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."
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:People are still the expensive part (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:People are still the expensive part (Score:5, Insightful)
psh. you can do pretty much everything with computers as far as music goes...you're stuck 20 years in the past my friend.
The trouble is that there's an old adage that says something like "You can give a kid a steinway grand piano, but that won't make him Beethoven"
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Re:People are still the expensive part (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, its tough because the "its costly because of the people" argument takes into account the $10M your superstar actor makes. But he makes that money not because they're the most talented actor ever (you probably haven't heard of that guy), but because his name will sell the movie. "Bankable" means they can bank a certain return on the actor's name alone, i.e. "the next _______ movie". If you can get to the point where your name goes in there, you're all set.
Of course, if distribution and all that changes who knows, as you won't need the big returns for the "big" movies. 5 years is ridiculous, sorry. But later on where everything is convincingly done on blue screen? Maybe. I still think there always needs to be a "draw" for something. Whether its artificial publicity, who's involved, or word of mouth once the movie has gotten a following, you need something. Top of the Youtube front page is one thing, but you better believe if that was the major distro channel then the "dinosaur" media companies would have that page bought out in a heartbeat. There's also the fact that shoestring budget movies can't pay the talent, but they also can't pay the work-a-day types that make a movie happen - and there's a lot of those and always will be if the movie is of a decent size. As long as people are willing to pay for it (the MPAA wants you to believe they will and won't at the same time), then there will be people willing to do it for a job, and the costs will still be high. 5 years, no way. 25? It won't be the same, but it won't be some garage film utopia where all movies are done for the art and the public suddenly enjoys amateur films over high production value blockbusters either.
Re:Ayup... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Death of Big TV Sci-Fi (Score:5, Insightful)
Any kind of media production that appeals more to the brainy folks will bring fewer advertising dollars than shows for morons who will buy anything they see on TV. Hence the downward spiral for commercial TV. American Idol, Glenn Beck, Big Brother... that's what the advertisers like. Fodder for consumers.
Re:Death of Big TV Sci-Fi (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that running TV shows on TV means that you're trying to monetize through advertising. Nerds aren't interested in that, partly because advertising is mostly geared toward the low-hanging fruit, i.e., stupid people. These shows can be monetized, but you have to monetize through DVD sales, Netflix, iTunes, etc. In other words, the consumer becomes the customer, and you're selling the TV show directly to them instead of to advertisers.
Yes, there are some nerds who will refuse to pay, instead downloading shared copies of them. But many nerds actually have money because they're intelligent and successful, and they understand that a TV show that is sold directly to them requires that they pay into it in order for it to remain viable. Is it enough to reach critical mass without first running the shows on regular TV? Who knows, as those sorts of sales/profit figures aren't easy to come by unless you're an industry insider.
But if there is enough interest in direct-to-DVD/download/rental sci-fi that has the high production values of current TV sci-fi, it could work - the question becomes, how do you market those shows directly to the viewer if you don't have TV as a platform for doing so?
Re:People are still the expensive part (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember attempting to record an album in the 90's and even for the crappiest studio in town it was $10k-$20k to get it recorded. That didn't include the $2k-$3k for the initial printing of the CD. Today you could build a BETTER studio in your home for the same price. With modern recording software and a few classes at a community college and you'd easily be able to do most of it yourself. Then ship your CD to be mastered by some other guy in his basement. Then you upload the whole thing to your website and collect your money via paypal... That's why there's such an explosion in indi music right now. How far away is the film industry from the same sort of revolution? Not far I'd bet.
Re:Ayup... (Score:5, Insightful)
quite accurate, and agreed, most certainly.
however, for all the education and lock-in these people try to keep going forever, the more people just innovate around them time and time again.
The problem is (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that they won't die without fighting, doing as much damage as they can in the process. We still have years of DRM and its mutations to witness in the next years.
Re:People are still the expensive part (Score:4, Insightful)
The shit that gets spewed out of big production hollywood these days is far from the likes of Beethoven.
Re:People are still the expensive part (Score:2, Insightful)
I think what is happening is like this:
(a) Movies on-par with Inception: few people have problems to justify watching these.
(b) Movies on-par with Piranha 3D: most would rather watch youtube videos for 88 minutes.
While movies in category (a) will only compete (for viewer's attention) with other high-budget movies also in category (a), movies in category (b) can easily be replaced by indie filmmakers (e.g. "low" budget); especially when indie filmmakers put actual effort into plot, camerawork, and cinematics (i.e. make good movies).
Re:People are still the expensive part (Score:4, Insightful)
You got it. The glass may be half empty or the glass may be half full, but if you don't have a glass . . . you can't drink.
He misses the point. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Death of Big TV Sci-Fi (Score:5, Insightful)
Putting it on a website for free won't remove it from the torrent sites.
Which is why they need to put it on the torrent sites themselves. With commercials. And a farm of paid, well connected, colo-ed seeders. And intelligent filenames.
Good rips drive out bad rips. If their rip happens to be the best, with the single sole exception of having some commercials...
Which would you download:
teh_daley.sho-January-24-2011_handeld_camcordercap_by_the.leet_team_sadlkbgf_320x240.mkv with a whopping 2 seeders
or:
2011-01-24_The_Daily_Show_HiDef_video_5.1_sound_official_release.avi with 200 lightning fast seeders, which happens to have commercials included?