The New, Open, Radically Democratized Hollywood and Media Environment

Creating and Owning Content: The New, Open, Radically Democratized Hollywood and Media Environment……….Still Full of Conflicts, Contradictions, and Skeletons, But Easier Than Ever To Participate In, Call Out, and Most Important and Relevant of All, A TRULY GOLDEN AGE TO PROFIT BY GOING DIRECT TO AUDIENCE.

It took a while for the folks in the money to recognize that their monopoly was no more. In 2011 Ari Emanuel, Hollywood’s greatest agent told a Silicon Valley audience that he was sure no matter what that people would always go for premium content when lined up against the proverbial cat on a couch. After decades of being the tastemakers, trendsetters, thought leaders, kingmakers, and self-proclaimed too-cool-for-school iconoclasts who spoke down with confidence to the masses on whom they projected their counterculture wisdom. Racism and sexism on screen were not even appetizers to what took place behind the scenes in the demented culture of Hollywood.

October 5, 2017, the day the New York Times finally published the Harvey Weinstein story they had in their possession for 13 years, beating Ronan Farrow’s far more detailed and shocking expose to the punch, was the day the lights were suddenly turned on in the nightclub, the buzz killed definitively, the vermin populating and mutating in the corners, the mask of darkness no longer creating the illusion of beauty where actually vileness, violence, and true ugliness festered. Soon #metoo was born, and as Alec Baldwin said in the 2012 examination of the film business “Seduced and Abandoned”, “I don’t know how much longer the film business can go…the movie business has changed….the technology is splintering the audience..its happening slowly, but something tells me it’s going to shatter.”

Indeed it was the same force of transparency and freedom to express thought in a radically democratized fashion that put an end to the way things were, and just like that, many of the top rulers of the kingdom (though strangely many who enabled and profited have managed to pivot, and now declare themselves heroes of the revolution) were out on their asses, some, like the Weinstein brothers, facing serious battles to hang on to their cash, and stay out of prison.

Last October, just weeks after the Big One, Emanuel again gave more forecasts in a public forum, this time in Saudi Arabia.

Responding to a question on the “lots of disruption in entertainment”, Emanuel said, “The direct relationship with the consumer is the new oil for the entertainment business. The traditional players do not have it. The new players, the Amazons, the Apples, the Googles, the Facebooks do. You’re dealing with guys with 40, 50, 60 billion dollars going up against guys worth more than half a trillion.

Emanuel went on to say that his WME-IMG business had shifted from almost exclusively representation to buying, creating, and owning content, notable purchases with money borrowed from investors such as Silver Lake Capital, The Canada Pension Fund, and Singapore sovereign wealth fund being used to buy Professional Bull RIders and UFC. Emanuel’s company also produces Steve Harvey’s new daytime talk show instead of just selling licensing rights, going for profit by absorbing the downside risk, to say nothing of what The Hollywood Reporter described as eyebrow raising “because talent agencies traditionally have been prevented by California regulations from owning content” and “a talent agency producing, particularly on a client's show, may raise concerns about agents pushing clients into their own productions and negotiating potentially unfair terms of employment.”

At this advanced stage it’s probably not even worth memorializing, but perhaps a history lesson is always worth the vivid context it offers. It was only in January of last year at the Golden Globes that Meryl Streep gave an anti-Trump speech, claiming that the news media and arts were under attack, and if things kept going the way they were there would be nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not arts.” Of course her speech got a standing ovation from mostly the same crowd who gave Roman Polanski a standing ovation in 2003 (Streep was among those who jumped to her feet in spontaneous joy). Later in the evening, in a truly remarkable juxtaposition, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, of WWE star-turned action film star (dialogue is superfluous, excess baggage even when considering all-important foreign audiences) came onto the stage to smile and make his presence felt. Needless to say it was a deeply ironic, totally unintended passing of the guard, from self-proclaimed highbrow art to salt of the earth, uncouth, unwashed populism gone off the rails. The pride and prestige that defined Hollywood, the carefully crafted images, presented in manners so refined and polished, a glamour so fabulous that no cost was too high, no collateral too damaging, could not have been body slammed any harder, except perhaps the election upset that Hollywood had failed so miserably at preventing just weeks earlier, (a rather powerful indicator of how much folks actually respected Hollywood vs the extent to which the monopoly had been forced down their throats).

