We Have Plenty Left To Improve In Today's Cinema Ecosystem

Our series on all that currently is GOOD & BAD in Cinema, continues with Part Seven-- the final one (before the one that follows that one, and the one after that)!

Thank you George Herriman for so much!

I understand if you have to catch your breath. That’s why I didn’t release these posts as a binge bundle. I don’t want you addicted to the doom cycle. I want you to ponder. I think you can find positive in this long a list. What do you think it means if this list of what is wrong in our industry feels never ending?

Can we say “decades of neglect”? Does it make you wonder about those we consider in charge? Are all these fails a sign that it is not just a flaw or a glitch, but actually the whole design? And what does that signify?

Or how about our own behavior and creative practice?

I don’t want to point fingers (or at least until the sun starts to set), and I will accept some responsibility — because after all, we are all in this together — but personally speaking, I think throwing bricks is an act of love. Sometimes that is the only form of action we have truly available to us. Albeit I prefer the proverbial form of bricks. I just want to make points, not break windows. We all have to recognize the work we have before us. We have to speak up. And we have to respond. Say you care. Show you care.

We will make it better if it actually matters to us. It matters to me. Does it matter to you? Do I hear a “Yeeesssss!”?

Or perhaps you want to use this link to get 20% off an annual subscription at 2024 prices. Time is running out! The sale ends January 7th (and prices will go up).

Problems With The FKATheFilmBiz, 2024, #126-156 (L-P)

126. Leadership: does anyone actually want to work for them?

127. Leadership: nothing stands for anything anymore.

128. Leadership: no one tells us what is needed. I had to write this list, right? They want you to bury your head in the sand. I want you to look around you and tell us what matters.

129. Literature / The novel is dead: no one reads serious books anymore. This will of course result in even fewer movies being made from serious books. And when it happens, those movies won’t have the budget needed to tell those tales well. It isn’t because audiences don’t care — be it the reading or the financing of such films. It is the system that we are in and audience’s willingness to like what they get. This could change, but I wouldn’t be on that pony any time soon.

130. Los Angeles film production hits historic lows. Who’s minding the store, either for LA or for the film business? You’d think that the one city that is synonymous with a single industry, be that Hollywood or LA, they’d want to be a wee bit proactive. If I was a crew person, I would have left long ago for the greener pastures where they actually still care about production. Hello Georgia, New Mexico, and New York!

131. Loyalty / the lack there of: Other than rare exceptions, there is no loyalty in either Hollywood or Indiewood, and that my friend is yet another downright dirty shame. Is Europe, Asia, or LatAm any better though? I honestly don’t think it is human nature to be purely self-interested, but more a factor of the system you are in, and there lies the rub. You know the Studios and GSPs only care about their bottom line; they are going to drop you without much respect for what you did. To be clear, Amazon gave me a generous deal after I resigned and I am grateful for that, but I can’t say I have seen any indication that they or any of the executives I worked with ever think of me — or the other execs who helped build their film and series program — beyond that. In the indie ranks, again, I have only seen a few exceptions to similar behavior. Theirs is a cruel world, but does ours have to be? We know to keep the good ones close, but that is not the same as treating them as we would treat ourselves. The best display of humanity is to help others before they admit they need it or ask for it — but I know far too few examples of this. It is something I ask about all the time. People have been good to me, but I can’t say people in our industry are good to each other. I hear few examples of it. Pay it forward. Personally, I feel we deserve or owed little in this world, but we can grace each other with so much. Be human. Love. Be loyal. Work well with each other.