DISQUS

Amen to that. A related study in England actually said recently "...research shows that children need to experience challenging play in order to develop important life skills and to better manage risk and challenge in their daily lives,"

The study talked about how children that are completely protected from things that might hurt them; are less capable of making smart risk assessments in their older years.

Go climb a tree for crying out loud!

This is a great report. I can't wait to pass it around to fellow members of the PGA:) Lots of producers bemoaning the death of our old media model, instead of looking for new opportunities to share the very voices they were trying to share with others when they first came to the business.

Thanks!

And then today, in Utah, you have the legislature proposing a new bill from Senator Chris Buttars that would hide officer misconduct.

http://www.kutv.com/content/news/local/story.as...

Oops, sorry Tim, didn't notice at first that the techdirt article was written by you...

Funny, catching up on todays' newsfeeds, and here's this article on TechDirt that exactly talks about what I posted above:

http://techdirt.com/articles/20071120/123845.shtml

Hm. As a startup that's been doing the VC dance, and more recently switching to a more appropriate financing route for our venture, AND as a veteran film & television exec, there's an interesting parallel here.

It's plain as day to see just how well the "hit-driven" mentality of both the music, and the film & television industries has worked out.

They're deep in the middle of an "I don't need you anymore" revolution from creators and producers of content. The relevancy and control of the studios and networks over the "entrepreneurs" of the content business is falling by the day, and I see a similar situation forming in the VC business.

Being completely focused on the "hits" guarantees they're missing other solid, profitable businesses, and leaves their limited partners stuck on a roller coaster of good times and bad times.

To me, this thinking makes no sense in a world where markets are increasingly fragmented, more educated, and "niche" hit can garner a million rabid customers for life, but if it's not a nine figure market size, forget it.

Gee, VC's are defitely the guys I'd want to invest my money with. Not.

Tim,

Good point! LOL.

Being in rehab from the media industry (just left after 10 years), I can say that every video provider that ever came in to pitch the majors (producers & networks) came in to the meetings knowing that they HAD to include DRM on the content or the meetings (and the subsequent, very important Press Releases) were all non-starters.

All that hullabullo and short-sightedness created great personal impetus to say "Hey, you know, THIS is a good time to take a vacation from the old media model, since our execs clearly don't understand new media."

(By the way, I actually had an exec very recently, tell us we should start scheduling "windows of availability" for content online. Post a show for 5 days, then take it down, then post another show, and take it down, etc. YIKES. Long Tail Ignorance, anyone?)

Great moves on Google's part.

Keep in mind we can be pretty sure that the DRM inclusion *wasn't* just the idea of Google.

Quite often a video service provider can't get the critical mass of content it needs on it's platform without agreeing to implement DRM, thanks to the demands of the content copyright holders.

Thankfully, there are some changes starting to happen at the copyright holder level that are encouraging (such as UMG and the GBox service) and I hope this continues from music, into video.

That's like, $2,800,000 worth of laptops if they were worth an average of $2k each.

If they lost them, does it mean we get those tax dollars back?

Criminy.

I'm curious as to what this conversation portends for other creative content that has a definite non-zero cost of creation, and has no opportunity for revenue streams other than the playback of the content?

Movies? Television shows? (which of course, the lines continue to blur there in genres).

Advertising is the only way for producers of other media to recoup costs at this point - and giving away content otherwise isn't a "loss leader" for anything additional in that world...

Very curious to see how this is going to play out in other creative mediums.

The problem with all this is that it STILL sets up the large media companies as the passive voice of old media, "reaching out" to the new media world.




Instead of engaging, encouraging and creating new kinds of conversations with their audiences and new kinds of syndication models (like FanRocket, DaveTV, Revver, and a number of others are doing in very innovative ways), this new site will still be the same old thing.

I'm confused - if the company he works for:




"stands to garner immense financial benefits through the sale of new, more complex hardware if bandwidth providers are allowed to discriminate."





Then wouldn't reason say that "oh, if he was just putting up a party line and supporting that which financially benefits him" that he would be IN SUPPORT of net neutrality instead of opposed to it?





I also think that in regards to a "free and open internet" that our society is at a point where if it starts to get regulated and censored that our entrepreneurs out there will find new ways to meet the consumer demand for unfettered access.





Either through new fiber networks (Phil Anschutz, anyone?) or through new satellite providers.