Still, in typical showbiz fashion, the show has to go on, and it has. When pressed further, Emanuel said the future looked stable: “We’re all culpable, the environment was not a place where people felt safe”, but post-Weinstein bombshell, “If something bad is happening, the corporate environment is going to take care of it and protect them.” Moments later, in a Streep-to-The Rock like segue to hell, Emanuel would praise his UFC mixed-martial-arts and boxing business, universally regarded as the red-light district of sports, a cesspool of corruption and depravity that Mike Tyson called “the flesh trade”, and advised Curtis Jackson against entering, when Jackson made a failed attempt at promoting in 2012. But unlike film, TV, and entertainment, where private production companies sell to corporate partners, and powerless unions claim to oversee, unarmed combat is government regulated, probably an unanticipated oversight that could come back to haunt investors if state regulators (or perhaps federal regulators if state authorities come to be seen as incapable or too vulnerable to corruption) begin enforcing performance enhancing drug laws as they are written. According to boxing historian and Muhammad Ali biographer, Thomas Hauser, in the current MMA and boxing environment, if a fighter is not cheating by injecting testosterone or other PEDs, he is seen as unwilling to compete at the highest level. And the eyeball test alone shows performances like those of 41 year old WME star Floyd Mayweather (twice incarcerated for assaulting women) as undiminished, and even perhaps even better than in years past, for fighters who have reached ages where basic human physiological precedent would suggest greatly diminished ability and suggest retirement. And, disturbingly, if Tyson, one the most respected boxing minds ever, is correct, it is likely that a far greater underbelly and tradition of sordid exploitation exists underneath the boxing representation business, superstars Sugar Ray Leonard and Tyson himself having said they were molested in their younger days.

So while taking on all the risk may yield enormous reward, as WME did with their massive take of 4 million+ pay-per-views sold (though 3 million+ were reportedly stolen via piracy, a problem that will get worse before it gets better according to veteran boxing promoter Tom Loeffler), making risky bets is no walk in the park in an environment where transparency rules, and voices of victims are for the first time in history carrying actual weight and worth. Asked about rival CAA (his only agency rival left standing, the rest having fallen unprepared victim to the evolution) more or less sticking to the traditional representation business, Emanuel was dismissive, displaying his trademark bravado, saying “Go ask them”, as to why they were not taking on similar ownership risks.

Perhaps most relevant of all was Emanuel’s stating of some wonderful empirical facts about television: In 2009 there were 39 scripted shows, in 2011 there were 136, in 2017 there were 470. With actual heavyweights (as opposed to self-proclaimed thought-leader-high artist-rapist-Polanski standing ovation giving monopoly holders) in command of what gets produced and distributed, all kinds of new shows, with the actual diversity of views, thoughts, and demographics finally has an actual shot at seeing the light of day. With the trend so clear, and the horizon showing continued momentum, folks who have a story to tell, or talent to show off, would be foolish not to dive in deep and do everything they can to start creating content, reaching like-minded consumers, and start getting paid to do what they love. The environment supports the flexible and nimble, the risk takers who go out and create content, and promote themselves, and get better and better, their fans following and supporting their journeys, the technology that Baldwin spoke of so fearfully/ominously (if presciently) making them rich and successful and entrepreneurial in ways that just were not possible even a decade ago.

Young self-made stars such as Roman Atwood, Lilly Singh, Rupi Kaur, and many others continue to generate hundreds of thousands a month, and amass personal fortunes at young ages for one reason alone: the consumer demand for raw authenticity makes irrelevant production and marketing costs, as consumers have simply grown wise to the nonsense media that consumers of the past two generations had stuffed down their throats. And with the era belonging to Facebook, Youtube (Google), Netflix, and Amazon, past bets placed by folks like Emanuel that consumers would without fail revert to “premium content” over inexpensively produced, truly authentic media created by young people of genuine emotion, passion, and expression, have come to represent costly misses that need to be compensated for by doubling down on production, ownership, and direct to consumer sales….not unlike young Youtube stars, but with massive overhead expenses that must be accounted for.

At FilmCon Hollywood the mission is to support and encourage up and coming filmmakers by creating an ecosystem that nurtures their talents as they break into the business. Film Con Hollywood is an interactive convention for young filmmakers, and those looking for careers in media and entertainment who want to catch the present tsunami of opportunity, and be a part of this Golden Age of content creation across all media platforms.  Like all other big Hollywood events, Film Con Hollywood will have bold names on the marquee, but what sets Film Con Hollywood apart is its focus on empowering young people with specific, actionable knowledge, making real and meaningful connections with others in the business, and perhaps most important, providing the real confidence to pursue their dreams. That is to say that unlike many LA events, Film Con Hollywood is all about inclusivity and empowerment.