As for the RIAA and the artists who are indebted to their labels, it works like this.
Artists get advances from labels... basically a budget to produce, package, and implement their artistic product. The artist also gets an advance against projected sales. This has to be recouped. Videos, expenses related to promotional touring, wardrobe, etc... all come from futre sales proceeds and count negatively towards the artist.
The guys who work for artists... managers, et al, push for higher advances (means higher fees) and higher budgets (means better promotion in theory). Artists agree to this because they are GREEDY - and don't understand the business. IF they knew what percentage of artists returned X-amount to the label in sales, they'd take a small advance, or not even sign with a major at all.
In short, artists get fucked because they sign shitty deals. Shitty deals are signed because labels promise stardom to everyone they want to sign in order to shift the power dynamic. Shifting the power dynamic means indebted workers for a term designated by the standard deal - somewhere like 3 to 5 albums. Artists fall for it; debt is the greatest motivator in the US - so these artists then have to work themselves to death in order to get out from under the obligations. I personally know about 5-7 artists/bands that have signed record deals the MOMENT they were offered - no attorney review of contracts, etc. That's inexcusable.
There are smaller labels that only distribute music... they don't offer advances and they put up packaging marketing costs which they recoup. Artists build up a store of cash through shows and touring and then promote an album that gets put in stores and that they sell at shows. It's a model that sustains a lot of bands, and those bands make more money than many signed at majors.
It's difficult to place blame on the RIAA when artists continue to sign away their rights and are ignorant to how the industry works, all in this amorphous hope of stardom.
That's the issue. A whole bunch of people are GROWING UP with home theater systems. The next generations of serious movie goers see less of a benefit to going to movies.
My nephew, he's 9, isn't pressed to see movies. he's far more interested in games. His friends are similar. I'll offer a range of Saturday activities - and they most often prefer something game oriented. While he likes to watch movies, he doesn't like movie theaters because YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING ELSE. He actually often takes his game boy to movies when we go because he finds dialogue insanely boring. But then some other parents complain about the backlight, so he's quickly frustrated. I've had similar experiences with his friends when I get shackled with taking a group to the movies. It's just getting to the point where you can't expect most kids to sit silently for two hours in a place that isn't akin to home, with the comforts that home provides. Now imagine that these children will grow up accustomed to a distaste for the movie paradigm because it is opposed to their natural way of doing things.
Again, I return to my nephew: He'll be watching the National Geographic channel (he's a huge fan of animal shows), while playing an RPG on his Game Boy Advanced, while intermittently Iming me or voice chatting me online, when he's actually supposed to be doing his math homework. He's just used to the multitasking paradigm in a way that makes going to the movies nothing special.
But he does like movies: he prefers DVDs because a trip to Blockbuster means that he meanders down the gaming aisle in an attempt to coerce a rental. It means he can get his friends to come over and they can play and be loud and do whatever they want without reproach and then pay attention to the movie when the good parts happen... at which time they rewind and watch that part thirty times over, dissecting the detail, then acting it out. A movie theater just doesn't offer that.
The question is this: what experience does a movie theater have a monopoly on?
The average movie ticket in the US last year was about $7. A movie is considered a blockbuster at about $100 million in theatrical sales. That's just more than 14 million people in a country of close to 300 million. MOST PEOPLE don't regularly go to the movies. This is something that the movie industry has known for a while. This is also why PASSION OF THE CHRIST made so much cash - those folks never otherwise go to movies.
Developing a method to get movies to people in different ways can only help revenues and drive down prices and increase the features at theaters.
I'm happily from the type of place where (and I've seen this) when the deputy taking a truckload prisoners out to do highway cleanup stopped to go in McDonalds for breakfast he told them "Y'all don't run off." And they didn't.
lol, you're happily from that place, hunh? To each his own.
I can't imagine the group of prisoners that would stay for that here in NY. I wouldn't. lol. Talk about programming. They got you guys good.
As for the crosswalk. lol. I cross even when there's traffic and the light is against me. lol. My mother taught me.
I'll stick out like a sore thumb when I come around your way; I'll be the shackled prisoner jaywalking away from the McDonald's.
And re: a place of jaywalkiing thieves? Let's just say that corporate America just loves your attitude. Lol.
lol. You've seen that in New York? I live in New York. It's why I posed the question. The reason I posed the question is because of the particulars: unsupervised goods and perceived freedom from reprisal.
On a densely trafficked new york street before a hot dog vendor, there is little perceived freedom from reprisal. There are little avenues of escape and cost/return just doesn't wash.
Also, the person downloading is most likely to be the same person who would otherwise be commiting crimes, namely young males - teens and young adults. So using honey and dolls as an example just doesn't cut it. There is little vested interest in those items from the group most likely to steal in general. As relates to the music industry, young males represent a critical mass of the music purchasing audience. Young women are still buying music; just look at soundscan and see that the acts geared towards young women and children continue to do well. It's all the other stuff that guys used to buy that are suffering.
