The Author touches on part of the problem. To make a good movie you need:

1) an excellent script (if it reads like shit, its going to look worse, if the pitch is "its like X but...." its a fail)

2) a significant amount of captial ($1million)

3) quality actors

4) ridiculously good organisation skills (you'll be organising 40+ people hundreds and thousands of pounds worth of equipment for around 40 days (or a lot more))

that's just first part. You then need to wrangle all the footage, and massage it into a cohesive and flowing narrative, something most "film" buffs fail cataclysmically ally at. (why do you think most youtube videos are only 3 minutes top?)

Once you've spent three years of your life doing that, you then need to get your movie seen. That means persuading people who think you are worse than dogshit to watch a movie that they really couldn't care about, much less actually pay you for.

This will take you the next 3-6 years. It also costs a lot.

The only weakness for me was that it is hard to argue from a point too far removed from the sources of your arguments. Specifically if you are arguing the future of "entertainment" then Hollywood is but a piece, similarly if you argue too closely to the source such as the future of "movies" then technology is but a piece. So finding a place in the spectrum where one point of view and dominate another isn't a very solid way of making your point. :-)

That said, it made me wonder if computer games will go through the 'star' system (clearly some of that has happened with titles like "Sid Meir's Civilization") or if it will be different for programs. At the 'top' (or most diffuse?) point of the spectrum you can take examples from music, books, games, movies, and television as ways people tease dollars from consumers. And following that line of reasoning lead me to thinking about the fundamental question, is it money or is it art?

There are two parallel universes in most entertainment systems, the one that is designed to extract the most money (consumer focused) and the one that is designed to express the artists intent most faithfully (artist focused). The latter occasionally makes a lot of money, the former occasionally makes very little money. The "space" is a blend of the two.

Many of the developers I know are "artists' where they have very strong feelings about how their programs should work, and I believe we see a lot of that here on HN. But I also know engineers who are focused more on the "business" where they write code that makes them the most money, period. And they are often harshly judged in fora such as this one.

So where does that leave us? I think it makes it important to fix the context before we debate, as that affects the persuasiveness of the different points of view. It also suggests that Paul's call to action could be interpreted more literally to be "Work on the 'consumer focused' side of tech for entertainment harder."

If you think of Entertainment as a giant pie of dollars, getting more of those dollars can be achieved either by being better than other players in your wedge, or by increasing the size of your wedge relative to the other players. Looked at in that context, it isn't about "beating" Hollywood so much as making Hollywood less relevant.

There seems to be a lot of this headline-rewriting going on on HN nowadays. IMO it's going a little too far.

The overwhelming majority of Hollywood movies are terrible, shallow stories with formulaic development that are designed to grab money from specific demographics. There is hardly anything artistic left.

It may be what people want, but let's not pretend that great works of art are what keep Hollywood profitable.

"you have to remember this is a sixty-five billion dollar a year industry that has survived multiple world wars and the great depression"

The typewriter industry also survived those wars and the great depression, and where is it now? Times change, and businesses that adapt poorly to a changing market will be replaced.

Two points to add:

1. I disagree that Netflix can't win by trying to out-HBO HBO, because as I understand Netflix' strategy is closer to Amazon Prime. Amazon loses money on Prime shipping (although with volume, not as much as you think) but in exchange they become the default place that customers come to buy just about anything they need, which means that loss in shipping was actually a massive reduction in marketing. They tilt the customer acquisition cost lower and the LTV higher. If Netflix succeeds in creating content that most consumers can only get in one place, it will dramatically increase the size of the iceberg under the surface.

2. One of the most interesting and successful tech/media hybrids I'm aware of is hitRECord, which is spearheaded by the brilliant Regular Joe aka Joseph Gordon-Levitt. This is a stunning example of crowd-sourcing and community collaboration working. http://www.hitrecord.org/ - check out "Morgan M. Morgansen's Date With Destiny" on the Greatest Hits page: http://www.hitrecord.org/greatest

It's silly to speculate whether YC will or will not fund the evolution of entertainment. It's also not an interesting debate.

pg was just pointing out that entertainment will continue to evolve, that change is the only thing that's for sure, and that like all industries, Hollywood is not immune to outside challenges.

Didn't it change with the advent of the modern TV Shows?

How big were Schwimmer, Laurie or Cranston as stars before their show made a hit? Laurie was locally known but not that much.

With modern show, you have select good actors for their role, not stars from an universal pool, and that's what changed.

And I fail to name terribly many films in the last ten years that can be compared to the best TV shows which are a plenty.

All the while, film budgets go up, ticket prices go up, profits go up.

