Tech Won't Save Us - Digital Tech Didn’t Democratize the Film Industry w/ Will Tavlin

Episode Date: March 24, 2022

Paris Marx is joined by Will Tavlin to discuss the history of the film industry, how the digital revolution was promised to democratize film, and how it actually helped cement the power of Hollywood and Silicon Valley.Will Tavlin is a writer and fact checker based in New York City. Follow Will on Twitter at @wtavlin.Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.Also mentioned in this episode:Will wrote about how Hollywood killed celluloid film to empower itself for n+1.Paris wrote about the repeal of the Paramount Decrees and what tech companies are doing to cinema.Marvel films’ heavy reliance on CGI has downsides, and Disney is increasingly looking to making whole sets virtual, if not even the actors on them.David Noble wrote about ideas of technological progress in Progress Without People: New Technology, Unemployment, and the Message of Resistance.Support the show

The way Hollywood consolidated its power and shifted to digital on its own terms allowed it to continue to distribute the movies the studios wanted to distribute, which were blockbusters. Hello and welcome to Tech Won't Save Us. I'm your host, Paris Marks, and this week my guest is Will Tavlin. Will is a writer and fact checker based in New York, and he recently wrote a really great piece for N Plus One magazine that digs into the digitization and digital shift in the film industry, not only focusing on streaming, which is, I think, the aspect of this that we're most familiar with, but also the shift to digital filmmaking, to filming on digital cameras instead of on celluloid film. And this is really important because in both of these instances,

you know, one happening 20 odd years ago, the other one happening more recently, we see these narratives about how these digital technologies are going to enable this democratization, this shift in the power relations of the industry. But then what we actually see is that it reinforces existing power structures and just really, in most cases, empowers the already powerful. I think it's important because this aspect of shifting to filming on digital has really huge implications for the industry, for the way that films are exhibitioned or shown in theaters, for the way that films are made, but it's something that we don't talk about so much or the implications of it, especially when we talk about streaming and how that's transforming the film industry. I was really happy to have this conversation with Will because I think it builds well on

the conversation that I had with Peter Labusa back in July of 2021. That's episode 71, if you want to go back to it, where we talked a lot about what streaming was doing to the film industry. But now in this conversation with Will, we look, I think, more broadly at the film industry, how there have been these kind of technological changes, these changes to the business model over a longer period of time, and then what these digital shifts have actually done and how they've cemented some of these changes that have happened before. So I think it's a really interesting conversation, and I hope that you're really going to like it. And I'd certainly recommend going to read Will's piece if you like our

conversation in this episode. Just a couple notes before we get into it. When we talk about exhibition of films, that refers to theaters, right? Going to the cinema and seeing a film there. And when we talk about distribution, that's usually something that's controlled by the major film studios, their distribution arms. And just a final programming note that next week's episode will be coming out on Friday instead of Thursday. So that'll be Friday, April 1st for next week's episode will be coming out on Friday instead of Thursday. So that'll be Friday, April 1st for next week, just to give you a heads up about that. Tech Won't Save Us is part of the Harbinger Media Network, a group of left-wing podcasts

that are made in Canada. And you can find out more about that at harbingermedianetwork.com. If you like this episode, make sure to leave a review on Apple or Spotify. You can also share it on social media or with any friends or colleagues who you think would learn from it. Thank you for listening and enjoy this week's conversation. Will, welcome to tech won't save us. Thank you so much for having me Paris. First time caller, longtime fan. I'm very happy to be here. I'm really excited to chat with you. And you know, you have this really great piece in M plus one that was published recently, that gets into the history of the film industry. And I think the history of the film industry thinking from the perspective of technology, digital technology,

in a way that it's not often presented, I think, in the usual discourse that we have about these technologies, and about the shift to digital, which is so often associated with streaming, but not so much with the change to kind of like digital filming and those technologies and what that meant for the industry. And so I really want to dig into that, to explore that with you. But I do want to start by getting some historical context to put this industry into perspective for the listeners, because I think this is going to be important when we get back to what is happening today and more recently, right? So let's start by going back to the early days of the film industry. In the piece, you discuss how Hollywood really emerges around 1914 and develops a model that revolves around

