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Contemplating Change In The FKATheFilmBiz, End of 2023 Edition

I think I am looking for the wrong sort of power transformer…

MMMM: Ponders & some considerations… It’s December. It is time to start assessing what’s been and will be — that is if you didn’t start in November (as I did). Where are we now? What was this year all about, the good things, the bad things, and still unsure things?

Let’s first drill down on how things changed this year. This is a different sort of evaluation than what was good or bad. This is more of the trying to spot trends in behavior sort of thing. I think I have about twenty observations to share with you. It’s just what I saw and what I felt, mixed with the spice of where I think it all may lead us — hardly scientifific. Why we don’t get more of this sort of trend analysis? Is it we are afraid to guess wrong? Let’s just learn to fail better! You have to swing if you want to get a hit.

I think 2023 marks the year that most folks of all sorts in what was formerly the film biz have indicated they are eager for a change. Which is to say they all want to move on from where we currently are. What took them so damn long?

It seems to me that for the longest time most folks were still eager to get theirs. And by “get theirs” I mean get a film or show funded at a budget that required little compromise and provided excellent fees for all involved.  You can still hear those loud whispers: “Dude, you are getting above your quote, a big fat backend bonus buy out, and the great thing is if it sucks, no one even needs to know you made it – they can bury it! -- that is, unless the platform is wanting to call it a hit.”  It is a dish that does not taste quite so sweet in hindsight.

Sure, there was this wonderful wrinkle in time then that our business seemed to have a sort of alchemy available to all: everybody wins. I worked at the customer sales counter in those days, wearing a silly hat and some badges and always dreaming of what it must feel like to have that prescription of theirs filled. It was a happy pill, wasn’t it? You were satiated with everything and could never think it was going to cloud your judgement to the extent that they could dismantle the golden geese piece by piece. It must have been a wonderful feeling, but I wouldn’t know because I handed in my exit papers far too late. Oh well. We all make mistakes. Oh yeah, and besides: it was a big fat lie. And now it’s costing us everything.

Yeah, we’ve moved on from the dream that such a fantasy could last a good long while. I guess that is a good thing. It is always better to live in truth. Even when everyone seemed to believe the lies. It was only about five years ago that everything was getting funded at significantly flush budgets — you know: the unrealistic and unrecoupable kind. Maybe it was less than that. I think it kicked in big time truly around 2015 and then covid ultimately killed it. Or rather covid killed it along with our industry’s own hand and deliberately devious ways.

Peak content wasn’t ever really about making great work after all. We made so much dreck of course, the overabundance was suicidal. It’s the American way, right? Death by excess. And although we’ve moved on from those days, I haven’t heard anyone relishing the current situation. And what is it now, really? Confusion? Stagnation? Indecision? Fear? We don’t get a really tasty cocktail mixing all that together, do we?

Welcome to suck, folks! But stay with me folks, because if we wade through this muck, I see shining skies and glorious waves on the beachfront just beyond the trees. Everyone is lost. Maybe drunk. Out of their f’n minds! They’ve been fooled and fooled again. They say one thing and do the other. But it ends. There is a horizon and line and we are inching up close. Do you see it? Let me guide you through it… Let’s go!