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There are several reasons why Y combinator is unlikely to kill hollywood. The Author touches on part of the problem. To make a good movie you need: 1) an exce

There are several reasons why Y combinator is unlikely to kill hollywood. The Author touches on part of the problem. To make a good movie you need: 1) an excellent script (if it reads like shit, its going to look worse, if the pitch is "its like X but...." its a fail) 2) a significant amount of captial ($1million) 3) quality actors 4) ridiculously good organisation skills (you'll be organising 40+ people hundreds and thousands of pounds worth of equipment for around 40 days (or a lot more)) that's just first part. You then need to wrangle all the footage, and massage it into a cohesive and flowing narrative, something most "film" buffs fail cataclysmically ally at. (why do you think most youtube videos are only 3 minutes top?) Once you've spent three years of your life doing that, you then need to get your movie seen. That means persuading people who think you are worse than dogshit to watch a movie that they really couldn't care about, much less actually pay you for. This will take you the next 3-6 years. It also costs a lot.

nileshtrivedi 13y ago
You're assuming that the content has to have the same format as movies. Short videos (like the ones produced by CollegeHumor) can have a good script and quality visuals without involving a big budget. The market isn't "films". It is "entertainment".
- Spearchucker 13y ago
  I like feature-length movies. Short films are a way to fill an idle minute, but otherwise bore me. No one I know spends 2 hours straight just watching short clips or movies on YouTube.
  - drblast 13y ago
    My wife and I spend quite a bit of time watching 22 or 50 minute TV shows in succession on Netflix. I think that format is in many ways more interesting, as you can develop a story in much more depth than you could with a 2 hour movie.
    - KaiserPro 13y ago
      Thats longform/episodic, which is not the same as feature length hollywood. However you are correct that 8x25 or 6x60 allows for far richer narrative. (The BBC's sherlock is a brilliant example of this 3x90 minutes of tastily thick narrative)
- ericHosick 13y ago
  > The market isn't "films". It is "entertainment". Kevin Spacey on this subject: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0ukYf_xvgc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0ukYf_xvgc.
  - KaiserPro 13y ago
    yup, but we are talking about "killing hollywood" which is films. Longform is largely separate. People rarely gather for a single 20 minute episode of something, they do gather for an 90 minute film.
- greenyoda 13y ago
  Exactly. Killing Hollywood doesn't necessarily mean beating them at their own game. Killing Hollywood means that some competitor (or perhaps several competitors) will take away enough share of the entertainment market to make Hollywood's business collapse. For example, TV shows have taken a large chunk of business away from the motion picture industry since TV was invented, but they're not feature films. A similar example might be tablets killing the PC industry: tablets are not PCs, but they've taken a large chunk of business away from the PC market.
  - KaiserPro 13y ago
    http://screenville.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/attendance-history-world-cinema-stats.html http://screenville.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/attendance-history... cinema attendance has been growing for a while. Not even netflix is killing hollywood at the moment.
    - r00fus 13y ago
      And Microsoft's revenues and profits have been growing in the past decade as well... I don't think anyone can reasonably conclude they're nearly as relevant as they used to be. Large institutions don't get "killed", they slowly become irrelevant (and the perhaps die), or change to suit the new market in a much diminished role.
      - KaiserPro 13y ago
        There is no concept of maintenance in consume movies (the closest is netflix monthly fee) microsoft has years to sort out its problems, it is also highly liquid. if a movie distie has a run of bad movies, it will become insolvent, which means that they'll not have enough cash to progress the movies in its pipeline. (For example MGM went tits up and delayed james bond by years)
    - greenyoda 13y ago
