Digital Hollywood Day One: Hollywood 2.0
Blogging from Digital Hollywood (where I'll be speaking on Wednesday). It's always a fascinating collection of "old" media representatives, "new" media representatives, distributors, and technology companies trying to sell to all of them. The panels always seem to have an undercurrent of tension regarding who "gets it" and who doesn't (and, no, it's not always true that the old media are the ones that don't get it). Today, among other things, I attended a session on "The New Hollywood Equation", essentially analyzing Hollywood 2.0. The panel was well represented by producers, distributors, old and new media (Lesley Pinckney from Essence Communications was particularly impressive). Here are some nuggest from the session:
- The web is still a hit driven business just like television and the rest of old media (and the success-failure rate is probably even worse).
- Because of the flexibility of the medium and the ability to get instant and accurate metrics, the web piece of a multi-platform content roll out can be the most profitable element
- Consistent with what I've heard at other conferences, large media organizations are using user generated content channels to scout for talent
- For producers who started as independents, but were purchased by a large media or entertainment organizations, there are often growing pains when dealing with the "bureaucracy" of the large organization. In particular, some of the panelists felt that being part of a large organization inhibited their ability to produce comedy
- One of the most exciting things about web productions is that participants are experimenting with deal structures and, therefore, the parties can reallocate the risk and try new productions. One panelist said, these changing deal structures had the possibility of making entertainment and media more inclusive because it allowed productions to get made that couldn't be made otherwise.
- An excellent question posed by the moderator that wasn't answered adequately, in my view, was whether or not large media and entertainment companies could survive with their large overheads and mass advertising models in a world where entertainment continued to target narrower and narrower niches.
- The importance of trusted sources that can filter and recommend content and the importance of brand evangelizers and self promotion of content can't be overstated
Perhaps the most interesting thing mentioned by the panel was a throwaway line by David Brooks who mentioned that he was challenging his creators/producers to come up with "geographic specific entertainment" and to avoid creating webisodes and warmed over TV programming. From a legal perspective, it is interesting to contemplate what comes after adding social networking to programs and what the legal issues will be.