controlling distribution, dominating overseas markets, and that doesn't really get disrupted until the intervention of the Department of Justice in 1948. So what are the significant aspects of that period, and how are the major studios exerting their power? Great question. The thing to know about the film industry is that it's always been run by monopolies, even since the Edison days in the very early 1900s. The studio system starts to take shape around 1914. When you have these distributors who are also exhibitors, they start to really ramp up production and become these vertically integrated

companies, which are known as majors. And majors in Hollywood refers to a studio that both distributes and produces films. The largest of these companies are called majors. So what happens is these studios basically have these monopolies over the entire film industry. And it's really run like a factory line where they are much like cars in Detroit or steel in other cities. There's an industrial quality to the way films are made during this time, where you have studios producing films, then they distribute the films to theaters that they themselves own. And this lets them put a stranglehold really on any kind of independent image making at this time. So there's independent theaters, but a lot of them are subject to this practice that Paramount

develops, which is called block booking, which is basically where the studios have all these great films that they want to send to theaters. But if an independent theater wants, let's say, one of the bigger films from the studio, the studio says, okay, well, you have to take our entire slate of films. And it's really constraining for independent theaters at this time. And the Justice Department had been after the studios for a pretty long time, for much longer than the 40s. One of their concerns is that, you know, this is pre-television and the cinema at this time is the only form of moving image entertainment. So basically what happens is that in 1948, the Justice Department, with the help of the Supreme Court, is finally successful in basically breaking up the studios, their

monopoly over the film industry. And specifically, the Justice Department takes issue with the practice of block booking, and they force the majors to divest themselves from their theater business. And this has combined with the rise of television, this has a really disastrous effect. Television was really the main competitor to Hollywood at this time. But what happens, what follows is basically a process of deindustrialization where when we refer to the studio system collapsing, it's basically this factory line becoming more dispersed and less concentrated in Hollywood. That's a really good description of that earlier period, right? The importance of the power of these companies in this period, the way that they have this particular model

of developing films, and how they kind this particular model of developing films and how they kind of have guarantee that these films are going to get shown, that they're going to get purchased by these cinemas, because not only do they own cinema chains of their own, but the independent cinemas that exist, they have to take even the shitty films. They can't pick and choose just the good ones that they want. Yeah. And another important aspect of this is this allows the studios to run really at full capacity. I mean, at their peak, the studios were like releasing at their peak, like somewhere around 70 films per year. And admissions to theaters were just, I mean, unheard of.

And they peaked right around the war, World War II, and then precipitously dropped off. And yeah, I mean, a studio releasing 70 films a year now is totally unheard of, except for Netflix, which we'll get to. The first thing that happens when the studio system begins to collapse is that slowly the number of films they release each year starts to decline, output drops. And similar to like a lot of other industrialized sectors, unemployment and underemployment spikes, and the lots themselves, studio lots basically, you know, become empty and underused. I think it's important to emphasize that one of the reasons that film viewership was so great that there were so many people going to the movies in that period was that there really

wasn't much competition from television that was still nascent, you know, was really going to emerge later post-war. So at the time, if you wanted to see moving images, going to the cinema was the place where you went to do that. And so now after the paramount decrees come into effect, this is also as the Second World War is ending. And so there are other changes that are happening here, right? So not only is Hollywood facing these new restrictions on their distribution model, but countries in Europe and Asia are rebuilding and building their own film industries in the process. At the same time, as I said, television is growing, more people are getting TVs in their home. So that's competition for films. Now people can stay at home, watch something on TV,

even though you know, it wouldn't be as great as going out to to a cinema. And so as there are these challenges to Hollywood's model to the major studios model. They are looking for some way to drive people back into the cinema to make more money again. They're throwing all these different ideas at the wall until they hit on the blockbuster in 1975. So what happened in that year? And how did the blockbuster change the industry and help the major studios to kind of regain some degree of power and influence? The blockbuster is a form that means many things. One of the most important ways it really changes the cinema, though, is in terms of how films are distributed. Up until that point, films were distributed by Hollywood on a platform basis, which is basically when you