So lets more accurately represent the analogy:
Take your average store that sells say video games and consoles, or DVDs, or athletic attire and materials - items typically designed to appeal to young males. Remove any visible artifacts of surveillance. That store would be cleaned out in short order.
Are there going to be people who always follow the rules: yes. Clearly this is so, or ITUNES would be taking a loss. There are people who wait for the walk sign even with no cars in either direction.
My point is that the length of time that has elapsed without a viable widescale business model has allowed the culture of downloading to become the norm. I say this because downloading is the norm for me; buying the product is the exception. And I work in media. I know very few people who actually BUY digital content. The instances where content is bought are particular, i.e. console games... games that require online certs that haven't been cracked, etc. In other words, if the inconvenience is too great, then a purchase is made.
If you've grown up downloading stuff, then it's no inconvenience to have your virus scanner automatically checking your incoming folder or torrents folder. It's not an inconvenience to mess around with bin and cue files, or joining small peer networking groups that trade amongst themselves. You take the odds of the RIAA coming after you, after all, you do way more risky things every day. Some people grew up with the inconvenience of actually having to send letters in the mail and think email is newfangled and complicated.
My point is that downloading is now de facto for a lot of people. Culture. Just the way things are done. And that's the industry's fault. The more they delay, the more it will become a part of everyone's lives and the more difficult it becomes to break the habit.
if by convenient, you mean free, then I guess you're right.
my experience has been that downloading has two major upsides: EVERYTHING is available, and everything is free.
piracy will increase if nothing changes simply because a generation is growing up accustomed to free product. It won't make sense to pay. It will only get worse as more people become web-centric.
I can't speak as to the effects of DRM, but understanding the fundamental psychology of the consumer/downloader is important.
Take your average convenience store... tell the clerk to disappear and monitor the cameras for a half an hour. Only a small number of people will leave the cash for their purchase on the counter. Most will loot and bail.
The music industry has fucked up by letting too many people get shit for free for too long. It's a culture dynamic. Hollywood is a little better - they got these download deals jumping off on college campuses where you get billed on tuition statements for the shit you download.
Let me get used to free shit; don't get mad if I don't want to pay later.
As for this DRM shit, it's desperation, but what are the record companies gonna do?
Many agree with you about the star system. The star system is waning though; the list of stars is short and has been static in the US for a while.
A lot of market research shows that younger generations are not really star-centric. Celebrity is disposable, so no long term relationships are made with actors/directors, etc.
So to address your statement, the story is actually far more likely to sell a story in the US film market. More accurately, HIGH CONCEPT. This is what hollywood terms a film that can be summarized succinctly, usually in the title. For example: Titanic... or The Perfect Storm, Anaconda, et al. High concept films focus on the simple catchy idea that is easily conveyed. This reduces costs because a name cast is not necessary; the film sells itself. The title is a marketing phrase. The way hollywood hedges bets is that they tie a name cast to a high concept film and assume that all bases are covered. Tom Cruise in American Samurai, or Tom Hanks in Castaway. These are sure moneymakers and everyone wants to bankroll those.
The star system is more effective for the older crowd. 45-64s make up about 25% of the moviegoing pop in the US, the second biggest chunk behind the 12-24s. Stars matter to them; they establish relationships with their artists and nurture those relationships.
That's why your summer blockbuster is packed with your rapper/pop star du jour and suitably MTVed dialogue. Serious films with stars are more likely distributed during the rest of the year on non-holiday weekends but most likely during Oscar season, typically considered to be the fall and winter.
Re: Bollywood. Bollywood movies won't cross over here for two reasons. Americans on a whole tend to be very culturally arrogant. If Bollywood films don't already fit the existing view Americans have of Indians, they will not be embraced. Americans watch films to affirm themselves, for the most part... and this attitude transcends racial, gender, and age lines. Americans for the most part, feel themselves superior.
Also, Bollywood movies are bound by cultural restraints that will make them less than viable here.
The other side of that, is that a Bollywood star who tries to cross over here risks alienating his bollywood audience, to the point where he/she might not be viable over there any more.
So much of the world has become acclimated to consuming our product, it is more likely that they'll come towards the US style of filmmaking as opposed to the other way around.
So is the US film market. I've worked on at least two films where the crew was paid in CASH. In fact, one of those two was a film where the DP was sent on cash runs, in a chauffered car, to pick up "packages" that were filled with cash.
the independent film industry in particular is awash with money laundering.
On the other hand, it's easier to make money by aiming regurgitated crap at the mainstream than to aim at the MENSA crowd. But then on the gripping hand, there's a lot less competition up at the top end...
exactly!!!! EXACTLY!!! Now the question is how to effectively tailor to that crowd. It's been neglected for that very reason. It's really hard to consistently put out compelling content for a very discriminating audience.
