The New Breed That Never Will Be
By Andrew Wallenstein
LA Times columnist Patrick Goldstein probably had the salivary glands of striking writers working in overdrive with his column today predicting the eventual emergence of the "writer-entrepreneur," who will bring his cinematic vision to the Internet without the need of established networks or studios for distribution.
It's a swell fantasy that I would only welcome, but this paragraph offers a clue as to why Goldstein may be offering nothing more than a pipe dream:
All that's left is marketing and distribution. It's hard to equal the way studios launch their summer popcorn extravaganzas with a $40-million marketing blitz. But as more entertainment migrates to the Internet, where distribution is basically free to anyone with a computer, the studios will lose that monopoly as well. If the last couple of weeks are any indication, with clips from out-of-work comedy writers popping up every day, the Web could be littered with new must-see video sites by Christmas.Notice how Goldstein notes that distribution is no longer problem, but doesn't really address the issue of marketing, and therein lies the problem: The "writer-entrepreneur" doesn't have $40 million to spend touting their indie Internet project. They probably won't even have $40,000. And that's the dealbreaker for me. While every once in a blue moon there will be the kind of grass-roots phenomenon like Lonelygirl15 that requires zero marketing, there will be 100 other projects that, even if they are 10 times better, won't go anywhere. The ugly truth of showbiz is that there are plenty of good creative efforts that wither because they can't stand on merit alone; marketing is a necessity. You could argue there's an audience niche out there that will embrace it, but it will be too small to support a truly mass-scale production. I hope I'm proven wrong.
