4 ms·

Well, the most important item is not on this list: Hollywood doeant have a frigging clue about what makes a film successfull (except some obvious metrics, like

by Jun8 15y ago

Well, the most important item is not on this list: Hollywood doeant have a frigging clue about what makes a film successfull (except some obvious metrics, like big names, that anyone can think about), they're completely divorced from the audxience reality. There are many movies that become blockbusters to the great suprise of producers and vice versa, despite the many preview audience screenings, market research, etc. I don't know of any other industry that shares this characteristic. With top-notch video camears as low as $2-3K now, I'm forever expecting a DIY movie explosion, which never happens. People explain this as "it' difficult to shoot,edit, etc. a movie" which is true but I think the much bigger factor is the stronghold these companies have on distribution.

jws 15y ago
Popular music has a similar dynamic. The studio model is to grab a bunch of likely artists, get them in front of the public and see which ones get traction. Restaurants are similar. Only about 50% will get traction and survive. That is a well studied business with a replicable model and still it's a crap shoot. You might even extend it to HN style startups. Lots of expertise in choosing, funding, and guiding, but you still can't say with confidence which will succeed.
- Jun8 15y ago
  The scale of your examples are dwarfed by the costs of a movie, a low-end one would be, say $10-15M. What restaurant, startup can boast such an upfront investment. Even a CD costs not nearly as much.
- DarkShikari 15y ago
  Popular music has a similar dynamic. The studio model is to grab a bunch of likely artists, get them in front of the public and see which ones get traction. This has been changing in recent years and is becoming less and less true as more companies start to import the Japanese pop music model. In Japan, for the past 30 or so years, they've churned out cookie-cutter idols in a machine-like fashion. They don't pick a person who'd make a good idol -- they design an idol that would appeal to their target demographic, and then they find a person to, effectively, act out the role. Musical talent is largely irrelevant: if they can't sing, just pile on the Autotune and vocal filters, or even use a vocal double. And after a few years, when their idol isn't cool anymore, ditch the old idol and find a new one. The idols are so fake and inhuman that when AKB48, as a publicity stunt, announced an "idol" that was later revealed to be a computer-rendering instead of a "real" person, it didn't really seem any less real than the current idols, and surprised hardly anyone. The companies that do this have very high success rates: when they put millions of dollars into marketing an idol, their idol becomes popular. And then they make billions. Why have a guessing game of whether your band will match the demographic when you can design a band to do so? This model has already existed in the West with boy/girl bands and such. Disney is probably the biggest company trying to pull this model off today, with machine-created "stars" like Miley Cyrus.
Cushman 15y ago
I think you're underestimating-- making a movie is really, really hard. It barely matters how much the camera costs. Producing video of the quality audiences now expect takes dozens of people who all know exactly what they're doing. That's the major expense. Anyone with a PC and a HD camcorder can easily produce good video for, say, the early 90s. But people now don't want to watch video from the early 90s, so it still costs a hundred million bucks to make a film.
- Jun8 15y ago
  I wholeheartedly disagree. Slickness of the film is important, I.e. editing, sound quality, etc., but thisis but one dimension. When I sit on a Friday evening browsing page after page of crap movies on Netflix, this dimensiona is less important than the actual content and originality. I can't believe that film school students, armed with a decent camera (not a camcorder) and audio equipment cannot produce watcahble and interesting content. Well-known examples do exist, most recently Paranormal Activity. Your arguments (it's hard, costs millions) were labeled to some other industries, that are now trickling down to DIYers, e.g. 3D print, self publishing. You can now rent a professional studio to record your own CD and some groups have done so. However all solutions about creation are moot if the created content has no way of reaching the buyers. I still think this is the main problem. Putting your movie on YouTube is not a viable solution.
Keyframe 15y ago
Camera pricing is a small fraction of the cost. For example I was on a set today where we had a cheap RED camera (~$18k) and it was among the cheapest pieces of equipment we had on the set. Set wasn't even a movie set, but an interview set. Imagine that.
- Jun8 15y ago
  Of course, true for professional production. But for a perosn who is starting out, e.g. a film school student, camera and Final Cut is what'll get you started.
  - Keyframe 15y ago
    I agree. But, FCP7 :) Also, good lens and light is better to have than a good camera. People often forget that. I'd rather have a good, rock solid tripod, good light and lens than a great camera.
    - kingofspain 15y ago
      And good sound. You can get way with DV quality blown out crappy footage if your sound is top notch. Decent sound recording gear is fairly cheap and will last for a million years, so there's really no excuse.
technoslut 15y ago
>With top-notch video camears as low as $2-3K now, I'm forever expecting a DIY movie explosion, which never happens. People explain this as "it' difficult to shoot,edit, etc. a movie" which is true but I think the much bigger factor is the stronghold these companies have on distribution. I agree with you to an extent. You can always find young, talented actors who are willing to do a film but the main problem is the script and finding a talented director who hasn't been signed by a major studio. Another factor are the viewers themselves. They have been so conditioned to expect that only a major studio picture is worth watching (similar to the music industry) that they're not willing to give anything else a chance. How else do you explain the success of Transformers or the moderate success of the Green Lantern when most people have heard of neither unless you were a comic book fan or grew up on 80s cartoons?
jerf 15y ago
It is happening. It is just taking some time. People only recently got the cheap, high-quality movie cameras, and the experience level is still building up from the amateur phase. But some links to hit: http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/ http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/ , especially their bigger stuff http://www.youtube.com/user/freddiew http://www.youtube.com/user/freddiew Some good stuff is being produced by "amateurs", but it takes time to build up the skill and knowledge base. Work is mostly in the 10-20 minute range and a lot of bootstrapping off of other content ("reviews" of "real media" are a common format), but slowly-but-surely the confidence is increasing and more original large-scale work is being done.
zobzu 15y ago
Movies, not really yet, but TV, totally. There's many good shows on various Internet distribution channels that are made by a few people using DSLR's and small budgets.They're also high quality.

by Jun8 15y ago

jws 15y ago

Popular music has a similar dynamic. The studio model is to grab a bunch of likely artists, get them in front of the public and see which ones get traction. Restaurants are similar. Only about 50% will get traction and survive. That is a well studied business with a replicable model and still it's a crap shoot. You might even extend it to HN style startups. Lots of expertise in choosing, funding, and guiding, but you still can't say with confidence which will succeed.

