
My idea to "Kill Hollywood" - rsbrown
http://blog.rsbrown.net/2012/01/my-idea-to-kill-hollywood.html
======
ankeshk
Its a good idea because it brings in a level of transparency. But I'm not sure
if it'll make a big dent on Hollywood.

Why do some movies do well and others don't? There are a lot of reasons. But
if we were to simplify, there are 2 things that matter more than the rest.

1\. The buzz factor.

Reason why studios pay $20 million to a well known celebrity is because they
know it will generate the buzz and create expectations.

2\. The story and the experience.

Once the movie is released, and the first wave of viewers go and watch it,
then it all depends on how good their experience was - for the buzz to
sustain.

To beat Hollywood, you have to become better than them at telling good stories
well, and creating buzz that lasts to make money out of it.

You absolutely have to become good at monetizing the buzz. Only selling the
movies for 99 cents is a bad monetization plan. You will never be able to fund
a movie like Avatar. And if you can't do that, you'll never be able to take on
Hollywood.

If I were to develop a plan to beat Hollywood, it would center around creating
buzz. How to use the new media to generate buzz.

Maybe create a new incentivized market... a whacky idea like: the first
hundred thousand people who watch a movie can share in its profits.

~~~
rsbrown
"You will never be able to fund a movie like Avatar. And if you can't do that,
you'll never be able to take on Hollywood."

I don't have to make an Avatar to beat Hollywood. That's fighting fire with
fire. We can fight fire with water. If a consumer watches one of my studio's
productions instead of watching Avatar, we didn't just earn $0.99 -- we also
stole a $10.50 purchase from 20th Century Fox.

I'm betting that when given a cleaner, more enjoyable alternative to the
mandatory commercials, overpriced fatty junk food, and general awfulness that
the current moviegoing experience has degraded into, we can steal a fair
amount of business.

~~~
white_devil
> If a consumer watches one of my studio's productions instead of watching
> Avatar, we didn't just earn $0.99 -- we also stole a $10.50 purchase from
> 20th Century Fox

Why would the consumer not just watch movies from Fox too? Especially since if
he only pays you $0.99, he'll still have plenty of money left to give to Fox.

~~~
andrewingram
I would argue it's a matter of time more than money. I treat a theatre trip as
a social event, which means I have to get a group of friends together. There's
only so many hours in evenings and weekends when people can get together, and
I'd rather not spend all of those hours watching films. Therefore my upper
limit is driven by time rather than cost.

~~~
rsbrown
Bingo.

------
citricsquid
This would never work. If anyone is going to "kill hollywood" they need to
address the massive costs associated with producing a movie not the money
raising. If movie production could be taken down from $100m to $500k then
_that_ would be the game changer, but even that ignores huge barriers and
reasons Hollywood exists.

To "kill" Hollywood people need to address the costs, not the money raising.
Crowd sourcing $1m is close to impossible, crowd sourcing $1m on a regular
basis is even harder and crowd sourcing $10m+ on a regular basis? never going
to happen. Even if it was achieved once or twice, as soon as a movie doesn't
meet expectations the idea will fall apart, if costs are reduced to much lower
levels, losing a crowd sourced $500k because the movie sucked is much more
palatable than $10m.

~~~
j45
Other film industries around the world routinely put out more movies with less
production costs than hollywood. Might not be the exact quality but many have
been getting better to the eye the last 10 years alone.

~~~
citricsquid
I took a look at my recently watched movies (specifically the low publicity /
small names) and they all have budgets (when listed) of at least a few million
dollars. Hell, this movie called "Rise of the foot soldier" had a budget of
$4m and only did a couple of hundred thousand income:
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0901507/> and it had no big names, or maybe this
is just "Hollywood accounting"?

------
jamesgatz
What you're proposing is no different than most independent production
companies. LA is flush with such businesses already; I've worked for a few of
them. Another indy production house is not the solution. I said it in the
previous thread, and I'll say it again: What's needed is a contemporary Roger
Corman. <http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/cormansworld/>
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Corman#.22The_Corman_Film...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Corman#.22The_Corman_Film_School.22)

Hollywood has backed itself into a corner using the exact same methodology
that you outline in your new studio: both assume that films are widgets, and
great ones can be reliably produced with high frequency if the secret formula
is discovered. No such formula exists. Every film is a one off, and many of
the biggest hits were perceived as certain flops before their release (Star
Wars), just as many sure things have tanked (Cowboys & Aliens).

As I've said before, the solution isn't to become more cautious, but more
bold. You studio should be based around locating new, young talent (writers,
directors, actors and producers), giving them steady work in exchange for
reasonable salaries (kids right out of film school are thrilled w/ $30K a
year) and creating an environment where said talent can work on a high volume
of projects over a short time period with limited commercial risk. No one
should ever feel that failure on any particular project will result in a
ruined career - the omnipresence of that fear is what has given rise to timid
film-making in the mainstream. Projects should be shot in under two weeks, and
should have budgets ranging from $10 - 100K. You should be designing your
studio to accommodate modest returns, while accounting for inevitable flops.
Never presume you know what will sell, and you might make it.