open in maybe a large city, a large market like New York or LA, and you slowly move out to smaller markets based on demand. The innovation of the blockbuster, specifically Steven Spielberg's Jaws, was saturation release, which was basically booking the movie on hundreds of screens at the same time and spending untold amounts of money on marketing and advertising to basically make the film unavoidable. The saturation release had been experimented with in the 50s, but it really is picked up as like a standard practice from Jaws after Jaws breaks, like every box office record. And saturation release was also innovative because of the way it leveraged profit sharing agreements with exhibitors. So Hollywood distributors would

create their profit sharing deals on a sliding scale. So basically, the longer a film played in theaters, the higher the percentage a movie theater got to keep of the profits of the box office gross. So Jaws was in theaters for a very long time. Other blockbusters, though, because of the advertising blitz, the profits would all be made in like the first two weeks and then rapidly tail off. And so what studios began to find was that they could basically reserve more of the box office gross for themselves. the blockbuster model is that it basically gets around the problem of studios not being able to own movie theaters, which is the studios basically created this perverse incentive for both multiplex chains, but also more importantly, independent exhibitors, where by doing saturation release and releasing it on hundreds of screens at the same time is steamrolling the

competition by force with these massive marketing apparatuses. Independent exhibitors began finding it difficult to book films from independent distributors or foreign films when a movie like Raiders of the Lost Ark or Star Wars was screening on every screen in the country at the exact same time. That's fascinating because it shows how instead of having this release where it takes a while for the film to build, it's released over a number of weeks, people slowly hear about it, go to see it. So then it takes a longer period of time for that money to come in and the theater can make more of that money. As you say, you have that ad blitz, people come in really quickly, I'll see the

movie in a short period of time, the studio gets a ton of that money. But also there's this changing to how the films are distributed in that period, because you talk about how you move from these, I guess, smaller cinemas to these multiplexes with a greater number of screens. And one of the things that really stood out to me about that change was how there is also a change in the way that films are projected in that moment. So there's a threat to the jobs of projectionists in that period. And that allows a greater degree of control over the projection experience over the film business as a whole, I guess. So what happens there as well to exert that power? Around the same time that blockbusters emerge, you also have the emergence of multiplex conglomerates.

And basically in the 70s, theater chains like AMC, they start building out their theater chains larger and larger with more and more screens from like two screens to five screens to 10 screens. Blockbusters were advantageous to these multiplexes because in a two screen theaters, you had real to real projection systems where basically for a single screen, you would have two 35 millimeter film projectors side by side. And the way you would show a film was that the film would come in maybe like six reels and the projectionist would thread the first reel onto the first projector. And then once that was over, they would thread the next reel and then switch them, basically. And it would be the cycle where one reel would lead to the next. With reel-to-reel projection, it was very difficult, if not impossible, for a projectionist to operate more than one at the same time. Which was a losing proposition for these multiplex chains that basically wanted bearders with like 10 screens. So they use this new technology called

platter projection systems, where basically you would stitch together a film's reels, like the six reels of a film prior to the screening, and then put it on this giant steel or aluminum platter where it would be horizontal, which is very bad for film. Film does not want to be laid horizontally. And it was automated, so the projectionists could then thread it through one projector. Then they could also do a process, what was known as interlocking, where they could thread it through another projector for a different screen in a different auditorium. So there's like economy of scale happening here, and you can reduce labor costs. I talked to one projectionist in particular,

who I quote in the piece, John Guida, you know, he was telling me about in the multiplex heyday of, you know, the 90s, when there was this huge multiplex building boom, he was operating some nights, you know, more than 20 screens at once, which is just absolutely insane. And one of the things that happens during this time is that projection quality gets a lot worse. So the multiplex becomes known for having, you know, just really damaged prints. Platter projection is really bad for prints, constantly stitching them together and taking them apart. Film doesn't want to be laid horizontally. There's just way more risks involved when you don't have that reel-to-reel system. If you have a projectionist who's a good projectionist who's on a reel-to-reel system,

there are prints that are from the 20s, basically, that are still in perfect condition because on a reel-to-reel system, a projectionist can really handle them with care and make sure that nothing bad happens. Whereas with platter projection, you get things like brain wrap and, you know, you can get crazy emulsion scratches also on entire prints. And this funny thing happens where a lot of the boosters of, I may be getting ahead of myself, but a lot of the boosters of digital projection, like James Cameron, and most notably, George Lucas, they are really vocal about how much they hate scratches and the bad quality of 35 millimeter film projection. The irony, of course, it's that their blockbusters are the ones that gave rise to this kind of projection, and really made it, you know, totally dominant.