My point is that there IS a huge potential for disruptive influences in filmmaking, television and VOD, but it will likely come from the people that have been straddling the line between innovative technology and entertainment for longer than anyone - the VFX people. It's happening already.

Now if only I could find some time to work to work on that side project...

I think the nature of the confusion is that Graham hints at his personal preferences on how people should spend time ("It would be great if what people did instead of watching shows was exercise more and spend more time with their friends and families" [0]) right besides endorsements for products that shift demand for screen narratives ("new media", "things... that have little in common with movies and TV except competing with them for finite audience attention" [0]).

But even with that said, Graham's view is ultimately inclusive of Curran's. Graham:

>"There will be several answers, ranging from new ways to produce and distribute shows..." [0]

Curran:

>"The internet has paved the way once again for a vertically integrated system of production and distribution, and we know that today’s youth is hungry for stories that matter to them. Whomever is the first to put that together will win." [1]

Screen narrative was never in question.

Edit: Forgot to add links

[0]: http://ycombinator.com/rfs9.html

[1]: http://charliecurran.com/you-have-to-beat-the-man-to-be-the-...

As an antidote most people I know do not share the same tastes as me (I find the 30s-50s as my golden age of cinema and love Humphrey Bogart) as I with them. While my wife can't stand black and white movies (with a few exceptions) I also really dislike most modern romantic comedies (with a few exceptions such as Love Actually). Of course she says she enjoyed the black and white movie that I made. :)

This also holds true to television as well. I don't want to keep up with the Kardashians or see which C-list celebrity has the best dance moves. Other people didn't want to watch Rubicon or don't want to watch Portland Timbers soccer. (I also think I'll be much worse off with unbundling of cable channels as the niche channels are often included in packages with more popular channels and will likely die off without enough interest and pricing power to sustain the programming.)

John August, a screenwriter with a great blog and podcast and a geek at heart, has made the observation that talented writers are starting to prefer working with TV (channels such as HBO, Showtime, AMC, FX, etc.) as they're given more latitude to tell their stories than they are in a feature length film for a studio. So, if you were to ask me for a prediction (and you didn't), that is the way I imagine the industry going with Amazon, Netflix, etc. picking up some of those shows as well. Those, along with live sports, will continue to draw audiences as they provide topics of conversation for the majority of society. (Obviously you and your group of friends are too sophisticated for that and discuss philosophy and indie rock but you're a small segment of society.)

You can never please everybody. And you'll likely go broke trying.

that just doesn't work when you get to aesthetics and the human side of the equation.

The major criticism I noticed was that I somehow misunderstood Graham's argument or that it functioned in such a way that subsumed mine. As I understood Graham's call to arms to kill Hollywood, he was soliciting entrepreneurs to start thinking about how to disrupt Big Media's grasp on the entertainment market. While I am whole heartedly against the practices of a Hollywood we all can agree is in a current rut (e.g. SOPA, DMCA takedowns, etc.) I do not believe that Hollywood has peaked, nor that his prescriptions for hastening its demise are feasible. I took his call as soliciting two options for responding to Hollywood:

a.) By creating more entertaining offerings that would create a zero-sum trade off with Hollywood's offerings ultimately rendering their products irrelevant.

b.) Leveraging technology to create alternate production and distribution mechanisms including new media and interactive programming offerings.

My argument takes a historical approach to examining how Hollywood has previously addressed similar disruptions citing the emergence of television and the rise/collapse of the studio system to begin thinking how one might approach “eating Hollywood's lunch”. Against alternative forms of entertainment and distribution mechanisms, one thing has remained consistent and that is the power of cinema be it in episodic television content or feature length material to consistently survive industry transformations and reorganizations. I think this historical pattern is owed to the nature of the medium itself which satisfies a very human need which is the transmission of stories. I believe that film more than any other medium has refined this craft, and in many ways developed the visual language through which we understand contemporary storytelling. Other mediums will of course tell stories, but I think only filmmaking for the foreseeable future will have the ability to tell stories with the richness and complexity we've evolved as a species to receive and share.

I think it's misguided to place a technologist's view of industry disruption before an examination of the medium's history because I believe it discounts the power of narrative and how we've found ourselves in this particular position. Despite Hollywood's current rut the market for film exhibition has only grown with foreign markets and alternative distribution mechanisms expanding the potential reach of Hollywood's content. I think what is needed now is a leveraging of technology to push film to its inherent potential to tell meaningful stories, what Hollywood once understood, rather than view it as a tool to destroy an industry.

A few of the comments that I thought particularly interesting/pertinent to respond to.

