He's not insane. He's Crazy Eddie. Amazon's business model is, pure and simple, "cheaper than everybody else." That means that they will either continue until someone else cuts their margins even deeper (see: Monoprice) or they're busted for labor practices or anti-trust. Amazon's business strategy is about as complex as a game of limbo - they lower the bar and everyone goes under it. Thing is, they gotta go under it too. Really, this is Amazon trying to build a pulp fiction repertoire. If anything, they're trying to Netflix up a formula because all of their Kindle First Books are so shit. It's pretty damn telling that their approach to greatness is all stick, no carrot, though. "Fuck you, authors, write better! Here, we'll pay you less so you're incentivized!"Also, between Amazon Echo and his manical cackle, how do more people not realize that Jeff Bezos is batshit insane?
Love the crazy Eddie reference. Amazon's business strategy is actually "sell Amazon web services." And why does this mean that everyone has to get paid less? Netflix pays good, really good, money for its content. They put big money into production and they get some good content, some great content and some awful content. They also recycle a lot of content that would have made up syndication. I imagine that the people at Amazon would rather eat Penguin's lunch than make a Netflix in a different medium.
More accurately, "Sell Amazon web services at the lowest possible price." Akamai who? Amazon competes primarily on price, not service. And it means that everyone gets paid less. Netflix does NOT pay "good, really good" money for its content. They pay somewhere between "Youtube money" and "network money" for their content. I knew people on the web version of Arrested Development and they were getting the same sorts of rates I get for working with Smosh. And when you're forcing people to earn every word, you're forcing them to write serials. Long form? With a payoff at the end? That shit's dead... which means the only people who are going to play by their rules are the desperate and talentless. I've seen this movie before. Everyone who isn't desperate or talentless bails. Ask me why I'm moving out of Hollywood.
Because you're jaded and bitter that you didn't make it rich? Because there are a mass of people that are willing to grovel in the dirt for the idea of mega-star style success. Because the entertainment industry sells the sizzle not the cow? Even though they promised a herd. That's the actual problem, the idea is that the only success is in dollars and cents. Not in fulfillment, satisfaction and being content. I sound like a super hippy...I am not...I just think that the first step towards being happy is not being angry because you feel like you're not getting enough. I have run into you a few times now and you are really angry, or at least you have been over the past few days. Everything okay?
There's this idea amongst people who have no idea how Hollywood works that everyone is a star and the salaries are all huge. How many people made Jurassic World? How many of them are Chris Pratt? Realistically speaking, you need to land two movies, three TV shows or about 100 commercials a year in order to make a comfortable, middle-class living... if those projects are traditional union projects. More and more of them aren't. Lots of us are down here doing our middle-class thing while trying to get our projects off the ground - very few people came to Hollywood to be a 2nd AC but there are lots of 2nd ACs in Hollywood. In 2006 there were 84 full studio features shot in Hollywood. In 2014 there were two. Television production has moved to places where the rates aren't good and the commercial world has contracted around itself. If you weren't shooting with those guys in 2004 you never will, and once they're retired that entire segment will be gone. I'm leaving Hollywood because the comfortable middle-class lifestyle I choose to lead is becoming harder to find... and the show that pays for most of my year only lasts three months so I'd rather spend the other 9 somewhere more pleasant. Beyond that, it's substantially cheaper for me to make movies elsewhere, despite the fact that the trained crews are down here. Problem is, for what I can sell a feature for, I can't afford to pay my friends what they're worth, and I've been a part of a half-dozen sold features so it's not like I'm howling in the woods. I will not mourn a market segment that cannot compete in the modern marketplace... but I will also not pretend that what replaces it will be as good. I also wouldn't presume to project emotional motives on a discussion about economics. That's ad hominem rhetoric, and it convinces no one. Just sayin'.
Hey man, I just wanted to check in. Emotional inventory of people I am sharing a moment with. Not trying to bust your balls.
Isn't part of the problem with production leaving LA that modern market isn't really a functional market to speak of? As I understand it, much of the production has gone to places whose legislatures give millions of dollars to studios to shoot movies and TV there. I live in one of those states (MI), and of all the reasons I despise our GOP legislature, cancelling the 43% film incentive isn't one of them. I love movies and TV, I am willing to pay good money to see them, but I am not a fan of directly subsidizing them. It seems to be bad for everyone (except already rich execs) on the balance.I will not mourn a market segment that cannot compete in the modern marketplace... but I will also not pretend that what replaces it will be as good.
The only country that doesn't heavily subsidize its entertainment industry is the United States. There's a reason foreign films are often artier and more high-brow - they don't have to make a profit. I know of three different production companies that went bankrupt when Michigan reneged on its deals.
And one entire municipality who had bet the farm that they would become the production hub. It was terrible, and of course my heart went out to the people who thought they were building something here. But the government can't be tossing 43% at any industry. The theory was that the money would be scaled back as the industry took root, but then the next state just steps up and gives 44%, and you're fucked. Shooting a movie is just a tad more portable than building cars, but the leaders here in all their wisdom seemed to not recognize that. No one is going to stay in town just because they like you. Do you think that the US should be in the business of subsidizing the entertainment industry? I like many foreign films, but I'll take Hollywood over any other movie hub, even if they throw the occasional Gigli at us. Right now, I feel like state governments are boning the industry in their attempts to make short term gains at home. Edit: Don't take my endorsement of the policy as an endorsement of the way it was implemented. I didn't like the film credits much, but a deal's a deal, and the way the GOP just pulled the plug was really disgraceful.I know of three different production companies that went bankrupt when Michigan reneged on its deals.
The problem with film credits is few legislatures have the appetite long-term to make them work. Those that do get a film production industry: New Mexico, Georgia. List industries that the US doesn't subsidize and I'll show you a list of industries that make it up in payola and kick-backs. Honestly? I see it like the Airbus/Boeing debacle: Airbus exists because it is subsidized by the governments of France, Germany and England. Boeing exists because Boeing receives illegal payouts and favoritism in order to stay afloat against a rival that doesn't have to profit. Considering movies are rarely used to kill someone but always used to spread your economic and social ideals, FUCK YEAH we ought to be subsidizing the production of entertainment. If I could make the DHS and the NEA swap budgets I'd do it in a heartbeat. What do you think Hitler looks like without Leni Riefenstahl? How long do the '80s last without Red Dawn and Top Gun? It's all propaganda; the only real question is how directly you fund it.
For sure. Here in MI, we have a giant budget deficit, because the Big 3 were promised tax credits for keeping jobs here during the recession that we can't afford. If not for the incentives, what manufacturing remains would already be overseas. I suppose my problem isn't with subsidizing industry, because of course that happens everywhere, but rather with the race to the bottom that all the states play against one another. Remember the "Texas Miracle" that was basically Rick Perry telling industry that they could treat his state like it were a quarter million square miles of a garbage dump? I loathe that kind of mentality. MI didn't create any jobs when it gave up its money; it stole them from CA. That looks more like looting than economic development to me, and I think it makes us all poorer.List industries that the US doesn't subsidize and I'll show you a list of industries that make it up in payola and kick-backs.
Every time he laughs in this interview I become uncomfortable http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/baettl/jeff-bezos The phone, the Echo, the lack of profit, the laugh: I think he's insane. Not that you're wrong but I think he's a crazy person.