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

[Ki William]

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 ?

 

[sfoster]

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...

...tear down THAT wall?

That was an interesting read.
It seems these days, it's more about getting netflix or hulu to pay for your film instead of getting viewers to pay for it.

 

[Nate North]

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...

...tear down THAT wall?

This is related to the Adpocalypse.

AAAAAnd.......

Good question.

this clip still haunts me decades later.

I'm advertising again this year. That's the only way to get your film out. It's oversaturated. It's 40x oversaturated. My ad rates and response ratios this year are terrible. What used to be 100 sales leads for a dollar is now 1. I have to show 100,000 ads in 8 countries to get as much attention on a new product as I used to get by going to a coffee shop drunk in my 20's and just talking to people about a song I wrote.

The really grim thing I don't talk about much here is the real way you make money in film now. The only real, proven way. It's the same way you make money on any investment portfolio. Strategic diversification. You don't make a film. You make a hundred films. Most loose money, some break even, and some are a jackpot. Synergy, creative accounting, and a diverse portfolio are key. No one film, indie or otherwise, has all these key features needed for a reliable win. Unreliable translates to high risk investment, so financiers will be permanently averse. Underfunding makes bad odds worse, it's a technique used to intentionally kill projects people want to fail. So you have this pretty bad chain of causality in place.

I know that's not super cheerful info, but I think being dishonest about it goes nowhere. The real answer is that there may no longer be a win scenario for those without money and connections. Maybe there never was. People create a lot of illusions to justify this and that.

On the positive side, I'd say keep trying to build a better mousetrap. I think what we used to call filmmaking doesn't work any more, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't want to watch a film that you, or Sean, or Scopicman made. I used to go watch my friends play basketball. It was cool, and we didn't have to be famous or rich to have fun hanging out.

All that said, next year, someone new will make a show like "Hot Ones" and it will make them wealthy for life. With reservations, I'd still say it's good to keep the dream alive.

 

[Nate North]

That was an interesting read.
It seems these days, it's more about getting netflix or hulu to pay for your film instead of getting viewers to pay for it.

This is the real answer nobody wants to believe. It's absolutely true. People always look at me in horror when I tell them. The day you win isn't the day the company succeeds, or when your product launches, not anymore. In the Silicon Valley Tech boom, you won the day you got the investment. Whether you succeed or fail after that, you will never be as rich, or as happy, as the day that light turns green and you stomp your foot on the gas pedal.

I keep mentioning, to no avail, a pattern I've long recognized. In all my case studies, all the winners got paid BEFORE they did the work, not after. People think that your work wins acclaim and then you get paid accordingly, and for a while, that's what I thought too. Check out some BTS stories from modern book authors. 90% of their paycheck usually comes as an advance, and after that, it's just a bunch of letters from accountants saying that your profits were consumed by the publication process (see vertical integration)

STUDIO SHAME! Even Harry Potter Pic Loses Money Because Of Warner Bros’ Phony Baloney Net Profit Accounting

Near $1 billion grossing feature 'Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix' Loses Money: Read Net Profit Statement

deadline.com

 

[directorik]

I keep mentioning, to no avail, a pattern I've long recognized. In all my case studies, all the winners got paid BEFORE they did the work, not after.

Exactly. I recognized this as soon as I finished my first short film.
Which is why I only financed one feature myself. I always got
paid to make movies.

So what does it mean to "democratize" movie making?
I've read a bunch of articles that say essentially the same thing:
"AI-powered technologies have democratized access to movie production and distribution"

We have had that access for decades. Made easier and cheaper with
videotape in the '80's and even easier and cheaper with digital in the '00's.
Anyone can make a movie. Anyone can put their movie up for sale. Isn't
that already the democratization of filmmaking?

 

[CelticRambler]

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.

