Hue's Blog

Hollywood & Hi-Tech: A Convergence of Beautiful People

There's a convergence afoot, between Hollywood and hi-tech.  I mean, besides the obvious.  Yes, channels are mixing, distribution models are blurring, the means of production are democratized, everyone's a filmmaker, Apple TV this, Netflix that…

No.  I mean the actual, cultural convergence of two groups of people who set out to make…things.  The two worlds, one started by Jewish immigrants and the other pioneered by uber-cerebral Midwestern geeks, are starting to resemble each other.

All my evidence is experiential and circumstantial.  And, in the spirit of bad social science methodology, I am selecting on the dependent variable - I see what I see, and I'm calling it a pattern.  But so what?  I know it's true.  And this convergence isn't because of the democratization of media.  It's from the democratization of technology.

I'm going to briefly list my background, not because it establishes me as an authority, but because it justifies a level of intimacy with both the tech and film worlds.  I was a co-founder of BlueLight.com, an opportunity for which I turned down an offer to be employee number twenty-something at PayPal (I know, I know, believe me I know.)  I left the tech world briefly to go to film school, where I wrote and then directed the feature film Saint John of Las Vegas.  The film had a brief theatrical run, thanks primarily to the star power of the lead actor Steve Buscemi and a strong supporting cast.  If you like indie road movies, Netflix has it on-demand.  I'm still involved in technology, and I still make movies.  And it's from this perspective that I glibly analyze the two cultures:

Go to a film industry event - a film festival, a social meet-up, a screening with celebrities.  You have one group of people who are great at doing something (writing, drawing, painting, directing) but who need resources in order to "do" that thing.  You have another group of people who have resources, or access to resources, or access to that access.  It's trite and cliche to hold the "artist" above the "facilitator."  The system has evolved natural roles to manage the stress of potential doers dwarfing the resources available to do.

Now, go to a tech meet-up or a pitch conference.  You have entrepreneurs who want to do things that require resources.  And you have facilitators who, one way or another, control access to those resources.  But beyond that, coders and developers are starting to look, dress, act and speak like writers or artists.  VC's and investors more and more resemble producers and agents.  My friend Tom Chernaik, founder of Cmp.ly and former media exec, described a surreal scene at SXSW where not only was the same hotel being used to broker media and tech deals, but that you couldn't tell the difference between one group and the other, except the tech folks preferred daylight and the media people operated at night.  Similarly, a developer here in NY complained that he wasn't comfortable going to tech meet-ups anymore, because they were full of flashy, charismatic non-technical people, and no one was "sitting around, drinking beer and talking code." 

For film, where did the over-supply of doers come from?  I don't know, but it's been that way since the earliest days of the industry.  Read "Hollywood Babylon" or "Day of the Locust" for insight into how little has changed about film culture in the last 100 years.  Everyone has a story to tell, most Americans know how to write, and any one of us might be a movie star if we get discovered.

In the first internet wave, there were not too many doers.  There were not enough doers.  My friend's girlfriend was a classical musician who got hired by Netscape right out of college.  Apparently the Valley had drained all local schools of computer science majors, so the big firms were hiring classical musicians and teaching them how to code, banking on the similarity between programming and symphonic structure.  But now, anyone (relatively speaking) can code.  The languages are more accessible, and the platforms are kinder.  You don't need a graduate degree in comp sci, you need a spare weekend and a how-to book.  And as technology becomes more accessible, the supply balance tips, and you have glut of potential doers seeking limited resources.  Enter the power brokers, the resource allocators, the facilitators.

There are some obvious implications for tech, which are already in motion.  You already have the beginnings of talent agents, first-look deals, and celebrities with "green lighting" power.  But there's also a sadder implication.  If technical ability becomes a commodity, other factors, such as looks and style, may become deciding factors.  Tech, once the bastion of the physically and socially awkward, will get invaded by technically competent beautiful people.  Everyone knows that film stars are attractive.  What's surprising is how attractive the writers, producers, cinematographers, agents, sound recordists and digital intermediary colorists are.  A highly acclaimed sound designer summarized the pressure he felt to be physically attractive this way: "it's not enough to sing like Usher.  You've got to look like Usher and dance like Usher."

 

Seth's Blog: Hardly worth the effort

"Laying out the design of a page or a flyer so it looks like a pro did it takes about ten times as much work as merely using the template Microsoft builds in for free, and the message is almost the same...

