“Content is king.”<\/p>\n
Or so filmmakers love\u00a0to intone, reciting the phrase like a proverb or\u00a0catechism.<\/p>\n
Below the line, we are especially fond of this\u00a0truism. And small wonder: whether you’re an editor, VFX artist, or DIT,\u00a0you have a<\/span>\u00a0front-row seat to the spectacle of other people realizing their personal creative visions. You might\u00a0be toiling on that spec script.\u00a0Or working your way up a particular department chain. (Or both.)<\/p>\n Meanwhile, you those\u00a0content producers hire you, work you to the bone, and occasionally yell at\u00a0you a lot. They wear neat blazers to festival\u00a0premieres and post the\u00a0red carpet pics to their IMDb profiles.\u00a0And of course they own all of the upside.<\/p>\n From your\u00a0foxhole, content sure looks like, if not exactly king, then at very least boss<\/em>.<\/p>\n Of course, all that upside is worth precisely\u00a0nothing 99.999% of the time. One week\u00a0you\u2019re mugging with Robert Redford at the Sundance Directors’ Brunch, the next you\u2019re wondering how to\u00a0cover this\u00a0month’s rent.<\/span><\/p>\n If content is\u00a0“king,” it’s\u00a0only\u00a0king\u00a0for a day.<\/span><\/p>\n But this notion\u2014that\u00a0content creators hold all of the cards in the show business economy\u2014is still a powerful one. It’s just\u00a0not borne out by reality.<\/p>\n @MatthewACherry<\/a> each year I get jelly of my friends with movies in Sundance. Right up until April, when they call me looking for a job.<\/p>\n — Pliny (@iampliny) April 29, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n