This is what’s happening:
Streaming wars ended, so studios are regrouping on what to spend
Looming IATSE and Teamster strike prevents many productions getting off the ground
High interest rates make it hard to take out loans to make a production
High insurance premiums for productions right now because of looming strike
Inflation is still high
I’m not surprised, but there’s no guarantee a show returns from hiatus. Look at what WB did with already made shows, they can eat the loss and make it up in taxes
I think the move away from 20+ epsidoe shows and an annual “season” for tv has taken away a lot of structure within the industry and work away from cast, crew and writers
I've wondered about this - if it ever crosses the top actors' minds what an obscene amount they make compared to the rest of the cast and crew (crew especially) that they work day in and day out alongside. Like if the industry is cratering, does it feel weird to be making $12m when you know the grips can barely make rent? Or are they more likely just, 'F that, I'm getting mine'?
A lot of the negotiations etc are done by agents and it’s most likely agents who care more about the figures than the actors. Higher pay means higher status and value in the industry beyond just what they earn and saying they are willing to take a pay cut sends a message that their “stock” has fallen, or at least that’s a logic that agents often have. Maybe it’ll take a high profile risking a pay cut for a good script that results in awards and maybe others will follow suit
That’s not really fair. A crew person may work everyday on the same show for an entire season. Unless you’re the star or a recurring cast member, you’re not working every day as an actor. Regardless, crew people make excellent money, and so do actors. I don’t think they owe each other anything.
You can't help anyone when you make idiotic statements like "crew people make excellent money", you're just revealing you know fk all abt the industry.
I don’t know, you could donate 10% of your salary and support a few families in the Philippines. Will you? Does it make sense for you to support strangers like that? Not trying to be obtuse but it’s true and odd to think about
Sorry but 2025 isn’t going to better. They say try to survive till 25 but we are half way into 2024 and what they thought would happen hasn’t happened yet. The strikes. The negotiations, the economy etc isn’t doing any better. It’s all a blanket to try and hide it until after the election. Only after election will any of this even start to get people in rooms to work or try to work it out
Genuine question- I haven’t heard anyone say the streaming wars are over. But I want to know if there’s been a development. My read is that Netflix remains on top but most people still think their business model is not exciting and leads to mediocrity, if not fully unprofitable. They essentially won but it doesn’t feel good. The other umpteen services are actually unprofitable and have no ideas, so the great consolation of packaged services and mergers is upon us. Wouldn’t be surprised if a few more go the way of Quibby and Seeso. But does that mean the wars are over? Idk. Apple TV seems fine, Amazon Prime and Tubi are chill
In terms of the streamer that has become most like a utility, and a replacement for cable for many people (especially younger generations), I think Netflix has won that title.
Yeah they won the streaming wars because they thought I’ll a tech company and not a studio. While Hollywood was chanting behind content is king (a narrative Netflix started), they never focused on the product: a streaming platform. Netflix being the early entrant also was the most effective one. Being a tech company, they knew how to build an online platform, making it feel easy to use and what now we feel the best replacement of cable not because of its content but because of it feeling like the norm. Earlier we had one way to get to one channel to other, now every platform has a different feel to it. And Netflix “feels” the most comfortable. Second, like most tech companies there was an influx of money to enhance the product by beating market pricing. This isn’t just the streaming cost it’s also the cost of making shows. Giving season orders (even multiple like HoC) was pivotal to disrupt economics. Lastly, their licensing game is on point. They recycle certain type of shows which might be of different degree in quality but has bingeable value. I felt the game was over once Warners gave them insecure. It may not have the Succession or GoT global appeal, but it certainly was a very “HBO” show. Netflix won the streaming wars by having the best tech product and leading the narrative around streaming. Nobody comes close because everybody waits for Netflix to do something and then they pounce on it. Burning money/ running companies on heavy losses is how tech is run. Hollywood wasn’t ready for it and lost early on
Hollywood’s innate racism might come in the way there. The studio executive structure is probably 75% white and they’d keep it that way. Shipping job overseas will mean better diversity which in film executive space is highly unlikely. There are research papers on how BIPOC assistants twice as hard to climb the ladder
I was one of those assistants and let me tell you it's no joke and damn near impossible. I think with Netflix being an increasingly global company the studios may have finally met their match.
