6 ms·

Democratized? It’s more centralized than ever. Also, giving more projects $5m is not a victory if the cost of a proper production is $20m. It’s just an explana

Democratized? It’s more centralized than ever. Also, giving more projects $5m is not a victory if the cost of a proper production is $20m. It’s just an explanation for why quality is dipping. Or following your logic and “hundreds of other films”, it seems like you’re under the impression that a good film can be made with $100k. I’m finding more blind spots and jumps to conclusions in your comment than in the admittedly poorly written article. Give that, it doesn’t surprise me that you’re one of the ones who are looking at what’s being served as tv shows and actually enjoying it. If you ask me, “the golden age of TV” is a meme based on a handful of shows, all of them made at the onset of the new economy when the nascent methodologies of the new economy led to authors having outsized influence for a short period of time. There’s something seriously brainwashed about looking at what’s at offer today and still concluding that because the Sopranos exists we’re still producing good content. I will give you the enjoyable b-movies, but also remind you that those have existed always, and often in greater numbers.

metacritic12 4y ago
> I will give you the enjoyable b-movies, but also remind you that those have existed always, and often in greater numbers. Don't think this is true. If you consider a lot of self-produced Youtube clips as C-movies, there are way more today. And audiences have voted for what they want: they want more lower-production-cost movies in their exact niche than academic film-art blockbusters like Ben Hur.
- andrepd 4y ago
  >academic film-art blockbusters like Ben Hur Wat
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  Sure, if you consider a lot of self-produced Youtube clips as C-movies. But I think historically B-movies were paid for by Hollywood studios (but given shoestring budgets). It's hard to imagine a time in history where the 50's and 60's didn't dominate with B-movies. Perhaps with the collapse of the drive-in, the matinee, there has not been a compelling business model for the studios to finance B-movies for decades now.
christophilus 4y ago
> Democratized? It’s more centralized than ever. Those aren’t opposites. In a democracy, if everyone is allowed to post political pamphlets in the town square, the central location of the square doesn’t mean it’s not a democracy.
- paraselene_ 4y ago
  I would agree, but right now that square is more akin to being owned by several private companies, each with their own policy which can (and will) throw you out and bar you for any reason they deemed fit.
abetusk 4y ago
Clerks - $27,575 [0] A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night - $56,000 [1] Butt Boy - $100,000 [2] The Blue - <$100k [3] Call Me Brother - <$100k [3] Frances Ferguson - <$100k [3] Greenlight - <$100k [3] Love in Dangerous Times - <$100k [3] Man in Camo - <$100k [3] I'm going to stop now but I hope I've made my point. I've watched many of the above. I've heard about most of the above. Your tone is pretty snarky so I'm not sure if it's worth responding but here is a list of TV shows, all within the last decade, that I believe are exceptional and not limited to "just the Sopranos": * Chernobyl * Rick and Morty * True Detective * Fargo * Severance * 1883 * Mindhunter * Westworld * The Knick * The Peripheral * Succession * Years and Years * Orange is the New Black * Halt and Catch Fire * Insecure * Watchmen * Atlanta This is only from 10 minutes of searching. You'll note that many of them are produced, directed, written and star high profile artists. The subject matter that they deal with can be done at a pace and care that's impossible to do with a 2-3 hour movie. The quality of the above series or mini-series was virtually non existent, maybe with some very few exceptions, before 2000 and only began to pick up pace in 2000 to 2010. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerks_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerks_(film) [1] https://byrdtheatre.org/news/2019/10/a-girl-walks-home-alone-at-night-brings-beauty-to-vampires/ https://byrdtheatre.org/news/2019/10/a-girl-walks-home-alone... [2] https://www.cautionspoilers.com/film-reviews/butt-boy/ https://www.cautionspoilers.com/film-reviews/butt-boy/ [3] https://musiccitydrivein.com/2021/02/19/film-threat-award-this-announces-2021-indie-film-nominees-for-drive-in-event-virtual-ceremony/ https://musiccitydrivein.com/2021/02/19/film-threat-award-th...
