This article seems to ignore one of the biggest, most basic issues facing hollywood right now - the demise of innovation in the VFX industry. Studios have carefully orchestrated an incredibly hostile working environment for people creating the biggest cash-cow it has left. For profit colleges are pumping out scores of young people every year with just enough training to get a low-paying job in whatever tax-incentive…
"Why Silicon Valley will never beat Hollywood" inaccurately summarized the piece (see the bottom of the article, where the author says the industry could go either way). Also, IMO, having inflammatory titles beginning with "Why..." is way too common on HN and is way more of an annoyance than headline-rewriting.
So change it to "Why Silicon Valley may have a hard time beating Hollywood" or something like that if you really want to be that anal about accurate summarization. But the current title tells me absolutely nothing about what the article is actually about.
Yeah, but I think that's more of an issue with the original article title, which matches the HN title
"At the very heart of the film industry’s longevity is the art of narrative storytelling which has been refined continuously" The overwhelming majority of Hollywood movies are terrible, shallow stories with formulaic development that are designed to grab money from specific demographics. There is hardly anything artistic left. It may be what people want, but let's not pretend that great works of art are what keep Hol…
Typewriter industry didn't continually have to be creative through those time periods. Hollywood did. It has to be creative and constantly come up with new "merchandise" in order to survive. IBM just had to come up with the "Selectric" or make slight improvements to satisfy what amounts to almost a cash cow type business in a more or less stable market.
Hollywood is in the entertainment business. They have adapted well to (as a business venture and to make money) the entertainment business over time. Movies aren't made the same way they were in the 30's, 50's or 70's.
While they certainly make their share of mistakes (with flops and not knowing necessarily what will be the next blockbuster) so do VC's and angels. They just try to match the best pattern they can and spread the money around. Hollywood does a version of the same. But Hollywood has been much more successful (at scale that is) than the "startup" industry has been. (Even taking into account VC investing prior to the Internet).
"Disrupt" hasn't been around that long. Hollywood has. People buy the product.
There are several reasons why Y combinator is unlikely to kill hollywood. The Author touches on part of the problem. To make a good movie you need: 1) an excellent script (if it reads like shit, its going to look worse, if the pitch is "its like X but...." its a fail) 2) a significant amount of captial ($1million) 3) quality actors 4) ridiculously good organisation skills (you'll be organising 40+ people hundreds and…
Would add that in addition to the time the chance to make money at it (in various parts) is not that great. Like any art there are many people willing to work for next to nothing in order to be in that business. I'm not seeing that with the startup industry. (Perhaps because in the startup industry you have golden handcuffs throwing money at you for your skills that doesn't happen in the movie industry for all but a few people).
I disagree with Paul Graham's notion that we need to find a better way to entertain ourselves. The narratives of films are powerful and are not always fun and entertaining yet people will go watch them; even if they walk out a bit disturbed. Hollywood creates content. I think to beat Hollywood, would require a platform that enables the film production process to happen outside the Hollywood system. Youtube, Netflix already have the distribution end. Movie stars are not a requirement for a good film, they can be replaced with good upcoming talent, (visit any major drama school). A large budget is not a requirement either, principal photography has never been cheaper. So what does Hollywood have that makes it special? It has the network which connects and coordinates all the key players (actors,writers,cameramen,animators etc). That's the problem that Silicon Valley needs to solve (not entertainment). It(we?) need to provide a platform to streamline the process of making film. Perhaps Paul Graham should have thought of an Incubator for Filmmakers. Demo night could be a short film.
Exactly. Killing Hollywood doesn't necessarily mean beating them at their own game. Killing Hollywood means that some competitor (or perhaps several competitors) will take away enough share of the entertainment market to make Hollywood's business collapse. For example, TV shows have taken a large chunk of business away from the motion picture industry since TV was invented, but they're not feature films. A similar ex…
http://screenville.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/attendance-history... cinema attendance has been growing for a while. Not even netflix is killing hollywood at the moment.
"cinema attendance has been growing for a while"
Absolute attendance numbers don't mean much. More interesting statistics would be: Hollywood's percentage of the total entertainment market and the earnings (profits after expenses) of the movie industry.
"Not even netflix is killing hollywood at the moment."
Netflix is mostly just a distribution channel for Hollywood. They're showing Hollywood movies and a big chunk of their revenue goes straight to Hollywood. They may be killing local movie theaters, but they're certainly supporting Hollywood.
http://screenville.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/attendance-history... cinema attendance has been growing for a while. Not even netflix is killing hollywood at the moment.
And Microsoft's revenues and profits have been growing in the past decade as well... I don't think anyone can reasonably conclude they're nearly as relevant as they used to be. Large institutions don't get "killed", they slowly become irrelevant (and the perhaps die), or change to suit the new market in a much diminished role.
There is no concept of maintenance in consume movies (the closest is netflix monthly fee) microsoft has years to sort out its problems, it is also highly liquid.
if a movie distie has a run of bad movies, it will become insolvent, which means that they'll not have enough cash to progress the movies in its pipeline. (For example MGM went tits up and delayed james bond by years)
Ahh, but therein lies the rub. The movie-making business is fine, its the disties that are the problem. The problem is this, a good movie is subjective. Go to your local movie festival, 90% of the entries will be clichéd lumbering trite. 7% will be good by comparison, but you wouldn't recommend them to your friends, much less bet money on them. This leaves 3% that are quality. Of that 3% 20% might be profitable. Peop…
If there is a need for a gate keepers, why do they pass bad movies? And most movies on the screen are mediocre at best. And they also lose money.
Because its exceptionally difficult to predict a market three years plus in advance. (which is why studios play it safe) and independent movies are highly risky, and nobody has the cash to bring them to wider release (even if they win a sundance award)