[nextparadigms]

Think in a disruptive way. Actors don't have to be paid $10 million. Special effects don't have to cost tens of millions. Equipment doesn't have to cost millions either.

Make the movies the way you would build a lean start-up. And bank on innovation in the movies and scripts, rather than recycling popular content and make it very flashy.

But as I mentioned in another comment, I think to kill Hollywood you need incubators like YCombinator to seed the initial team and script, and attract young talent, and then help them find investors who would put a few millions into the movie, and also build a platform for distribution, like a Youtube for these movies, and a good business model to monetize them.

Some kind of news/community sites would help too, not only to share information about the projects, but also get feedback and build a group of "early adopters" who will evangelize your movie later.

[waterlesscloud]

What you describe is largely how things work right now.

Independent production companies, which represent the origin of most non-blockbuster films, work just like incubators now.

They have a development budget which they use to find and develop scripts in what might as well be an early seed round. They then shop this developed project around to financing sources, of which there are a great number that are not tied to studios. These financing sources may require additional development or even "pivoting" of the project.

Once financing is secured and the people providing the funding are happy, production can proceed. At this point, you're still wholly outside the studio system. You can completely finish your film outside the studios. This happens now, all the time, and it happens not just with Sundance style films, but with mainstream films with pretty substantial budgets.

Sundance, as an aside, is not just a festival, but also a market for these independent productions. Festivals such as Cannes and Toronto are much the same. You'll see a number of stories over the next week about films acquired at Sundance. What this means is that distribution deals were signed for films that were produced using means independent of the studios. The distributors are often, but not always, arms of the studios.

Someone mentioned Brad Pitt. He stars in independently financed projects all the time. In fact, he himself is often the indie producer, via his company Plan B which arranges for the financing through other entities.

[MrScruff]

Honestly, what do you think YCombinator can bring to the table that isn't already there? How exactly do you propose to disrupt something you know nothing about? It's the equivalent of the head of the MPAA saying 'Fuck it, we'll build our own search engine'. I know the tech scene is full of very smart people, but guess what - the film industry is full of very smart people too!

The thing you have to understand is that smart, talented people are making films right now with innovative scripts and low budgets. And most of them will lose money, because nobody wants to see them. People genuinely prefer watching 'flashy' films with lots of VFX and actors who they've heard of.

Just because you want it to work differently doesn't mean it will.

[burgerbrain]

"Honestly, what do you think YCombinator can bring to the table that isn't already there?"

The attitude that things are wrong with the industry, and it can/should be done better.

[_delirium]

That's already there in droves: that's basically the mantra of every indie film director, iFilm, most film schools, alternative distributors and theaters, and just about everyone else connected to movies who isn't the big studios. They even have substantial seed funding for that kind of thing (much larger than YCombinator's typical seed funding) through a large number of directors, actors, grant agencies, universities, and rich film fans who regularly fund "not Hollywood" experimentation (sort of that industry's version of angel investors and incubators).

[molmalo]

The problem with movies is that even when the argument may seem very interesting at first, the realization can make it a disaster. That's what differentiates an awesome director from a bad one.

That's why I see hard to visualize crowd-financing to movies. The risk may be just too high.

[jiggy2011]

The problem you have is that you might build a great movie startup and find some great young talent but sooner or later they are going to realise that they can make more money elsewhere once the big hollywood companies start waving their chequebooks around.

Make the movies the way you would build a lean start-up. And bank on innovation in the movies and scripts, rather than recycling popular content and make it very flashy.

Problem is that this is very high risk and the public are fickle, if your innovative idea does not take off then you have lost money. If it does take off then you will be very tempted to milk that one idea for as long as you can.

[inkaudio]

This could work, but how good is YCombinator at judging an initial team & script ? The investors YC knows and work with, invest primarily in tech not entertainment. Will the investors be willing to take risk in a different sector ? Not every great talent has a hit on his/her first or even second try.