- YtGoodman 4y ago
  Exceptional… Watchmen… Lol
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    The series, not the movie. The series is excellent. On paper, should have been bad. Is instead very, very good.
  - gilbetron 4y ago
    Watchmen was amazing, so I don't understand the issue. Each individual episode was carefully, and cleverly, crafted. We were watching several other popular shows at the same time, and the contrast was really apparent, with Watchmen in a completely different league.
unity1001 4y ago
> Democratized? It’s more centralized than ever. What 'centralized' in a world that now has 'creator economy' as a thing. > Also, giving more projects $5m is not a victory if the cost of a proper production is $20m. Is there any objective definition of that 'proper'. Rhetorical question, obviously, for there isnt. > it seems like you’re under the impression that a good film can be made with $100k. It doesn't seem like it. It is like that. Many movies like Paranormal Activity, Parasite were made with low budgets. > Give that, it doesn’t surprise me that you’re one of the ones who are looking at what’s being served as tv shows and actually enjoying it. Yeah, people are actually enjoying TV. That shouldnt be a big surprise. > If you ask me, “the golden age of TV” is a meme based on a handful of shows How is that any different from the golden ages of cinema in which unending series of rehashed crap were produced to profit off of audiences that had no alternative but to pay for them. ... Its much better for things to be distributed, democratized and in the hands of more people than small cliques of profiteering feudal lords monopolizing them and deciding what happens. Especially regarding content.
- dbspin 4y ago
  Filmmaker here - Parasites budget was in the 10 million range. Paranormal Activity's initial budget was in the 15K range (tiny, even when it was shot 15 years ago), a further 200k was spent on post production and reshoots when it was picked up by a major studio. This doesn't count the many millions both had spent on marketing - which is often up to twice a productions shooting and post budget. High end filmmaking has gotten 'cheaper', in that you can use virtual production to simulate environments etc. And undoubtedly shooting 'digital' is cheaper than film development. Although nowhere near as much cheaper than you might think, once the cost of a DIT and professional colour grade is thrown into the mix. However the standards of both independent film and TV production are enormously higher than they were 15 years ago. It's not that it's impossible to make something cheaply - I'm involved in the kino kabaret movement, where amateurs and professionals alike join together to make effectively zero budget films over a weekend. However - the cost of producing a decent film has not dropped to a few thousand. Quite the opposite. Given the high production value of contemporary indies, it's inarguably more difficult now to make something that will play festivals and sell to distributers for an 'ultralow' budget. Moreover, lots of the budgets you see quotes are as low as they were because the film was effectively subsidised by a small production company. In other words, everyone worked for free and used borrowed gear, often worth hundreds of thousands. For reference a fully kitted out Arri Alexa 35 or LF is over 90k euro to buy, and over 1k per day to rent. A decent budget for a short film is in the 40 - 50k range, once everyone is actually getting paid for their time. Couple of million dollars / euros would be a low budget film, with favours pulled in and everyone working for less than half of their rates for commercial work.
yamtaddle 4y ago
