Fair warning. I will be rambling. a whole bunch.
Some Person (somewhat identified later on) stated in a youtube video that Piracy was killing the modern movie industry (i.e. making movies produced bland/bad).
Alright, I am one of the 200k Napster users that were first blacklisted by Metallica when the whole piracy thing began. It's a claim to fame, I championed Pirate Bay not as a means of stealing content but more as a voice of challenging the price gouging that the music and film industry (RIAA and MPAA) were going about doing. I was there to see the extortion and remember how many of these anti-piracy groups were more interested in scare tactics and fine gathering then making sure the artists were getting their due. It became a little guy versus the big industry issues as the lies and misrepresentations abounded.
That being said, a lot was wrong, and Piracy was, ironically, less about stealing content as it is now. I know it sounds crazy but it was a proven fact that many of us leechers and seeders ended up paying for the DVDs and CDs and MPEGs when the industry finally changed their tune. But it did set a new wave of piracy in motion. I stopped my own piracy of music when music streaming finally became a thing. For me, possessing the music was less important than having access to the music on demand. I jumped on board with Pandora as soon as it hit the scene. Also, my 500GB music hard drive died and along with it the thousands of songs I had acquired from piracy, legit purchases, and CD-rips. In the end, most of my music collection was legitimate as much of what I pirated was crap in the quality rating. Flac formats pushed me to find the original CDS to make the files up to snuff.
I have switched streamers several times. I own more legitimate music now than I ever did before. The same is almost true with movies - mostly because movie streaming has yet to catch up. They are making progress but it is very slow. Platform control is still a roadblock. If entertainment companies would realize that slaving their content to a broadcast platform is going to kill them, in the long run, they would at least follow HBO Go and the others.
I can remember talking to Dish Network and trying to convince them that true A La Carte programming was their only hope of true survival as a platform. They denied it then and still seem to not get it even now.
Entertainment (all forms) needs to be available on demand, regardless of platform or device. If you did this, most piracy users would drop the hassle of pirating material along with the need for VPNs and all the jailbreaking/hacking that goes with it. It won't eliminate it completely but it would go a long way.
Saying that "Hollywood" won't change their model may be realistic but it should point to that the Hollywood model is not the only game in town and there are ways to go about this differently. The same is true of saying that everyone is in this for the money so no one is going to take a chance on changing it.
It is true only until someone does.
It's happened before.
Last Week, I watched a video from a Youtuber I had liked. Their content was nice and I had gained much info from their videos. The video in question then went on, at length, to blame piracy as the primary reason why Hollywood plays it safe resulting movies that are bland, cliched, action models that lack creativity, edginess or dare to break out of the mold.
It's just wrong. Hollywood knows that even the worst movies make money. It's been true since the beginning. In fact, there is an entire industry of bad filmmakers in the world (i.e. people who excel at making bad movies). It is partly true that some filmmakers and the studios are not trying to be edgy or break from the mold may be true but to hold up piracy as the sole cause or even the main cause is just wrong. It could be attributed as a cause but I just don't buy it as the main cause, there are so many other factors. The main one Hollywood has always seemed to stick with is "hold to the tried and true" until someone braver does it differently and it works and then copy them.
What I have to say to the Youtube Channel that published this garbage is WOW.
I would have thought people knew about how Hollywood works.
I would have assumed anyone who reviews or even makes movies would have some film school background and have read books like
One of the things that strike me as detrimental is how Hollywood presents trailers. Many trailers not only reveal too much about the movie they also are often from cut content and show how much a movie can be altered from the early trailers to the late release trailers. So many of them feature what ends up being the best parts of a movie and all too often the only good parts of the movie (an exaggeration but not an entirely untrue one).
Trailers now come is various forms:
Well, that's all I have.
I might even disagree with me if I have to reread this blog again.
I will still insist that Piracy has little to do with why Hollywood movies suck- er I mean aren't awesome...I like bad movies, myself- some of them. (Masters of the Universe).
And that is something like a long rant according to Mike.
Some Person (somewhat identified later on) stated in a youtube video that Piracy was killing the modern movie industry (i.e. making movies produced bland/bad).
Alright, I am one of the 200k Napster users that were first blacklisted by Metallica when the whole piracy thing began. It's a claim to fame, I championed Pirate Bay not as a means of stealing content but more as a voice of challenging the price gouging that the music and film industry (RIAA and MPAA) were going about doing. I was there to see the extortion and remember how many of these anti-piracy groups were more interested in scare tactics and fine gathering then making sure the artists were getting their due. It became a little guy versus the big industry issues as the lies and misrepresentations abounded.
