That was 1998. I'm not arguing that what you describe happening in the music world won't happen in the film world - I'm arguing that it started happening over a decade ago and is leveling off now.
Maybe you're right and it is levelling off but I personally am not seeing any evidence of this, all the evidence I'm seeing is that it's accelerating not slowing.
If you're trying to make an independent film right now the cost of equipment isn't really a barrier to entry and hasn't been for at least 5 years now. That's my point. ... (you do have a knack for ignoring the most relevant part of my posts)
I didn't ignore the most relevant parts of your posts at all, maybe you didn't understand the way I addressed them though?
I absolutely agree that the cost of the equipment isn't as much of a barrier as it used to be and is maybe little/no barrier at all for the middle earning sector of the most affluent countries. However, when the cost of equipment reaches the point where it's also no longer a barrier to the lower earning sector of the most affluent countries and to the middle/low earning sectors of less affluent countries, do you think the amount of film production is going to stay the same, decrease or increase?
With regards to the personnel. Yes, making films requires a great deal of time, dedication, skill and manpower. But technology is constantly reducing the amounts of all these requirements. Are future versions of FCPX going to be more difficult to use, require more time and skill to achieve near professional results and cost more or, are future versions going to make it easier, quicker and cost less? Isn't this also going to be the case with most of the other filmmaking equipment (hardware and software)? Like with filmmaking, making an album used to take 6 months or more and require teams of dedicated and skilled professionals. Now it can all be done by 1 person in a few weeks (or they can take as long as they want because they have no operating overheads). Now I can't see exactly the same thing happening in film, where just 1 person will be able to make a feature on their own but I can see it requiring less skill, knowledge, manpower and cash than it does now. And as these requirements reduce, I believe, the result will be an increasing amount of production, not less or the same amount. 30 years ago I couldn't see (or even imagine) how an album could ever be made without teams of skilled people, let alone by one person, so who knows, maybe one day it will be easy for one person to make a feature.
Actually, they [Apple] charged an insane premium for the first generation iphone, and every single pundit in the market predicted they were shooting themselves in the foot and that the iPhone would be a monumental blunder that could even wipe out the company ...
Yes, but the first gen iPhone had no competition, it was the first modern smartphone. They have competition now though and have to price current iPhones competitively, albeit with an additional premium and a commensurate amount of additional value as perceived by the market.
It doesn't matter to me if there's one new zombie movie this year, or 10,000 - I'm probably not going to watch any of them, no matter the cost, because I'm just not interested any more. But if Wes Anderson put out a zombie movie this year I'd be in the theater opening week because I've really liked most of his films.
You're still missing the point. There will always be crappy films, decent films, good and very good films AND films which for one reason or another can command a premium. The same is true in the music business, Yes, the good and very good music gets drowned in the ocean of crap and decent music, and there's so much that the value of all of it has effectively become worth zero. However, there is still such a thing as premium music, this premium music can still charge a premium and there is still great demand for it, none of this is the problem. The problem is, how much of a premium will the market accept? That acceptable amount of premium is influenced by the fact that even very good music product is worth zero. In the case of music, that premium is now down to just a few cents. Many premium music creators once got a dollar or more per unit, now they get a tiny fraction of 1 cent per unit and it's no longer profitable to make music product. Premium music is still made but it's no longer a product in it's own right, it's just marketing material for other more profitable products and the recording artists are no longer full-time recording artists because they spend the vast majority of their time creating, marketing and purveying those other products. Again, I'm talking about the premium products and artists here, the big names. The aspiring hopefuls (even the very talented ones) have no chance because what are they aspiring to (?), a profession which no longer exists?
...it's doubly important to talk about how the situation actually is rather than dream about how we'd like it to be. Yes, it's going to be a lot harder to reach sustainability at the independent or low budget level. The question should be, "What can we do about it?"
Absolutely!!!! The problem at the moment though is too many people just saying "this is all bullsh*t" or burying their heads in the sand and all the people who realise something needs to be done spending their time convincing the doubters/deniers rather than actually discussing solutions and doing something about it.
The music industry and the film industry is slightly different, though I believe you hit the nail on the head. As in, spot on, accurate assessment of the future of the (bottom end of the) industry. While there is a chance that technology will develop to the end where you can make a film that currently costs $250mil for less, I'm not quite sure it'll get to the same point that it has in music. I am of course talking about the top end of filmmaking.... At the bottom end, I think you're dead on right. It's increasing and will continue to increase.
