We've Really Got Our Work Cut For Us!
Part 10 of all we need to fix from 2024's Cinema Ecosystem
I don’t know how to make proper amends. This started as just a brain dump. I thought maybe 50 or even a 100 items would fill this list, but as I wrote it, it just kept expanding. I thought it would be too sad to take this list to 200, but I know not only can I get there, I am going beyond that plateau. And as the list grew and grew for me, it also transformed. It wasn’t depressing. It was something inspiring, motivating. It was revealing that there is no denying. We need a change.
Over ten posts, over two hundred points — all stating what’s wrong.
I swear I am not a complainer.
I am a fixer — or at least that’s how I like to think of myself. Like Harvey K. in Pulp Fiction, I will get rid of the bodies mess. We are going to leave this place cleaner better than we found it. That’s what this list is all about. It is our communal call to action. Please hear it.
See clearly with wide eyes and a beginner’s mind. Stay pure of heart. Know what really matters to you and what you won’t ever do. Mean what you say and do what you say. Let take it forward and get some things done.
Problems With The FKATheFilmBiz, 2024, #176-200 (S-T)
Respect: The industry, and particularly the studios & GSPs, have shown little respect to producers in particular, and things are being done because of it. Hold the truth in your heart when you look them in the eye.
Responsibility: no one has any and no one takes any. “Now, most executives can’t even hire writers without asking their boss.”
Revenue: No one but the CEOs (& the agents) can make any money in this crazy business.
Rights Grab Without Commitments To Exercise: For years now buyers accumulate whatever rights they can without even having a strategy to exploit them. Why do they take all rights and why do they take them for so damn long? Just like dogs, they do so because they can. If there was an Artists Bill Of Rights, such practices would trigger reversions.
Risk Evaluation: Franklin Leonard will tell you Hollywood Execs are doing it all wrong — and I agree with him.
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