Film-making isn't a business. Film-making is an art. The best art is achieved
via iteration: practice, release, refine, practice, release, refine. Build a
studio designed to lose money for two years. In the first year, plan to
attract at least 50 young directors, 100 young actors, and 100 young writers.
There's no shortage of talent in LA (300 hungry young artists step off the bus
in LA every day) but sifting the wheat from the chaff will be exhausting. Do
the work, it will be worth it. Build a production schedule geared around low
budget genre films, produced in 12 days and costing an average of $35,000 a
piece. Ideally you'd be releasing 50 - 75 films a year. Over the first two
years of your studio's existence, you'll have released 100 - 150 films. With
each film, you'll be able to try new and different release and marketing
strategies. You'll be able to gather detailed audience feedback on each film,
and at the end of that two years, with a mountain of data behind you, you'll
start to have a very strong idea of what sells and what doesn't. What kinds of
films your audience is interested in, what kinds of actors, plots and
situations they enjoy, and how you can produce films with those elements in
the cheapest, quickest way possible. In the third year of your studio's
existence, you might start to break even. In the fourth year, every major
studio will be begging to work with the radical young talent that your studio
has done such an amazing job at cultivating.

In other words: Step One, collect underpants.

~~~
thaumaturgy
What you're describing sounds very much like "a YCombinator for the film
industry." Did I get that wrong? I really like the sound of it, not least
because it might also be the best chance for increasing the quality of what
comes out of the film industry. But, like YC, it would need some serious
talent and some serious money behind it.

~~~
jamesgatz
Exactly right. As a film person, I've always been incredibly jealous of
YCombinator and the amazing talent that it cultivates. A project of its kind,
geared around films and storytelling, would do wonders to change the landscape
of Hollywood.

~~~
beatle
Dreamworks SKG tried this a few years ago. it was founded by 3 of the most
highly experienced, connected and talented industry visionaries in Hollywood.
Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. 2 of them are
billionaires and 1 is worth over $700M.

DreamWorks had come close to bankruptcy twice.the studio suffered a $125
million loss on Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, and also overestimated the
DVD demand for Shrek 2.In 2005, out of their two large budget pictures, The
Island bombed at the domestic box office, while War of the Worlds was produced
as a joint effort with Paramount. They eventually ran out of money. DreamWorks
scaled back, stopped plans to build a high-tech studio, sold its music
division and got out of the distribution business. They eventually ran out of
money and sold the company to Paramount pictures. The deal was valued at
approximately $1.6 billion, an amount that included about $400 million in debt
assumptions. it's a lot harder to start a studio than you guys think.

Of course, there's Pixar. but you need a SJ and a John Lassetter to create
something like Pixar.

~~~
ThomPete
Question is whether it used to be harder. The story you tell are all big
operations requiring lots of cash to keep afloat. New studios can run at
fairly low cost especially with the post production power we have today.

~~~
int3rnaut
Is there any actual evidence of this? I'd be really eager to refute this, but
I'd be more interested in learning it was true. Most "New Studios" I know fall
into the exact same trap that their predecessors have fallen into because none
of the major players in this new breed of studios are doing anything
different. You can streamline things as much as you want but you still run
into the same systemic issues that plague the whole industry.

~~~
ThomPete
That because they are playing the big studios game. They shouldn't, they
should play their own and find their own market.

------
tazzy531
There really isn't anything revolutionary or innovative in this. It's
basically the same exact model as Hollywood with different players.

In addition, if the only distribution model is online streaming at 0.99, you'd
need to sell 10M views to just break even. Yes, this can be achieved for a
single hit, but for every single one to break even is similar to the current
model.

One of the key things with the internet and technology is that: 1) Technology
has enabled talented artists, filmmakers, and musicians to produce high
quality content at a reasonable costs. Take a look at all the quality
production that is around on the internet. 2) The internet has enable low cost
distribution and discovery service. This means that we can increase the number
of distribution channels for much lower cost than the existing model.

Because of these two facts, this enables smaller productions (you don't need
$10M revenue if your cost is $30k) and more niche audience. Think of all the
long-tail movies that do not get made because the target audience is too
small; these would become economically feasible with internet distribution.

The indie film industry follows this similar model. A lot of indie films are
low budget films made by students and budding stars. These films and talent
are then discovered by the big budget studios and brought into that fold.
(Think of the indie film community similar to the open source community in
tech.) They are often looked down upon by the big budget studios and the
community is looking for that one opportunity to break big. They have as much
distaste for the Hollywood model as the tech industry does. There is a huge
opportunity in bringing them into the fold of the startup industry to counter
Hollywood. Provide them a clear path of success without giving up much of
their rights or stake and they'll surely jump at the new approach.

Lastly, the internet is a great talent discovery. Look at the number of mega
stars that have been found on YouTube and other websites. The problem is that
once someone becomes "Internet Famous", how do you turn them into "Real Life
Famous". People like Justin Bieber have no choice but to fall into the hands
of the existing production model.

Provide your consumers (in this case the movie production and the movie
consumers) with a better product and all else will follow.

tl;dr -

1) Embrace the Indie Film industry -- they are desperately looking for a
partner in taking on big studios. They have already been in this fight for
years, that we have only recently just joined.

