Hacker News Reader

Comment by rockarage | Hacker News Reader

This is just sad, I get the impression from the comments and up votes that tech does not get Hollywood. Hollywood business only work because only Hollywood is willing to give Christopher Nolan 200+ million dollars to make Dark Knight, ditto with James Cameron's Avatar. When Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook or Yahoo decides to give a Christopher Nolan or James Cameron $200million+ to make a movie, things will be different. Then these multinationals can distribute to everyone who wants to buy the movie without DRM, without regional restriction and at a competitive price. Until then everything is just posturing, indie budgets will not change Hollywood. Tech world has competition, but only Hollywood is making these big budget productions.

edit: not sure why this is getting down voted, it would be interesting to see a counterpoint.

View on HN

On the other hand, Apple gives Steve Jobs $200million+ to make an iPad, and Microsoft certainly gives someone 200 million dollars to make Windows.next. Google gave someone $200 million to develop Android. We just don't see it as much because software doesn't depend on personalities as much.

Yes, and Microsoft is spending billions on Bing, if Google pulled a so called Hollywood move, by making Google search a pain to use, people will start using Bing more. We don't have that with big budget films. DRM died in the music industry, in part, because a number of popular artist, like Trent of NIN were not afraid to go direct to fans without DRM.

"DRM died in the music industry"

I'm not confident that's a factual statement.

Really? I can't think of anywhere I could go to buy DRMed music right now if I tried... iTMS watermarks music files, but they're not sold DRMed music files for years. Magnatune has _never_ sold DRMed files. ihearmusic.com - no drm. All the direct from artist music I've bought in the last few years - no drm. Soundcloud or artist "Pay what you want" deals - no drm. I can't recall having purchased any "big four" owned music directly online (as opposed to via someone like Apple), but at least in _my_ little world, DRM does appear to be dead...

Doesn't Spotify use DRM? Which is not to say that it's wrong for them to use DRM on music you didn't buy -- that's a different question.

But "only used for music you don't own" isn't the same the same thing as "dead".

Ahhh yeah - all those streaming services, they seem to think Australia doesn't have the internet, or maybe just that we dont have credit cards to pay for stuff. I'd have to jump through proxied ip addresses and fiddled US billing address credit cards to even find out they're selling DRMed files...

Spotify doesn't let you own the music that you listen to though.

Netflix doesn't let you keep the movies you watch either.

Both are DRMed because thats how the company keeps you subscribing to their services.

Sansa Fuze's latest firmware update included support for something called "SlotRadio" - a bafflingly awful drmd music format.

I was skeptical as well, but it really is true. The labels gave it up years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management#DRM_a...

Oh come on. Bing is not a serious alternative to Google. Nobody likes sloppy seconds. If anything people would start switching to duckduckgo or something, which does things much more differently.

And where does DuckDuckGo get their results from? Bing.

http://help.duckduckgo.com/customer/portal/articles/216399-s...

DRM died because the recording companies realized they were handing Apple a monopoly on digital distribution which would eventually make them irrelevant, the same way that Amazon and the Kindle drastically reduced book publisher influence.

Silicon Valley doesn't have to take on Hollywood head-on. That's almost always the wrong strategy to try to beat an incumbent.

The way you beat an incumbent leader is by changing the rules of the games so it's very hard for that company to play that new game, whether it's because they lack the competency or because the have internal conflicts of interest for doing that (think of the TV networks not really wanting to go full-web because it would eat into their much larger profits from traditional advertising).

Of course you don't just change the rules for the sake of changing the. This new game must also feel like the "future" of that market, and you need to be able to attract not only Hollywood "non-consumption", but also be able to transition Hollywood's "consumers" over time to your company (or companies - I still think that what would kill Hollywood is an entire different ecosystem for creating, distributing and watching movie, and not just a movie juggernaut like Hollywood).

Significantly, tech already has. How often do we hear numbers quoted that the gaming industry now grosses more than films?

Displacing the influence of the old leader in the community mindset is certainly a known problem and one that we've seen in other sectors. But, there's no disputing it - the kids are spending their time playing games rather more than watching films, and Hollywood isn't set up to produce interactive, dynamic content.

The rules of the game have been changed, and tech has won. Gaming beats films, and sooner or later people will realise it.

What is "tech"? I think the game development world, at least big console games, is mostly closer to Hollywood than it is to the "web startup" world. Hollywood uses and develops plenty of technology too (e.g. in computer graphics) - it's silly to talk about "tech" as something cohesive.

