Fortis93

March 31

2 hours ago, BreakBeatDJ said:

Did I get the fifth one or the sixth?

@Psycho Bunny Look at that. 0 to hero.

March 31

3 hours ago, R1s1ngs0n said:

@★ Members ★ I got a little Easter treat for you people 😀

By the way, @R1s1ngs0n

If you guys were to continue this series, will you be sticking with the same template for each one?

Jeff Marshall artwork on the front, iconic shot of a Bond girl on the back?

Because I think that's a winning formula you have there.

March 31

March 31

March 31

March 31

1 minute ago, R1s1ngs0n said:

I got a little Easter treat for you people 😀

So good.

March 31

2 minutes ago, R1s1ngs0n said:

@extantsrevenge

From @R1s1ngs0n With Love. 👌

March 31

3 minutes ago, extantsrevenge said:

What do you guys think?

March 30

49 minutes ago, Cornbuster said:

Gladiator_MV

Toni, my dear - let's celebrate!

Lasst uns auf deutsche Art feiern. 😁

March 30

@Gladiator_MV

Prost.

March 30

44 minutes ago, 29bananas said:

Bingo!!

40 minutes ago, 29bananas said:

Got so caught up in that first bingo I didn’t even notice Bingo #2!!

38 minutes ago, 29bananas said:

And I got so caught up in THAT bingo that I didn’t notice that I had a third bingo!!! lol jk

Dude, that's bananas!

March 30

Has anyone seen @Psycho Bunny?

Just want to have a chat.

March 28

@Psycho Bunny

March 27

1 hour ago, BreakBeatDJ said:

Well, you asked me, so I'll pontificate a bit . . .

Imo, it was much easier back then for those with real talent and the drive to be professional creatives than it is now.

Now, it is much easier for mediocre talent to find an audience and crowd out real talent.

Most of the gatekeepers back then were pretty good at evaluating talent and putting them on a path to succeed (not perfect). A close friend who had a very successful agency and taught me a lot (he was too big to sign me, but we were still good friends) used to say, undeniable talent will not be denied. The system found the talent, the system promoted them, sometimes abused them, gave them the tools, and pushed them out to the public (again, not perfect and there are examples of this not happening). (Was it a racist, sexist system, absolutely, but I'd argue that the discrimination lay more in talent development than talent promotion, but that's another topic).

In those days mediocrity was quickly dismissed. Now, every truly talented person is competing with every mediocre talent who can manage, through alternate means (kickstarter, YouTube, Reels, etc), to get something created. But, they, through traditional and non-traditional, promotional channels, find an audience.

When the barriers to entry are removed, it dilutes the audience, and it becomes harder for the truly talented to find an audience, and harder to make money. Everything moves to the margins : large studios want safe guaranteed, independents get more and more stretched in what they can offer. The middle, which is what most of us want to see, goes away).

But, the whole system has become more egalitarian, and one can argue, and I'd agree, that it has resulted in a landscape where anyone can have a chance (but a 1 in a million one), and that has been great for marginalized communities and I fully support that.

But, we are not done yet . . .

I have been following AI for a few years, and it is the beginning of the end of the creative class. From the Quadra 840AV (the first real multi-media production computer) in 1993 to now, that 30 years saw the rise of a wealthy, influential, class of people serving all creative sectors, and it has only grown. And that's about to go away in a significant way.

No one is sure what will rise from it, but more fragmentation seems to be the consensus. I have not hired a VO person in a year, which means no studio time, no recording engineers, no assistance, no microphone sales, no VO talent. The AI VO generators are indistinguishable in most cases. And, that's only a small part. AI tools for coloring, for script cleaning, etc are ramping up so fast it's amazing. A friend who is a novelist is now writing 100k words a month, using NovelCreator and NovelAI.

Most have their heads in the sands about this, or, are in that, meh, we've seen this before, "I read an article" and it said it's no big deal, etc. But we are at a moment of creative evolutionary change, and it's tough to know what will happen. A lot is riding on the NYTimes vs OpenAI lawsuit, that will probably set the precedent for the copyright viability of AI generated content and could be the game changer we creatives need. But it is far from settled law. The WGA contract was a huge win. But, musicians, artists, designers, etc. do not have nearly the strength of unionization that the WGA provides, and there currently are not those types of protections for most creatives.