My first script consult gig; I made the mistake of voicing general discomfort with the dumbing down process and lost the contract.
I'm not voicing my opinion; this is the machine. This is the way Hollywood goes about making wide swath films. I agree that it is not art.
You have to understand a bit about how films get made.
Studios do not spend their own money on making films. They finance films using loan/credit/financing structures. So as a producer of a film, it is in your vested interest to produce the biggest budget movies possible for two reasons: 1. because producers collect around 10% of the budget as a fee, and 2. high budget films condition the audience against lower budget films which stifles innovation and competition and prevents decentralization of the industry. I watched Primer with my girlfriend (now mind you Primer is a GREAT film) and all she complained about for 90 minutes, was how cheap the film LOOKED. More on Primer later.
When a film's budget approaches 100 million, it has to appeal wide swath. This isn't an artistic demand - this is a corporate demand, coming from finance execs that have to contend with intractable investors. So it's damn near impossible to get a singular vision film made at that scale because of the financial strictures involved. It just doesn't happen.
Studios make money off the library and make structured payments on debt. Individuals (executives, actors, etc.) draw individual weath from the system because they are getting paid from those same VC//investment/banking funds. There is little room in this structure for art.
The system is horribly corrupt and bloated. Since investment funds are being used, everyone in the revenu stream tries to draw the fattest chunk of cash they can, further inflating costs.
What you mention is actually being done. I'll find the link and post it later, but an arthouse distribution network is being currently designed. Mark Cuban's Landmark Theaters is also considered an arthouse distribution model, andhe's experimenting with day-and-date via DVD and digital distribution.
The ability to do an artistic film is directly correlational to the cost. A great movie that came out recently is Primer, a sci fi done by some engineer turned filmmaker in Texas, I think. He did it for 7 grand of his own money, shot on super 16 mm. You want to be an artist in the film industry, be prepared to suffer for your art form. He got a film deal out of it, butthe film had made little to no cash - and he'll probably be presented with some hackneyed stuff so he can cut his teeth in a more professional setting. It's the way.
I personally am using some of the cash from my script consulting to do my own film. The subject: Stanley Kubrick of course. I'm gonna focus specifically on his early years, when he hustled chess in Washington Square Park in New York.
To belatedly answer your questions. Do I want to "make" art, yes. Do I want Hollywood cash. Yes. Can I do both. Yes.
Hollywood responds to the critical mass audience, the lowest common denominator.
I willingly concede that I could be the one without the sense of humor. I do agree with you that even in humor he ventured towards darker aspects of things.
Dude, Solaris was a powerful film. Claustrophobic.
There's an interesting film out right now called Stay, also sometimes claustrophobic.
I work in film and here's the general audience's biggest gripe about sci-fi movies. No one wants to feel dumb. This is marketing 101 - the reason why films are rehashed and plotlines redone over and over is because only a small minority are comfortable in uncertainty... with not knowing. It's a manifestation of the adventurers spirit.
So you do a smart sci-fi film that challenges a Christian's notion of the universe, and they get scared. They dont want that feeling... that they're wrong, that they don't know. So next summer, another alien space movie will probably come out, and some elite team will be sent it to investigate, the lesbian gunner will die first and the black guy second, etc. and most will eat popcorn and they'll go home satisfied that aliens can never defeat us with our crude projectile weapons, religious sentiment and irrepressible warrior ethos. It's collective masturbation. And they'll polish their guns and dust off their bibles unafraid.
I've worked as a script consultant and 90 percent of my work over the past year has been to "dumb-down" scripts. Three modalities: get a PG-13 at the script stage, nothing more complex than a sixth grade level (aforementioned PG-13 rating; nothing troubling; no f-words, etc; avoid religion, no frontal nudity), after which point the one-liner guy comes onto the script and does what is called a polish (read: "smarten" up the dialogue with one-liners and slang, etc).
He did get the book - 2001, that is. He just chose to interpret it differently. I'm actually interested in discussing what you think he missed in regards to 2001.
Shining. Kubrick thought horror films were lame. To him the greatest horror one could experience was the losing of one's own mind (he was pretty much an atheist and existentialist by nature), as one's own mind is all that you are. This was truly horrifiying to him. Interestingly enough, Nicholson is attirbuted to the following about Kubrick: Nicholson was traumatized by the harshness of the script and talked to Kubrick about lightening up the tone a bit. Kubrick responded that the film was optimistic. Nicholson was surprised and asked him to elaborate.... Kubrick's response was that anything that alludes to the existence of an afterlife is optimistic. In his own way, this was his way of alluding to his own beliefs while simultaneously acceding to hope that there is something more. The horror was to lose one's mind... the hope, that there was some form of external cogent cause... the implication in microcosm of some larger framework.
