Filmmaking / Directing : The End of Filmmaking as We Know It? by Gregory Green

Wow, Greg, just read the article in its entirety. I think the author is a little deluded when he writes, "The real winners, however, are the consumers. We won’t have to pay $50 to go to the movies on a date night, and we’ll be able to watch what we want to watch, when we want, and, most important, where we want." Despite reckoning that all of Hollywood can easily be replaced by A.I., C.G.I and other technology, including screenwriters like Aaron Sorkin, he fails to realise that by his own reckoning his column writing can also be done by a bot. Where he supposes he will find the money to remain a real winning "consumer" is beyond me! :D

As for Hollywood, I still have faith in it, as I do in publishing. A rebrand is all Hollywood needs, and possibly a rebrand independent of the all-pervasive agenda of Silicon Valley (^^,) Did I dare say that?... You bet I did. Rise up Hollywood, you're our last hope against a bot-apocalyse ha! I'm brandishing my pen as I speak...

Good for you! Brandish away, S.J.. BTW, I love your term 'bot-apocalypse!' Brilliant!!

:D A bot is no match for my pen! Get your camera rolling Greg! We got show those bots we irreplicable!! #MHGA (MakeHollywoodGreatAgain)

Another end of the world rant. Vanity Fair magazine will end before Hollywood.

I had to smile and shake my head a bit at the lack of understanding the author has about how a film set operates. It's not that any of the 200 technicians are extraneous. (believe me, the folks in accounting and production are keenly aware of what corners can be cut). But each has to wait their turn to do their job in what looks like a lot of waiting around followed by a chaotic mad scramble of activity, which is really a beautiful, self-choreographed ballet based on experience and individual initiative, guided by a small number of managers. And as for the story about the peevish Set Costumer, I'll lay ten to one odds the writer didn't know the proper technique or have the proper tools to prevent the water drop from staining the wardrobe and pissed the costumer off by mashing the droplet into the weave instead of blotting it up.

As for the opinions stated in the article, in general it was a relatively uninformed viewpoint from an armchair quarterback who's heard some buzzwords and probably believes that the iPhone is a magic piece of glass and not a product cobbled together by thousands of developers, coders, laborers and marketers.

I've recently made the shift from working for network TV to working for Netflix and Hulu, and I can say the difference is not in how the sausage is made, but in how gourmet the ingredients are becoming. And part of that is a greater degree of creative freedom being given to showrunners to actually be creative without network interference.

The real financial story is not how the crews or creatives are breaking the budget on shows, but how the bloated studio-network-affiliate system is being recognized as a vampire draining profits and reinvestment from product development at every step while streaming providers like Netflix and Hulu and Amazon can cut three layers of middle men out and deliver their own product to their own platforms to direct subscribers and put their profits right back into development and production.

This is a golden age for labor, producers and creatives. And for consumers. My only real fear is the continued consolidation of the field into a few very large corporate hands. That's more the direction it's going at a breakneck pace than toward a field dominated by AI and CGI.

I think saying that Hollywood is dead is still a bit premature but I do think that economically bloated costs are weakening it noticeably. Many states are working on drawing the film industry to them with tax incentives, lower labor costs and any other perks they can think of. And the rise of inexpensive hardware has fueled the Indie Film Industry; making it closer competition. I'm not even addressing foreign film industries. While none of us truly know the future, I think it does't bode well for the continued prosperity of the "old Hollywood". Change is inevitable and our personal survival necessitates that we bend in the wind.

CInema, as we are used to is coming to an end, unfortunately. I kind of hope the big studios do go away.

Vanity Fair is dead. Perhaps the people who write those articles should get jobs in Amazon warehouses or Apple sweatshops, see what Silicon Valley has in store for them.

I don't mind the big studios... I think its the silent investors with hidden agendas that are the real problem, or as you put it David, "the bloated studio-network-affiliate system". There is a swamp that need draining and I think it's happening as we speak.