That's fascinating, you know, the development of like this kind of projection and really made it, you know, totally dominant. That's fascinating. You know, the development of like this kind of industrial system, the economies of scale that is causing these problems. And so, okay, now we need this new technology to solve this problem. But, you know, what comes along with this technology as well? Is this actually going to solve all the issues that we think and what issues are going to come along with it? And I think that set up my next question really well, because so the major studios found a solution in blockbusters. But obviously, that wasn't the end of their woes. You know, as I said, things were going to keep developing. So by around 2000, there's a new threat, the digital revolution. This isn't just the emergence of the internet, as it's often framed, but also filming digitally, instead of with film,

which can lower the barrier to entry, some people said. And at the time, many people were saying that this would have a democratizing effect on filmmaking. So before we talk about how the studios responded to that, I wanted you to talk a little bit more about the narrative of digital at the time, as you were saying there, because, you know, people like George Lucas and James Cameron were really talking it up. So what were they saying about digital? What were they saying that that was going to offer to film and filmmaking? Lucas had been a really long time supporter of digital technologies, basically, for his entire career, he recoiled at the sight of scratches on his prints, it totally disturbed him, basically. And as

prosumer technologies and these really cheap camcorders start emerging, people like Lucas start talking about how revolutionary this technology is. And you also have filmmakers, independent filmmakers, and also a lot of foreign filmmakers, you know, making films for the first time entirely with this prosumer technology. There's two things that are happening at this point, which is you actually have filmmakers, you know, like the Dogma 95 movement, for instance, in Europe, who are making films like for super cheap, they're doing this kind of guerrilla filmmaking. Agnes Varda makes The Gleaners and I, for instance, which is a really great film shot on a prosumer camcorder. A lot of filmmakers are doing really interesting things at this time with digital. who are really pro-digital technologies. And they're talking about how revolutionary this is. George Lucas has always hated the monopoly

that studios have had on the filmmaking process. And he gives these interviews where he's like, digital technologies are going to free filmmakers from the Hollywood system so that they can basically cut out the distributor altogether and just go to the theater directly and say, hey, I got a movie. Do you want to book it? Which turns out to be this absurd fantasy. George Lucas is making digital films also at this time, the Star Wars prequels, for instance. The

difference is that he's using really expensive, high quality digital technology that aims to basically reproduce the quality of 35-millimeter film. One of the reasons I got interested in this subject to begin with was I did a year of film school, my first year of undergrad, and I quickly transferred out. I really didn't like it. And one of the things that I didn't like about it was you would hear this thing from professors and visiting producers, anyone in the industry, you would hear this thing from professors and visiting producers, anyone in the industry, you would hear these older people say, oh, well now, you know, with digital technologies, anyone can go out and make a movie. As long as you have a good story, anyone can go out there. And funny enough, this was always said by people who had almost certainly never made a film on like

an iPhone or like a prosumer camcorder. But I think that's really indicative of the situation that was emerging in Hollywood, which is that you actually have independent filmmakers and foreign filmmakers doing interesting things with prosumer technologies. Meanwhile, the real boosters of it are these more Hollywood people like James Cameron and George Lucas who want to use higher quality digital technologies. And they don't really see a difference between these two at this time. But soon, it's going to become very clear that a difference will emerge in how these technologies are used in the industry. I think that's a great point. Yeah. To draw the distinction

between, you know, the people who are really using iPhones and camcorders and things like that to make really innovative movies in a different way. And the people who are still making, you know, blockbusters in the same sort of way, but just shifting from film cameras to really expensive digital cameras, increasing CGI, all that sort of stuff, bigger and bigger budgets, and how that doesn't really significantly change what's going on. And, you know, as we're going to talk about serves to kind of reinforce the power of these major studios that George Lucas says that he actually wants to take down in this shift. And so naturally, the studios are not going to take this threat lying down. At the same time as this is happening, Napster is kind of eating the music labels lunch. Ebooks and self-publishing are presenting a threat to book publishers. You have this whole tech narrative about taking down the gatekeepers, how technology is going to allow this, even as it's erecting a whole load of new gatekeepers at the same time. And so while streaming is presented as the version of this