2) Use technology to assist in discovery.

~~~
fossuser
I think this is it, technology can help to bring smaller indie players out (as
it already has been doing).

I think the way the OP wants to monetize it wouldn't work well either (and
with their method file sharing remains a problem rather than a benefit). If
indie films were also able to partner up with theater systems (like Regal)
they could charge less for public performance and also lower ticket price.
Having theaters as a main source of income also allows file sharing after
release to benefit the performers and directors for their next films.

------
dkhenry
This will not work. The problem has and will continue to be distribution and
marketing, not content production. Any disruption to Hollywoods market space
must center on finding a new distribution and marketing model that can attract
the current content producers. Only by separating those two entities can you
really disrupt the space.

Right now the people who distribute the content are also the ones who own the
rights to it. That is why you have seen such a move towards limiting the
rights given to consumers of the media. There was a time when a movie house
bought the reel of film and played it as much as their hearts desired. they
actually made money off the tickets. That was then shifted to have the
theaters pay a portion of each ticket sold to view the movie , removing the
ownership right of the theater. Now the theaters don't own the movies, make no
money off tickets, and are dependent on the studios for all the marketing. If
you as a theater owner tried to buck the trend they would just stop giving you
the privilege of screening their films and your out of buisness.

There is a great symbiotic relationship between theaters and studios that just
making new content won't disrupt. If you want to "kill hollywood" you need to
focus on that problem first, once content delivery and distribution are
separated you will open the market for a new generation of content companies.

------
Tichy
I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised if he just described the current
state of Hollywood (except for the "straight to stream for 0.99$" part).
Hollywood is a business after all. And they clearly have some silly algorithms
at work picking potential blockbusters. I've heard rumors that even part of
the scripting is algorithmic these days (component based).

Of course "we" could improve on the algorithms, but such a thing is not a
startup idea in my opinion. A startup idea would be a specific way to improve
upon the algorithms.

~~~
jonnathanson
_"And they clearly have some silly algorithms at work picking potential
blockbusters. I've heard rumors that even part of the scripting is algorithmic
these days (component based)."_

There's nothing that sophisticated at work, I assure you. Hollywood has
"creative executives" who read the scripts agents send them, and then evaluate
those scripts by hand. Some are better at this job than others. Some are
legitimately good at it. (Full disclosure: I held this job for 5 or so years
of my career; I'd say that I was ok at it).

Scripting is done the old-fashioned way, as well, by humans using specialized
word processing software (Final Draft for screenplays and teleplays, Scrivener
for novels). This software helps writers sort through some of the elements
they've been using, i.e., by saving character names and locations, and
returning those names when called. And the programs have templates and auto-
formatting. But nothing that actually does the writing for you. Not yet, at
any rate. (Full disclosure: my brother is a screenwriter, and he's pretty good
at it).

The challenge is that Hollywood does not have a halfway decent way of
predicting or forecasting what will succeed and what won't. It _is_ possible
to judge good work from bad work, and to coach writers in improving their
work. And there are "rules" of story structure, plotting, and so forth. But
these are just structural. Very few people have any sort of gift for making
calls about what will, or will not, succeed at the box office or on TV.
Sometimes legitimately great material fails, and often legitimately atrocious
garbage succeeds wildly. It tends to be a crapshoot.

I would suggest that, if we're interested in disrupting Hollywood, we stop
focusing on a hypothetical, universal audience, and start focusing on niches.
We have the technology _now_ to deliver content to those most interested in
seeing it. Netflix, Amazon, etc., do a very good job with collaborative
filtering. The future of the content distribution business starts with
interest-based segmentation, IMO. The sooner we move away from people's best
guesses as to what will work for whom, the more readily we can adapt to the
delivery methods already at our fingertips.

~~~
gruseom
_there are "rules" of story structure, plotting, and so forth_

Since you evaluated scripts for a living, can you tell us some of those rules?

~~~
jonnathanson
For the legitimately curious, I'd recommend starting with anyone from the
ancient Greeks to Chekhov. For more basic, and perhaps more practical
guidelines, I'd recommend anything by Syd Field, William Goldman, Robert
McKee, or J. Michael Straczynski. Those are sort of the time-honored classics
in the how-to genre of screenwriting and story structure.

A few tidbits, and by no means comprehensive:

\- Typical screenplays weigh in at around 90 to 120 pages, and most of the
time, execs prefer a screenplay to hover around the southern end of that
spectrum.

\- A screenplay usually follows a three-act structure. If we take a 90-page
(roughly 90-minute) screenplay as a template, then the first act is the first
30 pages. The second act occurs from roughly pages 30 to 60, and the third act
roughly from pages 60 to 90. Typically, there's a key turning point or
reversal halfway between each of those acts, too.

\- The stakes get higher as the story progresses. The protagonist makes a
crucial decision around page 30 which sets him off on his adventure. Shit hits
the fan between 30 and 60, at which point, the protagonist realizes what he
must do to resolve the situation. But then shit gets even worse, and the
hero's in serious peril (physically, emotionally, or what have you). The final
~30 pages represent his final push against the antagonist(s), with a climax
occurring around page 75 to 80, and a denuement from 80 to 90.

\- Each scene must move the story forward in some meaningful way. This doesn't
have to be overt or action-based; even a dialogue between two characters
should create and then resolve something. This can be very subtle, and it's
hard to notice in films. But the difference between a scene that moves, and a
scene that drags or is pointless, can become readily apparent when reading a
screenplay.

\- Subtext: characters have personalities, goals, motivations, agendas,
desires, and intentions. They don't overtly state these goals or intentions in
dialogue. Two hallmarks of bad dialogue are 1) expository dialogue, i.e.,
dialogue that serves little purpose but to explain things; and 2) dialogue in
which characters broadcast their intentions. Characters speak in their own
voices. In bad dialogue, all the characters sound the exact same. In good
dialogue, the characters have different ways of speaking, seeing things, etc.

\- Good plots involve interesting characters that make interesting choices.
The plot stems from the actions, or reactions, of a character to his
circumstances. Things don't just "happen" to the character. He makes choices,
and what happens next is a consequence of those choices.