Except it's not. Of course not. The message is not the same."

From Seth Godin's always insightful blog.  I have found this to be true for everything I've done, from finite element modeling to film color correction.  What people respond to is love in the work, and to love something is to love the details.  Read the full post here.

50,000 Films Is a Very Good Thing

"A study of classical performance attendance by the Knight Foundation gives interesting insight. In an analysis of audiences for classical music, they found the greatest predictor of attendance at such venues wasn’t ticket prices, education or income level, but whether someone had ever learned to play an instrument. If you have musical training, you feel a more intimate connection to the music and you search out many types of music, including classical, to explore its history and its niches.

I believe that likewise, in film, we now have legions of young people who have learned to shoot, edit and make a film. The industry tends to dismiss these as amateurs and complain about the torrential flood of their films, but we might just have the perfect generation -- one that feels a visceral connection to film and wants to explore it more."

This is from a great post by Brian Newman on TheWrap.com.  You can read the full article here.

The Value In Screenplay Books

I’m not a huge fan of write-by-numbers screenplay books.  Why aren’t the writers penning blockbuster screenplays, themselves?  It’s a simple but honest question.  The book authors who have also written famous screenplays, like David Mamet and William Goldman, write more about the spirit of movies than about hard-cast structure.  Books that directly or indirectly proffer “all-you-need-to-write-a-great-screenplay” promise false hope.  As though having the $25 purchase price is what separates professional from the fan.  I went to a panel once where a newly-minted agent told the crowd of aspiring filmmakers “I just read Story, by Robert McKee, so you better have your structure in place.”  Yes, and I should buy low and sell hi.  Thank you.

But I had lunch this weekend with an intense young man who described an important part of his childhood.  He laid out some basic information, and then gave snippets, descriptions, and emotional reactions, in no particular order.  I could tell that his story was serious, but he struggled to frame it in a way that let me share his experience.  My friend needed some plot work, is what he needed. I realized that a movie-goer might be struggling to organize his or her own life experiences into a sensible order.  If watching a film with a traditional plot structure can provide a template, then that’s a good thing.

But I’m still suspicious of the cookbooks hiding out in the film section.

Harold Pinter

In his essay "Writing for the Theatre" Harold Pinter writes about talking and silence.

There are two silences. One when no word is spoken. The other when perhaps a torrent of language is being employed...The speech we hear is an indication of that which we don't hear. It is a necessary avoidance, a violent, sly, anguished or mocking smoke screen which keeps the other in its place...One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness.

I thought about this while writing Saint John of Las Vegas. At one point John surrenders to his gambling demons, in a minimart.  Embarrassed, he launches into a tirade.  Instead of saying "I can't believe how weak I am" he says (to the counter girl):

You gotta be lucky...luc-ky...are you lucky?  That’s a dumb question.  I know you are.  I can feel you...no, not like that, I mean you feel lucky, it feels lucky...in here...whew!  But it is hot...does that bother you?  That they keep it hot in here?  Maybe it’s good for the food...keeps it fresh...although you’d think it’d be better cold...for freshness. (beat) Fresh-ness.

Your Brand Here

Seth Godin raises an issue that affects all of us trying to establish ourselves as creative professionals.  On the one hand, we need to work.  On the other hand, we are defined by the body of work we do.  Does the project in front of you advance your career, or set it back?  At what point is any job better than no job?  He says:

"Surviving is succeeding, no doubt about it. Doing the work is better than not doing the work. Waiting for perfect is never as smart as making progress. But, and it's a huge but, you define yourself by the work you do, and perhaps you need to redefine what you're willing to take and where you're looking for it."

You can read his entire blog post here.

Faith

I was 29 years old in 2001.  I worked for Kmart online as a technical product manager.  I had never taken an art class, but I dreamed of making movies.  I wrote stories before work and on weekends.  I had only confided in one person - my friend Brendan Foley.  So when he invited me to his Oscar party, I went.

Who hasn't fantasized about what they would say in their Oscar acceptance speech?  Who doesn't dream a little during that show?  But that night I felt embarrassed about my dreams.  I was an engineer, sitting on Brendan's couch, eating chips.  That was my reality.

Then Steven Soderbergh won his Oscar.  He said "I want to thank anyone who spends part of their day creating."  By saying "part of their day" he was including me too.  Sitting in the dark, watching TV with my co-workers, I felt my self-consciousness melt away, dissolved by a tiny ember of faith.