> There’s something seriously brainwashed about looking at what’s at offer today and still concluding that because the Sopranos exists we’re still producing good content. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency The Wire You're the Worst The Good Place Too many decent-to-great sitcoms and sketch-comedy shows to list. Ditto adult animated shows. Justified Evil Several great limited series (e.g. The Haunting of Hill House) I could keep going. The last couple decades have given us a lot of really good shows since The Sopranos. I watch a fair amount and still have a backlog of probably-great stuff I haven't gotten to yet (including, actually, The Sopranos!) and continue to stumble on shows I've never even heard of that turn out to be really good.
- lommelun 4y ago
  The Wire was made within the window I was talking about. From about 1995 to about 2005. The rest is a list of mediocrity. So, point not made.
GeekyBear 4y ago
> Democratized? It’s more centralized than ever. Camera technology is so ubiquitous now that an unknown can create content on a shoestring budget. It's now more about gumption and talent instead of gumption, talent, and having enough money to rent professional equipment. I can remember an indie film shot on a digital SLR camera with a $6,000 budget picking up festival awards a decade ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battery_(2012_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battery_(2012_film) Of course, everyone having access doesn't make everyone's content good, but Spielberg got started with a Super 8 camera in his teens.
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  I agree — if you allow that YouTube is the means of distribution for an indie-filmmaker. (For better or worse.) I remember when, in the 80's, sci-fi conventions were perhaps one of the few means of recognition that the Super-8 indie guys get exposure (and maybe a career) with the likes of, for example, "Hardware Wars".
- Arainach 4y ago
  Cost of a camera is a tiny piece of good production. There's still good videographers, lights and people to aim them, sound equipment and people to hold them, actors, editors, and so much more. Saving even $100k on a camera is nothing.
- syntheweave 4y ago
  In general, indie production - in every medium - is run on some combination of favors and gaslighting. You can get away with being more intensively exploitative in the moment, taking fewer precautions, and doing things in non-standard(less effective) ways precisely because you're the little guy and the real victim here. If we're talking about supporting an industry with professional talent, pointing to the entry level capital cost isn't the way to do it, because there's an element of Baumol's cost disease, where the relative cost of your talent rises because everything else got cheaper. And you want to have the ability to pay people to go the extra mile without duping them. You can certainly make more varied kinds of productions on modern tech and budgets than before, but if there isn't an income stream that keeps the talent base there, you end up with privileged talent that can buy their way into an arts career, not veterans who built an artisanal skillset in the process of staying employed. I suspect we're actually going in the direction of more and more adaptations. The Marvel movies and Star Wars shows are basically that; Dune, White Noise are both book adaptations. Anime succumbed to it a long while back and most of what's released each season is from a manga or light novel. It's a robust model because it can frame the production budget as an advertising cost, while also tapping into the success of the source, spreading out risks. But adaptation, as good as it can be, pushes the medium to be in service to its source material, and to "give fans what they want". It's not building off the nature of the medium itself, so it's also somewhat unsatisfying if you really want the films and shows that push boundaries.
tjrDL6MjB2Zwwa 4y ago
> Democratized? It’s more centralized than ever. I don't know who is right here, but I'll provide an anecdote. I know someone that wrote and directed a movie that had a very well known actor (you've heard of him) and had a limited run in theatres. Through that process I go to know a bit about the industry itself and it was very much a good old boys club where you absolutely had to play ball. Things like processing the formats was done with extremely expensive systems and if you tried to go around them no one would respond to you. I don't know if it's better now, but I can imagine it is.

