Maybe the Entertainment Industry Needs a Hard Reset (SAG Strike, Music Checks etc)

[IsThatBrothaMouzone?]

I know we have a few entertainers on here somewhere, so I'm very open to someone crushing my argument with some logic and facts that are escaping me...

For instance, I am having a hard time feeling sorry for the film industry (writers, actors and production cast) during this strike.

Like, I know quite a few people who are struggling heavy, and I do feel REALLY bad for THAT, but in terms of the actual industry - IMO, it was a ticking time bomb.

I mean, for one, yes, you get no royalties because TV is dead. Period. It ain't coming back.

And then, most of the shyt on streaming channels is super hot garbage. I feel like no one is ever going to pay anyone a livable wage again to produce garbage content and BS movies on Netflix and Hulu that barely anyone watches with terrible writing and dumb ass non-thoughtful plots. Like there is so much content out these days, it's insane. How Tf is it a good idea to pay the background actors of some lame ass show in the desert of Netflix. That shyt just should not exist.

I will say the quiet part out loud - most actors and actresses I know don't do that shyt for the love of the art, they just don't got shyt else to do and want to be famous. Thus we have all this shyt out now, with 20 streaming channels and 100000 movies and shows. Its unsustainable.

And yes, Disney deserves to go under and lose everything they got. I mean, they have been sustaining off of superhero films and remakes of old ass cartoon movies. Where is the originality and thoughtfulness and idea making that made those original films amazing? How many Fast Furious Indiana Jones Jurassic Park Marvel Batman etc shyt that nobody is asking for must be made? Billion people on this Earth and no original ideas???

This industry needs to completely reset IMO, and most actors and actresses and writers need to be doing something else, because the art isn't working or connecting, and isn't good.

Same for music industry. I just saw someone post some Filipino breh singing "Never Would've Made It" and I was like damn, this MF was born to sing.



Artist complain about the music industry but a lot of rappers and singers and rapping and singing to be cool, not because they are actually talented in any way.

Why is Ice Spice worth anything outside of a club appearance or show? Why would I cut great deals for non-talented clout chasers?

I think all of this needs a hard reset, and we are in the dark ages of entertainment.

But - I could be wrong??

Executives try to balance power against money.

Talented writers, singers, actors etc., will be able to leverage their ability more quickly into a position of power. They win over fans and end up with considerable "creative control."

Execs don't want this because they need each artist to be expendable. Good enough to make money but not so good that they can't be replaced.

Look at singers from the Motown era. They could SANG but were mostly average/normal looking brehs and brehettes. Nothing about their physical appearance said "THIS HERE IS A SUPERSTAR." They were stars because of how good they sounded on records and how well they performed live.

Nowadays instead of the A+ singer with B- looks, you grab the C+ singer with A- looks....then you dress em up a bit to look A+ and use auto-tune and other tools to make them sound like B maybe B+ singer. If a modern C+ singer gets too uppity......you give them the Big Red treatment and show them the door.

Actors....same concept. British actors as a whole are better than most Americans because they go to school for acting and learn through the national theater. They have a strong bench and just churn out Shakespearean dynamos. America mostly takes physically attractive people that do a few commercial ads and ropes them into TV and movies. The idea is that you can teach a hottie to act but you can't teach an ugly dude to be hot.

Studios don't need a room full of Daniel Day-Lewis and Denzel type actors. Get one or two and then fill in the rest with desperate/hungry/talented Brits (drama) or get hot Americans (less serious shyt). Takes away the bargaining power of actors as they all become interchangeable EXCEPT for the guys known to bring in $$$$$ (Denzel, DiCaprio, Cruise etc).

 

[IIVI]

A realization I've learned while working in tech unfortunately:

A CEO's main interest and goal is to make money, not put out the best product.

If a CEO can make millions of dollars releasing broken or worthless products, they will and they have.

That applies to art and everything else.

Trillions of dollars have been made selling vapor ware and bad content. shyt, they've made billions of dollars off of "promises".

When it's all said and done, the people in charge really don't care about the details, quality, etc. They only care whether people are buying or not.

Even if the mass majority of the population didn't buy whatever they were selling, the only thing that matters is if the suckers who did buy their product make them enough money.

That's CEOing right there - the business.
Basically: "It doesn't matter, we already got their money"

 

[Dave24]

Y’all it takes 5 mins to educate yourself on this shyt.



We should ALWAYS be showing solidarity for labor. Anything other that that is fukking stupid

Subbed

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

I'm actually a lot more aware of this than you may believe.

