Hollywood ... as in, the end of ....

Sttratos said:
With the easy of digital technology, everybody and their dogs will jump in into the content production market. It happened first at the low end where everybody with a camera and a computer became a content creator. Now it's happening in the high end.
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On the low end, the content creator is still at the mercy of the distributor, namely YouTube. On the high end, both ends are controlled. Including YouTube.

Edit : IMO, the next step would be a "sublease" arrangement where an independent rents out server space from a company like Amazon (which is a major player in the server game anyway) or YouTube and then streams own content with a share of proceeds going to Amazon or YouTube much like an independent book publisher has to pay a 30% cut for hosting its files there.

On that level, the model would probably be a pay-per-view rather than involving a commercial sposnor but a well funded independent can pool both its costs and its fees.
 
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Michael Thames said:
Personally, Ive never understood why people read fiction. There is so much to learn about and participate in reality.
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Fiction is an art. It is an abstraction like most art. Wondering why people read fiction is like asking "Why do we view paintings when we have perfectly realistic images from cameras that are just like the real thing!" Fiction provides a way of exploring themes and systems that human beings experience that cannot be shared otherwise. Fiction provides us a way of exploring and expressing the truth clear of the intellectual boundaries of particular instances of reality by showing what is common across those instances. Human beings assign meaning to reality and fiction illuminates how and why we do that. Fiction is one of humankind's greatest achievements.

I recommend the book, Shakespeare, The Invention of the Human by Harold Bloom for more on the value of fiction.

To welcome you back from your 20 year hiatus, I recommend Taylor Sheridan's "Wind River" as an entertaining movie that explores deep social issues and what it means to be a father in the context of a work of fiction.
 
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Thanks. Yeah, MoviePass must be counting on two things: (1) subscribers not taking anywhere near full advantage, and (2) gathering enough data about them to make money from targeted advertising, some time "far down the road" --- Fortune.
 
combatentropy said:
Thanks. Yeah, MoviePass must be counting on two things: (1) subscribers not taking anywhere near full advantage, and (2) gathering enough data about them to make money from targeted advertising, some time "far down the road" --- Fortune.
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I think they were going to work it much like a gift certificate - sell a pass for $50, hope the buyer doesn't go to see "Stalingrad" four times ... oh, wait, that was me ... never mind - and roll up a lot of numbers to exceed the overhead. With it being lowered to $10, they're pretty much admitting that their original plan went belly up. To me, it is all over but the shouting.

But this doesn't mean that the idea can't be resuscitated in some other form, likewise attempting to capitalize on a secondary market like a casual dining or a fast food place.

PS. When I first started to work in retail in the Midwest (going back some 30 years), there was a rather popular chain called American TV of Madison (Crazy TV Lenny, if anyone remembers Leonard Mattioli) and they were "giving away" a lot of the non-electronic goods during their special promotions. Bikes were huge but one could also get a "free" leather recliner (they did carry furniture), a boombox, a photo camera, etc.

http://archive.jsonline.com/busines...-laments-closings-b99244331z1-255053561.html/
 
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Saw an article that AMC is exploring suing MoviePass. But the big question is, over what...? My understanding of the way it works is that they(MoviePass) basically gives you a debit card that is loaded to pay for the movie ticket and the theater is paid the full price for the ticket.

I don't know what MoviePasses end-game is, though, unless they are trying to get a large base with this and then raise the price after they are hooked. Because unless half the people never use it more than once-a-month and the other half never use it period, how can it work?
 
Yes, how can it work (for MoviePass that is)?
MoviePass CEO Mark Lowe, who was among the executives who helped launch Netflix and later served as president of video rental-kiosk operator Redbox, said on Tuesday that movie theaters should welcome MoviePass' new subscription model because the company still pays movie exhibitors face value for the tickets its users claim with their subscriptions. " It should be made clear that MoviePass pays movie theaters full price for every movie ticket purchased," Lowe said in a statement. :shocked:
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http://fortune.com/2017/08/15/is-netflix-co-founders-moviepass-bad-news-for-movie-theaters/
 
I'm guessing the Moviepass model is similar to car insurance, 95% never use the insurance. But if a family goes to the movies 4 times a month, it would totally be worth the price. But are there 4 movies in a month that are worth seeing? That's the bigger question.
 
Greg_E said:
I'm guessing the Moviepass model is similar to car insurance, 95% never use the insurance. But if a family goes to the movies 4 times a month, it would totally be worth the price. But are there 4 movies in a month that are worth seeing? That's the bigger question.
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MoviePass is only good for ONE ticket. It's not currently set-up to allow multiple ticket purchases off the same pass. You'd have to have an individual pass per person.

