Last week the NY Times ran an article Bridging the Gap - the Sequel about the failed efforts of Hollywood & Silicon Valley to bridge the cultural divide. It highlighted the movie business and its historical (hysterical?) requirements for cash and not equity, which reminds me of a few movie ventures I have been involved with over the last few months.

“Last year (Daniel Scheinman, a senior vice president atCisco Systems) met with an affluent film producer who marveled at the extraordinary riches afforded to Google executives. Mr. Scheinman told him that most got wealthy accepting stock options instead of million-dollar salaries. When Mr. Scheinman asked whether the producer would ever accept equity instead of cash if they worked together, the moviemaker sniffed.

“I fly a G4,” he told Mr. Scheinman, referring to the Gulfstream jet he owned. “How far do you think my G4 will go on stock options? I need cash.””

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It is getting worse.  Last weekend, I went to  Horton Hears a Who.  Opening weekend.  Rainy Sunday. And the theater for a 4pm showing was not full in a popular place on the Upper West Side of Manhattan which is pretty much saturated with young kids.  Mass Billboards, Mass TV focused kid TV blitz.  Even my 9 year old is online and says he saw nothing.  Before the movie started - it was a LONG 20 minutes or so, I do not think I heard a single laugh from the kids.  A few from the parents.  The ads were directed at the parents.  The kids experience was… non existent unless parents bought the popcorn etc. 

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Key to Reserva - is a short film directed by Martin Scorsese for a Spanish company Freixenet that is lighting up the movie related blogosphere and more. Brilliantly done and creating tons of WoM, the movie supposedly remakes a Hitchcock movie that was never made - from three and a half pages of a supposedly abandoned project. It is so well done that it is hard not to think that it is real - yet there is the undercurrent of the question: Is it a spoof? Yet Scorsese is involved so how could it be? It is so compelling that even when you see the product - you still aren’t sure. Enjoy!

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Is the repurposing of Advertising/TV/movies/music etc on the web in original form a sustainable medium/business and in fact will it result in negative sentiment and unfavorable WoM? Yes - especially if the powers that be issue cease and desist orders when users mash up content. Isn’t imitation the highest form of flattery and a complement? Doesn’t the brand want to get noticed? Yes if it is limited to just the one to many distribution form. Yes if it plays on the wrong platform. And yes if the media consumption habits of the audience are not aligned with the “here it is on many screens” distribution offerings. Yes the consumer may be given choices (aka control?), but the quality and experiences are very different across platforms.

I understand the issues of the artists getting paid, however in today’s age of liberated content, is this part of what they get paid for up front? Or should they also get a piece of what others, make off of segments of the content they created initially?

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