That's why I am asking for you to fill in the blanks for me, with real facts or concepts of how this can actually change in REAL LIFE, not "support all workers I hate greedy CEO's"

Guess what? CEOs are billion dollar companies are going to make millions. They were making it when it was fair, they will make money when shyt is not fair. Greedy billionaires exist.

Please explain this to me:

1. I am aware that only 1% of actors and actresses are actually wealthy. The rest are pretty much living check to check.
   
   
2. The way that the 99% of performers got by was by residuals from shows that were syndicated or airing somewhere, and that held them down until their next job or gig, for the most part.
   
   
3. This business model made sense, because every time say, "The Office" or "227" airs, the network is running paid commercials during that 30min/1 hour block. Since they are getting paid based on the success of the show (the more viewers, the higher the ads have will cost, the more money a show is bringing to a network), the more the residuals are broken down to actors who made that work shine. If a show like "Fresh Prince" airs for 20 years after it's off TV, great, the actors keep getting checks. If a show is forgotten and never seen again, guess what - no checks.

This model is broken because streaming is king. And the answer isn't simply, well pay the production and actors based on whats a hit on Netflix - why?

1. People don't usually pay for a streaming service just to view one show. Sometimes they do, but for the most part, we have Netflix or Disney+ or whatever because they have content we like.
   
   
2. There are no running ads on these platforms. So, they just pay for what they want upfront, because they think it will be a hit. Remember them giving $30m to Dave Chappelle but Monique was complaining about $300k? Every deal is different, but based on how many subscribers they think you will bring. This seems to negate what I said above, but how many Dave Chappelles or NFL Quarterback Documentaries or Game of Thrones can actually say "we will bring subscribers to your platform because our shyt is globally worshipped"??
   
   
3. So, when you pitch a movie or series to be on these network, you have already produced it, and are basically selling it. Once you sold it, it's gone. What metrics are you going to use to say "hey my series or movie is on your Netflix channel for 5 years and yall went up 135% in profit so cut another check"? What if no one is watching your shyt?
   
   
4. Ok, now you say, well open up the streaming books. Well, what constitutes a watch? Because if you buy a movie ticket, thats money in the bank. If you buy a DVD, money in the bank. But what if someone was just browsing for something watch, your shyt was on it was trash, and they turned it off. A few more trash shows and guess what people say?"I am deleting this app, there's nothing good on here"
   
   
5. So, no you can't get residuals for just existing.
   
   
6. But what if your shyt is a random smash like Tiger King or Squid Game? I have no idea. But they did already pay for it in advance...
   
   
7. Shows have better leverage. Stranger Things was a hit. You dont pay me for Season 2, millions of people are going to be mad, and going to leave the platform and go wherever that show is going. What about the other 99,000 shows? These are the strikers right, the normal actors and production companies and writher that we have never heard of.

I stand by my statement about a lot of actors and actresses these days. It's harsh, but I think I may know more people in the industry than you. And it always gets me that most of these people don't really seem to be working on their craft heavy, they just be at events and auditioning but don't really be that good of a talent. I mean, we complain about that shyt all day everyday in Film Room and convos, but now we acting like we have all these thespians walking around who can't create their art. Most productions people show you that they were in or that they helped produced just honestly be stuff you never heard of and are not interested in in any way. Keep it super real bro.

I'm not pro-corporation, I am pro-reality.

These jackasses at the top who greenlit Fast and Furious 20000 are to blame for the movie industry, but now they are losing money. Little Mermaid - trash, Indiana Jones, everything. No one goes to movies anymore anyway. So, they would rather produce nothing than to keep having box office failures.

So, thats what I mean by hard reset. The shyt aint going back to the way it was. No one is giving anyone money they dont have to. They dont lose money for not producing, they lose money on producing shyt and paying people and not getting an return.

The only content that may be able to exist after this reset is actual good shyt that draws people in, with very limited streaming channels that share revenue (remember Netflix had it on lock with Hulu close, but then all these other companies (disney, peacock, etc) said "hey we can make our own channels, pull our content and make our own, and make Netflix bag" and it backfired because it is now way too much, and NO ONE IS WATCHING.

How would YOU fix this??? All these actors and actresses making YT videos but its all the same to me "pay us more, its not right"

Well, yea it's fukking not right but something gotta give, and your rent is due. When the truckers stop trucking, we dont have groceries. We dont have groceries, we riot. The union has leverage.