And yeah, are there four movies worth going to see in a month?(even though you're essentially "making money" on the 2nd). I think I've been to the movies two, maybe three times the entire spring/summer, so far...
 
I saw Dunkirk in 70mm in San Diego while on a trip recently. First time I have been in a theater in about a year so it wouldn't be appealing to me. Hollywood is putting out very few stories that interest me.
 
DLD said:
A lot of articles came out about Steven Soderbergh's particular finance plan for "Lucky Seven" ... and I missed all of them until today.

Will this mean the "end of Hollywood"? Probably not. But it does provide a hint of what might be possible outside of the studio system.

Without further ado,

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/31/...rgh-hopes-to-change-films-business-model.html
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I guess the movie is called "Logan Lucky", not "Lucky Seven".

My version is better.

Or the movie going audiences were confused as well.

The opening week was $8M gross and, without the ancillaries, the investors are likely to take a major bath.
 
And now Apple is jumping into the fray.

Per media reports, Apple Inc AAPL and prominent Hollywood studios are at loggerheads over pricing of 4K content. This is highly concerning as Apple is expected to unveil its 4K and HDR streaming capable Apple TV at its Sep 12 event.

Reportedly, Apple wants to charge $20 for selling ultrahigh-definition movies on its new Apple TV. But studios want Apple to charge higher (say another $5 to $10) for selling the movies on iTunes. The studios argue that given the improvement in visual quality, it is not right to price ultra HD and full HD content at the same level.
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https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/apple-aapl-hollywood-clash-over-124212669.html
 
I'm getting ready to go shoot some promotional material for a new YouTube RED show in Atlanta that is produced in partnership with Lionsgate. First time shooting for YouTube, we'll see how it goes. The show is supposedly pulling in decent numbers and building a fan base. I have not shot any projects for the major studios, short of Sony, for almost six months, the traditional studios seem to be dying a slow death. The pieces are moving around the chess board pretty rapidly.
 
puredrifting said:
I'm getting ready to go shoot some promotional material for a new YouTube RED show in Atlanta that is produced in partnership with Lionsgate. First time shooting for YouTube, we'll see how it goes. The show is supposedly pulling in decent numbers and building a fan base. I have not shot any projects for the major studios, short of Sony, for almost six months, the traditional studios seem to be dying a slow death. The pieces are moving around the chess board pretty rapidly.
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I shot a series for Youtube Red this summer. It wasn't any different than working for the smaller traditional networks. However I think it's premature to say that the traditional venues are dying, there's still plenty of material being made there, it's just a lot more new outlets. 500 scripted series a year is probably way too many and I fear there will be a retraction at some point that will affect both legacy and upstart distributors alike.
 
There is always a bust after a boom. We are in a boom, with everyone trying to get into the game with the success(?) of Netflix. There is a ridiculous amount of projects going on. Of that 500, the major boom was in basic cable going from 30 scripted shows in 2002 to a peak of 188 in 2015. Basic cable may have seen its glory days behind it as subscribers decline and advertisers look at other outlets. Pay cable made 8% of those 500 shows. Broadcast has been pretty steady going from 135 to 145 scripted shows (30%). The real boom now of course is online and every executive, no matter what business they are in, thinks they should get into the content business. Remember when Seagrams bought Universal? It hasn't gotten that ridiculous, but its close.

The warning signs are there. Basic cable, pay cable, and broadcast all dipped in the number of scripted shows in 2016, after six years of increases. The big boom now of course is online, which went from less than 1% of scripted shows in 2010 to 20% in 2016. What would be interesting to see is the financials behind all of that production; how much of that online production is making money. We can expect a fallout if the boom doesn't generate enough cash and it won't as there are so many eyeballs and they can't watch everything. One of the interesting things is that over the decades, advertising dollars are massively un-affected by ratings. When there were only 3 networks, they enjoyed ratings of 30%. Now a show is happy to have a rating of 2, yet advertisers are able to pony up money to support shows that are much more expensive to produce. So I am conflicted about just how this boom will play out.

It will be fun to see how Amazon, Netflix, and the others battle it out.

(?) - Netflix had $3.3b of debt in 2016
Data from FX Research in an article written by Maureen Ryan in Variety
 
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Netflix had $2.64B in revenues in Q1 2017, so they can ride that $3.3B in debt out. It was important for them to accumulate a huge inventory of programming for their subscriber base. Once they achieve a certain number of hours, they will probably slow down a bit from $6B in programming expenditures to ~ $4B. That will keep them at the top of the big spenders anyway. Their next step will likely be a greater investment in the infrastructure. YouTube is spending billions on the infrastructure annually.

Apple, Google and Microsoft - what is M-soft doing these days, if anything? - are a threat because of the capitalization behind them. Personally, I am waiting for Yandex TV. But it's not for everyone.
 
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