That being said, a lot was wrong, and Piracy was, ironically, less about stealing content as it is now. I know it sounds crazy but it was a proven fact that many of us leechers and seeders ended up paying for the DVDs and CDs and MPEGs when the industry finally changed their tune. But it did set a new wave of piracy in motion. I stopped my own piracy of music when music streaming finally became a thing. For me, possessing the music was less important than having access to the music on demand. I jumped on board with Pandora as soon as it hit the scene. Also, my 500GB music hard drive died and along with it the thousands of songs I had acquired from piracy, legit purchases, and CD-rips. In the end, most of my music collection was legitimate as much of what I pirated was crap in the quality rating. Flac formats pushed me to find the original CDS to make the files up to snuff.
I have switched streamers several times. I own more legitimate music now than I ever did before. The same is almost true with movies - mostly because movie streaming has yet to catch up. They are making progress but it is very slow. Platform control is still a roadblock. If entertainment companies would realize that slaving their content to a broadcast platform is going to kill them, in the long run, they would at least follow HBO Go and the others.
I can remember talking to Dish Network and trying to convince them that true A La Carte programming was their only hope of true survival as a platform. They denied it then and still seem to not get it even now.
Entertainment (all forms) needs to be available on demand, regardless of platform or device. If you did this, most piracy users would drop the hassle of pirating material along with the need for VPNs and all the jailbreaking/hacking that goes with it. It won't eliminate it completely but it would go a long way.
Saying that "Hollywood" won't change their model may be realistic but it should point to that the Hollywood model is not the only game in town and there are ways to go about this differently. The same is true of saying that everyone is in this for the money so no one is going to take a chance on changing it.
It is true only until someone does.
It's happened before.
Last Week, I watched a video from a Youtuber I had liked. Their content was nice and I had gained much info from their videos. The video in question then went on, at length, to blame piracy as the primary reason why Hollywood plays it safe resulting movies that are bland, cliched, action models that lack creativity, edginess or dare to break out of the mold.
It's just wrong. Hollywood knows that even the worst movies make money. It's been true since the beginning. In fact, there is an entire industry of bad filmmakers in the world (i.e. people who excel at making bad movies). It is partly true that some filmmakers and the studios are not trying to be edgy or break from the mold may be true but to hold up piracy as the sole cause or even the main cause is just wrong. It could be attributed as a cause but I just don't buy it as the main cause, there are so many other factors. The main one Hollywood has always seemed to stick with is "hold to the tried and true" until someone braver does it differently and it works and then copy them.
What I have to say to the Youtube Channel that published this garbage is WOW.
I would have thought people knew about how Hollywood works.
I would have assumed anyone who reviews or even makes movies would have some film school background and have read books like
- The Player by Michael Tolkin
- The Big Picture: Who Killed Hollywood and Other Essays by William Goldman
- Monster: Living Off the Big Screen by John Gregory Dunne
- Fiasco by James Robert Parish, I haven't read it, but I am told it's very good.
Maybe I expect too much, I am a former film student (my University in their infinite wisdom closed the film school while I was still in it). Even so, I would expect anyone who would come out to say such a statement to be aware or, at very least, done some research.
To say that Hollywood has suffered a loss of originality or edginess from the Piracy Phenomena is just wrong.
I ended my subscription to that youtube channel, it just colors everything that they have to say from there on. It's willful ignorance and smacks of the variety of rich musicians who complain regularly about being robbed of their content by pirates as if the recording industry doesn't exist or take advantage of them with binding contracts and other means of keeping them from being rich.
I remember a musician I went to high school with who did make it fairly well, she is well known in many circles and is a really good musician. I like her work. What broke it for me was a rant over music piracy in which she basically called anyone who had ever leeched (technical term for sampling/downloading music) scum and not worth anything because they were robbing her of her just due. I took offense, at the time. When I pointed out my argument, I believe I got blocked and banned from whatever medium the comment was on.
No one wants to talk about how little the Recording Industry pays out to musicians for play time compared to how much they charge for it.
No one wants to stop and consider that if you make a recording from the radio- you have just pirated that music, or a live recording at a concert, or copied a cassette/CD from a friend, etc. But, if you download the music from anywhere but the approved sites, you are a villain of the first order.