\- As a corollary to the above: interesting things happen when good characters
make bad decisions. Think of Frodo and the ring of power. It would have been a
pretty boring book (and movie) if he'd just kept the damned thing in his pouch
the whole time and never put it on, right? In fact, I'd recommend Peter
Jackson's first of the three LOTR movies to anyone wanting a crash course in
screen plotting. It's a long movie, and it does slow down from time to time,
but it's amazingly structured. Nearly every scene flows logically from the
next, and in a subtle way. Every scene is the result of someone's decision,
and the tension escalates accordingly.

\- The Golden Rule: _show_ , don't _tell_. Don't use expository dialogue as a
substitute for action (and, by "action," I mean characters making interesting
choices and doing interesting things. "Action" does not necessarily mean fight
scenes or car chases). Don't use narration if you can avoid it. Narration is
lazy. Sometimes people have broken the narration rule to great effect (i.e.,
when you have an unreliable narrator, or a narrator who provides humorous
color commentary) -- but 9 times out of 10, narration could have been better
substituted by story.

~~~
gruseom
_Each scene must move the story forward in some meaningful way_

Matt and Trey of South Park describe this brilliantly here:

[http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/09/07/arts/television/10...](http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/09/07/arts/television/100000001039812/a-clip-
from-stand-in.html)

(Just brace yourself for the annoying "OMG it's Matt and Trey" production of
the clip.)

------
earle
This idea clearly presents a lack of understanding of how the film industry
actually works, and in turn, is presenting nothing new. Making movies isn't
part that needs disruption.

Regardless of what your thoughts are about Hollywood, it's filled with a bunch
of very intelligent, and very well connected people, with very deep pockets.

Iterative improvements here and there is not going to cut. Posts like these
are obtuse show a general lack of understanding.

------
Kroem3r
This idea to kill Hollywood is ridiculously misguided. There's nothing
terribly wrong with Hollywood; I mean, it has a somewhat facile outlook that
goes along with championing the individual over the enterprise - but this
isn't the worst bias in the world.

The reason it's misguided is that Hollywood isn't the problem. The problem is
the system of lobbying the government and the way the government operates to
respond to this lobbying. Killing off Hollywood and replacing the dumbass IP
protection fanatics with Hacker News will look like the same old problem of
replacing one form of tyranny with another.

As a footnote, given what one assumes to be an audience including a lot of
system analysts, the near-complete lack of this point of view is making me
doubt my sanity. ;)

------
Terretta
What goes around comes around. We delivered streams for DEN [1] over a decade
ago, and any number of new "studios" since.

The problem we see is wrong headed thinking around distribution. Everyone
wants to be an event, to drive TV or blockbuster sized audiences for a quick
big win. The Internet isn't about that. The Internet (see amazon.com and
books) is about breadth and depth of choice, made available to a wide enough
audience that the quality of choice makes financial sense. Monetize that, and
you've defeated Hollywood.

1\. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Entertainment_Network>

------
msutherl
I think that very few directors would want to forego the possibility of their
film appearing in theaters. Films are designed for theaters and to those who
make films, the home-theater experience, which increasingly consists of a
laptop on a bed, is a paltry imitation.