Spielberg saved AI? Are you fucking kidding me? Spielberg is a hack who rehashes his own unresolved father issues in EVERY FILM HE DOES.
Kubrick's only flaws as a filmmaker are that he had no sense of humor; therefore he couldn't give his films a variety of tone. The other is that he was a shitty editor. His films ran too long because he could not edit himself. There's a lot to be said about directors who get final cut because most who do end up producing indulgent films. Kubrick is no exception. You could trim serious fat from almost all of his films.
Oh, and Barry Lyndon is a fucking amazing film and IMO one of the most underrated films of all time.
dude, I also have a 4155 and I fucking love this thing.
I watch movies and have music on a 2 gig SD card. I read ebooks. Play games - but PC games like tomb raider and age of empires. street maps, skype, contacts, schedule, pics, portable memory, voice memos, laundry lists. Wifi - Bluetooth.... this device is the real deal. It connects quickly to networks and with little fuss. It recognizes them and allows you to switch from network to network.
My only gripe is that the attachable thumb keyboard has lag issues.
I actually undertook it as an exercise to see what I could get done in "downtime" - transit time to and from places on the NYC subway. I wrote a novel on the thing - called Misanthrope. In Pocket Word - Took me about nine months - 191 pages. The novel sucks, but I couldn't have done that with a fucking Ipod.
Oh, and it doesn't crash. My only issue were some system slowdowns when I installed some poorly cracked programs off peer networks. An uninstall cleaned everything right up.
I don't code, but I don't think making developers responsible for faulty code is a good solution.
If I develop X for a company that then takes X to market, and X turns out to be faulty, company should be at fault. I am at fault for writing shoddy code, the effect of which will be that I get fewer future contracts or employment to do the same. Company is at fault for taking X to market, and as such should be resonsible for any liability due to X's shortcomings.
GM is responsible for a shoddy part on one of its vehicles, not the engineer that developed the part.
Sole proprietors who take their code to market should be responsible, but in that instance, the sole proprietor is both developer and vendor.
Microsoft has been a significant shareholder in Apple since 1997. Their development and support of office for Apple products probably kept the company alive during the lean years... pre-ipod. While they generate some revenue from it, they could have just as easily killed OFfice for Apple products and sunk Apple.
Last year when the NHL (National Hockey League) was not operating because of a labor dispute, a group of investors offered to buy the entire league at face value, some 2+ billion dollars. When asked why this would be of value when many NHL teams worked with an operating loss, one of the investors replied: NHL teams compete for a pool of fans. When one team loses, they lose money. When a team with no marketable stars wins, it loses money. The NHL, centrally owned, would benefit from that competition regardless. Given a steadily growing pool of fans, it's a win/win proposition. Also, a centrally owned league can push the cost of hiring players WAY down. It didn't happen, but it was an interesting idea.
Microsoft continues to benefit from Apple, both in the tech it adopts from Apple, and from return on its investment. It's a win/win situation. I can imagine that Microsoft guys find it funny that Apple fanboys think of Apple progress as Microsoft quiescence or regression. It is an inaccurate assessment based more on emotion than anything else. On that front, when Apple wins, Microsoft wins.
I can also imagine that both firms strategize and construct marketing tactics to capitalize on this sentiment. Any press is good press. Jobs constantly plays the underdog and refers to MS as the monopolist, etc. Gates throws tantrums and lumbers about as the disgruntled powermonger. It's all wrestling, dudes. Contrived - it's like "reality" television.
It isn't something widespread, but there was an article posted here a couple of days ago about JPL letting go of 300 engineers because of a shift in emphasis from robotics to manned space flight, despite the awesome successes we continue to have with robotics in space. You discussed the idea of politics interfering with engineering, and this is a case.
I agree with you on the unfair criticism that the Space shuttle gets. It's an awesome piece of engineering, but it's terminator tech. It's probably the way NOT to develop a space program. Too complex.
I also saw an interview where an engineer discussed the potential displacement of the shuttle generation of engineers and science as the shuttle is phased out - two generations of talented engineers. Another group of terminator staff.
Because our space program isn't evolutionary, but instead a series of programs doomed to extinction, we're back at square one, the early sixties, trying to figure out how to get to the moon.
Slashdot Mirror
... I owned a PS2 instead of an x-box. i'd love to hear other user sentiments. this seems like an awesome game.
Lol @ Euro males in the US - don 't forget the man purses and open toed sandals.
lol
See, I work in media and I'll tell you like this.
As for the RIAA and the artists who are indebted to their labels, it works like this.
Artists get advances from labels... basically a budget to produce, package, and implement their artistic product. The artist also gets an advance against projected sales. This has to be recouped. Videos, expenses related to promotional touring, wardrobe, etc... all come from futre sales proceeds and count negatively towards the artist.