in film and television, your article tells us that that's not exactly the right way to see it, and that we should pay more attention to this digital shift that happened in filming and digital instead of just streaming, and how major studios collaborated to ensure that that shift enhanced their power rather than diminished it. So when the studio saw this shift to digital and filming a digital happening, what was their response? And how did that ensure that they retained their position and their control over distribution? They were very frightened. Basically, around 2002 is when they formed DCI, which stands for Digital Cinema Initiatives. And this was a rare moment of collaboration between the studios, where they got together and basically figured out exactly how they wanted to distribute films digitally.

Where they basically, through DCI, they came up with a plan, a technological plan. They developed the technology that they would use, which this would end up being called Digital Cinema Package, DCPs, that would replace film reels. Also a security system. They were very scared of pirating at this time. It's worth keeping in mind that the studios are really able to do this because of their role as distributors and because of the landscape of exhibition at this time, which was extremely concentrated. Whatever technology the major three theater chains went with, the rest of the industry would have to follow. If the distributors could get the big three theater chains on the same page, that was the vast majority of screens in the United States. And all independent theaters would basically be forced to follow.

Also because at this time, everyone is so dependent on the studio's blockbusters for the huge number of people that they bring in, basically. One of the key things that stood out to me in your description of that period and what was going on was how the major studios created this digital cinema package, which was used to distribute their films to the different cinemas. And so they had this significant degree of control over then what that looked like, the way that those films were being shown, the files that they used to show them, like beyond just distributing these film reels to the different cinemas, it enhanced the degree of control that they exerted over the exhibition experience and over how these cinemas ran their businesses. And so, you know, what did that mean for the major exhibition companies, the major theater companies in terms of how they had to switch over to this new system and how they financed

that? But then also, what did it mean for independents who maybe wanted to stick with film, but then found that they were having this pushed on them? So the technology itself, I mean, 35 millimeter film is an amazing technology, because not only is it incredibly durable, but it can be directly viewed, you don't need proprietary technology to view it. If civilization were to go away today, if in 1000 years, you know, people sprung up again, and they found a film reel on the ground, they could figure it out pretty easily how to view it,

which is just projecting light through it. The new systems, however, you know, DCPs required all this proprietary technology used to interpret the files of the film. So you had not only the projector itself, which was, you know, a very expensive piece of equipment, but you you had not only the projector itself, which was a very expensive piece of equipment, but you also had these servers that they had to install for each projector. And the security system for them was intense. You could get a DCP in the mail from a distributor, but then you needed a separate passcode in order to basically view the files. And even then, the passcode was only designated for that specific server, that specific projector combo in each theater.

So the system basically made piracy impossible, but it also, in switching to this technology, basically yoked exhibitors to the technological whims of the studios, the distributors. The projectors and servers were extremely expensive. And the funding that they basically arranged for the big three theater chains, which was AMC, Regal, and Cinemark, was financed through Blackstone and JP Morgan. And it was this really complicated process where after the theater chains agreed to switching digital, the theater chain set up an LLC called Cosima, which is short for kicking and screaming into the modern age. The LLC Cosima bought the projectors with loans from Blackstone and JP Morgan. And they leased the projectors out to the theater chains,

all of their theaters. And this was done basically for a number of reasons, which was the studios had agreed to subsidize the cost of digital projection in some way, because it was accepted by everyone that the benefit was mostly to them. They were the ones who were saving costs of up to 90% in distribution by not having to mail these very heavy multi-reel canisters of film to theaters all over the country and all over the world. One way to do this would have been to just take money off of the cost of a rental of a DCP, but they didn't want to do this because this could have permanently depressed the price of film rentals from distributors into the future. So they created this system called BPF, which is short for virtual print fee, where every time

