The Fall of Traditional Entertainment Conglomerates 204
Advocatus Diaboli writes "We no longer live in the era of 'plantation-type' movie studios or recording houses. However large private companies still have considerable power over content production, distribution and promotion. Technology has been slowly changing this state of affairs for almost 30-40 years, however certain new technological advances, enabling systems and cost considerations will change the entertainment industry as we know it within 5 years."
People are still the expensive part (Score:5, Informative)
The problem with all of this, is that *talent* is still expensive. You can get a guy to hold a cellphone for a music video, but you can't get a trained steadycam operator to film an on-foot chase scene without paying him 50 an hour. You can spend 20 hours making a music track yourself in Garage Band that everyone hates, or you can pay a group of musicians a few grand to use their stuff. You can hire all of your friends for free to act in your movie, but your friends are really not actors. Even if your friends ARE actors, they're wrong for the parts and will just muck it all up.
Face it, good entertainment still needs budgets and organization. Not to mention a 2 hour movie requiring something like 2 weeks of full-time editing alone. The barrier to entry isn't one of technological costs (like indie music) but people costs, like staging public spectacles. And unlike music, that barrier to entry isn't getting lower. Add in that any one person doing their job poorly can completely screw up a movie, and there are hundreds of people making movies, and big, professional houses seem secure.
Re:Blender Foundation tangent (Score:5, Informative)
They've made a newer and arguably even nicer short with Sintel [youtube.com] not long ago. Well worth a watch.