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industry Guys Gatekeepers Sites and, Ai is improve in tech Democratize Movie -

So bad ''Letterbox'' - Rotten Tomatoes Gatekeeper attitude, where they decide what worth or not, are you not angry about it ? see each film the same ''empty meaning'' , Toughts ?
 
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I understand exactly what he's talking about believe it or not. Wouldn't say this question is flawlessly orchestrated syntax wise.

He's upset that people with wealth and power decide whose work is and isn't worth any compensation.

It's literally the subject of the very first blog post I wrote for Save Point almost five years ago.

It was called the "Broken Ladder".

flux_42462_.jpg


Here's the real issue in the indie entertainment world. You want to be creative, and make something people like, but over the last 100 years or so that sector became more and more developed. A rising tide lifted a very small number of boats, and over time, everyone else drowned.

The last gasp came with the death of video rental stores. Indie filmmakers didn't have a direct route to sales, and increasingly all paths led through "Gatekeepers". The gatekeepers made profits, took bribes, enforced nepotism as the ultimate indicator of talent, then created a system just like all idiot ideologies created by mankind. A vicious cycle of "manifest destiny" that always proves itself right.

As the rich spent more and more producing a unit of entertainment, public standards and expectations began to rise. This issue began to worsen exponentially starting about the day many of us older members were born. In 1970, people would make a movie for 5 grand, then if it was successful, they would get paid 30 grand, and then they could afford to make another film that cost 20 grand, and so on.

This was the original ladder. This was the intended world. You would do the work to climb one step, then receive enough energy to climb the next and so on.

Up until the mid to late 90s., methods to do this still existed. There were routes direct to consumer, and if you had a good enough idea, you could make it with effort. This also coincides with the effective death of monopoly laws around the time of the Reagan era. We still have monopoly laws, to keep everyone from being completely screwed by sociopathic generational wealth families, but they don't ever work any more, and now we haven't won a monopoly case in a way that helped much for decades. This occurred during deregulation politics that gave legacy families the power to directly buy and sell political power, and used that to shape laws so that they could amass endless wealth with very little to no contribution to society, and fewer and fewer "outsiders" (that's all of us) would be paid and gain economic power, regardless of work ethic or intelligence.

This manifested in a large variety of ways, but in the film world, you basically just saw that ladder retract in the mid 90s, and for decades major corporations have had the luxury of laziness and stupidity, at over 1000 times the payscale of an indie filmmaker working the same hours at the same skill level. An indie director could make a 4 star film and be paid 10 grand for it, 3 years after the film was published, and the studio director could make a one star film, and be paid millions of dollars before filming began.

But studio films are better. Here's the smokescreen that works on everyone who can't create a venn diagram in their head. The studios declare that the only reason they make so much more money is because their product is better. And it is. So the reasoning is that only they should be paid, and no one else. After all, the others are just making garbage, suitable for disposal. But here's the smoke. Imagine you put two race car drivers on a track. You give one a honda civic, with an empty tank. You give the other a Formula 1 car, also with an empty tank. Before the race starts, you pay the formula 1 driver in full, gas up his car, hire a pit crew, put on new tires. Since you gave him a huge sum of money before he even raced one lap, he could afford to hire a legal team long before the race started. That team, without any effort from the driver, negotiated a deal where he or she would be paid 1 million dollars, even if they lost the race badly. The driver of the civic, sometimes a drastically more talented sportsman, had no such team or resources. His deal is that he only gets paid if he's in first place, and since the track owners also have lawyers, even though they can't drive and don't work, he is forced into an arrangement where he only receives 5% of the winnings even if he does win. The race starts, and the civic sputters to a halt just a few feet from the starting line. The crowd of complete idiots laughs derisively at the poor performance of the civic driver, and then begins to cheer uncontrollably as the formula one car circles the track at medium speed without much effort. Once the formula one driver crosses the finish line, a parade in their honor is thrown as they are presented with a huge cash prize, and the crowd sees this. Interviewed after, members of the public label the formula 1 driver as a talented winner that deserves unlimited resources, and the civic driver as a loser that deserves nothing. One is seen as talented, and the other as untalented. For the civic driver, if he looses, he looses, and if he wins, he looses. His 5% prize money isn't even enough to afford the lawyers for the next race. For the Formula 1 driver, if he wins he wins, if he looses, he wins. His prize for loosing the race is far higher than the civic driver's prize for winning the race.

