
Only Way to Save the Movie Industry is to Give Up On Your Dreams - whitef0x
http://nofilmschool.com/2014/02/kentucker-audley-stop-making-indie-films-petition/
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joe_the_user
My sister has taught media studies and film production for a number of years
(first as professor, then as adjunct - Yea! America).

One thing she notes is that the number of _film schools_ in the US is
approximately equal to the number of individuals employed full time in
Hollywood (the "real" movies industry).

That's right, each school, on average, contributes one person total to the
industry (course, it's not a matter of averages with a very few school
contributing a reasonable if small number and most adding ... none, still this
average shows the aggregate brutality).

Anyway, I don't know why anyone would bother with anything like an altruistic
gesture towards these people, this industry etc.

~~~
jedrek
What does full time mean? SAG-AFTRA has 160,000 members who make enough from
acting that ponying up 3k/year makes financial sense.

That's just the talent, on any movie support staff and behind the camera
talent will be at least 5x the number of on screen talent, sometimes even 100x
more.

~~~
coldtea
> _What does full time mean? SAG-AFTRA has 160,000 members who make enough
> from acting that ponying up 3k /year makes financial sense._

Or it doesn't, and they make it out of vanity reasons, or because "soon, I'll
have my big chance...".

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beloch
DSLR's are only the latest in a long string of technologies that have made
shooting and editing film both cheaper and far more user-friendly. Compare the
expense, labor, and expertise required to shoot and chop 35mm versus shooting
digital on a DSLR and editing on your laptop! Costs have undeniably gone down
for all films, but more so for indies. These costs are a higher percentage of
an indie film's total cost than they are for a AAA title, which must pay
significantly more for special effects, AAA actors, AAA directors, etc..

Theater ticket prices continue to go up regardless of the type of film. Indie
flicks also cost no less than AAA titles in home video. Traditionally, low-
cost inferior alternatives compete against the more expensive well-established
products on the basis of price. Why aren't indies trying to undercut AAA
titles on price to increase their volume?

~~~
wisty
Films are sort of a natural monopoly. The winners will have huge budgets thus
"better" films.

Instead, indies compete for a niche. Niche customers (at least, the ones you
want) aren't bargain hunters, but people who pay for _their_ idea of quality.

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protomyth
I think the problem is not too many, it is the same problem app developers
have these days: attention. Surfacing good content in any medium is a pain and
trusted critics have been disappearing (dying newspapers and fake hype).

~~~
waterlesscloud
You're right, it's entirely about discovery these days. Marketing is how
studios cope with that. Indies are also marketing, but in somewhat different
ways. There's curation via critics and festivals, but even that's not enough.

My theory is that there's some audience for any half-competent film. The world
is a big place, with a lot of variety and a lot of different tastes. If your
film isn't truly awful, then there's some subset of people out there who want
to see it. Long tail audiences for long tail filmmaking.

The trick is they don't even know it exists. It's the same with apps and with
music and with self-published novels. Matching audience to creative work for
the million niches is the real trick that needs to be figured out.