~~~
patrickod
While yes a theatre experience is more "grand" I think I'm not alone in saying
that I've watched more movies at home in the last year alone than I have spent
on theatre tickets. What they'll lose in "quality" they will most definitely
make in quantity. Ease of access to the content will lead to higher
viewership.

~~~
rgbrgb
That makes sense when it comes to the business end but essentially you have to
convince good artists to work with a far lesser medium for the sake of "higher
viewership".

------
hoodq19
The path to killing Hollywood has to start from an understanding of how/where
they make their real money. The post does a good job with a third of that
answer-- Hollywood contracts are notoriously one sided so adding consistency
and transparency to the process might create the appropriate incentives for
creative talent to leave that model. In theory, that approach is already in
full swing (see the independent film movement).

The other two thirds of the story are the international market and
merchandising.

Even the worst film end up making money abroad. And those markets don't
necessarily have access to the web. So addressing the how of international
distribution (the non-web answer) will be a must.

And then to be genuinely disruptive, the last third of the solution needs to
address merchandising. There needs to be a clear path for everything from
action figures to cereal boxes. This one can't be done in isolation of other
markets so an alternative ecosystem needs to be created.

------
HNer
Hollywood, megavideo and lessons I learned about charging for content online!

I have a popular documentary site which has been around for many years,
streaming full length docs for small beer, it pays the hosting costs
basically. But what I learned over the years that in order to survive (i.e pay
the bills as hosting / streaming content is relatively expensive) is that you
have to adopt the Megavideo model, i.e charge for content only after people
are addicted to it. They used to force payment after 60 free minutes. I
struggled to make any cash with a paywall system and only when I switched to
pay in video system did it start making money. Clearly the megavideo model
worked as they had 6 million in assets ceased apparently (poor sods).

I built the concept out into a standalone system in Flash and its at
karsa.co.uk but for these days it would need to work in html not flash.

------
tlb
You have 7 ideas here, all plausible but untested. If you want to make
progress you should write down why you think each idea is essential. Or what
would go wrong if you didn't do each idea. What would go wrong if you charged
iTunes prices instead of 99 cents?

------
ktrgardiner
I think this idea has a lot of strong elements to it. However, the issue that
sticks out the most to me is the pricing model. $.99 per viewing? That would
make making a profit incredibly difficult. It just isn't realistic.

Instead, I think a price closer to renting a movie on demand would work better
with a bargain price for each view after that. Perhaps $2.99 or $3.99 for the
first view and $.99 for each view after that. And then maybe when the viewer
gets up to a certain view count, each view after that is free. This way, you
can gain a profit with less viewers while also instilling loyalty in repeat
viewers who are most likely to spread the word.

------
rdouble
Aside from the API/streaming stuff, this is how crap is already made. Troma,
Olson Twins straight to DVD, Tyler Perry, etc.

------
mayanksinghal
I am probably wrong, but aren't we risking a lot by using such a strong
language as _Killing_ an industry? Sure there are hundreds of mean studio
executives who want to do nothing but maximize their own profits, at times at
the expense of newer and in many ways better industries, but there also are
thousands of others whose livelihood depends on the industry. Thousands, who
might have been otherwise neutral or supportive of our cause, but not if we
visibly and purposefully strive to kill their source of income.

Propaganda is something we aren't the best at, but Hollywood most definitely
is. They might be aiming at destroying the tech/internet industry but they
have been very cautious in choosing the right wordings so as to avoid any
direct attacks (except a few who patronized 'nerds'). Even if they are using
old school cliches that mean nothing if careful deductions are used, but most
people would not care taking the effort. Most people would see that there are
two groups fight - one that says they will save American jobs and livelihood
while preventing them from illegal drugs and their children from pornography
while the other group is trying to kill and entire industry. Sympathy can be a
very strong tool, especially in elections (I am just saying this based on
movies/popular culture - I have zero first hand experience about US
elections/political atmosphere).

We should probably be careful that we do not end up just winning battles and
lose the war - and there is no way that this is going to be a short one.

------
Keyframe
hmmm, production budgeting and scheduling pretty much works already like what
was described here, even producers (executive ones, not line) and directors
have a performance stake. Maybe there is a perception that productions are
lavishly spending in drunken stupor (probably because of showbiz associated
glitz), but almost every ship is run really tight in productions - real tight.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Each movie or TV show is a startup,
even if all are within a single studio/production company. You can't magically
run out of budget and simply ask for more money. When that happens, you might
get money to finish up, but you'll also be out of work and you get managed
until project is finished. Every single item gets budgeted. Most money drains
happen when deadlines are slipped, since when freight train of principal
photography starts it costs serious money to operate and can't be stopped.
Sometimes it can really be out of producers control (special weather needed,
permits suddenly in trouble, actor dies...), but it rarely happens and every
major production has insurance coverage for situations like that... but when
it happens you get managed. And nobody likes that, it can tailspin the
situation towards evil and gets your rep tarnished.

Also, $0.99. While it would be nice, simple arithmetic calculations on average
budgets and viewings sing a different song.

------
freejack
I agree - there are strong points here.

I'm not sure if this was intended or not, but I think you are describing
YCombinator for Movies + a distribution platform to support it. At least as I
read it, these are the two strong thoughts that come to mind. The biggest
issue with Hollywood is its lock on distribution chan nels - this is where the
biggest opportunity for disruption lies IMO.

Perhaps YCombinator + OpenHulu(API) is the magic you are looking for? Keep
thinking, I think this is in the right direction.

------
steve8918
The two ideas that come to mind to "Kill Hollywood" are 1) Louis CK and 2)
HSX.com.

The best example of how to "Kill Hollywood" is Louis CK. What used to go to
middlemen like distributors instead went directly into his pockets, and it
decreased the price for his fans.

The content providers, like Louis CK, need to come up with their own money,
and then they get all the money. Take the distribution networks out of it.
Charge fans a minimum amount of money, ie. $5.

The only difficulty with a movie is that the "content provider" is very
distributed. There's the writer, and then there's the actor, etc. With Louis
CK, it was all the same person. With a movie, it's a lot different. Not sure
how exactly that would be split up, but only because I lack any familiarty
with movies.

However, funding movies could use the concept from HSX.com where you can buy
shares in a film before it comes out. The value of the box office receipts
ultimately is split up amongst all the shareholders, etc. This would create
incentive for people to get a prospectus for a movie, ie. the script, the
actors, etc, and then make informed decisions and buy shares of a movie. This
would give funding to the movie, and also create a good secondary market for
people to gauge how well a movie will do.

~~~
dagw
Louis CK can only "Kill Hollywood" because he's already a product of the
system. He had a popular TV show on a popular TV channel before starting his
experiment.

The problem that "Hollywood" solves isn't simply financing and distribution,
it's letting lots and lots of people know that your product exists and
convincing them that they really really want to pay lots of money to see it.

------
SteveJS
Why not just browse successful kickstarter film projects and do this with
stuff that people have already made? Wouldn't that be faster way to see
whether it can work?

------
diggum
I think this suggestion kind of misses the point: the evolution of mass
culture, at least over the 20th century, has moved from radio, to movies, to
TV. The biggest growth in recent new media has been video games, and now,
online social services and games. Coming up with a new way of making
Hollywoods product isn't going to kill Hollywood - a NEW product that
eventually replaces Hollywoods products will, or at least relegate "films" and
"tv shows" to the status of radio and newspapers.

What series of incremental improvements (an inevitable wrong-turns) will bring
us to that next paradigm of entertainment and culture? Will screens
necessarily be part of the equation for that next leap? Will we accept
passively soaking in this media, or will our participation be required?

We can think of experiences like ST:TNG's Holodeck or Neuromancer/Snow Crash's
plugged-in immersive metaverse as science fiction, but so was the idea of
full-color screens that respond to your gestures or verbal commands not so
long ago. The YC challenge to all of us dreamers is what intermediary steps
are needed to make a Holodeck a reality? Then, how do we start building the
first of those?