But the game industry isn't desperately fighting the internet the way Hollywood is. A lot of smaller game studios (and a couple big ones) clearly understand that clinging to an obsolete business model is futile nonsense, and have embraced the online market. And they're absolutely thriving for it.

The console market isn't making the transition nearly as quickly, but I'm certain this is chiefly a matter of getting value out of existing investments (deployed hardware).

Sure they are, they don't like piracy just as much as the movie makers. Their lobby arm, the ESA, was pro SOPA just like the rest. They are a bit more fractured about it, but big budget games are closer to big budget Hollywood than not.

I agree with you but doing so means that you have to acquire the talent to build the new business model. No major tech company seems to want to take that risk.

it would be interesting to see a counterpoint.

Sure.

1. Just because this is the way things work doesn't mean this is the only way things can work.

2. We aren't entitled to have Dark Knights and Avatars. Lets assume that, for whatever reason, in New Hollywood it will only be feasible to fund smaller budget movies. So what? People will still watch and enjoy the smaller-budget movies.

But I, and many other people, am willing to pay for these big budget movies even if I have to sit through ads. I like big-budget flicks.

I like Bell Labs and indestructible black Western Electric telephones, but did they justify the Bell monopoly?

Hollywood movies (mostly) don't have interoperability issues or network effects.

They just try to pass laws to make interoperability (format shifting) a criminal offence.

You're setting up a false argument here -- they don't do anything to restrict indie filmmakers from distributing their content.

By forbidding to use old art for music or even movie extracts, they set the bar higher for independent movie filmmakers.

Actually, a number of people have complained that they do. Very few indie movies are in the same theaters as Hollywood movies, though whether that's effected by the latter depends on who you ask.

No, they just raise money for colluding plutocrats to bribe corrupt politicians into trying to break the Internet.

Agreed. I'd take one Dark Knight over a hundred low-budget decent flicks any day.

If you believe low-budget is the way of the future, nothing is stopping you. If you believe big-budget needs to be killed by regulation et al before your superior low-budget future can compete, I wonder if you have things mixed up in your head.

Have I lost track of the plot here somehow? Aren't we talking about regulation to ensure big budget flicks can compete? This may be me failing at irony or something.

If you have to pay the same to see Avatar & The Blair Witch Project, then sure, the big budget movies seem like better value. But only a vast price fixing monopoly, supported by ever more draconian legislation, enables that equivalence.

The price of movie distribution is fast approaching zero. If big budget movies had to compete on a level playing field, I suspect they would rapidly become unprofitable.

"Just because this is the way things work doesn't mean this is the only way things can work"

That is true, but the current reality is: these are the current cost to make big budget films, just like I would like buy a brand new Mac Book Pro for $500.00 but that's not going to happen any time soon.

And yes we are not entitled to have Dark Knights and Avatars, we did not always have big budget films. Big budget films are the only advantage Hollywood has, if it were not for these big budget films we would not be talking about Hollywood.

The reality is people want to watch some of these big budget films, that's why there is piracy, that's why we writing about it.

I think these films can be made with smaller budgets If there were smaller budgets across the industry. Sure there are fixed costs (which are ever falling) to produce but wages are held high because of the big budgets. I think the majority of big movie stars would still be acting on movies for a much smaller amount if that was the best they could get.

I for one think it'd be really interesting if a tech conglomerate paid for a bunch of moderate-budget movies and distributed them exclusively through YouTube or other online sources, or distributed them to cinemas but did something Google-y with admissions and tickets. If Google just took 50% of opening revenues I am sure the cinemas would be thrilled to accommodate. Hollywood would seriously wig out. That is the kind of business we need to kill off the wickedness of the MPAA.

Like? Require all ticket purchases be done on a G+ account and before you get to the theatre. Mine the purchases for the most relevant ad from all the people who purchased tickets (80% of the G+ accounts like..., 50% like..., etc). Show the ads in stock that are most relevant and also re-sell the ticket stats back to the advertisers. Offer a discount on your next ticket purchase if you blog/comment/review the movie (and feed that back into your G+ data-mine profile).

