State of Cinema

State of Cinema

Listening to Matt Damon interviews for his newest movie. I do fear this will date me when I wrote this piece, but he made a couple of points that suggest the Hollywood or entertainment industry is going in different directions. It is easy to miss while he does marketing for the movie. Speaking of which, old ways of marketing now look very different, too.

The Streamer Dilemma

With streamers like Netflix, people are watching on their phones and sofas. They are watching while they do other things. Their attention is not fully on the screen. This means the plot must be explained over and over again. Pacing must be fast. That action scene must happen quickly at the start. What Matt told us is that filmmaking has changed. At least for streamers, it is about eyeballs over vision, and that is changing how that vision must look. If you follow film releases here, you see that a trend exists as people chase the most popular thing. So this is not really that new, but it is.

The Traditional Path

On the other side, you have the more traditional idea of filmmaking. This is chasing awards with a vision in mind. These are grand ideas, often not with the audience in mind, but what directors and studios think they will like. This results sometimes in studios producing stuff in say Space or Spain or America because somebody else made a ton of money off doing that.

They are not actually so different from each other. Just consider how many safe bets and film franchises exist compared to original ideas. Both are fishing in the same shrinking pool of money. They are just catering to different people. Hence a problem. What used to draw people in now draws many different groups and you cannot reach them all.

A History of Conflict

When people talk about how cinema is awful now, they seem to be misreading or misremembering history. There has always been a conflict between filmmakers and the money men. It is just that now budgets are so big it is much harder to make a profit. Worse still we have mega budgets as costs have ballooned. Middle budget movies have disappeared. That leaves us with mega or big budgets and small budgets only. That is a problem.

The Indie Silver Lining

Because of this, the third party is doing quite well. These are small budget, risky, and more original movies. The indie scene has been doing much better overall. I think the path forward is fewer big budget movies and tighter budgets for film series. We need more overall output, just less of a certain type. Instead of seeing 12 mega big budget movies $200 million monsters, we should see 12 $50 million films and 4 $150 million movies. Shorter and smaller or just smaller budgets. There is even room here for $25 million ones.

That means less pay but more work. It means tighter visions and stronger ideas for shows rather than “we just green screen that later.” It is about going back to the art of filmmaking with more physical models and less computer generated imagery. It would turn out to be cheaper. It takes more time but produces better results. What they tried to do is the opposite of what the indie scene has done.

The Fear of the Corporate Mess

My worry however is that we do not get that. Instead Hollywood tries to carry on and fails. By failing to change its ways we get more companies merging together. That creates an even bigger mess. We get executives meddling at the top trying to chase success and producing total rubbish for the masses. Artistic vision is lost, but I would argue that it already is. At least it was once it became big business. That is why the indie scene seems to be the bright spot. Smaller movies are making the biggest waves.

But also a bigger shift is happening. Experiences are what people want. Cinema is no longer the cultural pillar it once was. It is moving away from that towards something more for the masses. I do not think Hollywood and society in general are ready to talk about that shift. The balance of power is shifting to us. It is easier for normal people to produce content and cheaper. The good news is that means Hollywood can do things we cannot and should focus on the vision.