Relevant- Hollywood tries new online network for connecting established filmmakers with investors.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/risky-business/sundance-201...
Investment Firm Y Combinator Goes on Offensive Against Hollywood
71–80 of 95 posts
Re: Investment Firm Y Combinator Goes on Offensive Against Hollywood
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
We have tech, cost of tech is going down. But you still need talent to operate the tech, and the best talent are not cheap. The workers have unions and the ones that are not part of union do this full time and want to support at the very least a middle class lifestyle. For a hollywood movie, you don't want to use just any crew. You want the best film crew, the best makeup, wardrobe, casting, post & pre production. Al…
That's all true for now. But eventually you'll be able to throw some actors in front of a green screen and do everything--makeup, wardrobe, special effects in post production, with one guy. Hell, when computers can generate photo real actors, actors will just be people in mocap suits (except that we won't need mocap suits by then), and they won't even need to be attractive. Eventually one person will be able to creat…
That's all true for now. But eventually you'll be able to throw some actors in front of a green screen and do everything--makeup, wardrobe, special effects in post production, with one guy.
There was an interesting interview with Ewan McGregor, where he described working on the Star Wars prequels as a total nightmare. He was in front of a green screen, sat on top of some wooden box (it was supposed to be an animal we was riding). As the box swayed from side to side, George Lucas yelled "Look at the moons!".
To which McGregor said "WHAT MOONS?". As an actor, he was so distanced from the scene that he was unable to perform to the best of his abilities. The output speaks for itself.
TL;DR: focusing solely on technology without thinking of the human factor is a bad idea.
Re: Investment Firm Y Combinator Goes on Offensive Against Hollywood
#73When all is said and done, more is said than done.
Re: Investment Firm Y Combinator Goes on Offensive Against Hollywood
#74I don't believe we can blame the politicians for campaign finance corruption. It is our own complacency that has allowed this system to take a firm root in our government. How can you blame or get mad at one of our representatives for playing the game we make/allow them to play. I guess what I am saying is if you can't get elected unless you use the corrupt campaign financing system that we allow to be in place how can we be upset when our elected officials are a pawn to the system?
Re: Investment Firm Y Combinator Goes on Offensive Against Hollywood
#75I don't believe we can blame the politicians for campaign finance corruption. It is our own complacency that has allowed this system to take a firm root in our government. How can you blame or get mad at one of our representatives for playing the game we make/allow them to play. I guess what I am saying is if you can't get elected unless you use the corrupt campaign financing system that we allow to be in place how c…
Same here. Campaign finance reform is a great idea but is not going to happen overnight. As long as it is not abolished the existing system has to be used to one's advantage. And as long Hollywood lobbyists outnumber Tech lobbyists it is going to be an uphill battle. I hope this recent conflict motivated big tech companies to increase their involvement in the policy process.
Re: Investment Firm Y Combinator Goes on Offensive Against Hollywood
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Honestly, what do you think YCombinator can bring to the table that isn't already there? How exactly do you propose to disrupt something you know nothing about? It's the equivalent of the head of the MPAA saying 'Fuck it, we'll build our own search engine'. I know the tech scene is full of very smart people, but guess what - the film industry is full of very smart people too! The thing you have to understand is that…
"Honestly, what do you think YCombinator can bring to the table that isn't already there?"
The attitude that things are wrong with the industry, and it can/should be done better.
Re: Investment Firm Y Combinator Goes on Offensive Against Hollywood
#77I 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.
And, even if you get something recorded, mixed, and mastered by really talented independent professionals, the label will sometimes ask you for the stems (or even to re-record certain parts) so they can bring in "their guy" to put "their sound" on it.
Luckily with the labels fading as a distribution mechanism for independent music this is not happening as much anymore.
Re: Investment Firm Y Combinator Goes on Offensive Against Hollywood
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly, what do you think YCombinator can bring to the table that isn't already there? How exactly do you propose to disrupt something you know nothing about? It's the equivalent of the head of the MPAA saying 'Fuck it, we'll build our own search engine'. I know the tech scene is full of very smart people, but guess what - the film industry is full of very smart people too! The thing you have to understand is that…
"Honestly, what do you think YCombinator can bring to the table that isn't already there?" The attitude that things are wrong with the industry, and it can/should be done better.
That's already there in droves: that's basically the mantra of every indie film director, iFilm, most film schools, alternative distributors and theaters, and just about everyone else connected to movies who isn't the big studios. They even have substantial seed funding for that kind of thing (much larger than YCombinator's typical seed funding) through a large number of directors, actors, grant agencies, universities, and rich film fans who regularly fund "not Hollywood" experimentation (sort of that industry's version of angel investors and incubators).
Re: Investment Firm Y Combinator Goes on Offensive Against Hollywood
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 t…
you missed the point. the point is that the distribution model has changed and parties interested in participating has increased. this doesn't mean that the larger parties with deep pockets no longer participate. but if you are implying that competition has not increased and won't increase because making games, good or bad, costs less then you would be wrong.
the average game does cost less to make, because there are a lot more low-budget games out there.
the game changes when the distribution model changes.
Re: Investment Firm Y Combinator Goes on Offensive Against Hollywood
#80Engineers love to solve problems. Hollywood has become a problem.