Yeah, so to answer your question, imo, the filters are gone, and that has created a landscape of content that is almost all, virtually all, forgettable, with very little space for true creatives to breakthrough.

Really appreciate the detailed insight, mate.

Especially from someone in the industry. I kind of suspected this, but it's hard to gauge as an outsider.

When I left high school, I seriously considered pursuing filmmaking as a career, but ended up choosing the "sensible" route of going to university and getting into IT (which in my experience is also becoming oversaturated at the entry-level).

But you also end up wondering "What if?"

March 27

3 minutes ago, BreakBeatDJ said:

@Gary K can you approve the above. Thanks bud.

Ditto for mine. 😅

March 27

1 minute ago, nathan_s82 said:

@BreakBeatDJ & @Fortis93, do you think that because of the multi-ways to create entertainment today, that has affected how Production occurs as well? For example, a Content Creator can make short films on YouTube and then independently fund them through Kickstarter or Indiegogo.

Well, I'm about as far removed from the industry as you can be, but to me, it looks like that's where things are headed.

I know the guys who made "Talk To Me" were Aussie YouTubers who spent a good decade amassing a large following from their wacky, action-packed short films before making their film debut.

March 27

7 minutes ago, BreakBeatDJ said:

Interesting story. Too bad he didn't get it green lit.

When I started my career 25 years ago, there was a pretty clear path to get where you wanted to go. It wasn't rocket science. Join IFC, go to conferences, get a lawyer/agent, and then sort of go forward.

Now, it's the Wild West. There are so many random stories of how things get made, green lit, options for production, etc. During the pandemic some friends of mine from Tampa built Vu Studios, they now have four virtual production facilities, and are doing amazingly well. I find it boring shooting on those LED sets. But it works, and is convinving. And, anyone can buy one now, the tech (they use a lot of game tech, sensors in the floors and ceiling to adjust POV as the camera moves) is getting to the point anyone can make a movie who can get on one of these sets.

I think they will continue to grow, until . . . text to video AI gets better, then, you can make a movie on your laptop with prompts. It's coming.

I know Proyas is actually experimenting with AI and trying to make his films that way (if you go to his Twitter or Instagram, you'll see some of what he's done).

This is actually something I've been interested in.

You hear about more opportunities being afforded to people within that industry that weren't there before, but you also hear about how much easier it was for studios back then to take chances on new, upcoming filmmakers like a David Fincher, or Alex Proyas, or even Michael Bay, who started out making music videos and then transitioned into feature films.

Do you think it was easier back then, or was it a case of having rose-tinted glasses?

March 27

46 minutes ago, BreakBeatDJ said:

A couple months ago I worked on a trailer for a show a friend (won't say a name or gender here) is pitching to Warners. Yesterday, we finally got together and had lunch when they were in town.

We ended up talking about the post-strike situation in Hollywood and how it's affecting production (I don't work in LA or NYC much any more so I'm out of the loop). They are currently working on the IT prequel, Welcome to Derry, in production in Toronto. Warners lost about 500 million during the strike and the studio is clawing it back, penny by penny, on any production they can, making production very difficult in ways it wasn't pre-strike.

We began discussing how this is going to affect the final product and what that will mean for viewers. Obviously the creators are working as hard as they can to make their shows great, but it seems the mood is still very hostile between the studios and production entities at this point, and the expectation is that many shows/movies, will move to smaller studios, pitch less production-heavy projects, over the next months if it doesn't change. And, in fact, it already is happening.

I couldn't get my friend to admit that this will obviously affect the final product, for obvious reasons, but hearing of some of the things they are dealing with from Warners, it's hard to imagine it won't. So, I guess the takeaway is that some of these post-strike shows/films may suffer a studio caused drop in production value, etc. We'll see.

This reminds me of something I read a couple of days ago.

So, Alex Proyas (the guy who made The Crow, Dark City, iRobot) has been trying to get some original projects off the ground to no avail.

He's created his own virtual filmmaking studio actually not far from where I live where he creates original short films and is trying to get an original feature off the ground via those crowdfunding campaigns.

It's a shame because he was born and grew up in the exact same area I did and was planning on making an original sci-fi movie right here based on his own personal experiences growing up. It was called "The New Country" with Guy Pearce set to star, but the studios ended up pulling the plug before they could start shooting.

I imagine there are many other stories like this.