The guys who work for artists... managers, et al, push for higher advances (means higher fees) and higher budgets (means better promotion in theory). Artists agree to this because they are GREEDY - and don't understand the business. IF they knew what percentage of artists returned X-amount to the label in sales, they'd take a small advance, or not even sign with a major at all.
In short, artists get fucked because they sign shitty deals. Shitty deals are signed because labels promise stardom to everyone they want to sign in order to shift the power dynamic. Shifting the power dynamic means indebted workers for a term designated by the standard deal - somewhere like 3 to 5 albums. Artists fall for it; debt is the greatest motivator in the US - so these artists then have to work themselves to death in order to get out from under the obligations. I personally know about 5-7 artists/bands that have signed record deals the MOMENT they were offered - no attorney review of contracts, etc. That's inexcusable.
There are smaller labels that only distribute music... they don't offer advances and they put up packaging marketing costs which they recoup. Artists build up a store of cash through shows and touring and then promote an album that gets put in stores and that they sell at shows. It's a model that sustains a lot of bands, and those bands make more money than many signed at majors.
It's difficult to place blame on the RIAA when artists continue to sign away their rights and are ignorant to how the industry works, all in this amorphous hope of stardom.
That's the issue. A whole bunch of people are GROWING UP with home theater systems. The next generations of serious movie goers see less of a benefit to going to movies.
My nephew, he's 9, isn't pressed to see movies. he's far more interested in games. His friends are similar. I'll offer a range of Saturday activities - and they most often prefer something game oriented. While he likes to watch movies, he doesn't like movie theaters because YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING ELSE. He actually often takes his game boy to movies when we go because he finds dialogue insanely boring. But then some other parents complain about the backlight, so he's quickly frustrated. I've had similar experiences with his friends when I get shackled with taking a group to the movies. It's just getting to the point where you can't expect most kids to sit silently for two hours in a place that isn't akin to home, with the comforts that home provides. Now imagine that these children will grow up accustomed to a distaste for the movie paradigm because it is opposed to their natural way of doing things.
Again, I return to my nephew: He'll be watching the National Geographic channel (he's a huge fan of animal shows), while playing an RPG on his Game Boy Advanced, while intermittently Iming me or voice chatting me online, when he's actually supposed to be doing his math homework. He's just used to the multitasking paradigm in a way that makes going to the movies nothing special.
But he does like movies: he prefers DVDs because a trip to Blockbuster means that he meanders down the gaming aisle in an attempt to coerce a rental. It means he can get his friends to come over and they can play and be loud and do whatever they want without reproach and then pay attention to the movie when the good parts happen... at which time they rewind and watch that part thirty times over, dissecting the detail, then acting it out. A movie theater just doesn't offer that.
The question is this: what experience does a movie theater have a monopoly on?
The average movie ticket in the US last year was about $7. A movie is considered a blockbuster at about $100 million in theatrical sales. That's just more than 14 million people in a country of close to 300 million. MOST PEOPLE don't regularly go to the movies. This is something that the movie industry has known for a while. This is also why PASSION OF THE CHRIST made so much cash - those folks never otherwise go to movies.
Developing a method to get movies to people in different ways can only help revenues and drive down prices and increase the features at theaters.
I'm happily from the type of place where (and I've seen this) when the deputy taking a truckload prisoners out to do highway cleanup stopped to go in McDonalds for breakfast he told them "Y'all don't run off." And they didn't.
lol, you're happily from that place, hunh? To each his own.
I can't imagine the group of prisoners that would stay for that here in NY. I wouldn't. lol. Talk about programming. They got you guys good.
As for the crosswalk. lol. I cross even when there's traffic and the light is against me. lol. My mother taught me.
I'll stick out like a sore thumb when I come around your way; I'll be the shackled prisoner jaywalking away from the McDonald's.
And re: a place of jaywalkiing thieves? Let's just say that corporate America just loves your attitude. Lol.
dude, where do you live? that's amazing.
lol. You've seen that in New York? I live in New York. It's why I posed the question. The reason I posed the question is because of the particulars: unsupervised goods and perceived freedom from reprisal.
On a densely trafficked new york street before a hot dog vendor, there is little perceived freedom from reprisal. There are little avenues of escape and cost/return just doesn't wash.
Also, the person downloading is most likely to be the same person who would otherwise be commiting crimes, namely young males - teens and young adults. So using honey and dolls as an example just doesn't cut it. There is little vested interest in those items from the group most likely to steal in general. As relates to the music industry, young males represent a critical mass of the music purchasing audience. Young women are still buying music; just look at soundscan and see that the acts geared towards young women and children continue to do well. It's all the other stuff that guys used to buy that are suffering.
