[danso]

One factor that I didn't see mentioned in this post or the author's previous post is the strength and influence of the union. I lived with an actress who had moderate enough success to do acting full time, have an agent, and be in the Screen Actors Guild. I was amazed at how much money she could pull in for just having a split-second role in a nationally broadcast ad, when it seems likely a company could finds hundreds of attractive, willing people to show up in an ad for a few hundred bucks. My impression from her was that doing non-union work as SAG member could easily kill your career, considering how most studios do not work with non union folks, as SAG would push back hard on them.

That said, the film industry is very much built on sentiment and brand. I'm a fan of movies from all eras, so I don't understand why people are so thrilled to pay money to see a new movie when there are so many great movies in the past few decades, nevermind the past year. But people today really want to see Jennifer Lawrence's new work, no matter how many other equally great actresses have had great roles in years past.

Same deal with franchises, in movies and in games. A fan-remake could remove Nintendo characters and assets and still have the exact same game mechanics and quality, but very few people would give a shit. We want to see the characters and worlds we grew up with and loved, regardless of whether the actual vehicle (movie, game, etc) isn't particularly noteworthy.

Edit: Contrast film with other industries that have been disrupted. I like Seymour Hersh, but I don't care if a great investigative reporting scoop comes from him or from a blogger, I just care about its veracity and impact. Same with software; John Resig seems like a great human being but that's not the main reason for jquery's dominance. Meanwhile, if Star Wars Force Awakens refused Harrison Ford's demands and put someone else in as Han Solo, people would not be so accepting.

Note: I'm not saying the union is bad. It's probably more useful to see the strength of the union as a reflection of the inherent strength and value that actors wield in moviemaking.

[fezz]

Related: Peter Coyote's Open Letter To Lead Actors http://deadline.com/2008/07/peter-coyotes-open-letter-to-lea...

"Since 1990 the earnings of the top leading actors have increased exponentially while the salaries of nearly all other actors have been systematically driven down. In many cases, the earnings of established character actors have been rolled back by 60-70 percent. This occurs, in large part, because the working professional (as opposed to the star) is at a disadvantage when negotiating in the new corporatized production environment. We do not possess a unique, marketable (and often media exploited) brand, and consequently lack the power to make or break the existence or profitability of a film. Consequently, respected, veteran actors with numerous credits and hard-earned “quotes” now routinely receive “take-it-or-leave it” offers, often at “scale”—a beginners wage."

[danso]

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that the major studios aren't actively trying to improve their bottom line even if it means screwing over their employees and actors. Just that from the perspective of a working journalist, the influence and ubiquity of union work in film was very surprising, because I could not imagine such a situation in journalism. When my roommate had a drought of work, she looked for blogging gigs, which she did a decade ago and was compensated for as a freelancer. She was genuinely shocked when outlets who paid her in the past said she should be happy to now blog for free for the exposure.

[ChuckMcM]

Thanks for finding that again. All three aspects seem to affect the outcome, additional technological outlets, the make or break cost of a block buster, and the outsized role that social media plays in getting mindshare.

Like the author of the original piece I don't think this situation is very stable.

[Swizec]

> John Resig seems like a great human being but that's not the main reason for jquery's dominance

But if John Resig released something new that isn't jquery, and does a useful thing, it would immediately be a lot more popular than if Random Joe Programmer releases the same useful thing.

Celebrity does work in the programming world as well.

It's a type of distribution channel. The more eyes are on you, the more audience you can pull, the more successful your projects are going to be. If for no other reason than more people giving them a shot and seeing what's up.

[danso]

True. And in the movie industry, it's not unheard of for nobodies to become superstars (JLaw was apparently spotted by a talent scout during a NYC family vacation). But I think film has inherently bigger barriers to entry, from top to bottom. At the blockbuster level, which is where some disruptive action would have to happen before the mass media starts declaring the disruption of film, I don't see any films while skimming over Boxofficemojo [0] that aren't either part of a franchise, anchored by an A-list actor, or based on a property like Marvel or a popular book/toy.

Let's imagine that a group of immensely talented and attractive folks have a brilliant video series idea, manage to attract the technical resources and funding to bootstrap it, and it becomes a hit on YouTube. Granted, that's a fantasy scenario, because as much as YouTube has democratized video-making, it is absolutely dominated by corporate content [1].

What's more likely, that this plucky group remains on the independent path while continuing to remain popular? Or that they choose to join the club and follow the rules so that their revenue and exposure can increase by several orders of magnitude? It's not just the movie-making part of film that is entrenched, it's the distribution networks that have longstanding ways of doing business, things that occasionally piss people off here (region-locked content).

On the other side of things, there isn't much motion like there is in tech, e.g. Facebook and its open source projects. The only thing that comes to mind in entertainment (besides actors doing stints at Shakespeare in the Park) is Louis C.K. setting up his own production and distribution channel. The work is great, but it is definitely not scalable in any forseeable way [2]

[0] http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?view2=worldwide&y...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_viewed_YouTube_vi...

