Hollywood and the Internet

Anime and Japanese art theory discussion coming soon. Till then I present for you my take on the sad, backwards, and totally unnecessary battle between Hollywood and the Internet.  You might be saying to yourself "But Fish! Hollywood and the Internet are the bestest of friends, why I just saw them at the coffee house I frequent not because they make good coffee (bleagh!) but because they have the free wireless and I love me some Hulu (till I have to pay for it.) and they were totally making out in the corner with little concern for the general public. To this statement I say they were making out in the corner specifically to make you uncomfortable, trying to prove that they are in fact still a happy couple and not having deep seated and troubling emotional problems at home...where in point of fact they do not make out, which is sad cause Hollywood has a sweet apartment (its rent controlled).

Hollywood has been trying to convince you that video on the net is for sicko's, criminals, and borderline psychopaths. I am willing to amend this statement if anyone can so me video on the web being used for positive awesomeness in a Hollywood film but until that time my examples are as follows.

In Never back down (this film is decidedly not very good. Think "The Karate Kid" meets a steaming pile of mediocrity.) , the kids who wanna fight use Youtube to show off and if I remember correctly schedule events where guys who never bleed, get bruised or hurt permanently in any way, beat on each other till floozies sex them at the after party.

In Untraceable the whole plot centers around collections of shocking and often VERY disturbing video collections on the web. Yes the film leans very strong on the "internet is for sickos and freaks" button. which is sad cause other than that it was a pretty decent film. Gross but decent.

In Kick Ass The titular hero ends up on Youtube doing his thing. EVERYONE (including your grandparents...don't ask) watches his videos. seriously I think he racks up like 65 trillion views...gee golly gosh people on the internet love to watch cellphone videos of people getting the shit kicked out of them.

Then there are the professionally made films that attempt to imitate amateur film making. I make no judgment as to the quality of these films i just want to point out that this genre does exist. Examples include REC, Cloverfield, Blair Witch Project, and many others.

Now some of you may be saying "But Fish what about the dancers communicating though Youtube in Step Up 2?" And my response to that is "Damn you talk a lot during MY article but you make an interesting point. Basically Jon Chu is an outlying factor in this particular debate, he makes movies that are released in theaters (of which I refuse to go into quality debates on. People dance and make life decisions based around their desire to dance. You know where you stand on this particular issue Trust me.) But he also has embraced the internet culture of film and art creation and distribution. So yes technically speaking my point is flawed but its my article so I'ma finish making my point.

So why would Hollywood want to make this anti Youtube, anti internet video distribution theme at all? Because they have NO CLUE why ticket sales are dropping through the floor. Seriously look at the numbers, its scaring the shit out of the accountants that run the industry, mostly because accountants know next to nothing about emotional investment, artistic expression, or creative honesty. Which is how we end up with Scary Movie 1-4, Date/Epic/Super Hero/Disaster Movie and now Vampires Suck. They make just enough money to keep Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedburg in the business of force feeding people shit sandwiches.

These aren't the only guys who are churning out soulless crap because it makes more financial sense than it does artistic sense. MGM is in huge financial trouble right now and chose to cancel its next James Bond film. A major movie studio with the rights to one of America's longest and culturally recognized icons decided the best way to deal with financial problems was to NOT make a product they could sell. This is a course of action that would have lead to things like Easy Rider, THX 1138, and a bunch of other American classics never being made.

And here in my opinion lies the first major problem Hollywood faces. The truly creative people have next to no power in Hollywood anymore. The money guys hold all the cards and the money is all they care about. They have little to know demonstrated understanding of the relationship between quality and profit and have spent almost thee decades creating a large group of consumers who have grown accustomed to the shit that gets churned out on a regular basis, but don't really care that much because its Hollywood's job to fuck them out of ten or more dollars.

The same goes for television. More often than not when my friends and acquaintances find a show they love they automatically assume it will be canceled by the end of the season (or ASAP). This doesn't count for LOST because LOST is for television what Transformers 2 was for film. Periods of time that made noise and showed you screens of shifting colors that you could apply what ever logic, plot, or character you liked. You might have thought you were watching something that was scripted or created by people who had a story to tell but what you were actually watching was the cinematic equivalent of a Rorschach test. Everyone saw something different because in truth there was never anything of structure to see, it needed human input to be turned into something and there in lies the financial brilliance of Transformers and the very possible artistic brilliance of LOST. (I still refuse to watch it all because from end of season 1 on I knew what they were trying to do and if I wanted to mentally masturbate I'd stick a vibrator in my ear.).

The truth of the matter is this: Hollywood through film and television is catering to the Lowest Common Denominator and that was floating the industry financially for a really long time. For a great period of years it allowed them enough financial freedom to let some of the more artistic and experimental creative types to float some truly fantastic shit under the general public's nose, but in the end this market strategy had unintended consequences. Explosive growth in technology, the price of said technology and the dramatic drop in distribution difficulty. You no longer had to be independently wealthy to make film. And over the last few years EVERYONE has been filming stuff. Yes most of it is dogs or cats doing stupid shit, or guys getting kicked in the nuts. 90% of anything is bound to be crap, and on the internet that other 10% is SO SO SO SO SO worth it. Think about what you like to read and watch, there is someone out there who is making movies and shows probably for free about that. Trust me, its so cheap and easy now that its almost a crime not to express yourself.

So over the last few years while Hollywood was busy giving us "movie" movies, the audience who used to KNOW that genre was either Comedy, Drama, Horror, Romance, or Sci-fi. Their Audience used to wait breathlessly for season premiers and movie releases because they had nothing better to do. Now they check out the over 100 YEARS of video uploaded to Youtube A DAY. That's just the content on one site. Now add in all the sites out there by actual studios of various size and content production that have their own sites or other video collection and distribution sites. An you have more content than any human will be able to watch EVER. No season breaks, no dry spells, if you are looking for something to watch, you will find it and odds are if you look long enough you will find something you will love forever.

Now its pretty understandable that Hollywood would be smart enough to NEVER even dream of competing with over a hundred years of new FREE data that is created and distributed DAILY. But looking at the above examples and Hollywood's obsession with "shaky cam" its pretty obvious they are trying to make some kind of statement. And what is that statement? I offer the filtered version as I have understood it. "We don't understand this behemoth of culture that has been birthed but we can imitate it so there is little to no reason to stop paying for content distributed in a theater. Please come back to films, we look just like the stuff your watching online and thats cool right?....guys?...hello?"

The fundamental problem with this is that the content on Youtube is FREE, and there is a never ending supply of it. How stupid do you have to be to try and compete with something that is infinite, and FREE, specifically by trying to imitate it? Hollywood should be competing with the internet by providing a higher quality product created by skilled people with drive. The Lowest Common Denominator now entertains themselves. Hollywood should be making nothing but ART now. because nuts shots are free but I've never seen anything remotely close to Inception on Youtube.

So why aren't they doing that? Because Hollywood isn't aware that they are slipping further and further out of date. Countries all around the world are starting to make more and more of their own films. The sad fact of the matter is that Hollywood missed the entertainment revolution and now the profits are seeping out to the masses. Now is not the time for multimillion dollar movies. with actors and crew paid seven or eight figure salaries for a few months work. Those days are gone, everyone's just lying to themselves about it now. Its time for Hollywood to change, we have to find a new financial reality so that people can keep working, keep creating. Because the products they used to sell are being created and shared for free by the old audience. Its time to make something they can't, at a reasonable sustainable price. Once they figure that out, internet could have a Billion years of video a second and people will still go to movies faithfully and happily.

The corporate world of marketing and advertising is a different battle all together. But that's an article for a different day.