the big chain exhibitors screened a DCP, the Hollywood distributors, the majors, would pay a certain amount of money, it would change depending on the circumstances, it was around like $800. Generally, they would pay this $800 to Cosima. And Cosima use this money to help pay back the loans to JP Morgan, Chase and Blackstone and Blackstone and JP Morgan securitize the loans and sold them off to investors. So the narrative that you hear a lot in the film industry is basically, oh, digital technologies, you know, it's presented as this sort of bottom up affair where directors just started using this technology that was so much cheaper for them to use to make movies, which turns out not even necessarily to be the case if you're working with high-end digital cameras. But in fact, it was extremely top-down, led by the distributors, basically

done in order to enrich shareholders of the major theater chains who then proceeded to lay off most of their unionized projectionists and basically smash the unions. And also for, you know, investors of JP Morgan, who basically bought those loans, which were somewhere north of $400 million. Yeah, I think that's a key point there, right? To kind of reframe the narrative around what this looks like. It's not this kind of like democratizing affair, but it's just kind of the next stage of the capitalist development of this industry and its transformation to serve shareholders, serve capital, etc. One of the things that you said there is really fascinating, right? What this means for the production of films.

And certainly we talked about that, cheaper to make films. And certainly for people who are just taking advantage of the iPhone or something like that to film something that that is certainly true. But when it does come to this blockbuster level, where you're making these major films, that's not really the case. And it changes the way that some of these directors even approach making films. So can you talk a little bit about that shift that occurs with the move to digital? Yeah, it's undoubtedly true that, you know, shooting on something like an iPhone or like a mini DV camera, for instance, like makes filmmaking cheaper. But what becomes clear as like the full digitization of Hollywood takes place is the studios aren't making films for, you know,

AMC with iPhones and mini DV cameras. What they use, what directors use at this level are, you know, high-end digital cameras like Ari's Alexa, for instance, that is designed to recreate the color depth and dynamic range of celluloid. And with these cameras, what a lot of directors have found are that they aren't necessarily guaranteed to save production costs. What they have a tendency to do is shift costs around to different parts of the production. So you might be saving on the raw cost of purchasing and developing film. But a lot of directors, whether it's George Lucas or somebody like David Fincher, they're known for using digital's quote-unquote unlimited storage to shoot just massive quantities of data. I mean, just astounding amounts of footage that then needs

to be processed, edited out, and archived. And archiving is where the huge costs of digital really kick in. And George Lucas is really instructive because the way that he makes films, even the prequels in the early 2000s becomes really standard for a lot of digital films at the top level today, like with Marvel movies, especially where he has this obsession with like, basically redirecting his pictures in post. He's adding tons of VFX. He's keeping actors eyes open when they blink on a cut. He's changing out their eyes. He's turning their heads in post doing things like that. And VFX is extremely expensive, and it adds all of these costs. And nobody talks about today about how Hollywood films are, you know, production costs have gone down, they've only

gone up. So this idea of digital being guaranteed to be cheaper was really only ever true for filmmakers really committed to the kind of guerrilla style made-for-nothing filmmaking. People like Spike Lee with Bamboozled, or as I mentioned, Anya Sparta's The Gleaners and I, or David Lynch's Inland Empire, movies like this, that really took advantage of cheapness to its full extent. Yeah. There was this discussion, as you said, about, you know, you can film your movie on an iPhone or one of these camcorders, and then take it to a theater yourself, and they'll show it. We don't really see many of those movies in the cinema. It's usually these major blockbusters, as you say, that are made with these expensive cameras that have all of this post and VFX work

that are done with them. And these Marvel movies that a ton of the stuff just isn't even present on the set, if there's a set at all. And then it's all filled in later in visual effects. And I'll just say like, as a side note, to listeners who might be interested in this, you know, one of the things that stood out as you were describing that in the piece in that time, is I was reading recently David Noble's work on how the development of technology is shaped by capitalism, right? To serve the profits, but also the power and control of these major companies and of capital, right? And in the sense that it's not always guaranteed that these new technologies, these new methods are going to be more cost effective. They can be more expensive. But if they add more control for the capitalists, then that is acceptable. And I think that as you're describing there, that's potentially something that we see with this move to digital with the move to the visual effects and the power that it gives these people over the film after the filming has actually

been done. So I think that that is something that really resonated with me as you were describing that. But you know, the shift to digital in recording films or you know, in filming is not the only part of this. As we said earlier, there's also the move to streaming that has occurred a change in distribution, the addition of a new model of distribution in the film industry. And as you know note in the piece, this was also cloaked in narratives of democratization that we can see are not really the reality when we dig into them. So you write about how streaming companies see not film or television, but content. So when that shift to streaming happens, in terms of the power dynamics within the industry, what does that focus on content mean for the type of entertainment that ultimately gets produced?