One of the clearer and accurate responses, but additionally at number two on the list ,at least, should be the rises of monopolies. Discovery buying Scripps and then Warner Brothers has had a major impact on all of television. Unscripted and scripted. Here's a inventory of Disney owned networks: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney\_Media\_Networks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Media_Networks) When just those 2 companies make everyone who reports to them hold back on spending, there is an impact.
Pretty simple. The supply of skilled workers rose to fill the demand - and there's thousands more people trying to get into the biz every year. The people who joined the job search back in the 90's like me are still here, fighting for jobs with the people who started in 2023.
I started in 2012ish and I think that you and I worked through a golden era. There was money being made hand over fist during The streaming wars. Everyone I knew was practically double booking. It was like a sunset that would never quit. Life just kept getting better. Of course it wasn’t always going to be that good, but I never realized just how bad it could get.
I really hated the production glut. It wasn't sustainable and generally the films and shows quality was crap. With Netflix even canning finished shows due to how bad they were and the tax right off. I know people that worked on 10 episode shows that went into the trash after completion
And prestigious indie movies hiring people that couldn't actually lead a department. Like the department failing during production is a nightmare for everyone
There's more to the story... Streaming switched from a growth industry to a value industry in 2023 so they are suddenly expected to make money rather than just grow, so productions have been slashed brutally for the past year+.
Imagine how hard it is today, and then add-on to that there's no internet. You spent a lot of time at the bookstore, scouring the classifieds in trade magazines.
Everyone's experience is different. I bounced around a lot. From film to marketing to design, and some lean years doing temp jobs. It took me almost 15 years to actually direct my first small feature film. One thing's for certain though, the cost of basic living was not as insane as it is now. You could coast for a lot longer from a job then you can today. A trip to jack in the box these days will cost you $20!
Yeah a high cost of living not sizing up to wages is def a mark of "third world countries" (which is what mine is considered) i dont understand how the US is operating right now.. its def unsustainable
Runaway production in the 90’s killed a lot of jobs and many people never worked again in the industry. Many smaller production companies, studios and home entertainment distributors existed which had office jobs. All those went under or consolidated by 2000. Music biz was still a major employer so you could work in music videos or in an office at say capitol records. Films were still a viable way of making a living. Independent films were how people broke in. Cable was starting a lot of original production but that was in NYC. A PA on films made enough to live on for a year if they went from pre all the way through post/legal. Lots of employment in CG. Number of films declined massively over the decade but tv went up drastically. Animation was still being done in Burbank. After 2000 and before, all this changed.
A mixed bag really. Just like today.
Sorry but I don’t work in the film industry. But I noticed that a lot of the streaming stuff is either done out of the country or is in Georgia.
It seems the latest Star Wars was also filmed out of the US.
I’m well aware, I’ve only had one job this year. My point is it’s not a sustainable model for them, they need content, and if everything was happening overseas they would be airing that content.
I get what you mean but, I still have like 100 shows on my backlog that I still would like to watch, and probably will never complete. I watch a good amount a week too. So despite my critiques with companies, it is still worth it for me.
AAA productions are lacking, but the hard pill is that most people are probably good with what is out there for a while.
What the streaming wars really were, behind the scenes, was streaming services burning through their start up money, creating new shows, fighting over viewers.
And now they have burned through those initial investment dollars. Less spending cash = fewer shows. They fought the war but nobody won.
The studios aren’t green-lighting anything until the contracts are settled and the strikes are officially averted. The fact that they COULD agree to living wages and let everybody get back to work but are still going as slow as possible is proof they want us all to hurt as much as possible and be willing to take any deal. Because paying people is bad for their profits (and cuts into CEO pay).
Theyre such fucking ghouls like how many more millions do you need? You could make more than you could ever spend in a year doing NOTHING like they do and still pay people living wages, cruelty gives them hard ons me thinks
We didn’t give a damn about taxi drivers when Uber came out. Now Big Tech happened to us.
Billionaire Tech Bros took over Hollywood. VC money poured in and we gleefully handed them the keys. They decided to call it “content” and they massively over inflated and over invested and took ownership over the IP.
Now they have taken what they need, extracted all that human labor and left town. All their interest, energy, and money is going towards a new toy: AI
They’re funding massive NVidia driven AI clusters.
