watch Out Hollywood!
 

an interesting article on digital moviemaking

http://www.popularmechanics.com/tech...tml?page=1&c=y

"Hollywood" isn't scared of kids with cameras. If kids with cameras are posting videos on Myspace that get a million downloads, then have no fear, "Hollywood" will find a sure way to make a buck off that, too.

They ARE scared of losing control of the money flow on their existing distribution channels, and they're also afraid of the product they spent millions to produce being traded for free.

People outside the business are convinced that cost of producing content (fancy cameras, expensive special effects, etc) are what is keeping them out, and what "Hollywood" doesn't want them to have. What's really keeping them out is quality of content. "Hollywood" will beat your door down if you make something good that people want to watch (and you can demonstrate it). Doesn't matter if you shot it with an Elura or 35mm.

Anyway, the author of the article is confusing issues.

Thanks Nate, excellent reply!

I agree, Hollywood is desperate for good content. However, The Dukes of Hazard was still produced. So the lesson for today is, when Hollywood doesn't have decent scripts, they'll butcher another show fom my childhood.

dukes
 

agreed Keith, sometimes the movies that come out today leave this huge, how on Earth!! question lingering in your mind.
The only thing I can think of is people at the top are letting mates get into the industry and supporting them in whatever they come up with. I mean I accept sometime its good to bring the classics back so this generation will know what they missed out on. But I suppose it goes two ways:
1) Our memories are dim, and when we watch those old TV/movies, we think "Crikey what junk". Or
2) You watch the remake and think, "Boy they missed it, how could they not have got it right with so much resource material to work from".

Anyways, my 10c worth.
Cheers

If Sony decidec to give every hack "film maker" a free F950 Hollywood would remain 99% unchanged. I say it repeatedly but it is about ONE thing in Hollywood, the perceived marketability of the product, nothing else. If you shoot a movie on super35 with a decent script and a bunch of no name actors then you have 1/100th the chance at decent distribution than a film shot on a one chip DV camera that has Gary Busey in it. Dont bother listing all the exceptions because they are just that... exceptions.

Think of it this way... go to the user forums on all the film maker sites... watch everything... would it being shot on an expensive camera make a difference in how marketable it was? No...

ash =o)

Ash understands...

The technicalities of making movies should be the least of the average filmmakers troubles. And if they're not, then...

I think you disproved your first sentence with your second one. Ash nailed it. Hollywood is a business, and the primary motive of any business is profit. Dukes grossed something like $80 million while Munich grossed about half that. People like to blame Hollywood for shoveling cr@p at us, but the reality is most people are choosing cr@p and Hollywood is giving the customers what they want.

Cheap production equipment will not bring Hollywood to its knees. It justs offers the chance for budding filmmakers to produce movies for the art of it, before they move on to Hooter Vacation III to pay their bills.

I think that if you add statement A and statement B, you'll find out it equals Hollywood has no idea what is good, and they don't care. They just want your money.

agreed
 

getting off topic:

You know, it takes a special kind of person to butcher a show based on a hill-billie family solving crimes with a creek-jumping car.

Although...
As much as I like to criticize pretty much everything around me, I have to be the first to admit: If I was a Hollywood executive who had to commit millions of dollars to either a script with car chases and hot women or a script about the moral rammifications of revenge killing, and I had a family to feed...there's only one safe choice: Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhaaaaaaawwwwwwww!!!!!

Its a paradox that only the poor can afford a soul.

Steve- It's just too funny, the way you butcher hillbilly! It's yeehaw!

And if I were the same studio exec, I would look at the script, throw it back, and say "Now... make it not suck." Instead, said exec says "What the hell do I care? They're pretty much brain dead from all the garbage we've fed them over the past few years, they'll pay to see this too."

Until the general public stops going... things wont change. Watch my documentary about Hanson and the music business, it is the same in Hollywood. Executives dont know what is good, they only know what they "think" can sell. They almost always choose the safe choice.

Think about it... there were probably 20 executives who passed on Napoleon Dynamite and greenlighted something like Deuce Bigalow 2. In that case, we have the mormon church to thank, who funded the movie up front, because that movie never would have been made thru a studio... EVER...



ash =o)

[QUOTE=Ash Greyson]Until the general public stops going... things wont change. Watch my documentary about Hanson and the music business, it is the same in Hollywood. Executives dont know what is good, they only know what they "think" can sell. They almost always choose the safe choice.

Think about it... there were probably 20 executives who passed on Napoleon Dynamite and greenlighted something like Deuce Bigalow 2. In that case, we have the mormon church to thank, who funded the movie up front, because that movie never would have been made thru a studio... EVER...



ash =o)[/QUOTE
the mormon church funded Napoleon Dynamite? Or your doc?