      "cinema attendance has been growing for a while" Absolute attendance numbers don't mean much. More interesting statistics would be: Hollywood's percentage of the total entertainment market and the earnings (profits after expenses) of the movie industry. "Not even netflix is killing hollywood at the moment." Netflix is mostly just a distribution channel for Hollywood. They're showing Hollywood movies and a big chunk of their revenue goes straight to Hollywood. They may be killing local movie theaters, but they're certainly supporting Hollywood.
- KaiserPro 13y ago
  I'm assuming there is a market for 90 minute narratives. CollegeHumour is only really competition for things like Archer, Family Guy and the like. So really only a competition for TV. There is still a market for Movies, and its a large and thriving market (in the UK movie going is at an all time high.) You're not going to kill hollywood by stringing together a few gags into a 90minute combo. movie42 is a good example of that. People want content, and until you can provide content that is on a par, or better than movies, you are pissing in the wind
  - wj 13y ago
    In college we got offered free focus group passes to see The Underground Comedy Movie on Sunset. It was gags thrown together into the worst movie I've ever seen. We also got to see King Cobra that way. It wasn't always bad though. We got to see 2001 as part of a focus group in Woodland Hills when they were considering releasing it to theaters. We were lucky there.
walshemj 13y ago
$1million is a low/mid budget TV series I think Amanda Tapping's Sanctuary show had that sort of budget and they had tax breaks on top of that Mad men is several million per episode. A cheapish movie is 30-40 Million.
- djloche 13y ago
  For reference here are the production budgets for Rian Johnson's films: Brick: $500,000 The Brother's Bloom: $20,000,000 Looper: $60,000,000 The obvious thing that is seen here is that Special Effects and High Profile Actors significantly increase the cost of films. If you had little to no CG (like Brick), you might be able to pull off a ~1M film with new-er talent (like JGL was at the time).
betterunix 13y ago
"Once you've spent three years of your life doing that, you then need to get your movie seen. That means persuading people who think you are worse than dogshit to watch a movie that they really couldn't care about, much less actually pay you for." Which is exactly why Hollywood is due for replacement. When you can't say, "People want to see this movie because it is a good movie," or, "People want to see this movie because it is worth the price of a ticket to see," you should not be in the movie-making business. If nobody can make a movie that stands on its own merits, then the movie-making business is past its prime.
- KaiserPro 13y ago
  Ahh, but therein lies the rub. The movie-making business is fine, its the disties that are the problem. The problem is this, a good movie is subjective. Go to your local movie festival, 90% of the entries will be clichéd lumbering trite. 7% will be good by comparison, but you wouldn't recommend them to your friends, much less bet money on them. This leaves 3% that are quality. Of that 3% 20% might be profitable. People go to cinemas to see movies that interest them. If they go to a cinema, they understand that the content is hand picked and is going to be high quality. This is how HBO works. They select scripts/concepts that they think are good. They are overwhelmed by wannabe directors who are frankly rubbish. In the same way the a good VC is overwhelmed by instagram clones. There is a need for a gate keeper, to maintain quality. arguably these gate keepers are more likley to be TV execs (HBO bankrolled the new Liberace movie) or people like netflicks
  - guard-of-terra 13y ago
    If there is a need for a gate keepers, why do they pass bad movies? And most movies on the screen are mediocre at best. And they also lose money.
    - KaiserPro 13y ago
      Because its exceptionally difficult to predict a market three years plus in advance. (which is why studios play it safe) and independent movies are highly risky, and nobody has the cash to bring them to wider release (even if they win a sundance award)
larrys 13y ago
Would add that in addition to the time the chance to make money at it (in various parts) is not that great. Like any art there are many people willing to work for next to nothing in order to be in that business. I'm not seeing that with the startup industry. (Perhaps because in the startup industry you have golden handcuffs throwing money at you for your skills that doesn't happen in the movie industry for all but a few people).
jotm 13y ago
I don't know about movies, but VGHS @ rocketjump.com did it rather well, it's amazing seeing this kind of quality from a Kickstarter project...

