The Internet industry has spent almost 20 years now beating the crap out of disintermediation, which as we all know is the elimination of middle men from commerce, bringing producers and consumers in direct contact. As the market has grown and widened and tools have improved and got cheaper the nature of disintermediation has changed, too, to the point that today it is almost what we claimed it was back in 1995. To prove that I give you this video from Movie Cloud, which went up today on Indiegogo.
Movie Cloud is supposed to be the disintermediation of movies, bringing all factions together so that 50,000 feature films per year may bloom… maybe.
Whether Movie Cloud succeeds or fails I think it shows us two things that are very interesting. First, the Internet is the market. There’s no mention here of movie theaters or DVDs. If this thing succeeds it will be by ignoring both. Second, if this is happening now, what the heck did we think we were doing with Internet video 5, 10, and 15 years ago, when we talked precisely about such disintermediation?
It’s not that we didn’t mean it but that those earlier efforts were either technically infeasible or co-opted by the movie industry. For all his schmaltz this Movie Cloud guy is right — Hollywood is a monopoly.
Now here are some further thoughts before you risk your $29. I don’t think anyone would argue against a product that democratizes film financing, production and distribution. It’s really surprising to me to see that video hasn’t made the same progress in terms of the ability to self publish to a wide audience that music and books have. Sure there are some solutions out there, but none that are really widely used.
An independent film maker friend of mine reminded me that he once participated in the short lived Google Video paid service before the YouTube acquisition. Google Video claimed it would democratize video distribution, too, by allowing viewers direct access to content. What my friend didn’t know at the time, however, was that Google was just buying time and audience until they were able to ink bigger partnerships. A few weeks in, all of the independent content was scrubbed in favor of episodes of Star Trek Voyager, and Major League Baseball.
I don’t know if Movie Cloud will be different, but I’m guessing they’ll follow the money, too.
You’ll notice in this video pitch that technology is completely neglected (there is slightly more on the Indiegogo page). These are real film experts and they may have spent a lot of there own money but none of it is visible here. Maybe they’ll implement a system similar to Digg or Reddit where people can vote up the best content, which would make it more viewable to users. But the risk of curation has always been that once big names get involved they start to clog up the system. We see this even on YouTube, perhaps especially on YouTube.
What happens when Movie Cloud establishes a content partnership with Criterion, and all of the mid/high budget Criterion films start taking up the key areas of the site, focusing attention away from the smaller films?
There aren’t a lot of specifics here regarding how the software will actually work, which is crucial to the end project. Dov, for all his giving away pens and cursing, doesn’t have much geek cred. What he has in abundance, however, are promises about all of the vast real world places and services Movie Cloud will supplant.
Developing, testing, and delivering a system that realistically supplants the need for virtual production offices for example would be a huge feat. Can they realistically develop that system, as well as financing, distribution, etc. all in one big swoop? That’s the $29 question.
I applaud the idea and initiative. But I am very cautious about anyone being able to deliver on all of the promises Movie Cloud is making.
Maybe I need one of those pens.
I guess I’m first 🙂
I guess disintermediation is destroying the travel agency business . . . no one uses them any more. What other businesses have been destroyed? Book sellers? CD and record stores?
Seems like Dell went the other way and started offering it’s wares retail.
The Apple Store concept can be see as a type of disintermediation, but not of the internet variety.
p.s. bob you may be interested in this baby monitoring technology built into pyjamas:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/05/08/high-tech-baby-clothes-monitor-heart-beat-temperature-movement/
“I guess disintermediation is destroying the travel agency business . . . no one uses them any more…”
Actually… No, that is incorrect.
Travel agents who are true professionals and who provide a service rather than just taking orders for tickets are doing quite well. The internet has just made it easier for people who would have booked their own travel anyway.
A flight, hotel and rental car, is a pretty simple transaction, and most people take these simple point to point trips. But keep in mind, like any business, hotels, tour companies, etc. all create their own websites, and, for example, the picture of the view from the lobby to the beach may not show the four lane highway in-between.
Start planning a multi-day itinerary, in a foreign land, coordinating, air, hotel, train, transfers, tours, meals, etc. and a good agent becomes very valuable.
Many people confuse price, with value, if you want the absolute lowest price, book it yourself. But if you want to pack as much value into your limited vacation time, the one time in your life when you may visit a destination, use an agent.
I thought Francis was joking?