------
smoody
To paraphrase Nelson Muntz of _The Simpsons_ universe... "Stealing movies is a
victimless crime... like punching someone in the dark!"

\- Let's imagine this plan was executed and _turned out to be successful_. And
let's imagine the studio generates some very big hits.

\- Now, imagine that, even though the movies only costs 99 cents to stream,
people pirate them anyway (the same way people pirate 99 cent iPhone apps,
but, unlike pirated apps, anyone can watch the pirated movies -- not just
people with jailbroken devices).

\- Suddenly you'll have millions of people using torrents to get bootleg
copies of your movies... enough people to where you can't get investors and
others their needed financial returns unless you try to put a stop to it.

My question: _How do you put a stop to it without becoming Hollywood allover
again?_

That, to me, is the big issue here. So either you come-up with a theft-proof
way of distributing movies or you try to stop it. Or shut down your business.

And adding interactivity to them is not the answer IMHO. I need my passive
entertainment and so does everyone else who chooses watching a movie or tv
show over playing a game at any point during a day.

~~~
thret
The issue with paying 99c is not cost, but convenience. What I really want is
for movies & music to be tacked onto my existing internet/phone bill like
extra call charges.

------
zumda
I think he has some good ideas, but still contains the major flaw that the
movie industry still has: A publisher. The publisher/producer maybe was a good
idea when spreading an idea was still hard, and we had a lot of mass markets.

Even computer software was distributed through a publisher at the beginning
(for example VisiCalc), but it just doesn't work.

Game developers for example seem to slowly get that they don't need a
publisher but a distribution platform. Steam is a good start in that direction
(but I think still too selective). If there was a platform that would handle
distribution, payment and awareness, we could get a lot more movies that won't
be big hits, but instead cater to the minorities. Because this is where we are
heading. The music industry a really feeling that hard. There probably won't
be any "Beatles" or "Rolling Stones" anymore, because distributing and
spreading the word about some niche music in that niche circle is getting
easier and easier.

And I think this will, in the end, be what will kill Hollywood, because there
won't be a movie anymore that grosses multiple million dollars.

------
Maakuth
This kind of reminds me of the Wreck a Movie service
(<http://www.wreckamovie.com/>) from creators of the Star Wreck movies. They
say it best themselves:

"Based on the experience of creating the Star Wreck phenomenon, Star Wreck
Studios has developed a Web platform that is designed to harness the power of
passionate Internet communities for creating short films, documentaries, music
videos, Internet flicks, full length features, mobile films and more.
www.wreckamovie.com is a social community, simple workflow and marketplace
that builds communities around film productions. It helps get films done
faster and at a considerably lower cost through crowd-sourced work on
production tasks and online resourcing of expertise and corporate funding. The
communities developed in production will also create a viral social marketing
force that will get films seen through the hundreds of existing online and
standard channels."

------
jmaxcpr
Interesting discussion. Most of the ideas in this forum have been suggested in
one way or another - including the idea from the original post. I posted some
thoughts on the original YC 'kill hollywood' manifesto on my blog as well -
which debate whether or not Hollywood can really be killed. (Spoiler - I don't
think it can be, although I agree with what YC is saying).
[http://blog.kingtoledo.com/2012/01/kill-hollywood-not-so-
fas...](http://blog.kingtoledo.com/2012/01/kill-hollywood-not-so-fast/)

I've also come up with a pretty compelling way for Hollywood (the TV business
in particular) to embrace the new opportunities of fragmented communities and
distribution. It's called micro-cable, and it's something that I think bridges
the strengths of both the new digital world and the established Hollywood
infrastructure. <http://blog.kingtoledo.com/2011/12/micro-cable/>

------
sunchild
Aren't people overthinking this problem? The studios have shown their hand;
they're wearing their weakness on their sleeve. The thing they're most worried
about is piracy. If you stop _paying_ for their product, they believe they
will fail.

Either you stop consuming what they put out, or you find a way to get it
without paying. That's what will "kill Hollywood".

~~~
adpowers
A believe many people enjoy movies and don't want to pirate them (I am one of
them). They won't pirate and don't want to abstain from movies, so the only
option is to provide a credible alternative entertainment that doesn't involve
sending money to those who lobby against us.

------
vibrunazo
I believe this idea makes the same mistakes as many others trying to solve
this problem. You're trying to fix a broken model by adapting a few of its
pieces. But you're not looking at the big picture and trying to see how the
pieces play together, or if you even need them.

Simply taking a Hollywood movie and trying to finance it with $0.99 per view
will be just a Hollywood movie financed with much less money. Of course I'll
have no hard data, but my hunch would be that this is far from viable.

The problem is deeper than that. The truth is that the Hollywood model carries
with it many years of overhead that could be avoided today. Instead of doing
slight changes we should be reviewing the the whole production pipeline and
get rid of unnecessary dumb pipes. Technology can improve or even remove some
of the steps. We need to make content creation cheaper, make it accessible to
more creators.

Look at the startups at youtube.com/create such as xtranormal or GoAnimate.
"If you can type you can create an animation". Just like wordpress brought
journalism and written publishing to the masses. Technology can make the same
for other mediums of communication. * If we build easier and cheaper tools,
that anyone can use. Then we can turn more people into content creators, which
reduces costs. * If we get rid of the whole silly copyright fundamentalism,
then we can share content pieces between different productions. So creators
don't need to reinvent the wheel each time.

