| I agree with you on pretty much all that you’ve said here. Thank you especially for the recommended viewing! I wonder what happens, though, as the economics shift? It’ll be great, creatively speaking, for people who have a project inside them itching to get out into the world. Those were always the people who made the most interesting art anyway. But viewership economics aren’t expanding in the same way. Same number of viewers, less patience for feature-length work, less willingness to pay. If the status quo only generated enough money for an already-small universe of Hollywood professionals to feed their families through their creative work, what happens when even that withers? Film school, it seems to me, is partly about the access to equipment and talent, but mostly about the time and community expectation to dedicate every waking hour to your creative project. Art and commerce have always been awkward bedmates, but it makes me a little sad that the price for anyone being able to create is that ~none of them will be able to make money from their creative labor. |
Most recent cost cutting has been Hollywood offshoring IATSE jobs to Europe and Asia. 80% of Atlanta's once burgeoning film production has moved away. We have tremendous, multi-billion dollar studio facilities here too.
I do expect AI to eventually be used for saving on VFX costs, pre-production, and even B roll, but I don't think it'll replace principal photography right away. It might be used in more animation projects.
I don't think those budgets will disappear. Rather, I think they will be spent on other projects to increase the slate of offerings.
Meanwhile, completely orthogonal to all of this, the creator economy has been growing tremendously year over year. We have lots of independent creators that are now household names and brands.
Some indie YouTubers that have grown big include:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zach_Hadel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivienne_Medrano
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Haver
All of them were offered network deals.
I suspect we'll see a rise of indie filmmakers and that the field will begin to look more like writing, indie music, or indie games. Anyone can bring their talent and not much capital and make interesting and compelling work.
The problem, as always, will be discovery. A lot of good work will still go unseen. But this is better than the work not being practical or possible.
As long as people capture minds and attention, there will be incredible value in creating and captivating. Artists will get paid. It's just a matter of artists breaking through and finding an audience.