Perhaps the formula 1 driver was better. There's no way to tell when the competition was completely rigged from day one. Everyone who had the several million dollars to purchase equipment, resources, and training before winning their first race is "a talented person that deserves to be paid", and everyone else is "an entitled fraud that drains resources from the good people" The civic driver was prevented from even getting any practice, because he couldn't afford to practice until he won, and he couldn't win until he could afford to practice, and much more.

This creates a vicious cycle, constantly draining opportunity from all the people of the world as it's handed to fewer and fewer. Is that kid who inherited 400 million dollars the greatest leader in the world? There's no way of knowing unless you also gave someone else 400 million and let them compete on an even playing field. Humanity doesn't as a rule think that hard. The guy with nearly half a billion handed to them on the first day of class is a "champion" because they "were smart enough to figure out" how to buy a 50 million dollar skyscraper with only 400 million in cash. The guy paying 23% interest on a small business loan couldn't accomplish that, so clearly he is inferior to the aforementioned business genius.

The original poster is angry because he's trying to take that first step up onto the ladder, and there's no rung anymore. In fact the first 30 rungs are now missing, and there are zero political parties working on this problem. Each has their own set of pet causes, but no one is even trying to fix the problem that broke the american dream.

Given time, and experience, and resources, the original poster could make better and better movies, gradually stepping up in budget and competence over the years. But he can't get even the very first tiny paycheck, that spark of flint for his campfire, because entrenched wealth has robbed us all of every opportunity, and hired an army of greedy lawyers who's sole contribution to society is to shore up every last crack where new people could have any type of opportunity.

On the outside, Youtube once gave indie creators a sliver of a chance, though the algoritm's priorities would give a trainwreck, idiot, or attractive person their first million orders of magnitude faster than anyone displaying hard work or ability. Now the same natural phenomenon, the result of primitive human psychological fallacies, has taken over there as well, as it becomes a monopoly where greed is the driving force. They still pay people, and you still might make money there, but it's a shrinkflation economy, where every hour or dollar you spend means less and less each year. Scummy tactics like clickbaiting are rewarded, education and time consuming work are commonly punished.

This guy is frustrated because it's frustrating. No amount of word salad could obscure something that obvious.

Here's people who were paid 90 million dollars in advance, that's 1 million dollars per minute of film produced, dropped the project on the floor and didn't complete it, and went on to have rich happy lives as a reward for complete incompetence.


Here's a film called "Song of the Sea" It achieved 12 awards and 26 nominations, including being nominated for an oscar for best animated film of the year.


It started with 7 million dollars up front, and finished with around 9.

So you can see here where a complete failure that was thrown in the trash was handed 10x the cash as a movie by an indie company that was literally nominated for an Oscar for being the best movie in the world in it's category.

That 2 million is technically a win, but not even close to enough for them to make another film without having to borrow a huge amount of money. So they won't own their next film, the bank will. This is now the story of all creatives outside the wall.
 
I understand exactly what he's talking about believe it or not. Wouldn't say this question is flawlessly orchestrated syntax wise.

He's upset that people with wealth and power decide whose work is and isn't worth any compensation.

It's literally the subject of the very first blog post I wrote for Save Point almost five years ago.

It was called the "Broken Ladder".

flux_42462_.jpg


Here's the real issue in the indie entertainment world. You want to be creative, and make something people like, but over the last 100 years or so that sector became more and more developed. A rising tide lifted a very small number of boats, and over time, everyone else drowned.

The last gasp came with the death of video rental stores. Indie filmmakers didn't have a direct route to sales, and increasingly all paths led through "Gatekeepers". The gatekeepers made profits, took bribes, enforced nepotism as the ultimate indicator of talent, then created a system just like all idiot ideologies created by mankind. A vicious cycle of "manifest destiny" that always proves itself right.