[2] http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/4/10918924/louis-ck-horace-an...

[ghaff]

>At the blockbuster level, which is where some disruptive action would have to happen before the mass media starts declaring the disruption of film, I don't see any films while skimming over Boxofficemojo [0] that aren't either part of a franchise, anchored by an A-list actor, or based on a property like Marvel or a popular book/toy.

There are some exceptions. Avatar, whatever you think of it as a film, was a blockbuster film with a blockbuster budget. Though, in that case, it was the director who was the A list so maybe that's just an addition to your list.

But, to your basic point, with the amount of money that a blockbuster-type film takes to create, the finance guys are definitely looking for factors that will help bring people into the theaters.

[ollifi]

Blumhouse[1] is interesting. Lots of small productions with incredible ROIs and no ambitions to make bigger films.

[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blumhouse_Productions

[thaumasiotes]

> the distribution networks that have longstanding ways of doing business, things that occasionally piss people off here (region-locked content)

"Longstanding ways of doing business"? Region-locked content dates all the way back to... DVDs.

[Swizec]

Here's a counter example: Casey Neistat.

He might not be a blockbuster movie superstar, but he does have the most subscribed YouTube channel (5mio subs) and he won GQ man of the year. For doing 10min vlogs.

[rtkwe]

He kind of moved from the inside to the outside. Before he was on youtube he was shooting movies and had his HBO series. Even now he's still shooting commercials and appearing in them. Youtube brought him a lot of recognition but he wasn't doing too bad before it either.

[TeMPOraL]

I'd say it's about social objects. One of the important thing about culture in general is the feeling of sharing it, which in particular means knowing that you'll have someone to talk with about what you jut experienced. That's why I believe culture tends to gravitate towards the same small set of works (with additional "notable works" in ever expanding amount of genres), and it doesn't matter whether or not it's a good work - it has just to be decent enough and get popular fast enough to stick.

As for old vs. new movies, I guess I go to cinemas because a) good, big screen and loud audio gives an experience that I can't reproduce at home, and b) cinemas generally don't play old movies! And even if they did, then c) old movies I can stream/Torrent on-demand, it's the new movies that are difficult to get. As for the reason to go see them vs. wait until they're streamable on-line, it's social objects again - when I go and watch the new Avengers movie while it's still in cinemas, I can join the conversation with my friends who just watched it too.

[euroclydon]

> I don't understand why people are so thrilled to pay money to see a new movie when there are so many great movies in the past few decades

For me, it's HD. Old movies look... old.

[devonkim]

It's not aesthetics for me as much as sufficiently older movies are a lot closer to stage plays in how they're filmed and storyboarded, and I generally dislike plays and musicals whatever the content is (case in point: I don't have any interest in Hamilton nor Disney movies). Then comes a lot of older movies having pacing that doesn't fit the time and mental energy commitment I am capable of making.

I can appreciate classics like Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Zhivago, and the Deer Hunter, but I generally don't have 3+ contiguous hours to do anything anymore let alone watch a movie and I feel ashamed I can't honor such works with a proper, conscious viewing either. For "pop" arthouse movies closer to something like Begotten or Valhalla Rising, the effort to get value is even worse because I am not understanding what the symbols are and it becomes more of an exercise in "let's analyze scenes!" than "let's watch a movie to stimulate our minds." Some people don't like video games for similar reasons I feel - they want passive, decision-free entertainment.

[TeMPOraL]

It's probably different to different people, but I'm having trouble with old movies for a similar reason - they feel too slow to me. The plot doesn't develop fast enough; sometimes I actually can't make heads or tails of it, because some events are spaced out in a way that breaks the casual relationship in my mind.

The what it differs from what you described is that I don't mind active, decision-rich entertainment. I love video games. I just have too short of an attention span to really enjoy old, slow-paced movies :/.

[Broken_Hippo]

To me, it goes so much further than just something like the HD.

It looks old the same way an old photograph looks old. The colors are all off: The jokes aged. The sound seems weird. The special effects - even if they were amazing at the time - were off. The movies were obviously made for a different time.

Granted, there are exceptions - a few movies age well, but the vast majority do not.

[wj]

I agree with your last sentence but there usually is a reason a classic is a classic. Same applies to literature.

However if there is one thing I have learned is that everyone has different tastes. My wife cannot watch any film made before she was born while my golden age of film is about 1940 to 1970. I will take All About Eve, Double Indemnity, the Thin Man, and anything with Humphrey Bogart over anything released these days. That is not even getting into classic foreign films.

A key component of classic films is that they weren't able to distract special effects, or even colors for some, so plot was that much more important. I can't imagine that mumblecore will survive the test of time but I could be wrong.

[euroclydon]

Except Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Christmas Vacation, which are perfect.

[ryuker16]

The thing about old movies is.......everybody saw them.