My own experience with the loss of qualified agents has been TERRIBLE.
And sites that aggregate and show the best deals across airlines have been a bad form of new disintermediation. These “providers” don’t stand by the tickets they book and my wife and I have each had an experience where we would have been WAY better off booking directly with an airlines, which now I do exclusively, completely ignoring the likes of Orbitz.
Speaking of the Internet and disintermediation, along the lines of these travel booking sites, we’ve really created a lot more middlemen in some areas just as in others we’ve lost them. A primary example are these news aggregation sites and services (including such as buying subscriptions via Apple and others instead of from, say, Conde Nast).
Travel agents just morphed…Travelolcity, Expedia, and Priceline are really travel agents and seem to be doing fine.
Only Southwest requires you to book only with them.
Perhaps he is like the prognosticators of 1995: predicting the future and maybe, sort of, trying to make it happen. I’m skeptical too because of the existing monopoly forces trying to keep things the way they are.
A working strategy for disrupting the status quo and entrenched players is to fly under the radar until you actually have something working at a smaller scale, and then attract more producers. When you have something that can reasonably be called appealing to the masses, then do the “here we are” marketing effort. By then, the inertia of initial adopters and word-of-mouth recommendations might just be enough to see the endeavor through to success, both on its own, and to the destruction of the Hollywood monopoly. Who knows?
I see this as an alternative to Hollywood’s BS. People must like the idea, though, because they’ve raised thousands in just a few hours, and the comments are super positive.
Yes, all 2 of them (so far).
People like the idea just like they like organic produce — right up to the point where the sad (but actually, natural), organic apple is sitting next to the giant, bright, GMO apple and they have to choose.
Primer (the movie) could be the poster child for the DIY movie makers; however, I think typical independent movies are big budget in comparison. (Primer is truly the exception to the rule for movies made for the cost of a used car.) Would those filmmakers support this model? Some. But enough?
I thought Netflix would deliver on the promise of fulfilling the Internet’s movie streaming capability, but movie producers have all but crippled it. Can you think of an American-made movie that is awesome, and that you want to see right now? Too bad. DVD is in the mail. Streaming is for Anime, really old films you never liked anyway (Casablanca by FIOS? Nope. USPS.) and anything with Billy Zane or Michael Ironside. OTOH, thank you Netflix for introducing me to Korean vengeance flicks!
Maybe someday. And maybe along with it, new digital projection technology so we can throw up ad hoc HD movie theaters anywhere there is an internet connection. There’s an idea: crowd-sourced movie selection for your local theater! What’s playing tonight? Whatever the people want…$5 entrance fee, BYOB, maybe a hibachi…That is community organizing I can get behind!
But Hollywood will find a way to kill it. Copyrights, trademarks, patents, executive orders from the president…Where there’s a lawyer, there’s a way.
Although I share some of your concerns, I think it’s notable Netflix is just now launching their original programming. Let’s wait and see; they may be a hit “channel” despite being increasingly frozen out by some moviehouses.
Movie theaters will play anything people want to see. Its not their fault everyone wants to see Marvel’s Avengers.
The current film production model already has already torn down the integrated studio.
Distribution is the last straw.
But as with most things it will be evolution vs revolution.
Sorry, offtopic, but the RSS feed from this site has become totally unreliable. Whatever has changed in the last 3 or 4 moths or so just doesn’t work half of the time. Sorry to see that because honestly I don’t read websites that can’t provide a RSS headline feed.
There have been a few comments about this. Just to chime in from the other side, I’ve never had an issue, and I always get here via RSS. Linux/Firefox 12.0, fwiw.
Part of the problem may be that there are different urls posted for various feeds. The one working perfectly right now is the one that IE detects automatically at “https://www.cringely.com/feed/”.
Gee, I had an idea once for a movie script. This was back before the mortgage meltdown that would eventually depress the Western economies. It was based on information from certain independent economists and prognosticators about the coming economic holocaust. These independent experts were several years ahead of the times and so very few “normal” (meaning brainwashed) people would believe them.
I was going to call the film Death Spiral. It was about how a cabal of international financiers and their cohorts would bring the world economy to its knees in order to reap huge profits and gain even more power over the oppressed people.
Being lazy, I never finished the script, which would have been rejected by Hollywood anyway. Then reality overtook my fantasies, so there went my controversial ideas.
Getting back on topic, maybe my next idea for a movie script will have a chance with this new Cloud platform.