Time and again when it comes to trying to regulate tech use in the US, the consumer [temporarily] loses while someone else figures out how to provide what will get the consumer back to their "happy place."





Note what is going on at MySpace and YouTube right now, with restriction of content and the "freedoms" that users previously had or thought they had.





They're finding other, more free service providers at a rapid rate (Dailymotion, Xanga, etc.).





The US has plenty of other upstarts (and some of those actually have $$$) to eat the lunch of those service prodivers who restrict things.

"Running a business is a lot of work, and it’s quite possible that Rademacher just isn’t interested in dealing with that kind of stress.

Amen, Tim, Amen.

Non-zero cost is still an understatement, but I think the most pertinent line to my business is the comment that

"Competition drives their profits to zero, forcing them to innovate, which content producers seem reluctant to do."

Mike is spot on, as our content business AND associated labor unions, has multi-billions of dollars tied up in making content production very expensive.

Between the lawyers, the insurance, the labor unions and the "star" economy, there is little wiggle room for innovation.

DGA, WGA and SAG/AFTRA and the IATSE labor unions all have similar high cost to doing business, but the biggest problem is the star costs. (and unfortunately, "star" can now be extended to writers and directors too).

These are driven not by the content producers (trust me, most producers would rather *not* work with stars if we didn't have to), but by the consumers themselves, and in turn by the financial institutions providing production funds for the content.

Audiences at large ask "who's in it" when they consider watching a lot of content - at least where films are concerned. Financiers in our business actually have ROI's for each A, B, and C level actor in town and will chart the risk and return on your content based on what kind of an audience that star has drawn in the past. If they haven't drawn enough of an audience, you will not get your financing.

It's a giantly difficult cycle to get out of, unless you're interested in and can afford to make films or television or Internet shows without making any money at all (often investing months and years of your life in a single project), and can get people to work for free. Neither of which is a fun place to be. Alternately, you can also be indepedently wealthy and just finance your own stuff - which some people do.

I currently work very hard to make as much of production and delivery digital as I can in my work which saves (in some cases) weeks of prep time, days of shooting, and weeks of post production if planned and excuted with the right toolsets. At the end of the day however, it's the business model itself that needs the innovation.

If there's any industry that desperately needs innovation, it's ours. We could really use new ways to get deals done without $500/hour legal counsel, without agents who drive prices up by multiples on talent, and without insurance polices that costs of tens of thousands of dollars for many millions in coverage are what's needed for us to reform.

Comment & Question:

The continuing auctions of spectrum tends to scare me, mainly because an auction of a resource like that would logically only be won by the highest bidders. The highest bidders also being the most well-funded corporations already in existence who want to protect their turf.

Now, the question part - I don't know how the auctions have gone in the past. Have their been small, innovative start-up companies that do manage to get their hands on spectrum in the auctions?

It's also an important instance to note the number of MVNO's that have been launched in the last 2 years. Though a number of have failed due to lack of consumer demand, there is a market for sub-leased and white-label spectrum as offered by the larger carriers to other companies who want in the game.

ESPN, DisneyMobile, Amp'd, Boost, Helio, and FaithMobile are just a few of the companies that have launched their own networks on the available spectrum of existing carriers.

The barrier to entry of this market is lower than ever, and getting lower with the (noted) introductions of technologies like WiMax.

Tim, excellent post. Oddly enough, there are even a lot of "new media" folks within our business that look at a set full of people and cannot connect that with what they see on the screen. I greatly appreciate hearing people who do understand that we put so much effort into things precisely so that we can create stuff that looks and sounds GOOD.... oh yeah, and we try to create good stories too.




By the way, our latest film release was on Lifetime Movie Network last week for its cable premier, it was very exciting!

Tim,




I give you much kudos for your tolerance of posters who put so much effort into drawing you into cul-de-sacs of pseudo-intellectual battle on pretty much every post you've ever written here. It's nutty, and you're much kinder than I would be;)





At any rate, to Charles point, doing "Primer" for $10k is an exercise in futility, and I'll tell you why. I've made a lot of short films, and one both features for, ok, to be honest, close to $100k each.