That's a great question. Streaming has been very useful for studios in the sense that it is a direct-to-consumer model that is much more appealing to audiences than the multiplex model. The majority of Americans go see movies in a multiplex, and the experience of seeing a movie in a multiplex is awful. I mean, I'm very lucky to live in New York City, where we have many, many great independent theaters with all kinds of diverse programming. The experience of seeing a movie in the multiplex is, you know, driving to the edge of town, to like a parking lot, to a mall, to like walking through to like the top floor of the mall, getting lost in the mall, paying an absurd amount of money for tickets, watching, you know, 30 minutes of ads. Your film choices are basically like three

or four things, whatever blockbuster superhero movie is out that month. Don't forget about being a gouge for your popcorn. Exactly. Streaming is much more appealing for both audiences and also shareholders of these publicly traded companies who, you know, they see a lot of room for growth in streaming, basically. The streaming companies like, you know, Netflix or Disney Plus rely on a massive amount of content, unlike the studio's distribution model where they would maybe only release five, maybe seven films a year to theaters. The thing that's interesting to me about these streaming sites is how they are

completely filled with this content that is almost just designed to be there and to fill space. And how the conversation about these streaming companies is really not at all about the content itself, and much more about how they've changed the business model. But the innovation of these streaming sites is really like turning the cinema into something called content, which is much more formless than cinema. And the idea is that you can watch content from any place. You can watch it from your couch, from your bed, while you're making dinner. And it's much more convenient for the audience.

Netflix CEOs like Ted Sarandos, he likes to call the multiplex experience elitist, which is very ironic, given how miserable it is for everybody involved. The streaming model, what it's done is basically save audiences from this horrible multiplex model without forcing the studios to really change what they show. Studios are theoretically, all of them have a streaming platform and they're theoretically unconstrained by the need to make money on an individual film like they would at the box office in a multiplex, because it's a subscriber model. So, you know, theoretically, they could put lots of, you know, independents or foreign filmmakers on these streaming platforms, but they're not doing that. I mean, what they're doing is putting IP on their spinoffs of superhero movies, or when they are giving space for

independence, it's really only the most established ones like Martin Scorsese. I think it's interesting because the streaming services, especially early when they launched, it was like, this is going to offer us this kind of entertainment that we've never had before by platforming these people and these voices and these filmmakers who have not been able to access the traditional kind of Hollywood model before. They made a lot of focus on like, look, we are having more women make things. We are having more black people make things. And then what you found a few years later was that their programs were being canceled like much sooner than other

people's shows. And later, like, you know, they just weren't getting the attention after the streaming companies had had that positive PR for their model. And then they've really kind of shifted toward, I think it's fair to say this, this kind of content model that you're talking about. Yeah, and it's the top level people in Hollywood that are really benefiting the most from the streaming model. Because you have people like Shonda Rhimes and Ron Howard just getting absurd amounts of money to make the things that they want to make. And then meanwhile, everything else is like very low budget and looks like crap. To end our conversation, we've talked about how, you know, these multiplexes

became not a great experience in terms of both how they showed films with film before switching to digital, but also, you know, their location, how they were built. It's just not a very appealing model of watching a film of experiencing cinema, because it really changes it into much more of this kind of industrial product, right. And as a result, naturally, we have seen increasing concerns about whether people are going to keep going to cinemas, especially now that they have this option of streaming in their home that the windows are shortening between theatrical release and streaming release and all these sorts of things, right. But one of the aspects of your piece that I really liked was kind of challenging the idea that this is the way that film and entertainment has to be, right? That we have to go down the streaming model and that

