5 ms·

I am a director, I can speak on this from experience. Primary problem with producing movie/TV shows is money. It costs A LOT of money. Even shows you think can

I am a director, I can speak on this from experience. Primary problem with producing movie/TV shows is money. It costs A LOT of money. Even shows you think can be done with a lower budget, it can't... currently. Reasons for high costs are numerous and I can expand on them (and will if someone asks me), but lets take that as an axiom for this post. It costs a lot of money, which means people who invest in content production need to offload a lot of money and wish to guard their investment as much as possible, since that's what it is - an investment in a project. Financing cycles and budgeting is as lean as possible in showbusiness, and a lot of money is involved both upfront for production and later when gathering yield. IF someone can disrupt financing side and securing measurable projected yield in this business - only then we will have a disruption. That is where one should look at for disruption, everything else is futile, because it's as lean as possible.

ryanac 15y ago
This is great info (that you gave in a reply about production costs), but I'm very interested in something which you may have some knowledge on. All of the production you're talking about is live (as in using real people, locations and equipment.) My question is, what about digital cartoon production, wouldn't the cost of producing a digital cartoon show or movie be dramatically less than the equivalent length live show or movie? There are no sets, cameras, costumes, or natural location permits in cartoons. On top of this, voice actors more than often portray multiple characters, you do not need an actor for each person, etc. Lets take the show South Park for example, which differs from cartoons like The Simpsons, Spongebob and Family Guy in that South Park is produced completely in house, they produce each episode from scratch in under a week I believe using various digital production methods. You still need the basic essentials, script, storyboards, sound, voice actors, audio recording equipment, etc; but I (and I've had some small experience here) would think the cost of the equipment needed to put out a digital cartoon, of tv quality and length, would be significantly lower than the equivalent live tv show. Also, I stress that I'm talking about digital cartoons, not traditional animation which can easily take months (tv) / years (movie) to produce. I've produced many digital cartoons myself, but not quite at the level of quality that would be required for a tv show (I will give examples if asked.) From my experiences a very small group of people with almost no money can produce a high quality cartoon in a reasonable around of time. Time being the main issue which, in animation, can be solved with more people, and overtime is reduced because of digital software. Marketing and distribution would still be the same more than likely, but there is still plenty of room to innovate there online; take Louis C.K.'s recent example of making a lot of money (over a million dollars?) selling his stand-up routine directly to the consumers. I'm very interested in your thoughts on all this, especially if there are production costs I've ignored (for cartoons) that would even things out. Basically, do you think a cartoon with the production value of South Park, can be produced for significantly less money than the equivalent length tv show or movie? I think this is something that can be done (independently produced cartoon show at the level of South Park), but really hasn't been tried yet online (a show that pushes boundaries and talks about critical topics,) at all. I know it can certainly be produced faster and adapt to changes more quickly than traditional live tv. I'm a person who basically gets frustrated thinking of all the people right now who are waiting for The Daily Show, Colbert and South Park to "say something" about SOPA or other major topics, as if those shows are our voice (which they are the best example of on tv sadly.) In the end though, they work for Viacom, so even though people think those shows are pushing boundaries (which they are) just remember, they can only say so much. Where as an independently produced show released online can say pretty much whatever they want and can respond to topics IMMEDIATELY. Thoughts? :)
- ippisl 15y ago
  I think the animation in southpark is the easy part. But consistently writing great comedy week after week, that targets enough people is very hard. for example , aqua teen hunger force , and sealab 2021 are also using low cost animation , but didn't have much success. I don't know much about comedy writing, but it seems it takes a lot of work and a lot of talent to write great comedy. I think comedy writing is one place that startups could do interesting stuff there.
- Keyframe 15y ago
  Animation, especially CG is a wide field. As you may know animators are hardest bunch to find. Modelers are easiest to find, texture/shading guys and gals a little bit harder, lighting/environment artists a little bit harder than that and TDs hardest to find... with animators hardest to find. There is a slow production cycle (4-5 seconds of animation only per animator per week for feature quality and 15sec per week for TV quality), there is a ton of hardware for rendering and lieensing cost for software, and then there is audio. Some productions even require extensive r&d and custom tools development. Animation can be cheaper, but sometimes it can be more expensive, it all depends on a project. Even if you neglect all of the story editing and layout departement you still have a sizable production crew which require high salaries in order to produce content of reasonable standard. South Park is an exception since they have opted for subpar animation.
  - vibrunazo 15y ago
    Entrepreneurs should pay special attention to this post. There's a huge opportunity here. Technology can make content creation cheaper. As a graphical developer I can see a lot of areas which can be improved. And all that's missing is someone to actually go there and build it. We need to bring content creation to the masses. Think of why can't casual users create their own movies, music and games. Then figure how we can fix those problems with technologies. The problem of distribution is reasonably well solved already in my opinion. Solving content creation is the last piece of the puzzle to kill Hollywood. I'm talking about things like xtranormal or GameSalad. These guys are in the right direction. But are still too shy in their proposals IMHO. There's a lot of room for disruption and a huge market opportunity in content creation. If we can turn creative content into a commodity then we'll kill Hollywood and replace it with the people. That's what my startup is trying to do, and there are room for many others in this ecosystem. Think about it :)
ramanujan 15y ago
Please do expand on these reasons. What costs a lot for fundamental reasons? And what can be attacked with software?
- vladd 15y ago