So lets more accurately represent the analogy:
Take your average store that sells say video games and consoles, or DVDs, or athletic attire and materials - items typically designed to appeal to young males. Remove any visible artifacts of surveillance. That store would be cleaned out in short order.
Are there going to be people who always follow the rules: yes. Clearly this is so, or ITUNES would be taking a loss. There are people who wait for the walk sign even with no cars in either direction.
My point is that the length of time that has elapsed without a viable widescale business model has allowed the culture of downloading to become the norm. I say this because downloading is the norm for me; buying the product is the exception. And I work in media. I know very few people who actually BUY digital content. The instances where content is bought are particular, i.e. console games... games that require online certs that haven't been cracked, etc. In other words, if the inconvenience is too great, then a purchase is made.
If you've grown up downloading stuff, then it's no inconvenience to have your virus scanner automatically checking your incoming folder or torrents folder. It's not an inconvenience to mess around with bin and cue files, or joining small peer networking groups that trade amongst themselves. You take the odds of the RIAA coming after you, after all, you do way more risky things every day. Some people grew up with the inconvenience of actually having to send letters in the mail and think email is newfangled and complicated.
My point is that downloading is now de facto for a lot of people. Culture. Just the way things are done. And that's the industry's fault. The more they delay, the more it will become a part of everyone's lives and the more difficult it becomes to break the habit.
if by convenient, you mean free, then I guess you're right.
my experience has been that downloading has two major upsides: EVERYTHING is available, and everything is free.
piracy will increase if nothing changes simply because a generation is growing up accustomed to free product. It won't make sense to pay. It will only get worse as more people become web-centric.
I can't speak as to the effects of DRM, but understanding the fundamental psychology of the consumer/downloader is important.
Take your average convenience store... tell the clerk to disappear and monitor the cameras for a half an hour. Only a small number of people will leave the cash for their purchase on the counter. Most will loot and bail.
The music industry has fucked up by letting too many people get shit for free for too long. It's a culture dynamic. Hollywood is a little better - they got these download deals jumping off on college campuses where you get billed on tuition statements for the shit you download.
Let me get used to free shit; don't get mad if I don't want to pay later.
As for this DRM shit, it's desperation, but what are the record companies gonna do?
he's also given aggressively in the fight against AIDS in Africa. I think something like a billion a year over ten years through the Gates Foundation.
he's an awesome philanthropist. This is one of the reasons why I've never had an issue using Microsoft products.
buffy and xena are considered sci-fi?
lame.
Mullywood?
or Mummywood?
Many agree with you about the star system. The star system is waning though; the list of stars is short and has been static in the US for a while.
A lot of market research shows that younger generations are not really star-centric. Celebrity is disposable, so no long term relationships are made with actors/directors, etc.
So to address your statement, the story is actually far more likely to sell a story in the US film market. More accurately, HIGH CONCEPT. This is what hollywood terms a film that can be summarized succinctly, usually in the title. For example: Titanic... or The Perfect Storm, Anaconda, et al. High concept films focus on the simple catchy idea that is easily conveyed. This reduces costs because a name cast is not necessary; the film sells itself. The title is a marketing phrase. The way hollywood hedges bets is that they tie a name cast to a high concept film and assume that all bases are covered. Tom Cruise in American Samurai, or Tom Hanks in Castaway. These are sure moneymakers and everyone wants to bankroll those.
The star system is more effective for the older crowd. 45-64s make up about 25% of the moviegoing pop in the US, the second biggest chunk behind the 12-24s. Stars matter to them; they establish relationships with their artists and nurture those relationships.
That's why your summer blockbuster is packed with your rapper/pop star du jour and suitably MTVed dialogue. Serious films with stars are more likely distributed during the rest of the year on non-holiday weekends but most likely during Oscar season, typically considered to be the fall and winter.
Re: Bollywood. Bollywood movies won't cross over here for two reasons. Americans on a whole tend to be very culturally arrogant. If Bollywood films don't already fit the existing view Americans have of Indians, they will not be embraced. Americans watch films to affirm themselves, for the most part... and this attitude transcends racial, gender, and age lines. Americans for the most part, feel themselves superior.
Also, Bollywood movies are bound by cultural restraints that will make them less than viable here.
The other side of that, is that a Bollywood star who tries to cross over here risks alienating his bollywood audience, to the point where he/she might not be viable over there any more.
So much of the world has become acclimated to consuming our product, it is more likely that they'll come towards the US style of filmmaking as opposed to the other way around.
So is the US film market. I've worked on at least two films where the crew was paid in CASH. In fact, one of those two was a film where the DP was sent on cash runs, in a chauffered car, to pick up "packages" that were filled with cash.
the independent film industry in particular is awash with money laundering.
I'm really sorry about that btw.
I'd actually like to talk to you about your startup.