I want a rocket pack — you know, a contraption you strap to your back and fly around like . . . somebody in a movie. Only I don’t want it be a movie; I want it to be real.
Is that asking too much?
Be seeing you.
That’s very easy to do…
…unless you want to live to tell your grandkids about it. Much harder then.
Good luck with all of that.
Call me skeptical.
Money talks, and people want their big budget special effects movies, as well as the period costume dramas and indie angst flicks. Until independent sites can deliver actors/actresses and special effects like you see the big boys do, this will be a bit player.
It’s not a bad deal for $4 a month – but how about the bandwidth? Hopefully, buffer-bloat will be a thing of the past soon –
Not to be a grammar/spelling nazi but Yeesh Bob, “These are real film experts and they may have spent a lot of there own money”. There? THERE? Surely you mean “their”.
Could be, but after seeing the video I get the feeling the guy wants to use money “over there” rather than his own. But he’ll be glad to contribute a pen.
Why are we so attached to the movie/film paradigm for telling a story? If you really want to be a cloud for collaboration in telling a story, open the storytelling medium up to all forms of communication. An “Internet Movie” should include video, text, graphics and whatever else we invent.
But as a screenwriter, I will tell you that one still needs the ability to tell a good story in order to convince people to give the storyteller their undivided attention for a while. This fact hasn’t changed for thousands of years.
Instead of telling a good story (making shit up that never happened), why not get off your ass and actually do something useful? Go build a bridge. Go plow a field and plant a crop. Hell, even the checkout girl at the grocery store is contributing more than you.
“I don’t think anyone would argue against a product that democratizes film financing, production and distribution.” Oh come now, this is the Internet… 🙂
Seriously, I do argue against the “democratization” of art. I am in favor of the popularization and anarchy of art. But the notion of building art standards based on majority popular tastes even more than what Hollywood does now (which I’d liken to kind of a Chinese/Iranain democracy, they offer “acceptable candidates” which then get some kind of market “democratic” input at the box office) is simply a way to make more and more bland and uninteresting art.
Rather the free-form anarchy – unriddled by social network consensus and promoted rather by randomization and a mixture of guided and serendipitous discovery – of art, IMHO, is promising against the stifling banality of a population beholden to common (and culturally-biased) notions of craft and the necessities which “must” underly/support art.
I would argue it’s the democratization of Youtube which has led to the “especially Youtube” comment in the article. One important loss, one which killed my own interest in discovering video on Youtube, was the elimination of the “just uploaded” view, at first when one logged in and then altogether. While this got rid of so-called noise it ensured that only those with the resources to amass large followers could promote new videos so effectively. Instead we see only those videos which are popular/trending – much as the only way a candidate can get into a debate is by amassing enough in polls and popular notice to get invited to a debate. That’s democracy…great (well, okay, as great as I think we’ve seen so far, as troublesome as it is) for policy-making, not so for art.
I’m in for $29
I watched the entire video and I still don’t know what a Movie Cloud is.
It’s all a bunch of rabble rousing, but I have no idea what he’s selling.
I don’t have time to watch 49,999 full length films a year to find one I will actually like and feel it wasn’t a waste of time.
Also don’t try to ask me a bunch of questions and match my answers to other weirdos – Facebook, Google+, and Hunch tried that too – they don’t work (for me).
There are lots of gold nuggets available on YouTube for free, but I don’t have time to waste there either.
And the only place I want to watch movies? On my TV, not my computer or my phone.
Porn.
Video that went dismediation in the extreme and killed the studio.
Years ago ? a decade ago ?
And, of course, its generally been ahead of the mainstream in adopting new tech.
On the other hand, where’s my 3-d porn !?!
Probably when the 3d sets are common in homes.
OT: Sorry for shamelessly suggesting a subject for a post, but I would absolutely love to find out about your perspective on the new “social search” features in Bing. I personally find this idea intriguing, sort of the worst thing Google could have feared. Don’t want to sound like I work in Redmond, so I will better shut up at this point.
My vote goes with VHS…
Yeah, I know… Luddite! BUT…
The reason is – adverts! With a DVD I have to wait for that nice federal warning to pass; for the trailers to give me, finally, access to the main menu.
Look, film corps, I paid for this movie. I’m no pirate so let me or my kids watch what we paid for in th comfort of our living-room. OK?
Nope!