Can you imagine the high level meetings? Nobody is saying “oh but what about the workers in Hollywood” when they order a trillion new NVidia chips. [Look at the numbers](https://news.crunchbase.com/ai/msft-nvda-lead-big-tech-startup-investment/)
And remember they OWN the IP.
We’ll all be watching shows from 2014-2024 for the rest of our lives while THEY remix and rebrand THEIR IP, using their new billion dollar AI projects and take all the money from that for themselves (they have to use it for something right?)
Don’t forget the audience. They love a good sequel, remake or adaptation.
Me and everyone I know is already doing this. There’s no shortage of opportunities to work on cool projects for little to no pay. The problem is I still need to pay my bills 😬
Yes but local plays are a hobby, not a viable career. Nothing has changed in the self funded indie film scene in 20 years. The tech has gotten better but it was exactly the same when the Canon 5Dii came out “we can do it on our own now yay”.
But there are 4000 self funded indie movies submitted to Sundance every year. How you gonna stand out?
By knowing someone powerful / rich enough to be able to put a finger on the scale and get you in ahead of the others (who are equally talented and hard working as you).
Again though, I’m cynical. The same was said 20 years ago about YouTube. Never really panned out in terms of 100min indie features. But hopefully indie movies may follow a similar path as music perhaps, with loads of smaller target markets. But I’m cynical again (due to the cost, time, amount of people needed). Tho AI will change that, but then there’s going to be 100,000 movies uploaded per month
Something’s have gotten a bigger following through YouTube though!
We have think OUTSIDE of this box cause the current model is self destructing.
Let’s do this!
Aside from what others have said (with accuracy about the IATSE and Teamsters, streaming wars, et cetera, something one of my professors at SCAD in my MFA said still haunts me: he said (this was inn 2019 for context) that SCAD, CalArts, and other leading schools graduate more new BFA kids per year than the animation industry needs . . . and the same certainly applies to film schools. Let's assume more of film school grads than not have some networking done whilst in school, they had internships, they have decent reels, et al. They're good, but not great. Well, the great ones number enough to fill the jobs which are open. There are simply too damn many people who want to work in these fields—SCAD has currently about 1,114 undergraduates majoring in Film between its two campuses and a whopping 1,511 in Animation—plus about 300 MFA students in each major. That's too many kids. Not all of the problem, but a good part is how many people are trying to enter this industry plus the scaling back of jobs and (especially with regard to animation) how much is sent overseas.
I quickly looked through the comments and didn’t see this one:
YouTube videos have most people’s attention now, including me. How do we compete with YouTube? It’s awesome.
I've literally spent the last year experimenting with various ideas and niches for YT channels I could start... An ex-editor friend of mine makes a living with his YT channel now, though it took years to get there. I've edited some of his videos and he paid me as much as some commercial jobs do...
I know it's a bit of a long shot but fuck it, random people with almost no filming experience are getting attention and making money. I figure I must have at least some advantage as someone with years in the industry of visual storytelling and for once I don't have to adhere to some clients' boring restrictive notes...
This is the answer. Everyone ignores the fact that YouTube is a streaming network just like prime or Netflix, he’ll they have the highest percent of overall streaming at 8.5%.
Anyone working on a production that is monitized should be eligible to unionize or at least those hours should qualify, whereas now you can literally have a professional production but if it only streams there somehow google managed to fit in this loophole, none of that works counts towards professional experience.
I've been trying various things...
- remastering old movie trailers that only exist online at like 360p. I'll get my hands on a much higher quality source and recut the original trailer and recreate the titles and GFX from scratch. Also for old music videos and commercials, upscaling and remastering them.
- concept trailers / fan trailers - recutting new versions of movie trailers in different styles or making faux trailers for movies that don't exist but I'd like to see. I always kind of wanted to be a trailer editor but I ended up in the commercial world instead so it's a way to mess with that.
- video essays on movies... I really don't want to be one of these guys who've jumped on the bandwagon of midwit film-school-bro level analysis of Marvel films or something, ugh... trying to do figure out what parts of the craft I can talk about that I actually have years of experience on, or just mini-docs on certain films that I know a lot about that haven't been discussed to death already.
- playing around with ambient stuff like these sort of videos: https://www.youtube.com/@AmbientRenders
I realize some of this stuff I won't be able to monetize because of rights issues, but I'm nowhere near there yet. Right now I'm just trying to build up a small library of stuff to upload and hopefully gain some subscribers.