What would your distribution model be? Some kind of DRM? Are you streaming?
On the other hand, it's easier to make money by aiming regurgitated crap at the mainstream than to aim at the MENSA crowd. But then on the gripping hand, there's a lot less competition up at the top end...
exactly!!!! EXACTLY!!! Now the question is how to effectively tailor to that crowd. It's been neglected for that very reason. It's really hard to consistently put out compelling content for a very discriminating audience.
Dude, I didn't say that I saw things that way.
My first script consult gig; I made the mistake of voicing general discomfort with the dumbing down process and lost the contract.
I'm not voicing my opinion; this is the machine. This is the way Hollywood goes about making wide swath films. I agree that it is not art.
You have to understand a bit about how films get made.
Studios do not spend their own money on making films. They finance films using loan/credit/financing structures. So as a producer of a film, it is in your vested interest to produce the biggest budget movies possible for two reasons: 1. because producers collect around 10% of the budget as a fee, and 2. high budget films condition the audience against lower budget films which stifles innovation and competition and prevents decentralization of the industry. I watched Primer with my girlfriend (now mind you Primer is a GREAT film) and all she complained about for 90 minutes, was how cheap the film LOOKED. More on Primer later.
When a film's budget approaches 100 million, it has to appeal wide swath. This isn't an artistic demand - this is a corporate demand, coming from finance execs that have to contend with intractable investors. So it's damn near impossible to get a singular vision film made at that scale because of the financial strictures involved. It just doesn't happen.
Studios make money off the library and make structured payments on debt. Individuals (executives, actors, etc.) draw individual weath from the system because they are getting paid from those same VC//investment/banking funds. There is little room in this structure for art.
The system is horribly corrupt and bloated. Since investment funds are being used, everyone in the revenu stream tries to draw the fattest chunk of cash they can, further inflating costs.
What you mention is actually being done. I'll find the link and post it later, but an arthouse distribution network is being currently designed. Mark Cuban's Landmark Theaters is also considered an arthouse distribution model, andhe's experimenting with day-and-date via DVD and digital distribution.
The ability to do an artistic film is directly correlational to the cost. A great movie that came out recently is Primer, a sci fi done by some engineer turned filmmaker in Texas, I think. He did it for 7 grand of his own money, shot on super 16 mm. You want to be an artist in the film industry, be prepared to suffer for your art form. He got a film deal out of it, butthe film had made little to no cash - and he'll probably be presented with some hackneyed stuff so he can cut his teeth in a more professional setting. It's the way.
I personally am using some of the cash from my script consulting to do my own film. The subject: Stanley Kubrick of course. I'm gonna focus specifically on his early years, when he hustled chess in Washington Square Park in New York.
To belatedly answer your questions. Do I want to "make" art, yes. Do I want Hollywood cash. Yes. Can I do both. Yes.
Hollywood responds to the critical mass audience, the lowest common denominator.
I willingly concede that I could be the one without the sense of humor. I do agree with you that even in humor he ventured towards darker aspects of things.
lol, I maintain that he didn't have a sense of humor. I'm a huge Kubrick fan, btw.
Dude, Solaris was a powerful film. Claustrophobic.
There's an interesting film out right now called Stay, also sometimes claustrophobic.
I work in film and here's the general audience's biggest gripe about sci-fi movies. No one wants to feel dumb. This is marketing 101 - the reason why films are rehashed and plotlines redone over and over is because only a small minority are comfortable in uncertainty... with not knowing. It's a manifestation of the adventurers spirit.
So you do a smart sci-fi film that challenges a Christian's notion of the universe, and they get scared. They dont want that feeling... that they're wrong, that they don't know. So next summer, another alien space movie will probably come out, and some elite team will be sent it to investigate, the lesbian gunner will die first and the black guy second, etc. and most will eat popcorn and they'll go home satisfied that aliens can never defeat us with our crude projectile weapons, religious sentiment and irrepressible warrior ethos. It's collective masturbation. And they'll polish their guns and dust off their bibles unafraid.
I've worked as a script consultant and 90 percent of my work over the past year has been to "dumb-down" scripts. Three modalities: get a PG-13 at the script stage, nothing more complex than a sixth grade level (aforementioned PG-13 rating; nothing troubling; no f-words, etc; avoid religion, no frontal nudity), after which point the one-liner guy comes onto the script and does what is called a polish (read: "smarten" up the dialogue with one-liners and slang, etc).
Dude, Kubrick was a genius.
He did get the book - 2001, that is. He just chose to interpret it differently. I'm actually interested in discussing what you think he missed in regards to 2001.