metacritic12 4y ago

> I will give you the enjoyable b-movies, but also remind you that those have existed always, and often in greater numbers. Don't think this is true. If you consider a lot of self-produced Youtube clips as C-movies, there are way more today. And audiences have voted for what they want: they want more lower-production-cost movies in their exact niche than academic film-art blockbusters like Ben Hur.

andrepd 4y ago
>academic film-art blockbusters like Ben Hur Wat
JKCalhoun 4y ago
Sure, if you consider a lot of self-produced Youtube clips as C-movies. But I think historically B-movies were paid for by Hollywood studios (but given shoestring budgets). It's hard to imagine a time in history where the 50's and 60's didn't dominate with B-movies. Perhaps with the collapse of the drive-in, the matinee, there has not been a compelling business model for the studios to finance B-movies for decades now.

christophilus 4y ago

> Democratized? It’s more centralized than ever. Those aren’t opposites. In a democracy, if everyone is allowed to post political pamphlets in the town square, the central location of the square doesn’t mean it’s not a democracy.

paraselene_ 4y ago
I would agree, but right now that square is more akin to being owned by several private companies, each with their own policy which can (and will) throw you out and bar you for any reason they deemed fit.

abetusk 4y ago

Clerks - $27,575 [0] A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night - $56,000 [1] Butt Boy - $100,000 [2] The Blue - <$100k [3] Call Me Brother - <$100k [3] Frances Ferguson - <$100k [3] Greenlight - <$100k [3] Love in Dangerous Times - <$100k [3] Man in Camo - <$100k [3] I'm going to stop now but I hope I've made my point. I've watched many of the above. I've heard about most of the above. Your tone is pretty snarky so I'm not sure if it's worth responding but here is a list of TV shows, all within the last decade, that I believe are exceptional and not limited to "just the Sopranos": * Chernobyl * Rick and Morty * True Detective * Fargo * Severance * 1883 * Mindhunter * Westworld * The Knick * The Peripheral * Succession * Years and Years * Orange is the New Black * Halt and Catch Fire * Insecure * Watchmen * Atlanta This is only from 10 minutes of searching. You'll note that many of them are produced, directed, written and star high profile artists. The subject matter that they deal with can be done at a pace and care that's impossible to do with a 2-3 hour movie. The quality of the above series or mini-series was virtually non existent, maybe with some very few exceptions, before 2000 and only began to pick up pace in 2000 to 2010. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerks_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerks_(film) [1] https://byrdtheatre.org/news/2019/10/a-girl-walks-home-alone-at-night-brings-beauty-to-vampires/ https://byrdtheatre.org/news/2019/10/a-girl-walks-home-alone... [2] https://www.cautionspoilers.com/film-reviews/butt-boy/ https://www.cautionspoilers.com/film-reviews/butt-boy/ [3] https://musiccitydrivein.com/2021/02/19/film-threat-award-this-announces-2021-indie-film-nominees-for-drive-in-event-virtual-ceremony/ https://musiccitydrivein.com/2021/02/19/film-threat-award-th...

YtGoodman 4y ago
Exceptional… Watchmen… Lol
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  The series, not the movie. The series is excellent. On paper, should have been bad. Is instead very, very good.
- gilbetron 4y ago
  Watchmen was amazing, so I don't understand the issue. Each individual episode was carefully, and cleverly, crafted. We were watching several other popular shows at the same time, and the contrast was really apparent, with Watchmen in a completely different league.

unity1001 4y ago

> Democratized? It’s more centralized than ever. What 'centralized' in a world that now has 'creator economy' as a thing. > Also, giving more projects $5m is not a victory if the cost of a proper production is $20m. Is there any objective definition of that 'proper'. Rhetorical question, obviously, for there isnt. > it seems like you’re under the impression that a good film can be made with $100k. It doesn't seem like it. It is like that. Many movies like Paranormal Activity, Parasite were made with low budgets. > Give that, it doesn’t surprise me that you’re one of the ones who are looking at what’s being served as tv shows and actually enjoying it. Yeah, people are actually enjoying TV. That shouldnt be a big surprise. > If you ask me, “the golden age of TV” is a meme based on a handful of shows How is that any different from the golden ages of cinema in which unending series of rehashed crap were produced to profit off of audiences that had no alternative but to pay for them. ... Its much better for things to be distributed, democratized and in the hands of more people than small cliques of profiteering feudal lords monopolizing them and deciding what happens. Especially regarding content.

dbspin 4y ago
Filmmaker here - Parasites budget was in the 10 million range. Paranormal Activity's initial budget was in the 15K range (tiny, even when it was shot 15 years ago), a further 200k was spent on post production and reshoots when it was picked up by a major studio. This doesn't count the many millions both had spent on marketing - which is often up to twice a productions shooting and post budget. High end filmmaking has gotten 'cheaper', in that you can use virtual production to simulate environments etc. And undoubtedly shooting 'digital' is cheaper than film development. Although nowhere near as much cheaper than you might think, once the cost of a DIT and professional colour grade is thrown into the mix. However the standards of both independent film and TV production are enormously higher than they were 15 years ago. It's not that it's impossible to make something cheaply - I'm involved in the kino kabaret movement, where amateurs and professionals alike join together to make effectively zero budget films over a weekend. However - the cost of producing a decent film has not dropped to a few thousand. Quite the opposite. Given the high production value of contemporary indies, it's inarguably more difficult now to make something that will play festivals and sell to distributers for an 'ultralow' budget. Moreover, lots of the budgets you see quotes are as low as they were because the film was effectively subsidised by a small production company. In other words, everyone worked for free and used borrowed gear, often worth hundreds of thousands. For reference a fully kitted out Arri Alexa 35 or LF is over 90k euro to buy, and over 1k per day to rent. A decent budget for a short film is in the 40 - 50k range, once everyone is actually getting paid for their time. Couple of million dollars / euros would be a low budget film, with favours pulled in and everyone working for less than half of their rates for commercial work.