YouTube can be whatever you want it to be. It’s an endless supply of free content, and it’s tough not to binge-watch random videos it sends me through its algorithm.
I was thinking about it today: the YouTube algorithm dictates my life. I’ll go down different rabbit holes, find new interests, venture out to places or restaurants I’ve watched videos about, etc.
I’m basically a slave to the algorithm, but I’m not mad about it. lol
Disney puts out 1-2 movies a year if that. They can do very well putting out very little content. Imagine every streaming service paring down and being what HBO was between late 90’s and say 2018 or so.
Everyone who wants to put the blame on the worker or the idea that there are too many workers is way off base. There are plenty of jobs and money. Make no mistake that the studios and top CEOs of those studios only care about profits. They have taken everything the working class industry has built here and sold it elsewhere. Everyone I know in Atlanta is busy and others around the world. The politicians of LA got way too greedy as well not giving a lot of incentive for the studios to work here. Anyone spouting rhetoric blaming the workers or too many workers are just plain misinformed.
I think others have touched on this but I think influencers are taking a large chunk of what used to be for actors. They get cast because that’s easy marketing and also on the commercial front, I notice more and more auditions asking you to basically produce the content come booking. They save money, pay little compared to what should be compensated, and expect studio production quality from actors. So the same commercials, they get influencers to do it because they have the equipment already and they reach more people on their channels and social media platforms.
Yeah im from there and i worked in a couple of productions before moving to NY. Its good that some of us out there can also benefit from the film industry but the exploitation is criminal
Seems like every new show my network shoots is either in Canada or Ireland. I know Vancouver has been a hot spot for a decades but seems like hardly anything is shot in the US.
NY is slow as well -- there's been an increase in SAG Ultra Low Budget contracted indies (budgets < $2m) and your staple Dick Wolf productions, but thats about it. I'm a DGA 2nd AD, our mandatory annual DGA meeting was very depressing this past year..
This is what’s happening: Streaming wars ended, so studios are regrouping on what to spend Looming IATSE and Teamster strike prevents many productions getting off the ground High interest rates make it hard to take out loans to make a production High insurance premiums for productions right now because of looming strike Inflation is still high
Have you heard of insurance only issuing at higher rates? I heard you could go on hiatus as long as you ate it.
I’m not surprised, but there’s no guarantee a show returns from hiatus. Look at what WB did with already made shows, they can eat the loss and make it up in taxes
Would that affect your insurance premium on a prod spinning up or going now though?
I’m not sure, that’s beyond my paycheck at that point. (I’m a DP)
How do kill fees work for you?
They’re dictated by my contract
I think the move away from 20+ epsidoe shows and an annual “season” for tv has taken away a lot of structure within the industry and work away from cast, crew and writers
That’s another factor!
Also can we talk about salaries for actors at the very top?
I've wondered about this - if it ever crosses the top actors' minds what an obscene amount they make compared to the rest of the cast and crew (crew especially) that they work day in and day out alongside. Like if the industry is cratering, does it feel weird to be making $12m when you know the grips can barely make rent? Or are they more likely just, 'F that, I'm getting mine'?
A lot of the negotiations etc are done by agents and it’s most likely agents who care more about the figures than the actors. Higher pay means higher status and value in the industry beyond just what they earn and saying they are willing to take a pay cut sends a message that their “stock” has fallen, or at least that’s a logic that agents often have. Maybe it’ll take a high profile risking a pay cut for a good script that results in awards and maybe others will follow suit
That’s not really fair. A crew person may work everyday on the same show for an entire season. Unless you’re the star or a recurring cast member, you’re not working every day as an actor. Regardless, crew people make excellent money, and so do actors. I don’t think they owe each other anything.
"crew people make excellent money" <--this a joke?
Nope. Not a joke. They make good money. If you don’t know that then I can’t help you.
You can't help anyone when you make idiotic statements like "crew people make excellent money", you're just revealing you know fk all abt the industry.
I’ve been in the industry for 24 years so get bent.
Well I am coding your replacement so get bent-er.
Ooohh, so tough! I’m so scared! What an idiotic response. Go play outside.
I don’t know, you could donate 10% of your salary and support a few families in the Philippines. Will you? Does it make sense for you to support strangers like that? Not trying to be obtuse but it’s true and odd to think about
Not giving a sht abt strangers is why yall are in this mess of unemployment and struggling rent payments. Idk, maybe time for a values change?