Here's the kicker, that was a $100k where NOBODY got paid to work on the films, save for some money, very meager money, to the actors because SAG requires you to pay actors before you can sign a deal with anyone to sell your movie - regardless of whether your selling the movie for enough to cover those "due in full" salaries to the actors, which currently clock in at a base salary of around $700 per day, per actor, that's if there's no overtime or "meal penalties. EVERYONE else on the movie worked for *free* for what we call "deferred" salary - meaning if the film ever makes it's money back in full, we'll pay everyone who worked on it for their time. Now, we're actually going to get to do that on our last film, which is awesome, and VERY rare, but it'll have taken 3 years after it was shot to do so.





Then you have to rent or buy your cameras, your tape stock (or hard drives) your editorial computer, your sound mixing gear - and to sell the damn thing, all the promo you do to the industry itself, and then the QC and mastering. We had to spend $14,000 just in Quality Control reports so that we could sell the films. Otherwise, no go.





Then you have to create fully separate sound mixes with no English dialogue (called Music & Effects, or M&E; mixes) for foreign sales too, otherwise, you'll get none of that either.





Primer, for $10k, maybe what they shot it for, but that would be with lots of friends and family working for free, over some months or years I would guess, and doesn't include any actual post-production costs.





That does not, a viable business, nor even a living, make:)





Not saying I need to make millions, because I don't expect that, but a living wage is good. Especially when you consider that the vast majority of people in our business don't get any health care coverage at all, unless they're the select, select few who do enough union work each year to qualify for that. I'm not a union supporter either for the most part, but at the same time...well, they do provide somethings of value to their workers that our business is terrible about providing for.





Oh, and Doug, thanks for the kind words:)

Tim,




I give you much kudos for your tolerance of posters who put so much effort into drawing you into cul-de-sacs of pseudo-intellectual battle on pretty much every post you've ever written here. It's nutty, and you're much kinder than I would be;)





At any rate, to Charles point, doing "Primer" for $10k is an exercise in futility, and I'll tell you why. I've made a lot of short films, and one both features for, ok, to be honest, close to $100k each.





Here's the kicker, that was a $100k where NOBODY got paid to work on the films, save for some money, very meager money, to the actors because SAG requires you to pay actors before you can sign a deal with anyone to sell your movie - regardless of whether your selling the movie for enough to cover those "due in full" salaries to the actors, which currently clock in at a base salary of around $700 per day, per actor, that's if there's no overtime or "meal penalties. EVERYONE else on the movie worked for *free* for what we call "deferred" salary - meaning if the film ever makes it's money back in full, we'll pay everyone who worked on it for their time. Now, we're actually going to get to do that on our last film, which is awesome, and VERY rare, but it'll have taken 3 years after it was shot to do so.





Then you have to rent or buy your cameras, your tape stock (or hard drives) your editorial computer, your sound mixing gear - and to sell the damn thing, all the promo you do to the industry itself, and then the QC and mastering. We had to spend $14,000 just in Quality Control reports so that we could sell the films. Otherwise, no go.





Then you have to create fully separate sound mixes with no English dialogue (called Music & Effects, or M&E; mixes) for foreign sales too, otherwise, you'll get none of that either.





Primer, for $10k, maybe what they shot it for, but that would be with lots of friends and family working for free, over some months or years I would guess, and doesn't include any actual post-production costs.





That does not, a viable business, nor even a living, make:)





Not saying I need to make millions, because I don't expect that, but a living wage is good. Especially when you consider that the vast majority of people in our business don't get any health care coverage at all, unless they're the select, select few who do enough union work each year to qualify for that. I'm not a union supporter either for the most part, but at the same time...well, they do provide somethings of value to their workers that our business is terrible about providing for.





Oh, and Doug, thanks for the kind words:)

Sorry Tim, I didn't interpret what you were saying in your previous post as being for the abolishment of all copyright at all. By and large I find your stances and writing on the IP issues excellent, and agree with most of them.




The King Kong article and debate you were addressing was what put me off on my little direction rant above;).




I agree there's a ton of room for smaller movies - I'd love to make a $10m movie - both of the ones I've sold so far have had budgets around the $1m mark. Frankly, it's still very hard to make back your money even at that level without a large marketing budget, or spending more on making the movie because you're paying "stars."




Our current system here is a mess, for sure. And that is driven by the audience, who wants to know "WHO'S in it?" Which largely means that the salary setting power lies in the hands of the agents and managers of those "who"'s.