@Nileshtrivedi

I am assuming that the basic format of narrative television and features will remain a constant, due to the historical evolution of the form into its current iteration. Initially conceived films were exhibited at nickelodeons which served up customers short form content though it failed to evolve beyond a mere novelty that soon went through its own bust. It was Adolph Zukor, founder of Paramount Pictures, who championed the format as we currently know it drawing on his understanding of how storytelling dating back to Plato, Aristotle, and the great play-writes of yesteryear stumbled on a nearly universal structure for telling effective stories.

@KaiserPro

I absolutely agree the current pipeline of monetizing Hollywood's offerings is fundamentally broken and has to be done away with. Theatrical distribution demands enormous costs guaranteeing that we will only see low-risk content that has proven to be Hollywood's undoing. The internet and Video on Demand offers a chance to remove these costs in many ways and generate riskier fare delivered straight to the consumer.

@Walshemj and Djloche

Coming up through film school witnessing the rise of crowdfunding and the widespread adoption of digital filmmaking and editing, the costs must and absolutely can come down. These film's budgets assume a pipeline that requires enormous spends on development, production, distribution, print/advertising, and studio overhead. I think Vice offers a great example of how low-cost content paired appropriately with relevant niche markets can provide compelling entertainment alternatives to Hollywood's current offerings.

@Paulsutter

I am not by any means ruling out the inevitable evolution of entertainment offerings we'll see over the next twenty years, but I think to assume film will go away is a hard position to defend. I think it's far more likely that a medium which has demonstrated serious lasting power will evolve and adapt rather than be dismembered by dying conglomerates or new media offerings which will be in their infancy. Far more likely I believe we'll see something similar to the era of New Hollywood in the sixties and early seventies repeat itself.

@Betterunix

The claim that the vast majority of Hollywood's movies are terrible is really a subjective view. For every Transformers there are independent alternatives and risky studio films that sneak through the development pipeline. However, I do agree that the current system of exhibition necessitates a system of tent-pole event films that will inevitably sink the industry if left as it exists now. Look no further than what George Lucas and Steven Spielberg had to say about the sustainability of the current Hollywood model.

http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/is-hollywood-model-d...

@Guard-of-terra

Absolutely, the star system underwent a fundamental shift with the introduction of television though its ability to adapt to the new pipeline I believe displays its lasting power. A really great read on the transformation the star system underwent with the introduction of television is “Gods Like Us: On Movie Stardom and Modern Fame,” by Ty Burr. A short excerpt that might address your comment.

“The essence of the broadcast revolution is simple: it offered a literal home theatre. No longer did you have to go out to see the stars and be entertained. Now they came to you. This affected the kinds of stars who were created from the 1950s on, in the sense that the people you let into your house are different from the people you pay to see in a theatre. They're more like you and me, for one thing, which also means you and I are more like the stars. For decades – until, arguably, the arrival of nighttime soaps in the 1970s and '80s – the most celebrated figures on the small screen evoked not glamour but ordinariness. They acted out comic and dramatic versions of our own dilemmas, or they filled history with life-sized personalities rather than the bigger-than-life stars of film.”

@Hayesdaniel

While I absolutely feel for you and everyone I know in the Visual Effects industry who has been clearly mistreated in the current system of studio filmmaking, I don't believe that the resolution of that issue is the most fundamental problem facing contemporary filmmaking. I think it's a symptom of larger ills that will need to be resolved. Ultimately I believe if we can't disrupt the model in its current form collectively secured bargaining rights and organization similar to how other industry groups such as the Screenwriter’s Guild or the Directors Guild of America could go a long way towards negotiating fair pay for visual effects studios and subsequently their employees.

@MaysonL

I didn't by any means set out to ignore the success of the video game industry or Pixax, but for my argument I didn't believe them wholly relevant. I think that Pixar offers a really great example how well crafted storytelling above all can be film's savior. They go to incredible lengths to develop and protect their stories, and it shows. However, I don't think that they are the answer to saving the industry either. I have a real fondness for everything Pixar is doing, one of the best storytellers I had the chance to know at film school now works there, but I think the trend of Pixarification of films is actually a threat to the kinds of film that will ultimately usher in a new era of Hollywood. You might enjoy what Danny Boyle recently said on this point.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz6W0h3r30k

I know this will be a controversial statement, as I get into this argument with my friends who are game design majors on a regular basis, but I do not believe that video games will supplant film as the highest form of narrative storytelling. The industry is relatively young and as such most likely won't create its own Citizen Kane for quite some time. I think far more likely is that a reinvigorated hollywood will become far more intertwined. Looking to Microsoft and Spielberg's recent collaborations I think is telling of where these trends will head with narrative filmmaking supplementing and expanding upon franchises, and video games working more closely with Hollywood to infuse their games with the level of storytelling audiences have grown to expect from their entertainment.