  You need filming equipment, a good script, stage infrastructure, well-performing or/and good-looking actors, repetition until they get it right, sound-tracks (with composers, interpreters, instruments & instrument people), editing, post-processing and maybe animation/special effects. And it's an industry where profits are made at the high end of the market (you'd rather pay Tom Cruise $100 millions for the statistical guarantee of $200+ millions in Mission Impossible box-office openings rather than medium-quality people for no guarantee at all). You can attack script-writing with software, or replace actors with computer animation done by software engineers, but you end up with poor low-end results or even more expensive budgets (that only make sense for computer-animated fans, see Toy Story). The attack vector implied by pg was not necessary to make film-making cheaper but rather to make entertainment better and probably different. E.g.: video games took off in the last two decades, and their business model worked because every time you play a game you get at least slightly a different entertaining experience without any additional costs from the producers.
  - nextparadigms 15y ago
    Yes, but that's attacking the problem in the traditional sense. We need to disrupt Hollywood, not take them head-on. A better model would be to try a lot of movies made by young actors, and just let the best of the best come on top, in an evolutionary manner. This is the web. It doesn't have to be constrained by artificial scarcity and heavy filtering. I'm sure there are a lot of young actors who are dying to get a job in Hollywood. These new businesses should target them. Only a bottom-up, decentralized approach can win against Hollywood.
    - Keyframe 15y ago
      I'll give you an example. After a few projects I'm working on now are finished (this year), I'm preping my first feature film. I have great actors that will work for free, I also have all of the film equipment I need gratis too (all of equiment, cameras, grip, lights, everything)... and I still need $1.5 million to make that movie, which even if I raise (I think I will) I have no idea what to do with after it's made but run it through festivals and maybe some kind of online distribution or (more probable) a deal with TV network for them to buy out rights.
mbesto 15y ago
So it sounds like the healthcare industry?
p0ppe 15y ago
How much of a problem is "Hollywood accounting"?
- Keyframe 15y ago
  Sometimes it's a problem, but sometimes it isn't. I rather see it as an opportunity grabbing mechanism. You can see (especially large) productions hunting tax incentives for movie productions in various countries around the world for example. In studio productions there are 1-5 ratio of successful projects, they're hunting every opportunity to guard their investments. Now imagine if you're an indie production where all eggs (yours and your investors) are in a single bucket. It's scary, every single project is like a new startup - but not with couple of tens of thousands of dollars, but several millions and up.
- samgranieri 15y ago
  It's a big problem. They're getting embarrassed by it repeatedly in the courts. The studios set up corporations that take charges on the movie's profits for all kinds of things and it all ends up screwing the hard working actors and crew out of fair pay, even for big movies that make a lot of money. We should challenge the industries job loss and revenue loss figures with questions regarding their accounting tactics. Read these links! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110912/13500315912/hollywood-accounting-darth-vader-not-getting-paid-because-return-jedi-still-isnt-profitable.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110912/13500315912/hollyw... http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/09/how-hollywood-accounting-can-make-a-450-million-movie-unprofitable/245134/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/09/how-holl... http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/features/6-things-the-film-industry-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about.php/all/1 http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/features/6-things-the-film-...
wr1472 15y ago
How about a way of opening up financing to the public? Ideas get pitched, and the public can invest - kickstarter for movies? We've had fan-fiction, this would fan-financing.
- Keyframe 15y ago
  Yes, it can work. In most cases it works like this - you produce a trailer out of your own pocket and pitch the idea to investors and studios (or studios finance trailer and pitch to investors)... so you'd replace investors here with crowd. Studios bring security to investors because they have measurable projections of what would work what wouldn't and secure channels of distributions. But, tell me how could a kickstarter like project work for high budget projects ($200+ million?)... even low budget ($10-20 million, with or without marketing, however you want to account)? I've never heard of anyone raising that kind of money anywhere online from crowd.
  - waterlesscloud 15y ago
    The most I've seen for a film project on Kickstarter is a few hundred thousand. I think millions are possible, with the right combination of factors, but I also think that someone with that combination of factors would likely have better options for raising money.
  - wr1472 15y ago
    So this sounds like a double edged problem - 1. The actual cost of producing films, as you've mentioned already does it really have to cost so much? Technology could help with this but I don't think is the only solution. 2. The financing of the movie - what if some kind of mutual fund/investment vehicle was created that only invested in film productions? look to individuals as well as institutions for investors. Incidentally Francis Ford Coppola's comments quoted below are quite telling. If we are viewing movies as an art form then the cost (and revenue) generated should be a lot lower. If it is viewed as entertainment then it will be run as a business; making money will trump creativity and artistry every time.
  - egor83 15y ago
zmj 15y ago
> Primary problem with producing movie/TV shows is money. It costs A LOT of money. Even shows you think can be done with a lower budget, it can't... currently. Sure it can. Read: http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2010/04/the-collapse-of-complex-business-models/ http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2010/04/the-collapse-of-complex... > The ATT guys had correctly understood that the income from $20-a-month customers wouldn’t pay for good web hosting. What they hadn’t understood, were in fact professionally incapable of understanding, was that the industry solution, circa 1996, was to offer hosting that wasn’t very good. Maybe it's impossible to make TV to your current standards with a small budget. Keep your mind open - it may be your standards that need to change.
wj 15y ago
I'm wondering if going back to the studio method of producing films in the 20s-40s would be a disruptive method. By that I mean having companies with actors on payroll, writers on payroll, directors on payroll, etc. A group of 5-10 actors, a few writers writing scripts for those particular actors, a couple of directors, and a full time crew. Always be in production on one film, with one in development, one in pre-production, and one in post-production. Kind of like a content farm but for film.
- Keyframe 15y ago
  Sans actors, pixar is essentially like this.