As for Silicon Valley, I do believe they are working on a stealth take-over of Hollywood, which is not a great alternative either. They seemingly champion independent producers and content creators, but I wonder just how much the relationship is symbiotic/mutually beneficial.

At the end of the day, the more we hold onto independent productions, the better. Even studio-supported independent productions are fine provided they don't interfere/meddle with the actual creation process. Independence and individuality automatically breed (or "breath") creativity, so if the studio can back that process without being the over-controlling/over-bearing parent that has to have a say in everything, then I'm convinced Hollywood could see glory days even greater than before...

Look at it from an economic (business) stand point. Over the decades, the big studios have invested a whole lot of capital in the film industry infrastructure - massive sound-stages, lots of hi-tech equipment and stuff along with the people to keep it operating. They're not just going to pull up stakes and move over night - and there's no other place in the country that can suddenly replace that infrastructure. I recall seeing that the Mayor of LA was trying to get a Federal Disaster Declaration enacted due to the out-pouring of jobs in the industry.

So just who are the 'silent investors' and what is their 'hidden agenda'? I recall a few decades back the flap over 'feather-bedding' in the rail industry. It was just a stunt to artificially support employment of people who's skills were no longer needed. I suspect (don't know) that this is one of the contributors to the ever rising filmmaking costs. I anticipate a tremendous hue-&-cry from those impacted, but I see it as an unavoidable business trend. California's taxation policies ain't helpin' none.

A little bit of homework will show you silent investors in companies that would really surprise you, Doug, and from people who have no real passionate interest in 'the arts'. They are out to promote their own agenda, rather than support this wonderful world of the creative imagination :)

I want to make sure my comments about the studio-network-affiliate relationship are not taken out of context as anything more than a reflection on the financial relationship they share and how streamlined models like those employed by AMC, HBO, Netflix, Hulu or Amazon are vastly superior from a profit generating point of view for the companies involved. For national broadcasters like CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox, every advertising dollar received is divvied up between many hands. Every employee and owner at the local affiliate level gets a cut, every employee and manager at the Network level gets a cut, every employee and manager and creative at the Studio level gets a cut. And that's on top of the Production costs and Marketing costs just to make a show. The profits are divvied up into thousands of middlemen's hands from top to bottom, eroding a network's ability to reinvest that money into more product or better product. Further, to justify all those expensive middlemen's salaries every executive feels the need to justify their job by asserting some level of creative control or input on the shows they oversee. Further, a network might run a show once at a given timeslot and if it doesn't pick up an audience then and there, it's dead and will never play again. For streaming and cable/satellite services, they can run an episode as many times as they want or consumers can stream. And there are few if any middlemen. All profits go right back to the company without revenue sharing because it owns its own content and pipeline. There's no hidden or political agenda within either system. It's more of a holdover from when three broadcast networks held a virtual monopoly on all broadcast media and profited accordingly at a level that required and could sustain all those middlemen. That bloated system no longer needs to exist because of the advances of technology and a delivery pipeline that directly connects content owners with consumers. The danger in the new model lies in the ability of a small group of technology companies with deep pockets to crush and gobble up their competitors and start ups by ignoring the net neutrality rules or manipulating them to their advantage.

No S.J. - the homework doesn't surprise me at all (I know some 'small time investors'). Investors have an agenda, but it's not secret. The basic motivating concept is to put money in with the hope (risk) of taking more out. They do not have all warm & fuzzy feelings for 'this wonderful world of the creative imagination'. Investors risk money in the stock market, hog bellies and oil futures all the time. It's just business in our 'free' enterprise system; I doubt that many investors harbor warm & fuzzy feelings for hog bellies.

I agree with your assessment David (you're obviously speaking from your firsthand experience), and the bloatedness of the traditional studio model sounds like a nightmare. The new model does have obvious advantages for sure, but I can't help but sense that it echoes Animal Farm in a lot of ways. To say that there are no political agendas/alliances too at that level may be a little naive, as that is just the nature of the game.