I'd add that considering the number of expensive flops this summer, the audiences' responsiveness to the massive CGI-spectacles and remakes of recent years might be beginning to wane. To make film No Country for Old Men again might require not 'beating' the man but replacing spectacle with heartfelt passion. Pay more attention to why gay-rights are unstoppable.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6280754

No, the reason that a VC-funded company won't kill Hollywood is because there's not enough money there - not because Hollywood has some sort of monopoly on how to entertain people.

I think he is referring to Adolph Zukor.

Last time I've saw the TV it had feature films about wild life and a lot of youtube videos about pets but not one "celebrity" in sight.

The word "celebrity" makes me want to vomit. Can we please ignore that and instead disrupt just that part of Hollywood and TV that doesn't make us vomit? And don't touch the other part with 5 meter pole.

In regards to your second point, I think you didn't read the full article. The point is that Hollywood historically HAS been a VERY successful industry at rebounding, most specifically in the era of the TV (which is probably most applicable here).

It doesn't matter if you think the movies are crap - the "art of narrative storytelling" isn't mutually exclusive with shallow film making. It's a technical expertise with developing a story/dialogue/scene sequence. The literal story can be shallow and unappealing, but the story's visuals, acting, etc. are all highly tuned.

I also don't agree that "works of art" are what keep Hollywood profitable. You just said most movies are terrible and formulaic. Those are the biggest money makers, unless you call those more artistic than the indie films everybody loves.

You go on to compare Hollywood to the typewriter. The typewriter is an extremely poor analogy. It was literally eclipsed by superior technology and made obsolete.

You cannot make Hollywood "obsolete" - there is a worship culture to celebrities, a direct product of Hollywood (as the author describes). Hollywood survived the television being put into homes, which would arguably be more of a technology progression. You can't just beat a cult of personality with technology is the author's point - Silicon Valley isn't going to remove something so deeply embedded in America just by getting "smarter" about it. It's vastly more complex than that, and it's not going away just because a startup comes out with something that attempts to make Hollywood "obsolete."

I'm not saying it can't be done, just that your argument doesn't work.

Hollywood is in the entertainment business. They have adapted well to (as a business venture and to make money) the entertainment business over time. Movies aren't made the same way they were in the 30's, 50's or 70's.

While they certainly make their share of mistakes (with flops and not knowing necessarily what will be the next blockbuster) so do VC's and angels. They just try to match the best pattern they can and spread the money around. Hollywood does a version of the same. But Hollywood has been much more successful (at scale that is) than the "startup" industry has been. (Even taking into account VC investing prior to the Internet).

"Disrupt" hasn't been around that long. Hollywood has. People buy the product.

This argument is not necessarily in conflict with what you quoted.

I'm still confused as to what the latter argument is, in essence. Before reading what you wrote above, I would have said it was that you thought that you can only beat Hollywood by emulating GAHVI (the Golden-Age Hollywood Vertical Integration), and that this can't be done in the Y Combinator model, at least not through the kind of start-ups PG described in his essay. But the talk of narrative in the above suggests to me that is not really your argument at all.

Back in the late 90s, I used to get rather perplexed by the way geeks railed against DVD zoning, DMCA, etc. Yes, the entertainment industry was acting in fairly nasty ways to defend itself, but then drug dealers can be unpleasant too. My view was the debates around DRM circumvention didn't even touch on the root cause of the entertainment industry's power.

Michael Ventura once summarized the meaning of entertainment: "You go from a job you don't like to watching a screen on which others live more intensely than you." On that view of things, something like meetup.com is more of a threat to Hollywood than youtube could ever be.

To compare directly, Facebook received $2.5bn in funding, last year turned over $5bn and made loss of $0.5bn. Disney received no funding, turned over almost $45bn and a profit of $9bn (Making it roughly as profitable as Google).

Not to mention if you couldn't liquidate Facebook if you tried, but say you defied economics and did - you couldn't buy even a single one of the top Hollywood studios with the proceeds - their market caps are all much larger than Facebook. It wouldn't even make a scratch in the industry, let alone buy it out and shut it down.

Saying there isn't enough money in Hollywood for VC's to bother with is a bit like saying there isn't enough money in oil. This is an industry that will happily dump half a billion into a single film and take cash write-downs that would make VCs shudder. Hell, lots of the hollywood companies OWN VC funds.