yamtaddle 4y ago

> There’s something seriously brainwashed about looking at what’s at offer today and still concluding that because the Sopranos exists we’re still producing good content. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency The Wire You're the Worst The Good Place Too many decent-to-great sitcoms and sketch-comedy shows to list. Ditto adult animated shows. Justified Evil Several great limited series (e.g. The Haunting of Hill House) I could keep going. The last couple decades have given us a lot of really good shows since The Sopranos. I watch a fair amount and still have a backlog of probably-great stuff I haven't gotten to yet (including, actually, The Sopranos!) and continue to stumble on shows I've never even heard of that turn out to be really good.

lommelun 4y ago
The Wire was made within the window I was talking about. From about 1995 to about 2005. The rest is a list of mediocrity. So, point not made.

GeekyBear 4y ago

> Democratized? It’s more centralized than ever. Camera technology is so ubiquitous now that an unknown can create content on a shoestring budget. It's now more about gumption and talent instead of gumption, talent, and having enough money to rent professional equipment. I can remember an indie film shot on a digital SLR camera with a $6,000 budget picking up festival awards a decade ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battery_(2012_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battery_(2012_film) Of course, everyone having access doesn't make everyone's content good, but Spielberg got started with a Super 8 camera in his teens.

JKCalhoun 4y ago
I agree — if you allow that YouTube is the means of distribution for an indie-filmmaker. (For better or worse.) I remember when, in the 80's, sci-fi conventions were perhaps one of the few means of recognition that the Super-8 indie guys get exposure (and maybe a career) with the likes of, for example, "Hardware Wars".
Arainach 4y ago
Cost of a camera is a tiny piece of good production. There's still good videographers, lights and people to aim them, sound equipment and people to hold them, actors, editors, and so much more. Saving even $100k on a camera is nothing.
syntheweave 4y ago
In general, indie production - in every medium - is run on some combination of favors and gaslighting. You can get away with being more intensively exploitative in the moment, taking fewer precautions, and doing things in non-standard(less effective) ways precisely because you're the little guy and the real victim here. If we're talking about supporting an industry with professional talent, pointing to the entry level capital cost isn't the way to do it, because there's an element of Baumol's cost disease, where the relative cost of your talent rises because everything else got cheaper. And you want to have the ability to pay people to go the extra mile without duping them. You can certainly make more varied kinds of productions on modern tech and budgets than before, but if there isn't an income stream that keeps the talent base there, you end up with privileged talent that can buy their way into an arts career, not veterans who built an artisanal skillset in the process of staying employed. I suspect we're actually going in the direction of more and more adaptations. The Marvel movies and Star Wars shows are basically that; Dune, White Noise are both book adaptations. Anime succumbed to it a long while back and most of what's released each season is from a manga or light novel. It's a robust model because it can frame the production budget as an advertising cost, while also tapping into the success of the source, spreading out risks. But adaptation, as good as it can be, pushes the medium to be in service to its source material, and to "give fans what they want". It's not building off the nature of the medium itself, so it's also somewhat unsatisfying if you really want the films and shows that push boundaries.

tjrDL6MjB2Zwwa 4y ago

> Democratized? It’s more centralized than ever. I don't know who is right here, but I'll provide an anecdote. I know someone that wrote and directed a movie that had a very well known actor (you've heard of him) and had a limited run in theatres. Through that process I go to know a bit about the industry itself and it was very much a good old boys club where you absolutely had to play ball. Things like processing the formats was done with extremely expensive systems and if you tried to go around them no one would respond to you. I don't know if it's better now, but I can imagine it is.