Short version: instead of trying to come up with innovative revenue models to
support over-expensive outdated production models. Let's keep building better
tools that keep cutting costs down to the point that sane revenue models can
support. I believe that in the future. Millionaire budget production content
won't exist anymore, but it will be better than current ones, because we'll be
using better tools. So stop trying to bandage what's broken, we're supposed to
be killing that by building something better :)

------
alabut
I was nodding along until I hit #5 - pricing films at 99 cents, without any
variation for the length of the work. That'd be like if both songs and albums
cost 99 cents each. All you get is a race to the bottom with a lot of short
derivative work.

$5 strikes me as a more reasonable price, as demonstrated by Louis C.K.'s
successful experiment.

------
intended
Hollywood is going to die not because we make a better studio (which would be
a cool achievement anyway).

They will die if you just make better games and story telling systems.

Heck if someone just took dwarf fortress and got it to a stage where peoples
fortress histories were converted into fantasy novels, you would have an
endless fantasy novel generator/plot system, which would be worth the time to
read.

Beat hollywood by competing on time. I don't know what the correct term is,
but thats the leading edge/the place where the real battle is being won.

Whatever starts taking over the spare time people have, will displace all the
other entertainment media out there.

I'd vote on video games, as one of the better attack vectors to approach this.
And not the Micro transaction system (which is basically a casino/skinner box
and now completely evil) but rather a system like EC2 which allows people to
punch beyond their striking capacity.

------
hjkl
>Think of it as "Moneyball for movies" -- that is, what types of successful
film productions does Hollywood tend to undervalue in favor of large,
expensive (and tremendously risky) blockbuster attempts?

Thing is, this has been done, and the results probably aren't what you want to
hear. Hollywood actually produces fewer family and broad-appeal genre films
than the market can handle. (Check out this book:
[http://www.amazon.com/Hollywood-Economics-Uncertainty-
Routle...](http://www.amazon.com/Hollywood-Economics-Uncertainty-Routledge-
Contemporary/dp/0415312612) )

The reason for this mismatch between what the market can handle vs. what
actually gets made is that Hollywood insiders actually do want to make dramas
aimed at adults, which have a much smaller market than, say, animated kids'
movies.

------
gburt
Consistent pricing is a very bad idea. It eliminates a lot of important market
signalling forces.

------
aysar
Pretty cool idea, but i'm not so sure about the $0.99 pricing, seems pretty
undervalued/cheap.

~~~
nekojima
Except at two shows a day, that's $60 in a month. Already more than my current
cable bill with 200+ channels.

If you count what you watch, or more likely an average US TV viewer watches,
per day, that could be ten or fifteen half hour or hour shows. Over the course
of a month that's considerably far more than what they are currently paying
for cable.

A more viable plan might be for the return of 'soap operas' with advertisers
specifically sponsoring TV shows.

* I know soap operas aren't totally dead, but their original funding model is.

------
narrator
Here's my idea for making crowdsourced movies that might actually be good:

How about doing movies with a Richard Linklater's "Slacker" like script? In
the movie, characters are followed for a few minutes and then someone in the
last scene of that segment will continue that movie interacting with a
completely separate set of people and so on and so forth. Rent it on Netflix
to see what I mean. This kind of movie could be crowdsourced. Someone writes
the script. Many want to be actors shoot segments. The winning entrants film
short scenes where they call each other on the phone to move the movie along.
It's like Redditt the movie. Would somebody please do this idea? Please :).

------
WingedTurtle
People have talked about indie movies and how they have no choice but to go to
Hollywood to help them get exposure.

My impression is that film-makers depend on Hollywood not only for the
distribution but also for the funding to make the movie. If indie movies go to
Hollywood not for the funding (because they're already good at making quality
movies for cheap) but for distribution, then I think we have an opportunity.

We should offer an online way to distribute these indie movies.

Say I built a website that offered to host indie movies online for pay-per-
view.

The distribution system would be transparent. Say you've made an indie movie.
You let me host it online and charge viewers to watch it, and I give you 80%
of the revenue (or whatever is necessary for me to cover costs and make a
small profit)

I'd probably screen movies for quality and hand-pick the movies I allow for
viewing on my site (like literary magazines or existing film festivals). It
doesn't matter if I have relatively few movies on my site if they're all good
(and I keep releasing more of them). The site will market itself: people will
constantly check back for good movies and tell their friends about this site.

This won't stop Hollywood from churning out blockbusters, but we can keep
indie movies from falling into their hands. One problem is bootstrapping the
site but we might be able to convince good indie film-makers who don't want to
be part of Hollywood to allow us to distribute their movies (and thus
establish the site).

It turns out a website like this already exists (possibly others):
<http://www.indiemoviesonline.com/>

There are several problems with their site which I think can be improved. They
don't provide enough "buzz" for their movies. No trailers. No big pretty
posters. It looks kinda like Youtube. They also give out the movies for free.

Summary: I think with proper execution it's possible to create an online pay-
per-view indie-movie website without too much effort (except you need to
contact filmmakers). Such a site would provide an alternative to Hollywood for
certain niches.

------
newhouseb
The only way we can get hollywood to innovate is to make a convincing case
that by innovating they can make more money.

At 99c a pop, you would need _billions_ of views to compete with the income of
a blockbuster [not to mention innovative] film like Avatar, which according to
Wikipedia made nearly $2.8 billion. If you look at the most popular YouTube
videos, you'll find things like Justin Bieber's songs with about 700 million
views. Making the generous estimate that about a tenth of those viewers would
pay for that content, you would make about $70 million, which is orders of
magnitude less than what they do now.

