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| Posted by Ben Watkins | |
Maybe it's the thirst for danger that lies at the heart of reckless behavior. The childishly flawed mindset that has brought a cloud of dysfunction upon Hollywood in the summer of 2008 may have a far greater impact than is widely realized.
I used to work as an analyst before jumping into the movie industry. Analysts (sometimes) are useful if they can help to quantify the present, even better if they can give a hint as to what lies ahead in the future and what can be done to beneficially influence it.
Doing the "right thing" at the right time doesn't just lead to more things going right, it can save a lot of pain by keeping the wrong things from happening. Right now the wrong things are happening in the Media Industry.
A Long Dispute
I once heard a wise person say that a long dispute means that both parties are wrong. I once heard a lifetime criminal say that if you choose to get in a fight, you better know how to win.
Right now, everyone in America is struggling to handle an inflationary recession, a real-estate meltdown and a very serious banking crisis. Unfortunately, the camera operators, grips, makeup artists and other crew members who work on set are that much more impacted by another disruption, the film industry's complete mismanagement of its own affairs.
The sad fact is that producers and the actors' union have stalled all of Hollywood production. They are currently locked in a fight over 1/3 of 1% of digital sales.
If you didn't comb through the WGA agreement you might not know that the entire industry was shut down from November through February, just when gas was shooting up in price and financial markets were gasping for air, over a fraction of a single percent of potential future sales. The economic cost to California has been estimated at $2.1 billion and over 37,000 jobs were lost. The economic recovery may take several years according to estimates.
It doesn't take tremendous intelligence to see that the battle of the fractions was pointless. There was no victory for anyone.
Moreover an act as serious as shutting down an entire industry has unintended consequences. If a car company halts its manufacturing process it increases the likelihood that some other car maker will replace their product in the marketplace. This economic truism applies to the Media Industry as well.
The Media Industry has a lot to figure out (digital piracy, expanding cable channels, the iPhone, TiVo, the growing presence of YouTube and Google). Consumers have many entertainment options. Whether our overstimulated society will play more video games, buy more magazines or watch more reality TV does not matter. People will consume something in the absence of their preferred content... Shutting down movie production gives the advantage to these emerging consumer behaviors. |
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