ryanac 15y ago

This is great info (that you gave in a reply about production costs), but I'm very interested in something which you may have some knowledge on. All of the production you're talking about is live (as in using real people, locations and equipment.) My question is, what about digital cartoon production, wouldn't the cost of producing a digital cartoon show or movie be dramatically less than the equivalent length live show or movie? There are no sets, cameras, costumes, or natural location permits in cartoons. On top of this, voice actors more than often portray multiple characters, you do not need an actor for each person, etc. Lets take the show South Park for example, which differs from cartoons like The Simpsons, Spongebob and Family Guy in that South Park is produced completely in house, they produce each episode from scratch in under a week I believe using various digital production methods. You still need the basic essentials, script, storyboards, sound, voice actors, audio recording equipment, etc; but I (and I've had some small experience here) would think the cost of the equipment needed to put out a digital cartoon, of tv quality and length, would be significantly lower than the equivalent live tv show. Also, I stress that I'm talking about digital cartoons, not traditional animation which can easily take months (tv) / years (movie) to produce. I've produced many digital cartoons myself, but not quite at the level of quality that would be required for a tv show (I will give examples if asked.) From my experiences a very small group of people with almost no money can produce a high quality cartoon in a reasonable around of time. Time being the main issue which, in animation, can be solved with more people, and overtime is reduced because of digital software. Marketing and distribution would still be the same more than likely, but there is still plenty of room to innovate there online; take Louis C.K.'s recent example of making a lot of money (over a million dollars?) selling his stand-up routine directly to the consumers. I'm very interested in your thoughts on all this, especially if there are production costs I've ignored (for cartoons) that would even things out. Basically, do you think a cartoon with the production value of South Park, can be produced for significantly less money than the equivalent length tv show or movie? I think this is something that can be done (independently produced cartoon show at the level of South Park), but really hasn't been tried yet online (a show that pushes boundaries and talks about critical topics,) at all. I know it can certainly be produced faster and adapt to changes more quickly than traditional live tv. I'm a person who basically gets frustrated thinking of all the people right now who are waiting for The Daily Show, Colbert and South Park to "say something" about SOPA or other major topics, as if those shows are our voice (which they are the best example of on tv sadly.) In the end though, they work for Viacom, so even though people think those shows are pushing boundaries (which they are) just remember, they can only say so much. Where as an independently produced show released online can say pretty much whatever they want and can respond to topics IMMEDIATELY. Thoughts? :)