Unfortunately, it is the public not hollywood who makes the ultimate choice. A good movie about this is John Cassavetes 'Faces', sort of a loose autobiography of what he went through during his brief time working for a Major. Initially he hated them, but in the end forgave them for being all to human. Pretty much the film version of what Steve Roark said in his post.

newsflash...I heard when Jessica Simpson moved from Texas to Hollywood the average IQ of both places went up.

This part seems to bother me for some reason. It's not like the LDS Church to put forth money for something that they can't have some kind of creative say in. More than likely, the producers were LDS, and that started a rumour about the church providing the money. If the church was really in a position to fund production up front, then why haven't more LDS filmmakers (such as myself) heard of it?

IMO, Hollywood wouldn't know a good movie if it came up and slapped them with an Academy Award. The good movies that do come out of Hollywood are rare, especially when you compare it to all the schlock they release in a year.

What? Have you seen it? It's entirely about a marriage in trouble and the couple's individual futile attempts to find happiness elsewhere. There's nothing even remotely movie-related about the story. I suppose you could make an argument that there's some kind of convoluted symbolism going on there, but that's not really Cassavetes' style.

The way the film was produced is another story. Cassavetes' way of working was a reaction to his experiences with Hollywood filmmaking.

Sorry, I know this was very off-topic, but I felt someone should say it.

As for the actual topic of discussion here, I'd agree that the public is to blame for the crap oozing out of Hollywood--bad movies wouldn't be made and distributed if no one paid to see them.

However, I also think it's fair to say that people watch crap because crap is all they know. Most people never get a chance to see anything that isn't at the multiplex. Because film is such an industrialized medium, and the work produced with big $$$ is all that ever gets seen, anything that costs less than $30,000,000 is seen as "inferior." As if $$$ and actual value are always proportionate to one another.

A HUGE chunk of that $$$ goes into marketing. "You must see this movie or risk not participating in Western culture," that sort of thing. How can a little guy, a guy with even a shred of integrity, compete with Happy Meal tie-ins and TV commercials during the Super Bowl?

The studios have us right where they want us. They shovel crap, and we eat it up... because no other food is readily available. So we develop a taste for crap and wrinkle our noses at filet mignon.

They're accountants. Risk Averse. It's not just Hollywood. Wherever Film Accountants gather, there be turkeys.

So, if you've no 'stars', no three-act structure, no easy to understand story arc, no redeeming change in hero,... no cigar.

No new movies, no controversy, no debate, no experiments.

That's how it may seem.

Except that most studios operate a sort of hedge system - funding 10 films in the hope that one rolls. All this filmic 'ballast' seems to be the byproduct of the system that needs to deal with the occasional boat-rocker.

But the wonderful thing is that things are changing: how about Donnie Darko - a sleeper that tipped the DVD industry so hard that Studios are now thinking of the DVD matierial before the film stock is orderd.

"Sell through video" was a dirty cuss when I started out. Now DVD's big-time, and just like 'Broadcast TV' is soon going to be an oxymoron, On-demand movie consumption will drive new markets that will hopefully level the field below 'blockbuster'. We can dream, can't we? ;)

Aparently, it's now "Crested Land Feature William"...HillBilly is derogatory and unacceptable in any company. ;)

Sometimes...I love explosions molded around obvious plots with people who I could see pictures of cheaper by buying a national enquirer. I'm a cinema escapist...I don't want a message or a purpose or some preachy plot telling me that selling guns is bad and war is bad and all of these things I'm already currently aware of by watching the news. I am the target demographic for Dukes of Hazard (didn't go see it based on schedule). I love hollywood tripe! If you don't like what's coming out of hollywood, give them an alternative that will make them money.

I've always been of the opinion that if you're not willing to help fix the problem...you're not allowed to complain. Figure a way to sell them a meaningful and artistic piece of work to make money off the movie going public...I will support you if you personally let me know when it's hitting the theater, but meaningful art is quite frankly not the reason I pay a buttload of money to enter the theater. I want to see expensive cars with models in them being blown up at 150mph while the latest big action star miraculously saves the aforementioned model by pulling her out of the car at the last second unseen by us, but completely expected. A witty phrase that can be repeated over and over until my friends hate me and I've got my $15 worth!

Not only have I seen it, I've read the biography surrounding the 'making' of it.
One of the first films to deal with sexual desire in middle aged women. It was about the people, not the system.