When "Sarahs Got a New Boyfriend Season 3" doesn't air, no one gives a shyt, and they go watch Youtube or old shyt.

Basically, entertainers are not an essential industry

Tough luck.

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

How is it any different than music streaming services or youtube? They pay out royalties to creators and labels just fine.

Netflix and these streaming services have all the analytics and know how often their shows are watched.

It’s not. There’s just no union for music artists.

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

Honestly black actors should have been avoiding this shyt by working to create more Tyler Perry’s. Now look. They spent all that time trying to be up under white systems that they can’t eat and will eat even less than they did the first time. Sad shyt. An entire generation of actors about to be SOL.

 

[$cam-U-Well_Jack$on]

I'll read later.

 

[Contrefaire]

People should always be paid fairly.

BUT

Paying people more for the trash they put out now

it's been nothing but flops at the boxoffice lately and it's all because of trash writing. Again you also need strong supervisors/managers/leaders to keep these fools in check.

I don't know if you think writers are given total creative freedom and can just do whatever the hell they want or what but that's not the case. The trash writing is often BECAUSE of those "strong supervisors/managers/leaders". Producers, directors and showrunners dictate the script, the writers follow the vision and fill in the blanks to the best of their abilities but a lot of shyt gets left on the cutting room floor and good ideas by the writers get scrapped because the showrunner(s) had something else in mind.

A great example of this is that flop ass show The Idol. As it was originally written all the early buzz around it was promising. It was meant to be a satirical commentary about Hollywood excess and exploitation. However when filming was 80% finished, the previous director abruptly quit because The Weeknd and Sam Levinson decided there needed to be a "creative overhaul" so the show was completely rewritten and reshot to their particular tastes. Except their tastes were shytty, unimaginative and lame. There's not really much else a contract writer can do with that except follow the showrunners directions the best the can.

And if you still believe what's needed is more "strong supervisors/managers/leaders to keep [writers] in check" look at the early seasons of Game of Thrones when they still had source material and staff writers giving input vs the later seasons when it was almost exclusively the two showrunners doing all the writing and compare. It's like night and day.

Part of what the WGA strikers are asking for is to STOP being forced to write shytty dialogue and terrible plots.

 

[HipHopStan]

I was looking through the highest grossing films of the years dating back to 1977 a while back and of course you had Star Wars which was a mainstay in that honor, but around the turn of the century is when franchise films started taking over. Even though I saw and enjoy a lot of those films, the list starts to get boring as the years go on as it turns into franchise film sequels.

1977: Star Wars - Episode 4: A New Hope
1978: Grease
1979: Kramer vs. Kramer
1980: Star Wars - Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back
1981: Raiders of the Lost Ark
1982: E.T. - The Extra Terrestrial
1983: Star Wars - Episode 6: Return of the Jedi
1984: Beverly Hills Cop
1985: Back to the Future
1986: Top Gun
1987: Three Men and a Baby
1988: Rain Man
1989: Batman
1990: Home Alone
1991: Terminator 2: Judgement Day
1992: Aladdin
1993: Jurassic Park
1994: Forrest Gump
1995: Toy Story
1996: Independence Day
1997: Titanic
1998: Saving Private Ryan
1999: Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace
2000: How the Grinch Stole Christmas
2001: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
2002: Spider-Man
2003: Finding Nemo
2004: Shrek 2
2005: Star Wars: Episode 3 - Revenge of the Sith
2006: Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Mans Chest
2007: Spider-Man 3
2008: The Dark Knight
2009: Avatar
2010: Toy Story 3
2011: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
2012: The Avengers
2013: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
2014: American Sniper
2015: Star Wars: Episode 7 - The Force Awakens'
2016: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
2017: Star Wars: Episode 8 - The Last Jedi
2018: Black Panther
2019: Avengers: Endgame
2020: Bad Boys for Life
2021: Spider-Man: No Way Home
2022: Avatar: The Way of the Water

• The last time a non-IP finished the year at number one was (surprisingly) American Sniper, which was based off a biographical book.
• The last movie that was an original idea that rounded out at the top spot was Avatar, which took a lot of inspiration from a lot of other films, so you could also say it was Finding Nemo, which was twenty years ago this year.
• I don't think films like Kramer vs. Kramer, Three Men and a Baby, Rain Man, or maybe even Forrest Gump would crack the top 10 of the year if they were released now.

I do think that we've kind of recessed a bit as far as viewing habits go, but that's just me.

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

 

[Godless Socialist CEO]

It’s greed but by all means continue to lick boots