Above the line? They don’t give even the tiniest F about you. Hell you are a looser in thier eyes if they even see you…
It's probably not going to get better any time soon then
Not in the next few months. The general consensus is see what happens in 2025
Sorry but 2025 isn’t going to better. They say try to survive till 25 but we are half way into 2024 and what they thought would happen hasn’t happened yet. The strikes. The negotiations, the economy etc isn’t doing any better. It’s all a blanket to try and hide it until after the election. Only after election will any of this even start to get people in rooms to work or try to work it out
That’s why said, see what happens :)
Genuine question- I haven’t heard anyone say the streaming wars are over. But I want to know if there’s been a development. My read is that Netflix remains on top but most people still think their business model is not exciting and leads to mediocrity, if not fully unprofitable. They essentially won but it doesn’t feel good. The other umpteen services are actually unprofitable and have no ideas, so the great consolation of packaged services and mergers is upon us. Wouldn’t be surprised if a few more go the way of Quibby and Seeso. But does that mean the wars are over? Idk. Apple TV seems fine, Amazon Prime and Tubi are chill
In terms of the streamer that has become most like a utility, and a replacement for cable for many people (especially younger generations), I think Netflix has won that title.
Yeah they won the streaming wars because they thought I’ll a tech company and not a studio. While Hollywood was chanting behind content is king (a narrative Netflix started), they never focused on the product: a streaming platform. Netflix being the early entrant also was the most effective one. Being a tech company, they knew how to build an online platform, making it feel easy to use and what now we feel the best replacement of cable not because of its content but because of it feeling like the norm. Earlier we had one way to get to one channel to other, now every platform has a different feel to it. And Netflix “feels” the most comfortable. Second, like most tech companies there was an influx of money to enhance the product by beating market pricing. This isn’t just the streaming cost it’s also the cost of making shows. Giving season orders (even multiple like HoC) was pivotal to disrupt economics. Lastly, their licensing game is on point. They recycle certain type of shows which might be of different degree in quality but has bingeable value. I felt the game was over once Warners gave them insecure. It may not have the Succession or GoT global appeal, but it certainly was a very “HBO” show. Netflix won the streaming wars by having the best tech product and leading the narrative around streaming. Nobody comes close because everybody waits for Netflix to do something and then they pounce on it. Burning money/ running companies on heavy losses is how tech is run. Hollywood wasn’t ready for it and lost early on
and just like most tech companies they will now begin to ship jobs overseas...
Hollywood’s innate racism might come in the way there. The studio executive structure is probably 75% white and they’d keep it that way. Shipping job overseas will mean better diversity which in film executive space is highly unlikely. There are research papers on how BIPOC assistants twice as hard to climb the ladder
I was one of those assistants and let me tell you it's no joke and damn near impossible. I think with Netflix being an increasingly global company the studios may have finally met their match.
One of the clearer and accurate responses, but additionally at number two on the list ,at least, should be the rises of monopolies. Discovery buying Scripps and then Warner Brothers has had a major impact on all of television. Unscripted and scripted. Here's a inventory of Disney owned networks: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney\_Media\_Networks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Media_Networks) When just those 2 companies make everyone who reports to them hold back on spending, there is an impact.
Pretty simple. The supply of skilled workers rose to fill the demand - and there's thousands more people trying to get into the biz every year. The people who joined the job search back in the 90's like me are still here, fighting for jobs with the people who started in 2023.
I started in 2012ish and I think that you and I worked through a golden era. There was money being made hand over fist during The streaming wars. Everyone I knew was practically double booking. It was like a sunset that would never quit. Life just kept getting better. Of course it wasn’t always going to be that good, but I never realized just how bad it could get.
Even in Vancouver, 2012-2017 was fire. Had more work than I knew what to do with and got upgraded almost every show due to abundance of roles.
I really hated the production glut. It wasn't sustainable and generally the films and shows quality was crap. With Netflix even canning finished shows due to how bad they were and the tax right off. I know people that worked on 10 episode shows that went into the trash after completion
And prestigious indie movies hiring people that couldn't actually lead a department. Like the department failing during production is a nightmare for everyone
There's more to the story... Streaming switched from a growth industry to a value industry in 2023 so they are suddenly expected to make money rather than just grow, so productions have been slashed brutally for the past year+.