But I digress.
I know it sounds harsh but theYouTuber(s) in question didn't say anything like the well established fact that Hollywood isn't known for creativy in film. It does happen but rarely.
Making a movie involves a lot of factors.
Making a good movie involves similar factors and often more than just making one.
The problem with Hollywood and the film industry is very basic.
Hollywood and much of the film industry are out to make money. That's rule one. It's absolute and will ultimately dictate how a movie is made or even if it is made.
There are books on this.
Lots of books....and ironically movies.
You can argue that Piracy is ruining movies if you want, it's your prerogative but Rule One supersedes your argument. It's true of the recording industry as well. If you don't believe me, consider B-sides or filler music that is on so many, many albums. I will use Jane Child as an example (one-hit wonders are common) She had one song. She had one album that I know of.
What I mean is that she had one song I liked, the pop charts liked it too, but that was it. I bought her album and hated it. The rest of her music was completely different and definitely for a non-pop crowd. I don't know if she had success, I hope she did, the world moved on although I see several others covered her one "top 40" song. What stands out for me was that I felt like the album was filled with filler music in order to sell that one song. (this is my opinion and I apologize to Ms. Childe and her rabid core of fans- assuming they are out there somewhere). I use her as an example of this phenomena. There are far more popular musicians and groups who have filler music on their albums. As a general rule of thumb (again for me) most of the albums from bands I like (not love) are filled with filler music. Daft Punk's Random Access Memories and Red Hot Chili Pepper's Blood Sugar Sex Magik are commonly held up for the amount of Filler Music that's on them.
Moreover, much of the industry that still produces albums use filler music to pad out an album that commonly contains 1-4 hit songs or at very best 4-6 songs I want to listen to. I found this to be true with Country Music (which is often written by someone other than the singers or bands).
I have very few musicians and bands where I pretty much love everything they ever recorded...right now I can't name one. Queen has albums where, in my opinion, every track is awesome.
So why go on with the music industry?
Because Hollywood makes movies with tons of filler content. It's when you are watching a movie and think- Hey! this movie really ended 10 minutes ago! Then the movie goes on for another 15-20 minutes while you sit there scratching your head. Well, that's part of the reason anyway (Tom Jones, I am not looking at you).
There really is so many reasons that modern movies lack that creative drive, the edginess that makes them stand out. I could go into a long bit about Janet Evanovich books here and why I love them even though they are formulaic as hell and repetitive but I will read every one of them. FYI, the movie adaptation sucked but it still made money.
One of the things that strike me as detrimental is how Hollywood presents trailers. Many trailers not only reveal too much about the movie they also are often from cut content and show how much a movie can be altered from the early trailers to the late release trailers. So many of them feature what ends up being the best parts of a movie and all too often the only good parts of the movie (an exaggeration but not an entirely untrue one).
Trailers now come is various forms:
- Teasers (which I prefer), release trailers which often show too much and extended trailers which might as well be movies on their own (2-6 minutes long). It's crazy. It annoys me so much that after the teasers come out I ignore/avoid trailers as much as possible on movies I intend to go to.
- "quick" trailers (I guess regular trailers), which are okay, but often show too much or show stuff that ends up being cut from the final movie, MIB I am not looking at you per say. These trailers are technically early release trailers, so early that sometimes the movies they are made for- get canned and don't come out. They are grabbed from the first available footage and pieced together by the promotion teams and seldom have much in the way of directorial control or influence, Fantastic Four (latest one, for instance).
- Extended Trailers (which I hate) which grab as much film as possible to hopefully draw people into seeing the movie but sometimes provide the whole plot thus ruining any surprises that the movie might have in store for us. It's personal but I like the idea of seeing the movie on the promise/premise that the film will be good. Rogue One, is an example of having too many trailers and thus getting a "final" extended trailer is basically unnecessary as pretty much everyone who likes Star Wars is going to see it anyway. Personally, I take a quick glance, these days at the Rotten Tomatoes ratings, check on my youtube reviewers and then make a decision to see the movie or not. I am seldom disappointed that way... I almost always do this save when a neice or great neice talks me into seeing a movie that I haven't checked out and usually it's a DUD.
Well, that's all I have.
I might even disagree with me if I have to reread this blog again.
I will still insist that Piracy has little to do with why Hollywood movies suck- er I mean aren't awesome...I like bad movies, myself- some of them. (Masters of the Universe).
And that is something like a long rant according to Mike.
