industry Hasn't Been Disrupted Yet, Part 5

#51

Post by Joeboy »

apalmer wrote: post #47
Joeboy wrote: post #27

Megan 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.

your point is valid... however i think its going to get into the same feedback loop as regular movie studios. fundamentally even if you have 100 million to make 5 films, you really cant afford a 20 million dollar flop. As long as your a rational actor your going to start chasing hits and trying to minimize flops by 'standardizing' your films. The fundamental problem is in my opinion we want folks with millions on the…

Yeah, really the point I was trying to make (obliquely) was that the reason there aren't many new entrants to the business side of film is that it's incredibly expensive and risky, even to make a single film. Occasionally you hear of an ultra-low budget horror that earned millions despite being made for less than the cost of a house, but those are a rarity. If you're a new entrant and you can actually get a film financed, you're going to make friends in the industry very easily.

Re: Why the Film Industry Hasn't Been Disrupted Yet, Part 5

#53

Post by aab0 »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #11
anotherarray wrote: post #8

What about bootstrapped, self-funded, youtube channels that became huge?

There was a really good article about this (wish I could find it) about how the majority of these aren't making much, if any money. From the outside it appeared that the artists are rolling in cash; from the inside, they were still working waiter/waitress jobs to make ends meet.

I remember the one you're talking about: http://fusion.net/story/244545/famous-and-broke-on-youtube-i... (first hit for 'Youtube star waitressing')

Re: Why the Film Industry Hasn't Been Disrupted Yet, Part 5

#54

Post by thaumasiotes »

danso wrote: post #25
Swizec wrote: post #17

Earlier 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…

> the distribution networks that have longstanding ways of doing business, things that occasionally piss people off here (region-locked content)

"Longstanding ways of doing business"? Region-locked content dates all the way back to... DVDs.

Re: Why the Film Industry Hasn't Been Disrupted Yet, Part 5

#55

Post by Joeboy »

kingmanaz wrote: post #52

While slapstick, check out Kung Fury for an example of successful collaborative filmmaking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS5P_LAqiVg

It's great, Stranger Things definitely seemed less fun as a result of having watched this first.

On the other hand, it's an extremely successful crowdfunding effort, and still probably didn't make anybody any real money. In fact some people paid to be in it. And being a pastiche of bad movies allows a lot of latitude in production value. It's incredibly impressive for the budget, but no serious film would work with those production values. It's also a third of the length of a feature film.

Re: Why the Film Industry Hasn't Been Disrupted Yet, Part 5

#57

Post by ryuker16 »

danso wrote: post #10

One 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…

The thing about old movies is.......everybody saw them.

Re: Why the Film Industry Hasn't Been Disrupted Yet, Part 5

#58

Post by ryuker16 »

ghaff wrote: post #20
WillPostForFood wrote: post #15

Film 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.

Money & time spent on other forms of entertainment doesnt come out of thin air.

Re: Why the Film Industry Hasn't Been Disrupted Yet, Part 5

#59

Post by 6stringmerc »

qznc wrote: post #34
6stringmerc wrote: post #18

Always 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…

> under estimate the amount of work a polished product takes I agree in general. On the other hand, Youtube shows that less polished can be enjoyable as well. This provides more and smoother ways for amateurs to level up in skill and/or professionalism. Those who survive Youtube criticism probably have a thick skin.

Oh absolutely! That's why I don't want to disparage the early works, I mean I had to begin somewhere as well.

I think the 'distribution' of film has genuinely been disrupted (I recall the days on dial-up ouch) as Netflix moving from DVDs to streaming revenue indicates. The content creation though? Much bigger picture. It will take a lot of little disruptions to add up to something major, because the current model, well, just works for now.

At the end of the day though the "industry" part of film or music or whatever really doesn't give a shit what they are selling as long as they are making a handsome profit on whatever it is.

Re: Why the Film Industry Hasn't Been Disrupted Yet, Part 5

#60

Post by ghaff »

danso wrote: post #25
Swizec wrote: post #17

Earlier 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…

>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.

There are some exceptions. Avatar, whatever you think of it as a film, was a blockbuster film with a blockbuster budget. Though, in that case, it was the director who was the A list so maybe that's just an addition to your list.

But, to your basic point, with the amount of money that a blockbuster-type film takes to create, the finance guys are definitely looking for factors that will help bring people into the theaters.

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