As the rich spent more and more producing a unit of entertainment, public standards and expectations began to rise. This issue began to worsen exponentially starting about the day many of us older members were born. In 1970, people would make a movie for 5 grand, then if it was successful, they would get paid 30 grand, and then they could afford to make another film that cost 20 grand, and so on.

This was the original ladder. This was the intended world. You would do the work to climb one step, then receive enough energy to climb the next and so on.

Up until the mid to late 90s., methods to do this still existed. There were routes direct to consumer, and if you had a good enough idea, you could make it with effort. This also coincides with the effective death of monopoly laws around the time of the Reagan era. We still have monopoly laws, to keep everyone from being completely screwed by sociopathic generational wealth families, but they don't ever work any more, and now we haven't won a monopoly case in a way that helped much for decades. This occurred during deregulation politics that gave legacy families the power to directly buy and sell political power, and used that to shape laws so that they could amass endless wealth with very little to no contribution to society, and fewer and fewer "outsiders" (that's all of us) would be paid and gain economic power, regardless of work ethic or intelligence.

This manifested in a large variety of ways, but in the film world, you basically just saw that ladder retract in the mid 90s, and for decades major corporations have had the luxury of laziness and stupidity, at over 1000 times the payscale of an indie filmmaker working the same hours at the same skill level. An indie director could make a 4 star film and be paid 10 grand for it, 3 years after the film was published, and the studio director could make a one star film, and be paid millions of dollars before filming began.

But studio films are better. Here's the smokescreen that works on everyone who can't create a venn diagram in their head. The studios declare that the only reason they make so much more money is because their product is better. And it is. So the reasoning is that only they should be paid, and no one else. After all, the others are just making garbage, suitable for disposal. But here's the smoke. Imagine you put two race car drivers on a track. You give one a honda civic, with an empty tank. You give the other a Formula 1 car, also with an empty tank. Before the race starts, you pay the formula 1 driver in full, gas up his car, hire a pit crew, put on new tires. Since you gave him a huge sum of money before he even raced one lap, he could afford to hire a legal team long before the race started. That team, without any effort from the driver, negotiated a deal where he or she would be paid 1 million dollars, even if they lost the race badly. The driver of the civic, sometimes a drastically more talented sportsman, had no such team or resources. His deal is that he only gets paid if he's in first place, and since the track owners also have lawyers, even though they can't drive and don't work, he is forced into an arrangement where he only receives 5% of the winnings even if he does win. The race starts, and the civic sputters to a halt just a few feet from the starting line. The crowd of complete idiots laughs derisively at the poor performance of the civic driver, and then begins to cheer uncontrollably as the formula one car circles the track at medium speed without much effort. Once the formula one driver crosses the finish line, a parade in their honor is thrown as they are presented with a huge cash prize, and the crowd sees this. Interviewed after, members of the public label the formula 1 driver as a talented winner that deserves unlimited resources, and the civic driver as a loser that deserves nothing. One is seen as talented, and the other as untalented. For the civic driver, if he looses, he looses, and if he wins, he looses. His 5% prize money isn't even enough to afford the lawyers for the next race. For the Formula 1 driver, if he wins he wins, if he looses, he wins. His prize for loosing the race is far higher than the civic driver's prize for winning the race.

Perhaps the formula 1 driver was better. There's no way to tell when the competition was completely rigged from day one. Everyone who had the several million dollars to purchase equipment, resources, and training before winning their first race is "a talented person that deserves to be paid", and everyone else is "an entitled fraud that drains resources from the good people" The civic driver was prevented from even getting any practice, because he couldn't afford to practice until he won, and he couldn't win until he could afford to practice, and much more.

This creates a vicious cycle, constantly draining opportunity from all the people of the world as it's handed to fewer and fewer. Is that kid who inherited 400 million dollars the greatest leader in the world? There's no way of knowing unless you also gave someone else 400 million and let them compete on an even playing field. Humanity doesn't as a rule think that hard. The guy with nearly half a billion handed to them on the first day of class is a "champion" because they "were smart enough to figure out" how to buy a 50 million dollar skyscraper with only 400 million in cash. The guy paying 23% interest on a small business loan couldn't accomplish that, so clearly he is inferior to the aforementioned business genius.