ippisl 15y ago
I think the animation in southpark is the easy part. But consistently writing great comedy week after week, that targets enough people is very hard. for example , aqua teen hunger force , and sealab 2021 are also using low cost animation , but didn't have much success. I don't know much about comedy writing, but it seems it takes a lot of work and a lot of talent to write great comedy. I think comedy writing is one place that startups could do interesting stuff there.
Keyframe 15y ago
Animation, especially CG is a wide field. As you may know animators are hardest bunch to find. Modelers are easiest to find, texture/shading guys and gals a little bit harder, lighting/environment artists a little bit harder than that and TDs hardest to find... with animators hardest to find. There is a slow production cycle (4-5 seconds of animation only per animator per week for feature quality and 15sec per week for TV quality), there is a ton of hardware for rendering and lieensing cost for software, and then there is audio. Some productions even require extensive r&d and custom tools development. Animation can be cheaper, but sometimes it can be more expensive, it all depends on a project. Even if you neglect all of the story editing and layout departement you still have a sizable production crew which require high salaries in order to produce content of reasonable standard. South Park is an exception since they have opted for subpar animation.
- vibrunazo 15y ago
  Entrepreneurs should pay special attention to this post. There's a huge opportunity here. Technology can make content creation cheaper. As a graphical developer I can see a lot of areas which can be improved. And all that's missing is someone to actually go there and build it. We need to bring content creation to the masses. Think of why can't casual users create their own movies, music and games. Then figure how we can fix those problems with technologies. The problem of distribution is reasonably well solved already in my opinion. Solving content creation is the last piece of the puzzle to kill Hollywood. I'm talking about things like xtranormal or GameSalad. These guys are in the right direction. But are still too shy in their proposals IMHO. There's a lot of room for disruption and a huge market opportunity in content creation. If we can turn creative content into a commodity then we'll kill Hollywood and replace it with the people. That's what my startup is trying to do, and there are room for many others in this ecosystem. Think about it :)

ramanujan 15y ago

Please do expand on these reasons. What costs a lot for fundamental reasons? And what can be attacked with software?

vladd 15y ago
You need filming equipment, a good script, stage infrastructure, well-performing or/and good-looking actors, repetition until they get it right, sound-tracks (with composers, interpreters, instruments & instrument people), editing, post-processing and maybe animation/special effects. And it's an industry where profits are made at the high end of the market (you'd rather pay Tom Cruise $100 millions for the statistical guarantee of $200+ millions in Mission Impossible box-office openings rather than medium-quality people for no guarantee at all). You can attack script-writing with software, or replace actors with computer animation done by software engineers, but you end up with poor low-end results or even more expensive budgets (that only make sense for computer-animated fans, see Toy Story). The attack vector implied by pg was not necessary to make film-making cheaper but rather to make entertainment better and probably different. E.g.: video games took off in the last two decades, and their business model worked because every time you play a game you get at least slightly a different entertaining experience without any additional costs from the producers.
- nextparadigms 15y ago
  Yes, but that's attacking the problem in the traditional sense. We need to disrupt Hollywood, not take them head-on. A better model would be to try a lot of movies made by young actors, and just let the best of the best come on top, in an evolutionary manner. This is the web. It doesn't have to be constrained by artificial scarcity and heavy filtering. I'm sure there are a lot of young actors who are dying to get a job in Hollywood. These new businesses should target them. Only a bottom-up, decentralized approach can win against Hollywood.
  - Keyframe 15y ago
    I'll give you an example. After a few projects I'm working on now are finished (this year), I'm preping my first feature film. I have great actors that will work for free, I also have all of the film equipment I need gratis too (all of equiment, cameras, grip, lights, everything)... and I still need $1.5 million to make that movie, which even if I raise (I think I will) I have no idea what to do with after it's made but run it through festivals and maybe some kind of online distribution or (more probable) a deal with TV network for them to buy out rights.

mbesto 15y ago

So it sounds like the healthcare industry?

p0ppe 15y ago

How much of a problem is "Hollywood accounting"?

