In response to “Kill Hollywood”, an accelerator for content creators

It’s not hard to see why anyone who values freedom and innovation would be pissed off by such a stupid law and the shady circumstances surrounding it. But wouldn’t killing Hollywood mean putting thousands of people out of work? Does Silicon Valley love computers and hate old-fashioned humans? That can’t be right… Can it?

Not really. The Hollywood he was talking about is not a place, nor a group of people or companies. It is a corrupt value system organized around the main objective of profit. Not art, not culture, not ideas, not people, not society. Just profit.

This short-term focus leads to parasitic relationships and a toxic ecosystem, which in turn breeds dissatisfaction and frustration in creative minds. Just ask any screenwriter or visual effects artist about the way they are abused and disrespected. Even investors get screwed through “creative” accounting tricks.

THE IMPORTANCE OF STORIES

Just to be perfectly clear, this post is not against profit or any of the people around the world trying to make an honest living creating films and series. It’s about understanding that common profit or shared value is more important than individual riches, especially when it comes to the content industries which, consciously or not, shape our culture.

The stories we hear, read and see forge our character. The stories we share forge our society. That’s why developing new systems to support the diversity of stories is paramount to a vibrant civilization capable of continuous reinvention. Talented storytellers like Plato, Rousseau, Huxley, Rossellini, Buñuel, Tarkovsky, Kubrick, Allen, Coppola or Godard are able to, not only question what we are, but also envision what we could be.

The constant improvement of digital technology is enabling millions of people around the world to explore their creativity, and it wouldn’t be unreasonable to think that many of them have real talent. But the traditional systems to access the market, such as festivals and studios, are not prepared to receive the massive quantities of new material being created. To put this in perspective, there were 4,044 feature films submitted to Sundance for 2013, out of which only 115 were selected for screening. How many of those will reach the cinemas? And will the rest of them be condemned to obscurity?

CODING, STORYTELLING AND MOORE’S LAW

Just a few years ago, software developers used to be powerless employees lost within gargantuan organizations. Now they’re founders of culturally disruptive companies at the forefront of the fastest-growing industry in recent history. They are cultural icons, misfits and rebels. Wasn’t this the domain of rock stars and movie stars? Despite their proven ability to create life-changing narratives, screenwriters and filmmakers are still stuck in the same sad situation in which software developers used to be. Isn’t it time for them to start calling the shots? Isn’t it time to assume control over their creations and careers?

Now let’s be honest, creatives as a whole have a tendency to be idealistic folks, which is one of the reasons why they often manage to conjure stories capable of capturing the collective imagination. But it’s also probably one of the reasons why they avoid business related tasks. It is not very common to find a filmmaker with a business strategy for his project. “Why not?”, you ask. Because they think that it’s not their job, that it’s for the suits to worry about. Creatives depend too much on agents, lawyers and producers. Their neglect in trying to better understand these crucial aspects of the business makes them easy targets for abuse from unscrupulous associates roaming in the shark-infested waters of the film industry.

It’s sort of the same way it was with software developers, until they woke up and realized the time had come for them to learn that building a successful company requires more than good coding skills. They took the steps necessary to acquire the missing skills or team up with people that have them without giving up control of their ideas. Nowadays, film schools around the world are churning out well-trained technicians that know how to light a green screen and operate a follow focus or a steadicam. Likewise, screenwriters are taught about character development, story structure and so on. But in almost none of these schools are they ever in risk of stumbling upon an entrepreneurship class. That very skill they need to be masters of their own career is missing from their expensive curricula.

The result? Underemployment, millions of short film projects your friends ask you to donate your scarce resources for, a never-ending road of unpaid internships, and a perpetual cycle of bitterness that leads most people to do unto others what has been done unto them when they finally make their way up the corporate ladder.

IF A TREE FALLS IN A FOREST AND IT HAS NO AUDIENCE…

Most indie filmmakers think their problem is lack of money. They don’t have enough money to make copies and to distribute them… Bullshit. Put something on BitTorrent and it will get infinitely copied for free.

The real problem is they don’t have enough people that want to copy their films. Not even for “free”. In most cases that means one of two things. Either their product sucks, or, even worse, nobody knows it even exists because their marketing strategy sucks.

What’s interesting is Hollywood has proven over and over during the last few years that the marketing strategy has far more weight than anything else in the financial outcome of a film project. Bad films (even horrible films) can and will make shitloads of money if they are correctly packaged and delivered to a receptive audience.

So, it doesn’t matter if your film is a work of art. It’s not people’s job to come and meet you, ask if you happen to have a great film because they just have too much free time on their hands… It’s your damn job to find your true fans. Meet them, earn their respect, have a relationship with them.

LET’S NOT KILL HOLLYWOOD, LET’S ACCELERATE CONTENT CREATORS, LET’S ACCELERATE STORYTELLING INNOVATION

What we want is more great stories. To empower people with the means to tell them and share them. To do it with the most efficient use of resources and for the widest positive impact.

The same principles successfully developed by startup accelerators since 2005 can be applied to foster the emergence of independent feature films and series. We’re building an accelerator for the new generation of fearless and connected creators so they can thrive in the brave new world of personal storytelling by and for everyone. Join us in the search for new business models to sustain independent creative careers.