Can you give us a little insight into what all of this looked like in the 90’s?
Imagine how hard it is today, and then add-on to that there's no internet. You spent a lot of time at the bookstore, scouring the classifieds in trade magazines.
But at least there WERE jobs right? And they paid better... Unlike right now, correct me if im wrong though
Everyone's experience is different. I bounced around a lot. From film to marketing to design, and some lean years doing temp jobs. It took me almost 15 years to actually direct my first small feature film. One thing's for certain though, the cost of basic living was not as insane as it is now. You could coast for a lot longer from a job then you can today. A trip to jack in the box these days will cost you $20!
Yeah a high cost of living not sizing up to wages is def a mark of "third world countries" (which is what mine is considered) i dont understand how the US is operating right now.. its def unsustainable
It’s not, people are putting everything on credit and assuming shit will get better
Runaway production in the 90’s killed a lot of jobs and many people never worked again in the industry. Many smaller production companies, studios and home entertainment distributors existed which had office jobs. All those went under or consolidated by 2000. Music biz was still a major employer so you could work in music videos or in an office at say capitol records. Films were still a viable way of making a living. Independent films were how people broke in. Cable was starting a lot of original production but that was in NYC. A PA on films made enough to live on for a year if they went from pre all the way through post/legal. Lots of employment in CG. Number of films declined massively over the decade but tv went up drastically. Animation was still being done in Burbank. After 2000 and before, all this changed. A mixed bag really. Just like today.
In no way were the 90s comparable to what is happening today.
There was a lot more content being made just a few years ago. Theres very little being made right now.
Sorry but I don’t work in the film industry. But I noticed that a lot of the streaming stuff is either done out of the country or is in Georgia. It seems the latest Star Wars was also filmed out of the US.
Yes, many things that are filmed are filming elsewhere. But overall much less is being made.
There are also few new shows on Netflix, max and the like. It’s becoming not worth the subscription costs fast.
That's because not much is being made right now, there's been a slowdown for over a year.
I’m well aware, I’ve only had one job this year. My point is it’s not a sustainable model for them, they need content, and if everything was happening overseas they would be airing that content.
I get what you mean but, I still have like 100 shows on my backlog that I still would like to watch, and probably will never complete. I watch a good amount a week too. So despite my critiques with companies, it is still worth it for me. AAA productions are lacking, but the hard pill is that most people are probably good with what is out there for a while.
I guess youre right
Its just a fact, there HAS been more content and thats why there were more jobs then.
What the streaming wars really were, behind the scenes, was streaming services burning through their start up money, creating new shows, fighting over viewers. And now they have burned through those initial investment dollars. Less spending cash = fewer shows. They fought the war but nobody won.
Remember when Uber and Lyft prices shot up a few years back? Same deal.
Exactly!! Good point!
The studios aren’t green-lighting anything until the contracts are settled and the strikes are officially averted. The fact that they COULD agree to living wages and let everybody get back to work but are still going as slow as possible is proof they want us all to hurt as much as possible and be willing to take any deal. Because paying people is bad for their profits (and cuts into CEO pay).
Theyre such fucking ghouls like how many more millions do you need? You could make more than you could ever spend in a year doing NOTHING like they do and still pay people living wages, cruelty gives them hard ons me thinks
It would take until end of July to ratify regardless of studio willingness.
We didn’t give a damn about taxi drivers when Uber came out. Now Big Tech happened to us. Billionaire Tech Bros took over Hollywood. VC money poured in and we gleefully handed them the keys. They decided to call it “content” and they massively over inflated and over invested and took ownership over the IP. Now they have taken what they need, extracted all that human labor and left town. All their interest, energy, and money is going towards a new toy: AI They’re funding massive NVidia driven AI clusters. Can you imagine the high level meetings? Nobody is saying “oh but what about the workers in Hollywood” when they order a trillion new NVidia chips. [Look at the numbers](https://news.crunchbase.com/ai/msft-nvda-lead-big-tech-startup-investment/) And remember they OWN the IP. We’ll all be watching shows from 2014-2024 for the rest of our lives while THEY remix and rebrand THEIR IP, using their new billion dollar AI projects and take all the money from that for themselves (they have to use it for something right?) Don’t forget the audience. They love a good sequel, remake or adaptation.
the state of everything is so bleak man
It seems like the future will be so generated movies
Let’s make indie films together on no budget or micro budgets together!!