With Internet movies I have to watch no matter how I tried to circumvent those pesky ads! At least Youtube lets you move them out of the way…
My vote still goes with VHS. I can note the time when the movie starts – even when it’s eight minutes in – and just FF to there when we want to watch.
Where does what the customer wants, and has paid for, ever figure in the minds of corporate … (I’m at a loss for citable epithet. Help me please guys and gals!)
😀
If you’re using a small screen TV (under 32 inches) so you don’t need Hi Def or even digital a VCR can’t be beat. You can have one at each TV location and use them to tune to and simultaneously record multiple shows for later viewing on ANY TV at ANY location merely by moving the media around.
Yes, indeed! Sensible…
As you point out, a good quality VCR is fine for non-HD visuals. And do you remember the solid, pro-quality of VHS tapes when they first came out? A hundred times heavier and more accurate than the final, flimsy efforts as the format petered-out. I still have a collection of those blanks.
Remote: Stop, Stop, Play.
http://lifehacker.com/5518076/hit-stop-+-stop-+-play-and-other-tricks-to-skip-dvd-trailers-and-warnings
I don’t think you should be surprised that the film industry has not yet been quite as “democratized” as the music or book industries. The main hurdle is the same as it has always been: money. It just takes a lot more money to make a film than an album or a book. Everything about the art form is more expensive. Yes, technology has brought the costs down dramatically, but it is still astronomically more expensive to create a film than any other artwork (unless you consider architecture an art form that produces artworks). That’s the *main* reason film has not been as democratized as other art forms. It’s more expensive to make because you have to hire more actors (in the music production business, we hire musicians as our “actors”, and we hire them for a specific role, but the numbers of “actors” are much smaller than in film). And the other big difference is the distribution network. It’s just harder to distribute a film because it involves so much more data.
But the remaining question is still the same: how are people going to get paid? The democratization of the music industry has had many positives, but also many negatives. I know a fair number of incredibly talented musicians who simply cannot survive anymore off of income from music. These are big time musicians–guys you’ve seen on tour with big productions playing some of the biggest shows on the planet. But we still haven’t figured out a way for the money to follow the democratization. I’m personally thrilled by the number of indie films we’ve seen pop up over the last 3 years, even, but if we can’t find a solution to how we pay the creators, there just isn’t going to be much great art being produced.
[…] What’s a Movie Cloud? That’s up to you – I, Cringely – interesting attack on the movie industry oligopoly […]
> a system similar to Digg or Reddit where people can vote up the best content
Ooh, thats two ointellectual. Snobby sites full of collidge inducated baristas.
You’re best bet is “likes”. Like, can’t miss.
wow, betternumber is now in android market !
First, I don’t want to film, produce, act, or even watch movies. I’m kinda hoping all of the professional full time artists go away.
Second… there are 50,000 unseen movies (major movies — not stupid shorts) costing $350,000 eacch (I presume from the video). That is 17.5 billion dollars per year that “does not see the light of day”? Really? Why would someone plunk down $350,000 with 200 / 50,000 odds? Sure, if you win, you win — what? 50,000,000 ? So, lets figure. The odds say that you will make $200,000 per movie. Hmm…. thats, like, negative. Ya know? On average you will lose $150,000 each time you make a movie. My point is, I don’t believe 99% of what he is saying.
Third… can anyone as angry as he appears really create anything useful? Oh, wait… sorry. Even if all his dreams do come true, we only end up with 50,000 movies to watch per year — 137 movies per day. That isn’t very useful after all. That isn’t actually benefiting any part of society. So… maybe he can pull it off.
“I don’t want to film, produce, act, or even watch movies. I’m kinda hoping all of the professional full time artists go away….can anyone as angry as he appears really create anything useful?”
Glass houses.
I don’t see this doing much to Hollywood. Just like the record companies- mind you even though music sales are down, the big companies still have all the money= marketing and studio time.
So yeah, Movie Cloud will have 50,000. Who’s got time to search through all those? And if only two movies are good out of 200, what does that mean for the full 50,000? Which won’t have the budget or stars of the 200.
It’s all about money- heck I’m sure Netflix’s would post those 50,000 movies themselves- if they had the money.
It would seem that https://www.kickstarter.com/ has a better thing going for doing a film or any other creative act. Is it just acting bigger than it is? Robert or others can you comment?
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[…]What’s a Movie Cloud? That’s up to you[…]…
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