{"id":1386,"date":"2016-08-17T19:41:59","date_gmt":"2016-08-17T19:41:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/?p=1386"},"modified":"2022-05-25T17:27:47","modified_gmt":"2022-05-25T17:27:47","slug":"film-not-disrupted-yet-part-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/film-not-disrupted-yet-part-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Film has not been Disrupted (Yet), Part 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

This entry is part 4 in\u00a0a series examining why the film industry has resisted disruption so far:<\/em><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Making a movie is still an all-or-nothing proposition<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  2. Film technologists are focusing on all the wrong areas<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  3. Filmmaking is (computationally) expensive<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  4. We are a deeply traditional, conservative, and sentimental lot.<\/strong><\/li>\n
  5. The film industry neutralizes its best and brightest<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  6. Postscript:<\/strong>\u00a0There Are Always Two Revolutions<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    \n

    4. We are a deeply traditional, conservative, and sentimental lot.<\/h2>\n

    You didn’t\u00a0start working in film and TV because of a jobs fair, or because your father\u2019s business partner pulled you aside at a dinner party for a moment of sage economic advice.<\/p>\n

    \"\u201cI<\/p>\n

    \u201cI want to say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening? Celluloid.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    At some point in our lives, we were all profoundly moved by something that we saw on the screen. The emotions imprinted are a Deep Magic that we carry around with us. We retain profound\u00a0spiritual and endocrinological connections with them. They define us.\u00a0In fact, some\u00a0of\u00a0our careers\u00a0might be best understood as a series of attempts at re-creating them.<\/p>\n

    But this very love has also imbued us with unhealthy levels of reverence\u00a0toward the old\u00a0systems\u2014the ones\u00a0that produced those works that inspired us in the first place.<\/p>\n

    So we find, for example, that there are far more websites, books, and other resources dedicated to\u00a0\u201cbreaking in<\/em> to the industry\u201d (learning and following the rules) than those concerned with breaking it up<\/em> (tearing up the old rules and\u00a0making new ones).<\/p>\n

    Seen from a distance, this phenomenon should\u00a0strike\u00a0anyone\u00a0as odd. After all, you won\u2019t find\u00a0many young journalists struggling\u00a0to learn the ropes of the 20th century newspaper trade. Nor is top tech talent lining up for job interviews at\u00a0Verizon\u00a0or\u00a0AOL. But that is, in effect, what many filmmakers are busy doing right now.<\/p>\n

    Balaji Srinivasan deftly crystallizes this question as \u201cVoice vs. Exit<\/a>\u201d. In a 2013\u00a0Ycombinator talk, he poses\u00a0a series of\u00a0challenging questions, starting with\u00a0this one: Is America the Microsoft of Nations<\/em>?<\/p>\n

    \"He<\/p>\n

    He makes\u00a0a compelling case.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    The question\u00a0is what to do when an\u00a0800-pound,\u00a0gate-keeping incumbent is blocking your way. Do you bow and scrape for admittance, and then try to reform from within? (The “Voice” route.) Or do you skip\u00a0the kowtowing, and\u00a0build your own systems instead? (“Exit.”)<\/p>\n

    \"voice-exit\"<\/p>\n

    The last two decades have seen the rise of a\u00a0busy independent film circuit. But it’s worth asking: is\u00a0getting your film\u00a0into\u00a0Sundance or Toronto\u00a0the first step toward greater<\/em> artistic and economic independence? Or is it usually a\u00a0stepping stone to\u00a0the\u00a0studio system? By and large, it would seem that the “8th Studio<\/a>” functions very much like a farm league for Hollywood. The end game\u00a0is to get\u00a0called up to the Big Game.<\/p>\n

    In vibrant growth industries, the smartest creatives tend to head for the exits. But filmmakers, for the most part, are still genuflecting\u00a0for the old guard\u2019s favor. There are\u00a0certainly some sound\u00a0economic reasons behind this:<\/p>\n