~~~
banjomonster
You could however make quite a lot of 3min music videos for the cost of an
Avatar (237m according to Wikipedia). If it cost 2m per video, you could make
100 for less than the cost of an avatar, and even if only half of these made
the 70m you mention, you'd still have grossed 3.5 billion.

~~~
notahacker
Sure, but you're not going to get 70 million people _paying 99 cents_ for a
one time stream of a 3 minute music video in the foreseeable future.

A better comparison point would be YouTube's HD video list, which perhaps more
closely approximates the production values an independent filmmaker might
aspire to. The top HD videos on YouTube mostly have <10 million views. And
they're short, and free.

------
kurtvarner
A lot of negative comments here. This should be expected. Revolutionary and
disruptive ideas never start with much buy in. That's what makes them
innovative.

Remember when people thought it was impossible to put a computer in every
household?

~~~
MrScruff
The key difference here is you're talking about commoditizing human
creativity, which is what a large fraction of a typical film budget is paying
for.

------
tdicola
I can't help but imagine this easily devolves to funding porn. The films are
cheap to produce, can return a great deal on their investment, and have a
large audience ready to pay money to watch from the web already.

------
cturner
To challenge the model, you need to find a way to reduce distance between
story-telling and the audience.

In the late 90s, television became a good place for creative people to work,
because the industry gave writers freedom to break moulds that had contained
them before. e.g. Buffy finished high school and went on to a next stage of
life.

I'd focus on finding a way to deploy compelling stories so that they could be
consumed for portables, browsers or airline screens on long-haul flights.

------
nl
I've suggested that statuary licensing for video streaming[1] would be
something that all tech companies could agree to support, and that Hollywood
would hate.

I think it fits well with the "0.99c/view" model proposed here.

[1] [http://nicklothian.com/blog/2012/01/18/why-the-tech-
industry...](http://nicklothian.com/blog/2012/01/18/why-the-tech-industry-
cant-go-on-the-offensive-against-ip-laws/)

------
jeromeparadis
Why streaming only? I should be able to download it to any device.

Also, don't forget to ban region locking: if you want to change or beat
Hollywood, have the movie available as soon as possible to conveniently
purchase and play from every country when you want on any platform from. Then
you're really changing the game and are a viable alternative to torrents.

~~~
wccrawford
Because a key part of the plan is that you aren't buying it for 99c. To buy
the content and watch it many times, you'd have to pay more, but he doesn't
address that. (He should, though.)

------
ElliotH
The big problem here is choosing the good films based only on the concepts.

Otherwise I really hope someone can do this. You could possibly set the price
point higher though?

I'm not even sure that heavy advertising would be needed for the individual
films, so long as you managed to attract a user base who expected high quality
films they wanted to watch on the home page.

------
wturner
The reason movies get shown in movie theaters is because they help sell
popcorn.Helping (local non"AMC" or "Regal" ) theaters make more money via a
different film funnel could probably contribute. Maybe finding a mechanism
where average people make money by showing movies might help as well.

------
dmragone
I wonder if you can truly approach movies like start-ups. What would it look
like to build an MVP for a movie? Is that the script? How do you get enough
people to look at it to truly evaluate the concept? Perhaps this is why books
that sell well are made into movies - proven customers.

------
emempi
I had an idea of my own, but it actually outgrew size of single comment, so I
made a blogpost; it can be found here:
[http://emempi.blogspot.com/2012/01/better-world-for-
movies.h...](http://emempi.blogspot.com/2012/01/better-world-for-movies.html)

------
foenix
My counter-proposal: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3455037>

------
teyc
I'm sorry but this just describes a list of wants without providing any
insights into how Hollywood already works, and then prices things from a
consumers perspective.

Hollywood started off as studios where actors are essentially employees. They
own vertically integrated enterprises which included distributorship as well
as cinemas. (Read up on the Studio System).

This started to break down as studios gave certain actors a "star" billing and
some actors become independently recognizable and started working as free
agents. The trend persisted with now entire teams are assembled virtually on a
project by project basis.

On the distribution side of things, secondary markets became increasingly
vital. Cable, DVD rental, PPV, DVD sales and international distribution have
overtaken box office takings.

The free-wheeling internet has proven to be a problem because some people who
are watching movies at home are no longer accessing these through the
monetizable channels like rentals, but instead are doing this through the
free/unauthorized channels. I don't really know the size of this problem, as I
personally don't like the idea of being shaken down by the MPAA or RIAA.
Besides, I don't have the time.

Therefore to solve this problem for Hollywood, one working theory is that
people don't mind paying a certain amount for the convenience of watching
movies where they want it, as long as the price is "reasonable". This is
Apple's model.

However, in general, the current way of negotiating individual distributor
agreements represent a high degree of friction, and that locks out potentially
creative ways for studios to earn back their investment.

If movie makers were to securitize its prices, alternate channels will
flourish. I envision it more or less like a mechanical license.

One formulae may be based on days since first released and the size of the
screen, and whether it is PPV or multiple viewing.

Then it is up to repackagers like DVD-makers, movie theatres, and online
channels to reach the viewers. Repackaging may involve adding ads before and
after the movie (brings down the cost of viewing), or even during the movie
(as in TV).

If such a pricing evolves, I can see devices such as Roku offer a "legal" way
to view a movie even if the user has downloaded it from a torrent. For
instance, a user may be prompted whether they wish to deduct the price of the
movie from their account in exchange for indemnity if they were prosecuted for
illegal downloading.

In the big picture of things though, movies are a huge time drain on society.
I, for one, would rather see people having to pay to watch movies. My
relatives in Asia who regularly buy pirated DVDs from street stalls watch way
too much movies and fritter their lives away.