Shining. Kubrick thought horror films were lame. To him the greatest horror one could experience was the losing of one's own mind (he was pretty much an atheist and existentialist by nature), as one's own mind is all that you are. This was truly horrifiying to him. Interestingly enough, Nicholson is attirbuted to the following about Kubrick: Nicholson was traumatized by the harshness of the script and talked to Kubrick about lightening up the tone a bit. Kubrick responded that the film was optimistic. Nicholson was surprised and asked him to elaborate.... Kubrick's response was that anything that alludes to the existence of an afterlife is optimistic. In his own way, this was his way of alluding to his own beliefs while simultaneously acceding to hope that there is something more. The horror was to lose one's mind... the hope, that there was some form of external cogent cause... the implication in microcosm of some larger framework.
Spielberg saved AI? Are you fucking kidding me? Spielberg is a hack who rehashes his own unresolved father issues in EVERY FILM HE DOES.
Kubrick's only flaws as a filmmaker are that he had no sense of humor; therefore he couldn't give his films a variety of tone. The other is that he was a shitty editor. His films ran too long because he could not edit himself. There's a lot to be said about directors who get final cut because most who do end up producing indulgent films. Kubrick is no exception. You could trim serious fat from almost all of his films.
Oh, and Barry Lyndon is a fucking amazing film and IMO one of the most underrated films of all time.
dude, angeline jolie was in Alexander.
MILF.
Many said the same about Google.
dude, I also have a 4155 and I fucking love this thing.
I watch movies and have music on a 2 gig SD card. I read ebooks. Play games - but PC games like tomb raider and age of empires. street maps, skype, contacts, schedule, pics, portable memory, voice memos, laundry lists. Wifi - Bluetooth.... this device is the real deal. It connects quickly to networks and with little fuss. It recognizes them and allows you to switch from network to network.
My only gripe is that the attachable thumb keyboard has lag issues.
I actually undertook it as an exercise to see what I could get done in "downtime" - transit time to and from places on the NYC subway. I wrote a novel on the thing - called Misanthrope. In Pocket Word - Took me about nine months - 191 pages. The novel sucks, but I couldn't have done that with a fucking Ipod.
Oh, and it doesn't crash. My only issue were some system slowdowns when I installed some poorly cracked programs off peer networks. An uninstall cleaned everything right up.
I don't code, but I don't think making developers responsible for faulty code is a good solution.
If I develop X for a company that then takes X to market, and X turns out to be faulty, company should be at fault. I am at fault for writing shoddy code, the effect of which will be that I get fewer future contracts or employment to do the same. Company is at fault for taking X to market, and as such should be resonsible for any liability due to X's shortcomings.
GM is responsible for a shoddy part on one of its vehicles, not the engineer that developed the part.
Sole proprietors who take their code to market should be responsible, but in that instance, the sole proprietor is both developer and vendor.
Microsoft has been a significant shareholder in Apple since 1997. Their development and support of office for Apple products probably kept the company alive during the lean years... pre-ipod. While they generate some revenue from it, they could have just as easily killed OFfice for Apple products and sunk Apple.
Last year when the NHL (National Hockey League) was not operating because of a labor dispute, a group of investors offered to buy the entire league at face value, some 2+ billion dollars. When asked why this would be of value when many NHL teams worked with an operating loss, one of the investors replied: NHL teams compete for a pool of fans. When one team loses, they lose money. When a team with no marketable stars wins, it loses money. The NHL, centrally owned, would benefit from that competition regardless. Given a steadily growing pool of fans, it's a win/win proposition. Also, a centrally owned league can push the cost of hiring players WAY down. It didn't happen, but it was an interesting idea.
Microsoft continues to benefit from Apple, both in the tech it adopts from Apple, and from return on its investment. It's a win/win situation. I can imagine that Microsoft guys find it funny that Apple fanboys think of Apple progress as Microsoft quiescence or regression. It is an inaccurate assessment based more on emotion than anything else. On that front, when Apple wins, Microsoft wins.
I can also imagine that both firms strategize and construct marketing tactics to capitalize on this sentiment. Any press is good press. Jobs constantly plays the underdog and refers to MS as the monopolist, etc. Gates throws tantrums and lumbers about as the disgruntled powermonger. It's all wrestling, dudes. Contrived - it's like "reality" television.
It isn't something widespread, but there was an article posted here a couple of days ago about JPL letting go of 300 engineers because of a shift in emphasis from robotics to manned space flight, despite the awesome successes we continue to have with robotics in space. You discussed the idea of politics interfering with engineering, and this is a case.
I agree with you on the unfair criticism that the Space shuttle gets. It's an awesome piece of engineering, but it's terminator tech. It's probably the way NOT to develop a space program. Too complex.
I also saw an interview where an engineer discussed the potential displacement of the shuttle generation of engineers and science as the shuttle is phased out - two generations of talented engineers. Another group of terminator staff.
Because our space program isn't evolutionary, but instead a series of programs doomed to extinction, we're back at square one, the early sixties, trying to figure out how to get to the moon.