Keyframe 15y ago
Sometimes it's a problem, but sometimes it isn't. I rather see it as an opportunity grabbing mechanism. You can see (especially large) productions hunting tax incentives for movie productions in various countries around the world for example. In studio productions there are 1-5 ratio of successful projects, they're hunting every opportunity to guard their investments. Now imagine if you're an indie production where all eggs (yours and your investors) are in a single bucket. It's scary, every single project is like a new startup - but not with couple of tens of thousands of dollars, but several millions and up.
samgranieri 15y ago
It's a big problem. They're getting embarrassed by it repeatedly in the courts. The studios set up corporations that take charges on the movie's profits for all kinds of things and it all ends up screwing the hard working actors and crew out of fair pay, even for big movies that make a lot of money. We should challenge the industries job loss and revenue loss figures with questions regarding their accounting tactics. Read these links! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110912/13500315912/hollywood-accounting-darth-vader-not-getting-paid-because-return-jedi-still-isnt-profitable.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110912/13500315912/hollyw... http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/09/how-hollywood-accounting-can-make-a-450-million-movie-unprofitable/245134/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/09/how-holl... http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/features/6-things-the-film-industry-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about.php/all/1 http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/features/6-things-the-film-...

wr1472 15y ago

How about a way of opening up financing to the public? Ideas get pitched, and the public can invest - kickstarter for movies? We've had fan-fiction, this would fan-financing.

Keyframe 15y ago
Yes, it can work. In most cases it works like this - you produce a trailer out of your own pocket and pitch the idea to investors and studios (or studios finance trailer and pitch to investors)... so you'd replace investors here with crowd. Studios bring security to investors because they have measurable projections of what would work what wouldn't and secure channels of distributions. But, tell me how could a kickstarter like project work for high budget projects ($200+ million?)... even low budget ($10-20 million, with or without marketing, however you want to account)? I've never heard of anyone raising that kind of money anywhere online from crowd.
- waterlesscloud 15y ago
  The most I've seen for a film project on Kickstarter is a few hundred thousand. I think millions are possible, with the right combination of factors, but I also think that someone with that combination of factors would likely have better options for raising money.
- wr1472 15y ago
  So this sounds like a double edged problem - 1. The actual cost of producing films, as you've mentioned already does it really have to cost so much? Technology could help with this but I don't think is the only solution. 2. The financing of the movie - what if some kind of mutual fund/investment vehicle was created that only invested in film productions? look to individuals as well as institutions for investors. Incidentally Francis Ford Coppola's comments quoted below are quite telling. If we are viewing movies as an art form then the cost (and revenue) generated should be a lot lower. If it is viewed as entertainment then it will be run as a business; making money will trump creativity and artistry every time.
- egor83 15y ago

zmj 15y ago

> Primary problem with producing movie/TV shows is money. It costs A LOT of money. Even shows you think can be done with a lower budget, it can't... currently. Sure it can. Read: http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2010/04/the-collapse-of-complex-business-models/ http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2010/04/the-collapse-of-complex... > The ATT guys had correctly understood that the income from $20-a-month customers wouldn’t pay for good web hosting. What they hadn’t understood, were in fact professionally incapable of understanding, was that the industry solution, circa 1996, was to offer hosting that wasn’t very good. Maybe it's impossible to make TV to your current standards with a small budget. Keep your mind open - it may be your standards that need to change.

wj 15y ago

I'm wondering if going back to the studio method of producing films in the 20s-40s would be a disruptive method. By that I mean having companies with actors on payroll, writers on payroll, directors on payroll, etc. A group of 5-10 actors, a few writers writing scripts for those particular actors, a couple of directors, and a full time crew. Always be in production on one film, with one in development, one in pre-production, and one in post-production. Kind of like a content farm but for film.

Keyframe 15y ago
Sans actors, pixar is essentially like this.