The systems we have now (app store, amazon, netflix, spotify, etc) all fail at
it in general. Machine learning (as currently applied any way) doesn't really
do it.

~~~
thenomad
Speaking as a working filmmaker - yes, you have hit the nail on the head here
(and it's a real pity your comment's currently at the bottom of the thread).

Self-published novels are doing a bit better than the other media at matching
output to demand. That's partially because of a faster feedback loop,
partially because Amazon are smart cookies, and partially just because they
need to earn back a lot less to be profitable.

I'd be interested in talking more about this issue, actually - my email
address is in my HN user info.

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frik
Some create intentionally bad films and some are coding intentionally bad apps
to app stores ...both flood the market.

For movies we have IMDB.com that works well for consumer to filter out the
good ones. The current app store implementations are not good enough, an
independent app database with information, rating, pictures, videos and
comments like IMDB would be great.

(IMDB already features video games where actors were part of the development
process)

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stormbrew
The prior state of affairs and the new state of affairs don't really strike me
as being as different as this article suggests. There have probably always
been a much higher number of people making amateur film than the number you'd
see coming out in an art house theatre or limited chain theatre run.

The difference is that the gate is crumbling and the price floor is being
removed. A lot more people now stand to make very little doing something they
love, where before they stood to make absolutely nothing. Some of the sales of
the top-tier indie market will undoubtedly go down, but demand for great work
from outside the studio system will never disappear entirely.

But they need to compete on an even playing field with the newer generation
and not try to hide behind the old system until it falls down completely. If
the developing products are reaching _everyone_ and the quality products
continue to reach only the privileged few (seriously, try watching an indie
movie in a small town), the people who cling to the limited distribution model
will stand to lose the most.

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Pxtl
Welcome to every other artistic endeavor ever. First it was painters, then
writers, then photographers, then music and comics, etc. Today cheap ad-hoc
manufacturing is also doing it to the indie boardgame world. Every other art-
form goes through this process when its materials become cheap enough for
anybody to get involved.

Well, except maybe gaming, and that's just because the actual paying market
for videogames keeps growing.

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lutusp
I hope the originator of this idea realizes it would be illegal if put into
practice. It would be like Wal-Mart arguing against all those indie drugstores
and mom & pop groceries that make bigger businesses like theirs unprofitable.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _it would be illegal if put into practice_

I checked my think-like-the-MPAA magic 8-ball. (1) Limit, by law, the films
cinemas can show to those rated G, PG, PG-13, or R. (2) Inflate the cost of
applying for a rating (with a "scholarship" available to qualifying
applicants).

~~~
throwaway2048
Movie theaters are in no way limited by law to certain MPAA rated films. That
would be a gross violation of the 1st amendment.

The industry has more subtle ways of controlling theater owners.

~~~
lutusp
I normally argue the opposite position, but I have to respond to this -- what
a movie theater shows is its own business, because it's not a public forum.
The First Amendment doesn't apply. If government tried to prevent a movie
theater from showing certain content (as with obscenity rulings) that would be
different.

~~~
throwaway2048
hence "by law"

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summerdown2
It's the same with fiction writing - there are far too many people doing it,
and the quality is ever more variable. I don't think this is a bad thing, just
a sign of an industry in transition. I really like the fact that large numbers
of people are encouraged to become creators.

But there really does need to be some way for a consumer to find what they're
interested in, and for an artist to reach those who might be interested in
their work. At the moment the old mechanisms seem to be vanishing, and it's
not clear what will take their place.

I've seen people try forming communities with shared worlds to spark interest,
new approaches using Patreon and Kickstarter, the ever unreliable flooding of
social media. But the truth is that as a reader I'm finding it harder to
search for things I like and as a beginning writer, I'm seeing my more
advanced friends drop out of the midlist.

~~~
thenomad
I do think that Netflix may be on to something with its curation /discovery of
new sub-sub niches.

One of the issues with creating fiction compared to non-fiction right now, in
any medium, is that it's much harder to niche down in fiction. In non-fiction
I can perfectly happily make a viable living from writing to a niche of, say,
"owners of cats with behavioural issues", or "Finance-focused startups in need
of lead generation knowledge". In fiction, niches are much less granular - at
best, you can target, say, "werewolf-based romance", and for many projects,
you'll be targeting "fantasy", "hard SF" or similar huge niches with very
vague requirements and significant saturation problems.

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JumpCrisscross
> _The problem here stems from the fact that many of the independent films
> that are picked up for distribution are guaranteed a limited theater run
> (mostly for the press that it generates)_

This sounds like a more likely source of the problem than too much supply.

Filmmakers need their economics to work. They also have limited access to
credit. In short, it is a market that should work. Limit subsidies like
guaranteed theatre runs to let the market self-correct.

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acconrad
This problem with film is the same thing with music - now anyone can have a
professional recording studio in the comforts of their own home. With more
people making music / film, the more the quality suffers as everyone believes
they are a film/music maker. It just means that in order to get noticed
through the exponential increase in volume, you have to work that much harder
to demonstrate your talent and craft.