Yes, the music and film industries are slightly different. Hopefully different enough that the same thing won't happen. Unfortunately though, everything I'm seeing in the film industry does appear to be following exactly the same path as the music industry did.
Yes, I have been talking in terms of the indie market, films with a budget from zero up to about $5m or so. However, I don't think the top end of the market is unaffected by what's happening at the bottom end. All the major studios are producing substantially fewer films per year than they were a decade or so ago. Disney for example used to make around 50 films a year, now it's more like a dozen. And, those dozen are generally higher budget (and therefore higher risk) than those 50 were, because they've got to differentiate themselves more from the ballooning lower budget fayre. To ameliorate the higher risk of a roster containing only a small number of extremely expensive films they lower their risk as far as content is concerned, which is why we mainly see sequels and remakes which push the boundaries of technological possibilities rather than pushing the boundaries of original content.
I saw an article today that looked like a reaction to this article. It called for 5000 filmmakers who have no financial future in filmmaking to sign a petition and agree to give up their dreams and quit filmmaking for good to help save the industry. Dreaming about decreasing the amount of films being made isn't going to help anyone. It's akin to wishing less people to post stupid crap on Facebook. It's a dream based in fantasy.
At least making suggestions to solve the problems is a step beyond just trying to spell out that there is a problem. Although I agree with you, this particular suggestion is just an unworkable fantasy.
There are so many complaining about the growing "noise" thanks to the growing accessibility of the means to create videos. I do see the downside of that. But you know, on the bright side, I can imagine an upside to that, as well. Imagine a world in which more stories, a greater diversity of stories, can be told by more, and a greater diverstiy of, people who would otherwise remain members of the great majority of humans who live and die in (comparative) silence and obscurity, as though they never existed at all --
... I say [this] out of a sense of the potential enrichment it could mean for us all...
I don't need to imagine a world like that, I've already experienced it! Exchange the word "stories" in the quote above for the word "music" and what you have said is exactly the dream we had in the music business 20-30 years ago. The reality is that while almost everyone now has access to creating music and there is a far greater amount and diversity of music, none of it can be heard for the "noise". But that's not the main problem! What we didn't see was how that democratisation of music creation would fundamentally affect the law of supply and demand and devalue all of music creation so that even very good music is as worthless as the "noise" and the consequence of that is that there are hardly any professional music creators anymore. As far a the general public are concerned the end result is not an increase in diversity or an "enrichment" but a decrease. There are fewer major artists and they are more formulaic and less innovative than ever before, as there are far fewer companies making music and they are more risk averse.
My impression is that most filmmakers, here on IT, anyway, and no, not all, of course, really aren't dreaming and working towards a life in the independent filmmaking "sector". What they're really dreaming of is making it into the Hollywood and studio system.
This is the point of what I've been trying to say in this thread. What if there is no professional independent filmmaking sector? AND (!) what happens when there are a 100x more filmmakers trying to get into a Hollywood that is many times smaller? AND, what if Hollywood didn't even really exist anymore and was in effect just a sub-division of a huge conglomerate's marketing department? Would you still dream of making it to Hollywood then?
This might all sound like a load of horsesh*t because there are just too many "what ifs" in there but (!) there are more and more filmmakers everyday, films are not becoming more diverse (they are becoming less diverse) Hollywood is shrinking (and diversifying out of film) and, there is a precedent for this bleak scenario, the music business. The danger is that we wait until we are absolutely certain the film industry will end up like the music industry, because by that time it will be too late to do anything about it!
It seems to me that a lot of the noise is dependant upon YouTube. What if YouTube went away? I know it seems almost unfathomable now. But hey, huge, seemingly invulnerable companies have tanked before. It happens. It's a fact of life, of business, of the market. Kmart, Sears, Circuit City, Yahoo, GM, ...what else?
Be careful what you wish for! In all the cases you have mentioned those companies were replaced by something better, cheaper or both and the result was generally more noise! From a business perspective, it's hard to imagine competing against a business like Youtube who gets all their content for free, unless your business also gets it's content for free but that doesn't really help the content makers (us)!
However, it might be possible (in theory!) to have a sort of super Youtube+, for which you charge a premium for the best ("noiseless") content and pay the content makers a reasonable amount. But, it would have to be done with the support/inclusion of Youtube (and similar platforms) because obviously you couldn't charge a premium for content which is available elsewhere for free.
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) to show up on the ROI radar.