Jun8 15y ago
The scale of your examples are dwarfed by the costs of a movie, a low-end one would be, say $10-15M. What restaurant, startup can boast such an upfront investment. Even a CD costs not nearly as much.
DarkShikari 15y ago
Popular music has a similar dynamic. The studio model is to grab a bunch of likely artists, get them in front of the public and see which ones get traction. This has been changing in recent years and is becoming less and less true as more companies start to import the Japanese pop music model. In Japan, for the past 30 or so years, they've churned out cookie-cutter idols in a machine-like fashion. They don't pick a person who'd make a good idol -- they design an idol that would appeal to their target demographic, and then they find a person to, effectively, act out the role. Musical talent is largely irrelevant: if they can't sing, just pile on the Autotune and vocal filters, or even use a vocal double. And after a few years, when their idol isn't cool anymore, ditch the old idol and find a new one. The idols are so fake and inhuman that when AKB48, as a publicity stunt, announced an "idol" that was later revealed to be a computer-rendering instead of a "real" person, it didn't really seem any less real than the current idols, and surprised hardly anyone. The companies that do this have very high success rates: when they put millions of dollars into marketing an idol, their idol becomes popular. And then they make billions. Why have a guessing game of whether your band will match the demographic when you can design a band to do so? This model has already existed in the West with boy/girl bands and such. Disney is probably the biggest company trying to pull this model off today, with machine-created "stars" like Miley Cyrus.

Cushman 15y ago

I think you're underestimating-- making a movie is really, really hard. It barely matters how much the camera costs. Producing video of the quality audiences now expect takes dozens of people who all know exactly what they're doing. That's the major expense. Anyone with a PC and a HD camcorder can easily produce good video for, say, the early 90s. But people now don't want to watch video from the early 90s, so it still costs a hundred million bucks to make a film.

Jun8 15y ago
I wholeheartedly disagree. Slickness of the film is important, I.e. editing, sound quality, etc., but thisis but one dimension. When I sit on a Friday evening browsing page after page of crap movies on Netflix, this dimensiona is less important than the actual content and originality. I can't believe that film school students, armed with a decent camera (not a camcorder) and audio equipment cannot produce watcahble and interesting content. Well-known examples do exist, most recently Paranormal Activity. Your arguments (it's hard, costs millions) were labeled to some other industries, that are now trickling down to DIYers, e.g. 3D print, self publishing. You can now rent a professional studio to record your own CD and some groups have done so. However all solutions about creation are moot if the created content has no way of reaching the buyers. I still think this is the main problem. Putting your movie on YouTube is not a viable solution.

Keyframe 15y ago

Camera pricing is a small fraction of the cost. For example I was on a set today where we had a cheap RED camera (~$18k) and it was among the cheapest pieces of equipment we had on the set. Set wasn't even a movie set, but an interview set. Imagine that.

Jun8 15y ago
Of course, true for professional production. But for a perosn who is starting out, e.g. a film school student, camera and Final Cut is what'll get you started.
- Keyframe 15y ago
  I agree. But, FCP7 :) Also, good lens and light is better to have than a good camera. People often forget that. I'd rather have a good, rock solid tripod, good light and lens than a great camera.
  - kingofspain 15y ago
    And good sound. You can get way with DV quality blown out crappy footage if your sound is top notch. Decent sound recording gear is fairly cheap and will last for a million years, so there's really no excuse.

technoslut 15y ago

>With top-notch video camears as low as $2-3K now, I'm forever expecting a DIY movie explosion, which never happens. People explain this as "it' difficult to shoot,edit, etc. a movie" which is true but I think the much bigger factor is the stronghold these companies have on distribution. I agree with you to an extent. You can always find young, talented actors who are willing to do a film but the main problem is the script and finding a talented director who hasn't been signed by a major studio. Another factor are the viewers themselves. They have been so conditioned to expect that only a major studio picture is worth watching (similar to the music industry) that they're not willing to give anything else a chance. How else do you explain the success of Transformers or the moderate success of the Green Lantern when most people have heard of neither unless you were a comic book fan or grew up on 80s cartoons?

jerf 15y ago

It is happening. It is just taking some time. People only recently got the cheap, high-quality movie cameras, and the experience level is still building up from the amateur phase. But some links to hit: http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/ http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/ , especially their bigger stuff http://www.youtube.com/user/freddiew http://www.youtube.com/user/freddiew Some good stuff is being produced by "amateurs", but it takes time to build up the skill and knowledge base. Work is mostly in the 10-20 minute range and a lot of bootstrapping off of other content ("reviews" of "real media" are a common format), but slowly-but-surely the confidence is increasing and more original large-scale work is being done.

zobzu 15y ago

Movies, not really yet, but TV, totally. There's many good shows on various Internet distribution channels that are made by a few people using DSLR's and small budgets.They're also high quality.