Feedback to advertisers will increase relevant ad pool to make better matches from ticket purchases. Advertisers get more data to target their ads to a better audience. G+ profile gets more data for profiling. Win win win. ;)

>This is just sad, I get the impression from the comments and up votes that tech does not get Hollywood. Hollywood business only work because only Hollywood is willing to give Christopher Nolan 200+ million dollars to make Dark Knight, ditto with James Cameron's Avatar.

Your comment is somewhat ridiculous because these examples are not risks. Christopher Nolan was well known before Batman Begins in writing Memento. James Cameron wrote the script for the original Terminator and directed Aliens, T2 and the highest grossing film of all time in Titanic. Anyone would've bet on these two individuals.

I never said anything about risk, I said willing. The tech world giants so far has not been willing to produce a Hollywood type blockbuster film. I think it is a matter of will not risk.

Counterpoint: Kevin Costner

You've just proposed an odd dichotomy: that big budget films can only be funded through Hollywood with DRM and other restrictions, or by technology companies without DRM and other restrictions.

You're going to need to elaborate on that, because on the face it, this sounds absurd.

That is not correct, DRM and other restrictions do not fund big budget films. Those things actually take away profits from film in the form convoluted distribution cost. see: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3514416 . Big budget films can only be funded by companies with the money and will to do so. Large tech companies have the money and means to produce & distribute big budget films, they just have to be willing to do it.

At which point in the past did we establish that these wages are in _any_ way reasonable. We talk about a 'bubble' in our sector every other day. And you seem to imply (please, correct me if I missed the point) that these are 'market rates' and need to be payed by someone to get a decent end result. Which then kind of defends the existence of Hollywood as the one to make it happen.

I'd argue that this is turning the thing on its head. The Hollywood crowd overcharges from the position of a quasi monopoly that is protected by IP and copyright laws in most places of the world. They dictate the prices and are therefor able to sustain the costs of having to pay ridiculous (you can argue, but there's no way in hell I change my pov on this one) amounts of money to single persons for 'a project'.

Take away the quasi monopoly and yes, dear god: 200million+ might be a tad too much. But the market will adapt and we'll find awesome actors that are happy to do that job for 300.000 USD per year. Or less. No idea - let's find out.

Great, but how are you planning on paying the rest of the production, which after all makes up the majority of that $200 million.

Directors get huge payouts for the same reason athletes or other performers get huge payouts: simply because they generate a TON of money AND because the pool of potential candidates is so small that there is no one to undercut the rate. That $xx million ($200 mil was the budget for the whole film fyi) that the director got paid is a fraction of the total revenue generated by a major blockbuster like The Dark Knight, just as the 10-30 million an athlete receives is a fraction of the revenue he generates for the owners. You simply can't get around the fact that many people will spend a lot of money on entertainment, and even if we don't think actors and directors deserve all of that money in terms of social contributions and the long-term redeeming value of their work, the numbers don't lie: they get big payouts simply because they generate lots of money.

The same principle applies in other jobs, the values are just much smaller.

Blockbusters are not the only movies that get made. Let Hollywood keep Batman. In the meantime, it's not hard to imagine a new way of making and distributing Mad Men and Portlandia.

Mad Men is a big-budget TV show. Its per episode budget is north of $2 million.

Mad Men produces 13, 45-minute episodes a season. 13 hours of content for $33 million (at 2.5 million an episode.)

That's $55,000 a minute, versus $1,462,962 a minute for Avatar. An order of magnitude difference. Each minute of Avatar cost nearly as much as a small episode of Mad Men.

That's exactly the kind of feature a shrunken Hollywood, not focused on blockbuster hits, might produce.

A counterpoint to what, exactly?

Your comment seems to have nothing at all to do with the link.

Do you seriously believe that a $200 million movie is ten times better than a $20 million movie? Or a hundred times better than a $2 million movie??

It surely takes less time to see than on hundred $2 million movies. I'd much rather watch one good movie than 10 decent ones. Not that movie budget has anything to do with quality, but still.

Exactly this. A big budget is not required for a movie to be good. Even dramatic special effects no longer need megabucks.

Good writing, good acting, good cinematography, are all pretty cheap, relatively speaking.

No, but it might be over 10 times more profitable than a $20 million movie, or over 100 times more profitable than a $2 million movie. Big budget movies have a greater potential RoR.

It is properly downvoted because it is wrong.

Until Bieber came along, the most watched clip ever (Charlie bit my finger), having been seen 100 of millions of times cost a few cents of electricity to produce.