nileshtrivedi 13y ago

You're assuming that the content has to have the same format as movies. Short videos (like the ones produced by CollegeHumor) can have a good script and quality visuals without involving a big budget. The market isn't "films". It is "entertainment".

Spearchucker 13y ago
I like feature-length movies. Short films are a way to fill an idle minute, but otherwise bore me. No one I know spends 2 hours straight just watching short clips or movies on YouTube.
- drblast 13y ago
  My wife and I spend quite a bit of time watching 22 or 50 minute TV shows in succession on Netflix. I think that format is in many ways more interesting, as you can develop a story in much more depth than you could with a 2 hour movie.
  - KaiserPro 13y ago
    Thats longform/episodic, which is not the same as feature length hollywood. However you are correct that 8x25 or 6x60 allows for far richer narrative. (The BBC's sherlock is a brilliant example of this 3x90 minutes of tastily thick narrative)
ericHosick 13y ago
> The market isn't "films". It is "entertainment". Kevin Spacey on this subject: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0ukYf_xvgc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0ukYf_xvgc.
- KaiserPro 13y ago
  yup, but we are talking about "killing hollywood" which is films. Longform is largely separate. People rarely gather for a single 20 minute episode of something, they do gather for an 90 minute film.
greenyoda 13y ago
Exactly. Killing Hollywood doesn't necessarily mean beating them at their own game. Killing Hollywood means that some competitor (or perhaps several competitors) will take away enough share of the entertainment market to make Hollywood's business collapse. For example, TV shows have taken a large chunk of business away from the motion picture industry since TV was invented, but they're not feature films. A similar example might be tablets killing the PC industry: tablets are not PCs, but they've taken a large chunk of business away from the PC market.
- KaiserPro 13y ago
  http://screenville.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/attendance-history-world-cinema-stats.html http://screenville.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/attendance-history... cinema attendance has been growing for a while. Not even netflix is killing hollywood at the moment.
  - r00fus 13y ago
    And Microsoft's revenues and profits have been growing in the past decade as well... I don't think anyone can reasonably conclude they're nearly as relevant as they used to be. Large institutions don't get "killed", they slowly become irrelevant (and the perhaps die), or change to suit the new market in a much diminished role.
    - KaiserPro 13y ago
      There is no concept of maintenance in consume movies (the closest is netflix monthly fee) microsoft has years to sort out its problems, it is also highly liquid. if a movie distie has a run of bad movies, it will become insolvent, which means that they'll not have enough cash to progress the movies in its pipeline. (For example MGM went tits up and delayed james bond by years)
  - greenyoda 13y ago
    "cinema attendance has been growing for a while" Absolute attendance numbers don't mean much. More interesting statistics would be: Hollywood's percentage of the total entertainment market and the earnings (profits after expenses) of the movie industry. "Not even netflix is killing hollywood at the moment." Netflix is mostly just a distribution channel for Hollywood. They're showing Hollywood movies and a big chunk of their revenue goes straight to Hollywood. They may be killing local movie theaters, but they're certainly supporting Hollywood.
KaiserPro 13y ago
I'm assuming there is a market for 90 minute narratives. CollegeHumour is only really competition for things like Archer, Family Guy and the like. So really only a competition for TV. There is still a market for Movies, and its a large and thriving market (in the UK movie going is at an all time high.) You're not going to kill hollywood by stringing together a few gags into a 90minute combo. movie42 is a good example of that. People want content, and until you can provide content that is on a par, or better than movies, you are pissing in the wind
- wj 13y ago
  In college we got offered free focus group passes to see The Underground Comedy Movie on Sunset. It was gags thrown together into the worst movie I've ever seen. We also got to see King Cobra that way. It wasn't always bad though. We got to see 2001 as part of a focus group in Woodland Hills when they were considering releasing it to theaters. We were lucky there.

walshemj 13y ago

$1million is a low/mid budget TV series I think Amanda Tapping's Sanctuary show had that sort of budget and they had tax breaks on top of that Mad men is several million per episode. A cheapish movie is 30-40 Million.

djloche 13y ago
For reference here are the production budgets for Rian Johnson's films: Brick: $500,000 The Brother's Bloom: $20,000,000 Looper: $60,000,000 The obvious thing that is seen here is that Special Effects and High Profile Actors significantly increase the cost of films. If you had little to no CG (like Brick), you might be able to pull off a ~1M film with new-er talent (like JGL was at the time).

betterunix 13y ago

"Once you've spent three years of your life doing that, you then need to get your movie seen. That means persuading people who think you are worse than dogshit to watch a movie that they really couldn't care about, much less actually pay you for." Which is exactly why Hollywood is due for replacement. When you can't say, "People want to see this movie because it is a good movie," or, "People want to see this movie because it is worth the price of a ticket to see," you should not be in the movie-making business. If nobody can make a movie that stands on its own merits, then the movie-making business is past its prime.

KaiserPro 13y ago
Ahh, but therein lies the rub. The movie-making business is fine, its the disties that are the problem. The problem is this, a good movie is subjective. Go to your local movie festival, 90% of the entries will be clichéd lumbering trite. 7% will be good by comparison, but you wouldn't recommend them to your friends, much less bet money on them. This leaves 3% that are quality. Of that 3% 20% might be profitable. People go to cinemas to see movies that interest them. If they go to a cinema, they understand that the content is hand picked and is going to be high quality. This is how HBO works. They select scripts/concepts that they think are good. They are overwhelmed by wannabe directors who are frankly rubbish. In the same way the a good VC is overwhelmed by instagram clones. There is a need for a gate keeper, to maintain quality. arguably these gate keepers are more likley to be TV execs (HBO bankrolled the new Liberace movie) or people like netflicks
- guard-of-terra 13y ago
  If there is a need for a gate keepers, why do they pass bad movies? And most movies on the screen are mediocre at best. And they also lose money.
  - KaiserPro 13y ago
    Because its exceptionally difficult to predict a market three years plus in advance. (which is why studios play it safe) and independent movies are highly risky, and nobody has the cash to bring them to wider release (even if they win a sundance award)

larrys 13y ago

Would add that in addition to the time the chance to make money at it (in various parts) is not that great. Like any art there are many people willing to work for next to nothing in order to be in that business. I'm not seeing that with the startup industry. (Perhaps because in the startup industry you have golden handcuffs throwing money at you for your skills that doesn't happen in the movie industry for all but a few people).

jotm 13y ago

I don't know about movies, but VGHS @ rocketjump.com did it rather well, it's amazing seeing this kind of quality from a Kickstarter project...