I know Doug, but that the precise problem. The problems of the world are all rooted in that same business model which insists on putting profit before people. Just look at the agri-industry for example... an environmentally toxic, chemical-laden looming farmeggeddon, driven by high-stakes investors, which has seen the demise of the family farmer co-operative model while Big Ag continues to industrialise the whole process of farm to fork no end making our people and planet sicker and sicker. The warm, fuzzy feeling you mention is just called having a 'Heart', and if Wall Street had a 'Heart' as part of its business model, then I'm sure the world would be a much better place for us all. In essence, all art does is examine matters of the 'Heart'.

Hohum. Rather follow folks in the business like Doug & David, than folks not in the business writing theories and what if's. Armchair quarterbacks

S.J. - the harsh reality is that the industry is what it is, not what it could be or should be. You can argue about it with a fence all night long - but my advice is just get over it and deal with the reality head-on.

SJ, I think you ascribe too much forethought, cunning and aspiration to the hucksters and schmucks who make this dirty business run. Sure, there's plenty of greed, vice, skullduggery and wickedness, and if trying to hide profits in the Cayman Islands to avoid paying taxes, having your assistants score hookers and coke on Melrose Boulevard, or getting your company to shell out hush money to your victims so you can be a serial rapist amounts to conspiracy, then yeah, there's a lot of conspiracies going on. But it's all pretty much at the level of the Huns invading Europe - it's more like a mass pillage, rape and burn opportunity than a godlike mandate from Attila to spread the Hun culture. The business goal has always been the same: get the rubes to part with their nickels and keep them coming back for more. The social agenda has been every man for himself, as fast as you can before it all ends. I've been in the business for 30 years at the mid-management level (as a DGA Assistant Director) working closely with writers, directors, producers and show runners. I am privy to a lot of behind-closed-doors meetings. There's no omnipotent, omniscient illuminati pulling the strings. Of course there are conspiracies and social messages in films and TV shows. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands. There are as many agendas out there as there are artists and people with cash willing to bankroll them. But that's not a hidden thing. If you want to fund a Faith based movie or one that advocates LGBT rights or one that denies global warming, all that stands in your way is how fat your checkbook is. But if you want to make money doing it, then you need to still get the rubs to part with their nickels. And that takes artists with messages that resonate with audiences, which usually boils down to a good car chase, a relationship in crisis and a really big explosion. If you manage to slip in a social message between the car chase, the cheesecake and the boom-boom, God bless you and Hail Eris. :)

"We won’t have to pay $50 to go to the movies on a date night, and we’ll be able to watch what we want to watch, when we want, and, most important, where we want."

This is reality around the World since 2004.

David, I actually ascribe no "forethought" to them, as that would require "real intelligence". If there had been forethought involved, then we would be leaving an enriched inheritance to our children instead of empires built on sand. Greed is always only concerned with the here and now at the expense of people, planet and future. In the background, real art and literature has always been around to make sense of it all for those who really want to know. Entertainment, of course, is the current model. But it is different to art in many ways. Entertainment offers distraction, but art is what offers meaning. I believe people are sick and tired of the mind-numbing distraction these days and are searching for real meaning in this messed up world. But hey, what would I know, I'm just a romantic idealist and lover of real art :D

"Art washes away from the Soul the Dust of Everyday Life" ~Pablo Picasso

S.J. As I develop and write heroine characters, I delve into their needs and desires and morals. Your philosophical need/desire seems to be to clean up the filmmaking industry and you are certain of your moral right to do so. I wholeheartedly agree. Now go watch The China Syndrome and have a happy New Year.

Thanks Doug, just DuckDuckGo-ed it (I no longer use Google) and sounds intriguing :)

And very many happy returns to you, my friend!

Show business has never made its money by accident. Sometimes it leads its audience and sometimes the audience leads it. But show business is always paying attention... it just takes a little while longer for it to look away from the mirror to see what's happening around it occasionally.