that's only the real path that is available to us. You know, you talked about how digital changed what it means for how films are made, the incentive to capture as much as possible, because there's little limit in digital storage, which changes how some directors approach, you know, like Kara Swisher, found it easier to imagine us all paying a bunch of corporations $14.99 for a subscription service instead of every public library having a movie theater. And that resonated with me because I remember in Auckland, New Zealand, you know, the Central Library above ground, it's, you know, this really nice library that you would expect with all the books and the services. But then you take the staircase to go down into the basement. And there's a two room art house cinema that shows like, you know, all the kind of films that you might not see at the multiplex down the road. Like, you know, it's really affordable. The popcorn is cheap. You know, they had water

there for you. So you didn't need to buy a soft drink if you didn't want like, you know, just this fantastic experience. And so I guess my question to end the conversation is, if we stopped letting these, you know, major Hollywood corporations and now Silicon Valley corporations shape what we watch and how we watch it, how could we conceive of film and its exhibition in a different and presumably, you know, more publicly minded way? I love that question so much. One of the things that these tech companies do is, of course, they identify a problem that they attempt to fix that, you know, oftentimes makes the problem worse. But they also constrain our imagination for like, what an actual, you know, a freer, more radical kind of exhibition paradigm in this case could look like.

I am of the belief that, you know, there should be a movie theater in every neighborhood in America. You know, there's no reason why this can't be the case to me. As many theaters as we have here in New York City, there used to be a lot more. There used to be a lot more theaters all over the country. There were way fewer screens lot more theaters all over the country. There were way fewer screens. This was the sort of effect of the multiplex is that the numbers of theaters have shrunk, number of screens have increased. And one of the benefits of, you know, having, for instance, you know, libraries having theaters is power is a lot more dispersed in that kind of scenario. And I just think that would be a beautiful thing. Because when we talk about the shift to digital and digital exhibition, it's not just that the format changed. The way Hollywood sort of consolidated its power and

shifted to digital on its own terms, allowed it to really continue to distribute the movies the studios wanted to distribute, which were blockbusters, and specifically superhero blockbusters. So what has happened is basically the further marginalization of other kinds of cinema, which basically just any independent American cinema, foreign cinema, has only gotten harder to access in theaters over the last 20 years in the United States. And having a more dispersed model of theater in every neighborhood, like this to me is the only way of showing the very diverse range of cinema that exists around the world outside of the US. I guess in a sense, it's kind of like an attempt to create a cinema culture again, that has kind of been

eroded in the way that these corporations have shaped the film industry and have altered it to serve shareholders and their desire for profit over, you know, what is good for the culture and the society more generally. Yeah. And I mean, you know, that cinema culture still exists. It's just, it's a lot more fractured and it's, you have to look for it a bit harder here in New York. We have a great thing called Screen Slate. I'm not sure if you're aware, but it's like a listings website where they basically publish all the listings for independent and repertory cinema that day. They also publish articles and stuff like that. There's great micro cinema, like Spectacle Theater here in Brooklyn is great. This stuff exists already. I think it's a matter of seeking it out and supporting it where you can. And that's as much as I can hope to do. Yeah. And I think the key point is that it's not something that Hollywood or that Silicon Valley are going to try to promote because they have a very particular set of interests and a

desire for what they want to see when you look at how they perceive and how they think about entertainment, streaming, film, things like that. Will, the piece is fantastic. I'm going to recommend everyone go check it out. It is a long read, but I think it's worthwhile to understand how this kind of shift to digital was presented in this kind of democratizing way, but was then reoriented and made to serve the power of these major corporations, first Hollywood and then Silicon Valley. So I really appreciate you writing the piece, and I appreciate you taking the time to come on and chat. So thanks so much.

Thank you so much, Paris, for having me on. And I am just so happy to be here and be talking to you about it. It's been great. Really great. Will Tavlin is a writer and fact checker based in New York, and you can follow him on Twitter at W Tavlin. You can follow me at Paris Marks, and you can follow the show at Tech Won't Save Us. Tech Won't Save Us is part of the Harbinger Media Network, and you can find out more about

that at harbingermedianetwork.com. And if you want to support the work that goes into making this show every week, you can go to patreon.com slash techwontsaveus and become a supporter. Thanks for listening. Thank you.