Ok, we all agree hollywood leaves a lot to be desired, but (and it's a big one) the myth is (i say myth cause i don't know if it's true or not) that in everyfilm market (all over da world) locla people preffer hollywood films to every other film (includeing their own countries).
Now this sounds really fake, just liek when hollywood claimed that james bond was the longest running series of movies about one character (they sorta forgot all the 99 black and white wong fei hung movies of honk kong and the tora-son movies of japan (there well over 30 of these))

So hollywood is all about the marketing, just look at snakes on a plane, which by all acounts is just a made for sci-fi channel movie with some big name actors in it.

Heres my one question, why must hollywood portray the star as being tall. look at tom cruse, not a tall guy in real life, always the tallest in the movcies.

Anyway, get a camera make a movie, thats the moral of my ramble

I agree, these debates about hollywood and what they put out don't accomplish anything. I'm making something right now and not carring about hollywood one way or another.

I'd disagree the anti-hollywood debates do nothing. Its important to stir the nest, and if 500 people simply went out and did their own thing youd have 450 rather dissapointing movies. I think debating what sort of structure is and isn't apropriate in a movie is very useful, throwing away all the rules results in a complete mess with no chance of getting back the money spent.

At one point I was wondering if you could could write a script with a roulette wheel, not every word obviously, but have all the basic themes occur by chance. I eventually came to conclusion, and maybe this would be quickly obvious to people with experience, that allthough the result would be a long way from predictable, the story just wouldn't make sense.

In the UK, Snakes on a plane is probably the most hyped film since Blair witch project, and to me that says something fundamental.

really? I was just over there and hurd nothing about it, maybe i missed the hype, or it started after i left. The anit hollywood debate is ok, but on a board liek this it's just ether preaching to the choir, or a repeate of the saem post every month. Just go out and make somehting, make some one else watch it, then you'll see whaere to go from that.
didn't truffaunt say something to the effect that the future of cinema would be a personal cinema.
The biggest thing stoppign people is a)lack of inturest, b)disguragment from every one with an opinion tellign you you'll never make it.

this is somehting i really hate, people who have no idea about nothign say "you can't do that". Gottent o the point where i don't say much of anything about what i'm ganna do or any of my goals.

as for watch out hollywood, even the movie industry it's self started as a fade. D.W griffith was so ashamed of working in the moviews that at first he wouldn't admit to it (people looked down on it) course this did change.

The biggest problem facing non hollywood types is distribution, and don't give me that internet stuff. The internet is not a cure alk, and i personaly only know of one movie that was ever successfully distributed over the net, www.starwreck.com (i think that it) it's a finnish star trek/babylone 5 parodie, and it's free.

Let's get back to the important issue here...
 

According to Oxford's Standard English Guide to Hillbillie: Whenever you use a 1969 car to traverse a thirty foot gorge with no bridge available, the "Y" is implied.

BTW: I've never used the term hillbillie towards real people, just to describe Hollywood's interpretation to anybody living on a farm. We had another term for them: neighbor.

Well, there you go! You should be using a Funk & Wagnell ;)

As far as using the term hillbilly, you really need to live in some of the real backroads of the south to appreciate it fully. However, I have never wanted to jump anything in a Charger... except Daisy Duke ;)

please, it's redneck for the south, and hillbilly applies to people from okalhoma. Florida has no hills, i know this for a fact, so hillbilly does not apply there :P

Actually, us oldtimers prefer Cracker. Just the oneliner's you can play off of it is great :)

I think every September, MovieMaker puts out an anual 'how to' to get your independent movie noticed, talked about and hopefully distributed. There are lots of smaller companies that specialize in that sort of thing.

If you're into genre movies, there are several 'fest' around the country that cater to them.

As far as StarWreck, very cool, but a distant second to 'Star Trek New Voyages' which has over 30 million downloads to date. They even have a reconstructed set of the originial Enterprise (TOS) to shoot on. So popular, that the set is being used for an original Trek based feature being directed by and acted in by several Trek Alumni from different series.

They are having the big 40th convention out in Las Vegas as we speak.

I agree with both sides of this debate. It that possible?

I have definately agree that what hollywood puts out is often predictable. Many films are just terrible, but still get to play on the big screen. I hated "the Island of Doctor Moreau", it was terrible.

Being a technical person who reads science fiction, I couldn't stand "Stealth" because the technical details were all wrong. The self aware airplane got damaged, and couldn't fly straight, but instead of being unable to point itself in the right direction it zigzagged all over. I have never flown a plane, but I know physics say the faster an object is moving, the harder it is to turn it. A fast moving plane would just keep flying, or falling in the wrong direction. But as far as effects, and eye candy, Stealth looked great, and probbably sold plenty of tickets for hollywood to get what they wanted.