The original poster is angry because he's trying to take that first step up onto the ladder, and there's no rung anymore. In fact the first 30 rungs are now missing, and there are zero political parties working on this problem. Each has their own set of pet causes, but no one is even trying to fix the problem that broke the american dream.

Given time, and experience, and resources, the original poster could make better and better movies, gradually stepping up in budget and competence over the years. But he can't get even the very first tiny paycheck, that spark of flint for his campfire, because entrenched wealth has robbed us all of every opportunity, and hired an army of greedy lawyers who's sole contribution to society is to shore up every last crack where new people could have any type of opportunity.

On the outside, Youtube once gave indie creators a sliver of a chance, though the algoritm's priorities would give a trainwreck, idiot, or attractive person their first million orders of magnitude faster than anyone displaying hard work or ability. Now the same natural phenomenon, the result of primitive human psychological fallacies, has taken over there as well, as it becomes a monopoly where greed is the driving force. They still pay people, and you still might make money there, but it's a shrinkflation economy, where every hour or dollar you spend means less and less each year. Scummy tactics like clickbaiting are rewarded, education and time consuming work are commonly punished.

This guy is frustrated because it's frustrating. No amount of word salad could obscure something that obvious.

Here's people who were paid 90 million dollars in advance, that's 1 million dollars per minute of film produced, dropped the project on the floor and didn't complete it, and went on to have rich happy lives as a reward for complete incompetence.


Here's a film called "Song of the Sea" It achieved 12 awards and 26 nominations, including being nominated for an oscar for best animated film of the year.


It started with 7 million dollars up front, and finished with around 9.

So you can see here where a complete failure that was thrown in the trash was handed 10x the cash as a movie by an indie company that was literally nominated for an Oscar for being the best movie in the world in it's category.

That 2 million is technically a win, but not even close to enough for them to make another film without having to borrow a huge amount of money. So they won't own their next film, the bank will. This is now the story of all creatives outside the wall.
I read all you say, and is truee. But the weak spot of they films is that are big buggets and not even that good ideas.. that is also bad for the film industry... i saw some one talking about that in studio 32, that people is noticing that, most films are politically sided, and that make the films ''empty in ideas'' and limited on they auto chensure..
I am happy about Ai era, finally some will do his own film.. and will matter the ideas not the pockets. cheers <3
Really apreciate your - Serious Reply - i Would share your story on X .
 
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Will it really make movies democratic ? No.. i don’t think so..

One single person doing all.. that is not democracy..

Old school film was always a team, many minds working.. now is just 1 guy in his room pressing buttons..

Give it some years more.. Ai actors will be better than any local actor you can pay.. so why hire actors ? why build a set ? why even leave the bedroom or talk with anyone ?

Now 1 person can have all their way.. but that is not democracy, that is just solo control..
 
Will it really make movies democratic ? No.. i don’t think so..

One single person doing all.. that is not democracy..

Old school film was always a team, many minds working.. now is just 1 guy in his room pressing buttons..

Give it some years more.. Ai actors will be better than any local actor you can pay.. so why hire actors ? why build a set ? why even leave the bedroom or talk with anyone ?

Now 1 person can have all their way.. but that is not democracy, that is just solo control.
i think if they would call some for Acting.. they would go for hugs and cheers and Act..
 
Will it really make movies democratic ? No.. i don’t think so..

One single person doing all.. that is not democracy..

Old school film was always a team, many minds working.. now is just 1 guy in his room pressing buttons..

Give it some years more.. Ai actors will be better than any local actor you can pay.. so why hire actors ? why build a set ? why even leave the bedroom or talk with anyone ?

Now 1 person can have all their way.. but that is not democracy, that is just solo control..
I think it's exactly the definition of democratizing the field.

You're making a false point. It's not either a team can make a film, or a solo person. Previously, it was team only, the new way, there is choice. You could be on a team, and that would be better, but you could also go solo if you didn't have the option to join a team. This is freedom, the ability to choose, instead of being forced onto a single path.