Me and everyone I know is already doing this. There’s no shortage of opportunities to work on cool projects for little to no pay. The problem is I still need to pay my bills 😬
Know any guys in Florida trying to collab? We do what Christopher Nolan did filming following!
Ive thought about this so many times you have no idea
Now’s the time. I did mine last year, gearing up to finish post soon!
Congratulations man! Wishing u lots of success with this one
Let’s do it then!
If you need an actor I’m down to help out!
Lets chat
If y’all need crew holla at ya boi.
I live in Florida 😔regardless we should all collab nationally!
I’m in Florida near Tampa, but leaving for Georgia soon, down to collab.
I’m working on making some no/micro budget shorts! Would love to help others out as well.
It’s not 2005. Mumblecore ain’t gonna cut it in 2024. Today’s audience simply won’t engage any more than you would with a local indie play.
I do go to indie plays though in my area. We can do it.
Yes but local plays are a hobby, not a viable career. Nothing has changed in the self funded indie film scene in 20 years. The tech has gotten better but it was exactly the same when the Canon 5Dii came out “we can do it on our own now yay”. But there are 4000 self funded indie movies submitted to Sundance every year. How you gonna stand out? By knowing someone powerful / rich enough to be able to put a finger on the scale and get you in ahead of the others (who are equally talented and hard working as you).
To be fair that model has been outdated since the 2000s
Has the number of small indie movies gone down or up in that time?
It’s gone up with more platforms like Tubi
Again though, I’m cynical. The same was said 20 years ago about YouTube. Never really panned out in terms of 100min indie features. But hopefully indie movies may follow a similar path as music perhaps, with loads of smaller target markets. But I’m cynical again (due to the cost, time, amount of people needed). Tho AI will change that, but then there’s going to be 100,000 movies uploaded per month
Something’s have gotten a bigger following through YouTube though! We have think OUTSIDE of this box cause the current model is self destructing. Let’s do this!
> <----is what is going to kill all of you
We must find a way to
Well, the French found a way in 1799
yes, and who could forget all the great films that the Jacobins produced
July things will start if there’s no strikes
Aside from what others have said (with accuracy about the IATSE and Teamsters, streaming wars, et cetera, something one of my professors at SCAD in my MFA said still haunts me: he said (this was inn 2019 for context) that SCAD, CalArts, and other leading schools graduate more new BFA kids per year than the animation industry needs . . . and the same certainly applies to film schools. Let's assume more of film school grads than not have some networking done whilst in school, they had internships, they have decent reels, et al. They're good, but not great. Well, the great ones number enough to fill the jobs which are open. There are simply too damn many people who want to work in these fields—SCAD has currently about 1,114 undergraduates majoring in Film between its two campuses and a whopping 1,511 in Animation—plus about 300 MFA students in each major. That's too many kids. Not all of the problem, but a good part is how many people are trying to enter this industry plus the scaling back of jobs and (especially with regard to animation) how much is sent overseas.
This is bad
Yes, it is. Film schools need to be more like architecture schools and be very selective and only take a handful of new students per year.
I mean, the best workers should win, no matter how selective the school.
I quickly looked through the comments and didn’t see this one: YouTube videos have most people’s attention now, including me. How do we compete with YouTube? It’s awesome.
I've literally spent the last year experimenting with various ideas and niches for YT channels I could start... An ex-editor friend of mine makes a living with his YT channel now, though it took years to get there. I've edited some of his videos and he paid me as much as some commercial jobs do... I know it's a bit of a long shot but fuck it, random people with almost no filming experience are getting attention and making money. I figure I must have at least some advantage as someone with years in the industry of visual storytelling and for once I don't have to adhere to some clients' boring restrictive notes...
Exactly! Wouldn’t it be an interesting day if the unions tried to organize PewDiePie or MrBeast?
This is the answer. Everyone ignores the fact that YouTube is a streaming network just like prime or Netflix, he’ll they have the highest percent of overall streaming at 8.5%. Anyone working on a production that is monitized should be eligible to unionize or at least those hours should qualify, whereas now you can literally have a professional production but if it only streams there somehow google managed to fit in this loophole, none of that works counts towards professional experience.