Where I agree with hollywood is that they do know how to make money. Those of us saying we want better movies are a minority. As long as the masses continue to fill the seats in the theaters, hollywood will keep doing what they do. Hollywood sees no reason to change, because they have found a system that works for them. Even bad movies make money because by the time you figure out it's terrible, you've already paid for a ticket!

There will always be room for non hollywood films, but we will always have the disadvantage of not having access to endless money, and big name stars. There's no way around it. I have a few ideas for movies I think would really make people think, and want more, but I know if I make them, they will never get the attention a bad hollywood film would.

I hope I make a little sense.

These debates come up because a post like this pops up every several weeks. It is not bad intentions but rather ignorance and misunderstanding of what "Hollywood" is. People grab on to the thing that makes their own work LOOK inferior, the technology, and assume if they could remove that hurdle that the gates of Hollywood would swing open.

People like to say script is the main thing, or story, or acting, or directing, but in truth it is a combo of everything. The last of which, is the tech. Let's say Spielberg shot Munich on DV... how much would it change? Very little. Now, lets remove the script and replace it with one that isnt as good, or replace the actors with unknowns that worked for scale or for free, or replace Spielberg with a talented kid from one of these forums or...all of the above. Probably a mediocre movie that has trouble attracting major distribution...

The truth of the matter is that low to no budget film making is akin to making a demo CD for a band. Your best bet is to get your talent noticed and get an opportunity to work on a studio funded movie. It is an absolute pipe dream, lightning in a bottle scenario to think you can make a REALLY low-budget movie and get major distro as an unknown. You can count on one hand the successes of such.

Does that mean you should give up? No, but if you want a CAREER in media, you might want to take a different path or balance your creative and technical work.

ash =o)

"Stealth looked great, and probbably sold plenty of tickets for hollywood to get what they wanted."

I am happy to inform you that Stealth made one of the largest losses of all time.

I'd also count myself as a science fiction reading technical person, and I find most science fiction for TV is unwatchable. Particually shows like 'The Sentinal' and 'John Doe', we just don't have a culture that can entertain and inform - you either write scripts or pass remedial science.

There are a few gems like 'Regenesis' which has a very high standard of science, not perfect, but very high for TV.

Thanks Marvin for the great news about stealth!

I do understand why Sci-Fi shows have trouble being realistic. They need to keep things exciting, which often means ignoring simple solutions. And as you stated, not many script writers know much about science.

I saw a documantary a while back about a guy who does consulting with script writers, helping them keep the movie as technically accurate as possible. In his interview he explained how it's not always easy to get them to change things. Often they work out compromises, but he feels the movies he works on are much better on the details because of his help.

I'll have to check out "Regenisis", I've never heard of it. But from what you wrote it must be good.

I do agree with Ash that trying to make an independent film, and hoping to get it in the mainstream theaters is more likely to just end in disapointment. Not because the film maker doesn't have the skills, or a good script, but because he can't get the money, actors, support, and equipment the big producers can.

Personally, I want a career in media, but if I ever try to make a feature length film, it will be for personal reasons, not to try to get it in theaters.

Hollywood's goal isn't to make movies that make money.
 

It's to make movies that can be marketed with enough razzle dazzle that the studio can be guaranteed to make the film's budget back the first and second weekend before bad word of mouth can sink it. That's the business model now. Hollywood knows how to market to kids and make an acceptable profit without running risk so that's what they do. They staff their productions with people who have no interest in films outside of the glamour and the money. Those kinds of people pick the easiest audience to exploit.

It isn't the "public" in general that goes to see crap - it's the under-25 crowd. They don't go so much to see the film, as to have the social engagement of sitting in the theatre watching the movies with their friends and chatting about it online (and of course, there are plenty of serious kids who don't do that). But generally speaking, that's who these films are made for and marketed to which is fine, but.....

Hollywood has trained people over 35, (and women, in particular), to just not even both going to the theater. And once people get out of the habit of going to the theater, talking them in to going to the theater becomes a very difficult proposition. And Hollywood loses a massive audience and a massive amount of box office dollar.

The loss of the small local theater has played a role in older audiences demise. The megaplexes with their lines, their lobbies designed to amplify the noise of the theater goers (makes it seem happenin' is the design theory there) and the mix of theater goers also play a role in this. The last two times I went to the theater, I was nearly knocked flat by kids running through the lobbies. Now, that's what kids do - that's fine. But with megaplexes, when you're off seeing the latest Ivory Merchant film, you've got 13 year old boys running around gleeful about somebody getting blowed up (it was so coooool), and occasionally the inevitable will happen. Somewhere in your thirties, that cultural experience becomes less tolerable.