It gets a lot worse when that path becomes barricaded for one reason or another. The garage band culture I grew up in had people in the community joining together, each with skills, and pitching in to create a greater chance of success for all involved. In 2025, it's virtually impossible. Everyone has their hand out, people are generally too impatient, egotistical, or self involved to gain skills, and if they do gain skills, they simply trade them for cash instantly, via job or merc work. Few who grew up on social media have the long game necessary to simply work together for a while without compensation in order to achieve a shared goal.

If you look back, that communal garage band formula was responsible for almost every breakout success story in history. Now it doesn't work anymore. I don't think OP dreams of being a solo dev any more than I do, but over time you find that options can be quite limited, especially for people in low population areas.

Ultimately, it's led to a situation where relatively large amounts of money, usually several million to start, are required to build up the needed momentum. Since banks don't loan money with ideas as collateral, it turns into a situation where enabling solo devs to at least publish a minor product is the only remaining form of democracy available.

The ratio of people trying to sound smart vs trying to be smart is inconceivable at this point, and indie filmmakers now frequently find themselves in situations where the only team they can find is made up of 80% people making statements, and 20% workers. Nose to grindstone has never been less popular, and social media influencer with catchphrase has never been more popular.

This phenomenon is called -----

"The phrase "20% of the people do 90% of the work" is a common observation, often associated with the Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule. This principle suggests that a disproportionate amount of output or results comes from a small percentage of input or effort. In this case, 10% of the people (or effort) are responsible for 90% of the work (or results)"

It's interesting to note that this is not at all exclusive to film, and you have this same thing going on at insurance agencies, pesticide companies, shipping conglomerates, etc. But sadly, film students are the worst of all time. For everyone who will sit down and learn After Effects or ComfyUI, there are ten that just get drunk and explain David Lynch to you without prompting.
 
I guess I don't understand what a democracy is
i think... in future things wouldn't think even possible would happen.. is just change and progress.. i not think that Actors and Cinema Disappear, is just have more options.. at the end also Cinema will use Ai to keep up in some things. I am just happy to finally can contribute and show the people ''i care'' fiew storyes is not a negative things..
 
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i think... in future things wouldn't think even possible would happen.. is just change and progress.. i not think that Actors and Cinema Disappear, is just have more options.. at the end also Cinema will use Ai to keep up in some things. I am just happy to finally can contribute and show the people ''i care'' fiew storyes is not a negative things..
But actors are already disappearing
 
People are making movies and they are using AI instead of hiring actors, already actor jobs are disappearing.
Most local actors aren't good, especially cheap actors, and AI is trained off much better actors. Why use worse actors instead of AI?
I not know, I can't complain other decisions.
 
Will it really make movies democratic ? No.. i don’t think so..

One single person doing all.. that is not democracy..

Old school film was always a team, many minds working.. now is just 1 guy in his room pressing buttons..

Give it some years more.. Ai actors will be better than any local actor you can pay.. so why hire actors ? why build a set ? why even leave the bedroom or talk with anyone ?

Now 1 person can have all their way.. but that is not democracy, that is just solo control..
I was going to reply to the other recent "AI" thread with these very same observations ... but didn't.

I do have further thoughts on the subject (specifically some of the points raised by @Nate North ) but they'll have to wait - my unreplaceable-by-AI real world work requires me to get several hours' sleep.
 
While it's much easier to make a movie today than it was 40 years ago it seems it's
even harder to get people to see it and even harder to get people to pay to see it.

In the '80's I was working on 4 to 6 movies a year that were getting a theatrical
release - budgeted in the $250,000 to $800,000 range. Most would make a profit.
At the same time working on another 3 to 6 movies a year made in the $2,000,000
to $7,000,000 range and getting paid good money.

In the '90's I was making 3 to 5 DTV movies a year - average budget; $30,000. They
would all make money because of video stores that needed content on their shelves.

I could make a movie today for $10,000 (far less if I used AI) but I don't know how to
get people to pay to see it. I would be making a couple of movies a year if I could
answer that question.

So how do we...
I agree, it's about time to tear down that wall.
...tear down THAT wall?
 
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