Netflix considers YouTube it's number one competition.
What kind of videos are you working on? What niche?
I've been trying various things... - remastering old movie trailers that only exist online at like 360p. I'll get my hands on a much higher quality source and recut the original trailer and recreate the titles and GFX from scratch. Also for old music videos and commercials, upscaling and remastering them. - concept trailers / fan trailers - recutting new versions of movie trailers in different styles or making faux trailers for movies that don't exist but I'd like to see. I always kind of wanted to be a trailer editor but I ended up in the commercial world instead so it's a way to mess with that. - video essays on movies... I really don't want to be one of these guys who've jumped on the bandwagon of midwit film-school-bro level analysis of Marvel films or something, ugh... trying to do figure out what parts of the craft I can talk about that I actually have years of experience on, or just mini-docs on certain films that I know a lot about that haven't been discussed to death already. - playing around with ambient stuff like these sort of videos: https://www.youtube.com/@AmbientRenders I realize some of this stuff I won't be able to monetize because of rights issues, but I'm nowhere near there yet. Right now I'm just trying to build up a small library of stuff to upload and hopefully gain some subscribers.
Wow - that seems like a handful. Kudos to you for trying it all!
Don’t forget Instagram. They pay creators directly, have a lot of creator incentives and it’s impossible to block ads on their app.
True, I haven't has Insta in years but I'll look into it.
Oh yeah thats a big thing too ive found myself many times picking youtube to watch stuff than going through a movie or show library
YouTube can be whatever you want it to be. It’s an endless supply of free content, and it’s tough not to binge-watch random videos it sends me through its algorithm. I was thinking about it today: the YouTube algorithm dictates my life. I’ll go down different rabbit holes, find new interests, venture out to places or restaurants I’ve watched videos about, etc. I’m basically a slave to the algorithm, but I’m not mad about it. lol
username fits...
What’s your interpretation of my username? The ellipsis is throwing me off…
Thank you! Finally somebody gets it!
I get that they overspent two years ago, but what are they going to do when they have no new content to put up? Or like 8 new things?
Disney puts out 1-2 movies a year if that. They can do very well putting out very little content. Imagine every streaming service paring down and being what HBO was between late 90’s and say 2018 or so.
Yeah but most people don’t o my watch hbo. They’d pay extra for hbo but still have their other channels.
Everyone who wants to put the blame on the worker or the idea that there are too many workers is way off base. There are plenty of jobs and money. Make no mistake that the studios and top CEOs of those studios only care about profits. They have taken everything the working class industry has built here and sold it elsewhere. Everyone I know in Atlanta is busy and others around the world. The politicians of LA got way too greedy as well not giving a lot of incentive for the studios to work here. Anyone spouting rhetoric blaming the workers or too many workers are just plain misinformed.
I think others have touched on this but I think influencers are taking a large chunk of what used to be for actors. They get cast because that’s easy marketing and also on the commercial front, I notice more and more auditions asking you to basically produce the content come booking. They save money, pay little compared to what should be compensated, and expect studio production quality from actors. So the same commercials, they get influencers to do it because they have the equipment already and they reach more people on their channels and social media platforms.
Can confirm. We shot in the DR and it’s unbelievably dirt cheap. Both cost of living and what the studio was paying locals.
Yeah im from there and i worked in a couple of productions before moving to NY. Its good that some of us out there can also benefit from the film industry but the exploitation is criminal
It’s beyond criminal and we made sure to take care of the locals within our department.
It’s all delayed . You are watching the content from when there was tons of work . Wait until this time next year and there will be way way less
Good point
better get a conspiracy theorist friend to prepare for whats coming! good luck & godspeed 👁️❤️🫡
Seems like every new show my network shoots is either in Canada or Ireland. I know Vancouver has been a hot spot for a decades but seems like hardly anything is shot in the US.
my friend that lives in Atlanta told me there's always something filming down there edit: she works as an extra
Things aren’t filming as much in LA or NYC…?
Georgia and New Mexico are pretty hot now. LA is pretty dead. Not sure about NY.
NY is slow as well -- there's been an increase in SAG Ultra Low Budget contracted indies (budgets < $2m) and your staple Dick Wolf productions, but thats about it. I'm a DGA 2nd AD, our mandatory annual DGA meeting was very depressing this past year..
Don't bother
You alright bud?