Now, I am not complaining about young people. The problem isn't that Hollywood makes films for young people, and young people go see them in spades. The problem is that the entire industry has geared itself to only serve that demographic, and that structure makes it very difficult for other types of films to find their audience and make money. You hit 35 and you conclude that going to the theater to see a movie is likely to be an unpleasant experience, and why spend $10 (haha, I almost typed $8 but realized I'd be giving away how long it's been since I've been to the theater) doing that? Wait for it to come out on DVD and risk only $2.99.

When was the last time a movie was made that 40+ year old men went to see in droves? Does it even happen? Women had My Big Fat Greek Wedding a few years ago but what about men?

Anyway, Hollywood as convinced itself that they'd rather do business with only one demographic because only one demographic goes to the movie theatre over and over again (which is also not true - see Room With A View for a reference that 30+ year old women will go to theater over and over again), and that's the golden ring that they're all reaching for - a big, noisy movie that'll gross $500m of teen box office dollars and monopolize the media for a few weeks. It's an anti-artist business model. Movies aren't about the human experience, because that's a trickier thing to market. And if costs more than a pittance to make, then they might lose money. Can't have that.

Why did Dukes of Hazzard cost more than $3 million to make? It's a legitimate question.

The X Files did a pretty good job sometimes :-D

One sci-fi film I saw drove me neerly insane.

Concept was, metorite hits the side of the ship, where strangely the only container of oxygen, that support the crew through the whole journey is located, and this gets vented.

Captain leaves the ship in the only life pod and leaves the crew behind. The captain then denies there was anyone left alive because of an inside deal with someone (You can tell what sort of movie it is by now).

Everything is working apart from oxygen and comms. I mean everything, is working, the engines, the lights, drinks making facilities, food, no lack of power. They are calmly discussing the lack of oxygen problem and it turns out only 1 person can be left alive with what remains in the ship. Shock, horror. The ship has full power and supplies, people are drinking bottles of wine and making coffie while they make a lottery as to who gets to live. Of course this breaks down, you have a bad guy who selfisly wants to live, people do stupid things and die anyway by depressurising - its a pretty by the book trapped in a spaceship scifi.

There is me wripping out my hair 'how can you be so stupid. You have WATER - H2O, you have power, TURN IT INTO OXYGEN. 1ml of the water in that wine you are trying to drink yourself to death with turns into 11 litres of pure oxygen by electrolysis', you put your entire oxygen supply as a liquified gas (ships of the future will not bother to try and recycle oxygen, its just not fashionable, and com dish RIGHT NEXT TO EACHOTHER on the side of a ship, presumably with a giant bullseye patten around it, and noone not even the guys who fix the engines know that water is neerly 90% oxygen by weight.

Did these guys even have a science guy look over the script? I don't remember the name, its a mid 90's film I think. I'll leave the ending, and all the other logical and scientific flaws the film has in case someone watches it.

If you read a modern scifi book, you are almost guarenteed to learn something, and have your mind expanded at the same time. Watch a movie.....you start the slow evolutionary process back to the slime.

Maybe it was a porn movie. I've heard they don't care so much about the science.

Marvin, I'm glad I didn't see that movie, I'm afraid I might lose IQ points if I ever do.

To make that script, they made a ship with no redundancy for two critical systems, and idiots for crew. In real life, they make ships with as much redundancy as possible, and astronauts are almost scientists! You'd never learn that from seeing a movie, (except Apollo 13).

I found a little discussion thread on Yahoo a few days ago, the person that started the thread posed the question "Do you think people will ever live on the moon?" Someone actually responded that there is no atmosphere on the moon, and there isn't enough gravity to hold one, so it's impossible to live there. He didn't even consider making an undergound environment, or a dome covering a crater. That's what bad Sci-Fi has done to some of us! People are unable to consider simple, obvious solutions.

It's just sad, that's why I read instead. I still watch most Sci-Fi, but I expect to be disapointed. I do get surprised every once in while with something good.

Maybe if they were porn movies I wouldn't feel so dumb for watching them.

Not only does the technical elements not matter all that much but it usually takes an army of people to make a movie....

No, I've seen the movie in question and I've seen a sci-fi porno...the dumb crew drinking themselves to death on the ship sapped many less IQ points than the Sci-Fi Porn (in my defense, the porn was packaged as a 'B' sci-fi movie and it was a b-movie night...it was way softer than softcore and quite bad).

Too much info...