Ah, Nate, things aren't as cut and dried as all that. In my part of the world, in my chosen social life, musicians getting together and bouncing ideas off each other is a tradition that is still very much alive and well. Just ask any of the thousand or so who entrusted their instrument to me last month for safe keeping while they were having their dinner. We have dozens of non-profit organisations in France that provide technical and marketing support to bands that are just starting out, and the festival I work at every July is only one of many where we give them a stage and an audience on which to try out their material.

At the same time, I see dozens of "solo" artists trying to compete with a group of real musicians using all kinds of technical gadgetry. Sure, if you're sitting at the bar working on your fifth beer of the evening, you might be impressed by a "percussion" backing track that's just been recorded on the fly, but if you're listening to the music, there's no escaping the fact that it's a monotonous cycle of the same notes that you just saw the guy tap out one one instrument before he switched to another.

This "democratisation" is the same old story we've seen throught history in every creative discipline, from when monks wrote and illustrated manuscripts by hand to the everyone-can-be-a-graphic-designer Comic Sans posters that assault our eyes these days. It's the same with "drag-and-drop" websites. It's the same with self-published novels. It's the same with YouTube "content".

People think they have all the skills necessary to create a complete and finished work, because they've been promised the software/AI will handle the hard part. Most of the time they end up producing something ranging from "riddled with errors" to "pure crap" because they're not working in a team of real people with the right set of complementary skills and wacky ideas that suddenly make sense when someone else says "hey, that could work! No, listen ... "

 

[sfoster]

here is the real way you make money in film now. The only real, proven way. It's the same way you make money on any investment portfolio. Strategic diversification. You don't make a film. You make a hundred films

Uhh yeah there's one big problem though - this attitude is precisely what ruined the greatest television show ever created.
Game of thrones was fucking amazing, HBO offered more writers, more seasons, and what did the showrunners do?

They decided they wanted to DIVERSIFY! Fuck game of thrones, lets wrap this shit up so we can do STAR WARS!! Yay star wars!
Well they wrapped it up so quickly and so badly, that star wars didn't even want them anymore!!

Instead of focusing on trying to do 100 things they should have focused on the current show they were hired for
And the audience? Most people don't want 100 more shitty mass produced films done as quickly for quantity, theres already more films than I could watch in a lifetime. But hey it does seem to work out well for Tyler Perry so maybe you're right.

 

[indietalk]

We have had that access for decades. Made easier and cheaper with
videotape in the '80's and even easier and cheaper with digital in the '00's.

The whole AI argument is CGI all over again, as well. Fake explosions? Why? Why not a real one? This means anyone can create one. Now we'll see inferior action movies saturate the webs... what's next, CGI actors? CGI bad! BAD!

 

[directorik]

The whole AI argument is CGI all over again, as well. Fake explosions? Why? Why not a real one? This means anyone can create one. Now we'll see inferior action movies saturate the webs... what's next, CGI actors? CGI bad! BAD!

Good point. When video started being accepted for DTV movies the movies
didn't get better. Yet it democratized movie making.
Today people have more control and potential quality in their phone than any
DTV movie maker in the '90's. That is democratized movie making.

As the tech gets cheaper and more easily accessible movie making becomes
more and more democratized. But that doesn't mean better (or even good)
movies. CGI blood, CGI explosions, CGI gunfire makes creating an action
film possible for someone on a very low budget. That is democratized movie
making.

The "gate keepers" cannot keep us from making movies. But it makes it very
difficult for the movie watcher to find good movies. I submit to the group that
the democratized of movie making impedes the filmmaker from making a living.
When it was more costly and more difficult filmmakers needed to be more creative.
And more creative leads to better movies - movies that people want to see.

But I look forward to seeing an excellent fully AI assisted, CG made movie
made by "a little fat girl in Ohio"*.


* Coppola said this about the availability of 8mm cameras in the 1970's

 

[indietalk]

When it was more costly and more difficult filmmakers needed to be more creative.
And more creative leads to better movies - movies that people want to see.

More resourceful, yes, not always more creative. And not always "better" movies people want to see.