striking writers kiss their corporate overlords good-bye
And about bloody time.
It’s like I suggested a few days ago, what Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert should be doing instead of giving in to corporate pressure to return to the air: Go it alone. Get on the Internet. It’s time to break the backs of the corporations who think they own everything, rule everything, and get to decide who sees what and when. Bands have been doing it for years, cutting the corporate labels out of the equation, and are managing just fine. And now it’s time for the makers of filmed entertainment to do the same.
Forget Warner Brothers, Universal and Disney. Say goodnight and good luck to CBS, NBC and Fox. The Hollywood studio model is about to be turned upside down.Leading film and TV writers, accompanied by actors, directors and Silicon Valley investors, are poised to announce the creation of new ventures aimed at bypassing the studios.
"It's a whole new model to bring content directly to the masses," said screenwriter Aaron Mendelsohn. "We're gathering together a team of A-list TV and film writers, along with their A-list equivalent from Silicon Valley."
Mendelsohn is not alone. Seven groups are thought to be working on forming companies to challenge the dominance of the studios. The new companies plan to create programmes and films and distribute them via the internet, circumventing the old model of big studios owned by even bigger parent companies churning out content and controlling when and where it is seen.
(There’s a lot more at the British paper The Guardian...)
It’s not like the refugees from the studios will be alone. Filmmakers have been sidestepping the corporate route for years, thanks to the distributive power of the Internet. And I’ve actually got a stack of DVDs of the films these mavericks have been making and selling online without any backing from TimeWarnerDisneyVivendiSony. And I’m gonna start reviewing them, to let you all know what’s out there that you’re not hearing about. I think I shall designate Wednesdays as “superindie day” here at FlickFilosopher, with a new review of a movie the studios haven’t touched. We’ll start this Wednesday, January 2.
Here’s to a 2008 that’s all about laughing in the face of faceless globocorps.
(The Guardian article above was pointed out by JSW in comments. Thanks, JSW. Yes, I do read every comment posted.)
(Technorati tags: WGA strike, corporate entertainment)
