4 ms·

Your future sounds pretty dystopian and very lonely though....

by qwytw 4y ago

echelon 4y ago
I imagine factory workers and butter churners said the same. You know what really sucks? How labor intensive and capital intensive filmmaking is. How hard it is to make it into the field. How almost impossible it is to lead a production. Think about all of the great ideas that wither on the vine because the Hollywood studio system only has so much capital and can only back so many projects. Think about how many months and years go into a single film, and how few of them succeed. Think about the opportunity cost of learning a creative skill - locking you out of all the other skills you could use to build your vision. When the cost structures drop, people will be more creative and more cooperative. The long tail will be all of us.
- qwytw 4y ago
  > I imagine factory workers and butter churners said the same. Why? I'm not sure what are you talking about but I doubt most factory workers or butter churners were particularly excited about their jobs... > How almost impossible it is to lead a production. The problem I see is that if everyone is capable of making high-end movies the market will become oversaturated. There is only a limited amount of time consumers can spend watching tv so if making high quality (by current standards) content becomes trivial that will simply raise the overall "quality" bar. As long as there is money to be made it will make sense to invest into improving your content by investing into better "AI", GPUs or whatever. So we'll just end up more or less where we started. I mean that sort of already happened didn't it? We can do things (CGI & production wise) that were impossible or even unimaginable as recently as the 80s or 90s. And things which were extremely expensive and required thousands of hours to accomplish back then are trivial now. So what? Did it become much easier to break in into the industry than before? Or did the bar just got higher? > When the cost structures drop, people will be more creative and more cooperative Maybe. But considering that most people and not very creative and most of their "ideas" are garbage we're just a likely to drown in a sea of technically/visually high quality content that's artistically and creatively worthless. By "garbage" I mean content that very few people will choose to willingly consume if they had alternative options.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > Think about all of the great ideas that wither on the vine because the Hollywood studio system only has so much capital and can only back so many projects. Very few; great ideas mostly happen outside of the Hollywood studio system, which is largely about expensive packaging of low-risk ideas, not great ones.
  - deafpolygon 4y ago
    > Very few; great ideas mostly happen outside of the Hollywood studio system Often, "making it" in the Hollywood studio system is about being a part of an exclusive club. Very few people are allowed to proliferate their own ideas within the walled garden.
  - echelon 4y ago
    > Very few Allow me to point to the thousands of creatives trying to cut it that cannot break in. I've met perhaps over a hundred of them personally. I, myself, am one of these people. > which is largely about expensive packaging of low-risk ideas, not great ones. The market serves different segments and there's a lot of intelligence built around vehicles of all types, shapes, and sizes. I don't think Hollywood is stupid at all. I think it's simply a small local optima when we're about to jump the peak to a new Mt. Everest.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > Allow me to point to the thousands of creatives trying to cut it that cannot break in. I'm not saying great ideas don't fail to get realized. I’m saying that the Hollywood systen is actively hostile to great ideas, so that the reason greay ideas fail to get realized is not the limited resources within the Hollywood system, which is more inclined to crush great ideas than to realize them with whatever resources it has. (Limited money outside the Hollywood system might be a problem, though.) > I don't think Hollywood is stupid at all. I didn't say anything about its intelligence, merely its function, it is far from stupid.
    - wkat4242 4y ago
      Why focus so much on getting into Hollywood? In my opinion it's the McDonald's of movies. Not particularly good, always the same few usual suspects on the menu, nothing adventurous but mindless consumerism. And a few people get rich off it. It's business, not art. But people use it in masses because it's easy to get and they know what they're getting. Some excellent stuff comes out of there too but it almost feels like an accident sometimes. If you're really into your art form, I wouldn't even try to get in there. Sure, alternative cinema won't make you rich. But if that's your goal you're in the wrong business anyway. Making it in Hollywood is more about who you know and who you f*k than about your skills.

Your future sounds pretty dystopian and very lonely though....

by qwytw 4y ago

Your future sounds pretty dystopian and very lonely though....

I imagine factory workers and butter churners said the same. You know what really sucks? How labor intensive and capital intensive filmmaking is. How hard it is to make it into the field. How almost impossible it is to lead a production. Think about all of the great ideas that wither on the vine because the Hollywood studio system only has so much capital and can only back so many projects. Think about how many months and years go into a single film, and how few of them succeed. Think about the opportunity cost of learning a creative skill - locking you out of all the other skills you could use to build your vision. When the cost structures drop, people will be more creative and more cooperative. The long tail will be all of us.

qwytw 4y ago
> I imagine factory workers and butter churners said the same. Why? I'm not sure what are you talking about but I doubt most factory workers or butter churners were particularly excited about their jobs... > How almost impossible it is to lead a production. The problem I see is that if everyone is capable of making high-end movies the market will become oversaturated. There is only a limited amount of time consumers can spend watching tv so if making high quality (by current standards) content becomes trivial that will simply raise the overall "quality" bar. As long as there is money to be made it will make sense to invest into improving your content by investing into better "AI", GPUs or whatever. So we'll just end up more or less where we started. I mean that sort of already happened didn't it? We can do things (CGI & production wise) that were impossible or even unimaginable as recently as the 80s or 90s. And things which were extremely expensive and required thousands of hours to accomplish back then are trivial now. So what? Did it become much easier to break in into the industry than before? Or did the bar just got higher? > When the cost structures drop, people will be more creative and more cooperative Maybe. But considering that most people and not very creative and most of their "ideas" are garbage we're just a likely to drown in a sea of technically/visually high quality content that's artistically and creatively worthless. By "garbage" I mean content that very few people will choose to willingly consume if they had alternative options.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> Think about all of the great ideas that wither on the vine because the Hollywood studio system only has so much capital and can only back so many projects. Very few; great ideas mostly happen outside of the Hollywood studio system, which is largely about expensive packaging of low-risk ideas, not great ones.
- deafpolygon 4y ago
  > Very few; great ideas mostly happen outside of the Hollywood studio system Often, "making it" in the Hollywood studio system is about being a part of an exclusive club. Very few people are allowed to proliferate their own ideas within the walled garden.
- echelon 4y ago
  > Very few Allow me to point to the thousands of creatives trying to cut it that cannot break in. I've met perhaps over a hundred of them personally. I, myself, am one of these people. > which is largely about expensive packaging of low-risk ideas, not great ones. The market serves different segments and there's a lot of intelligence built around vehicles of all types, shapes, and sizes. I don't think Hollywood is stupid at all. I think it's simply a small local optima when we're about to jump the peak to a new Mt. Everest.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > Allow me to point to the thousands of creatives trying to cut it that cannot break in. I'm not saying great ideas don't fail to get realized. I’m saying that the Hollywood systen is actively hostile to great ideas, so that the reason greay ideas fail to get realized is not the limited resources within the Hollywood system, which is more inclined to crush great ideas than to realize them with whatever resources it has. (Limited money outside the Hollywood system might be a problem, though.) > I don't think Hollywood is stupid at all. I didn't say anything about its intelligence, merely its function, it is far from stupid.
  - wkat4242 4y ago
    Why focus so much on getting into Hollywood? In my opinion it's the McDonald's of movies. Not particularly good, always the same few usual suspects on the menu, nothing adventurous but mindless consumerism. And a few people get rich off it. It's business, not art. But people use it in masses because it's easy to get and they know what they're getting. Some excellent stuff comes out of there too but it almost feels like an accident sometimes. If you're really into your art form, I wouldn't even try to get in there. Sure, alternative cinema won't make you rich. But if that's your goal you're in the wrong business anyway. Making it in Hollywood is more about who you know and who you f*k than about your skills.