This indicates that there is an entire market out there which Hollywood is incapable of satisfying but which could easily be filled by a start up.

I shudder to think of a future in which gimmick YouTube videos make up the bulk of commercially available entertainment.

I'm not sure there's an entire market out there wanting to pay to watch "charlie bit my finger" and if there are I don't want anything to do with them!

Having said that there are a load of genuinely quite funny and well put together pieces of content on youtube that come from amateurs. Problem is most of them distribute the content for free because they want to use it as a stepping stone to a job with BigMediaCo who can pay them $$$.

Long before youtube, there was a show called American funniest home videos. You should check it out.

We did very fine, thank you, before Nolan's "Dark Knight" or Cameron's "Avatar" hit the screens, and I'm saying this as a movie freak. In fact, I'd say that the only difference between Melies' movies (which he did as an independent producer back in the day) and "Avatar" is only a technological one, not an artistic one.

Interesting comment. I think the Avatars go away in a post-Hollywood world, but the smaller movies will thrive.

I don't think they would. Hollywood budgets are partly due to Hollywood accounting. If movies were set up along startup lines (where only some folks get a guaranteed salary and the vast majority of earnings by everyone comes in the form of profit sharing) then I think you'd still see very big, expensive to make movies.

Hollywood losses are partly due to Hollywood accounting. The budgets for production are real cost. In these high budget movies, there are major expenses apart from just salary. In the Dark knight, the batmobile and other machines are real vehicles, the sets are made with real materials, live effects are not cheap, permits are not free, not everything is done on a computer. This only scratch the surface of the expense involved in making a big budget film.

Production budgets are inflated because the only way to get a share of the profit is to get a share of the gross. But that is not nearly as scalable so it is necessarily limited. This forces the remainder of returns to contributors to be in the form of direct payments. Thus, actors earn 10s of millions up front, for example. But that also extends to everyone down the line. Effects houses need to charge a lot for their services because they rarely get a cut. There are indeed very real major costs to making a movie but those costs are low compared to the effects I've outlined.

More so, the limits of independently funding a movie are not necassarily any lower than what Hollywood can provide. It's just that Hollywood has historically proven to be the easiest route so it has been popular, but who's to say what the limits of competition are? VCs have pumped more money into tech startups for less return than some hollywood big budget movies, for example.

I've heard of "hollywood accounting" and the like before, but this particular effect is something new to me.

The effect you mention with effects houses, big-name-actors, etc. charging lots of up-front fees to compensate for the fact that the studio would try to screw them out of their cut of the profits sounds surprisingly similar to the health care situation in the US. Hospitals charge patients that they know can pay (private or gov't insured) much higher fees, because they know there are many, many patients who will not. There's also different affects related to which insurers are willing to pay which rates, etc.

> permits are not free

The permit process is absolutely ridiculous in some cities. Also, unless you're shooting on your backlot, location fees are getting astronomical. Everybody and their dog thinks that their property is worth thousands of dollars a day to film.

I think we'll start seeing more and more stuff being shot outside of the greater LA area.

Only a small example regarding Nolan/Batman. Bank robbery scene had more than 700kW lights running... that's almost a megawatt in electricity generators ON LOCATION (natural location, not set within a studio). Cost of running those lights and electricity alone for a few days of shooting (sans people and everything else) equals to the amount of an indie movie.

Christopher Nolan doesn't deserve, or need 200 millions. The fact that Hollywood celebrities receive so much money is a symptom that something isn't right.

I never get arguments like this. In a perfect market every entity tries to get as much money as the market is willing to pay. There are some pretty extreme example such as this one, but in the whole that is a good thing!

But what is a perfect market? What if misleading the consumers brings in the most money? If it was possible to somehow find out and compare the environmental impact of manufacturing things we can buy, I'm sure our decisions of what to buy would be very different. Similarly, if the movie posters had the actor/millions printed on them, then the "market" would be better informed to say enough is enough. Maybe.

> In a perfect market every entity tries to get as much money as the market is willing to pay.

Where did you ever see such a thing as a perfect market entity? In the wonderful magical Hollywood kingdom where you can't watch the DVD you bought in Europe back in the US, certainly not.

Christopher Nolan is given command of a 200 million budget, that's not his compensation for directing, writing, and producing. He probably earns a few million per movie - for creating something that brings his employer over a billion in revenue. That means he is only making a thousandth of what he generated. That seems like a fair return to me.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com