This is especially true of International buyers in our biz. Star (even B or C level) names will sell the movie. As will (quite literally) the number of guns and the number of people shot in a movie. (I kid you not, it's very weird sociological viewing to watch International buyers at a large film market).





Personally, I'd much rather make "smaller" movies with reasonable budgets. I'm more about "good business" than I am about excess. The idea of trying to provide a good ROI to my distributor or my investors on a $100m film production scares the crap outta me.




Keep in mind in the 70's - the theater was the *only* place to get movies! Home theater has dramatically changed our world, at first for the (much) better, and now, it's a little sketchy with the piracy questions, and the format battles don't help either (HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray for example).

Tim, I jumped back to see what you'd "said before," and read the stuff about the Theatrical releases and whatnot.




As a working filmmaker, I have to point out that theatrical sales are no longer a revenue driver at all for most movies. In fact, many smaller films that do go to the theater, lose money on their theatrical release.





The only benefit from a theatrical release in many cases is that:





1. It makes people more aware of the film, which helps DVD/home video sales (where most films end up breaking even).





2. It helps make more sales of content abroad. (foreign distributors are more likely to buy, and to pay more for films that have been shown theatrically in North America).





I'm really against DRM in general and believe firmly that it punishes honest users more than it defends against dishonest users. However, I'm not sure what the new world of content creation is going to look like if every piece of creative work becomes free.





Music IS a bit a different beast than games and film/tv simply due to the massive cost difference in production. It's cheap to record a song with a few friends. There's a lot of stories you simply cannot tell with a few friends and a DV camera.





Should production costs come down in film & TV? Absolutely. Are they going to? Not likely for a long time. There's too many lawyers and agents and very expensive middlemen involved for that to happen very quickly.



There's also the astronomical cost of advertising in the modern world, which can easily cost double or even triple the cost of production on a film.





I believe that it's very possible that without some equitable solution to this problem, that much of the creative work in film, television, and games will disappear within 50 years. Because by then, it will be relegated to those who can create "as a hobby" because it'll be nearly impossible to make a living at it.

TLF Readers, as this "war" between the content industry and the consumers heat up, I'd love to ask a favor and ask that some people may have a hard time figuring out.




I'd ask that people differentiate between the filmmakers, producers, and writers of content and entertainment, and the companies that purchase the distribution rights to that content.





I'm an avid reader, and for the most part, subscriber to TLF and to EFF and most of the other progressive movements that deal with copyright in our country.





I'm also a film and television producer and make my living by making content. I believe strongly in fair use. In order to make my living as chosen, everytime we make a distributor-financed (as is often the only way to finance producing a show), or sell a property to a distributor - it's the proverbial deal-with-the-devil. In order for us to return at least break-even to our distributors (which often takes years and years for stuff that is independently financed), we have to sell it to *somebody* and there's often not many choices out there.





The distribs that DO provide an honest accounting, for the most part, and are fair to the content producers and creators and their investors, are few and far between... in fact, I would have to say it's less than a dozen companies worldwide in the majors.





Our only other choice is to simply *not* make the show or film - and a lot of us love this business and love being storytellers and entertainers.





Personally, if more viable, direct sale channels become available to content producers that generate meaningful revenues and recoupment of investors dollars, I'm all for that in the future. But I'm not yet convinced that's the way it's going to go.





The current DRM schemes are those that are 99.9% implied by the content distributors who are trying to save their own businesses where the middlemen are increasingly unnecessary.





It's an interesting time in the business.

I think one of the more prescient paragraphs in Paul's essay should also be included for reference and makes this a more compelling link to follow:

"Because kids are unable to create wealth, whatever they have has to be given to them. And when wealth is something you're given, then of course it seems that it should be distributed equally."

This is such a different paradigm than most of us in the "work so you can create your own wealth (or survival in many cases)" world. Digging into this idea helps us all understand how childish and even damaging the "fairness" concept can be to a society...even more so when this kind of fairness thnking becomes legislated entitlement or protectionism.

How can the FCC exempt information from FOIA? I didn't even know such a thing was possible!

Another bigger question is this: As (mostly) publicly traded companies, how can these companies seal up information that directly impacts the operational reporting and profitability of that company and hide it from their shareholders as well as the general public?

This doesn't pass the smell test at all.

Funny how we're all bent out of shape about the computer errors themselves, and everyone seems to forget about HUMAN error. :) Maybe paper ballots work best because they're not as easy to screw up.