'Him'
Discussion of the Mutant Enemy series, Firefly, the ensuing movie Serenity, and other projects in that universe. Like the other show threads, anything broadcast in the US is fine; spoilers are verboten and will be deleted if found.
All those dilutions offend my sense of economy. The creator wants to make it. The audience wants to fund it. How are all these intermediaries helping?They're helping, because we can't all fit in Whedon's living room, and watch it on his VCR, and we don't all live in L.A., so we can't go down to the studio and see it performed live.
and we don't all live in L.A.
Dude! If we all lived in L.A. and Whedon relied on that, he would have to live in L.A. fulltime. t shudder
Maybe this discussion is too serious-like for buffistas.
The creator wants to make it. The audience wants to fund it. How are all these intermediaries helping?
Distribution by the creator would take time and resources away from creating.
The fanbase couldn't even guarantee a decent take at the box office for Serenity, I have strong doubts whether it could (partly) fund a TV show. And direct audience to creator funding leaves me cold. What if the fanbase wants one thing and the creator wants another? If the fans had funded Serenity, I think the movie would have been very different and not as good.
The buyer does decide what is "like Firefly". They vote with their wallets. If the studio's guess on what will be "like Firefly" is wrong and the wallets are not opening, they will go back to the drawing board and try to refine their assumptions.
Isn't this what network TV does every year? Not to make things "like Firefly", but to make shows similar to the last season's hit.
As Cindy states, efficient distribution systems create economies of scale which support the creation of expensive product. Without these middlemen diluting the the money stream, there would be no product and we would all be headed to our local playhouse to see a crappy local production with crappy local talent.
I understand what you are saying, Gus. Your analysis just seems too idealistic and you leave out necessary (yes necessary) components of the system. Efficient distribution is the reason NetFlix is a booming business, Amazon can sell you almost anything, and Wal-Mart is the leader of the free world.
It is simply a business model that works and until artists want to take all the risk and financial gamble upon themselves and beam content free out over the Internet hoping that viewers will send in money, it is simply the best system.
Distribution by the creator would take time and resources away from creating.
Strong point. However, I am sure Whedon spent more time with the purse-string people than he strictly wanted to, with any of his projects. My sense is that he kinda likes us buyers. If we were also festooned with green dollars, he might have found us downright pretty.
Dude! If we all lived in L.A. and Whedon relied on that, he would have to live in L.A. fulltime.
I very much like living in LA.
I also suspect that many creators wouldn't be very good at distribution and/or would hate every minute of it.
As Cindy states, efficient distribution systems create economies of scale which support the creation of expensive product. Without these middlemen diluting the the money stream, there would be no product and we would all be headed to our local playhouse to see a crappy local production with crappy local talent.
Yes, exactly. Well put.
I had more to add here but it's really what's quoted up there. Well, except for one brief pitch for the modern corporate model and markets: the separation of creation, management and ownership allows for big investments like films and TV shows that combine westerns and space opera. It's specialization like that of distributors and artists that allows for people to be full creators, rather than trying to make their own...well, everything.
How would the creators be able to ask us for money if there's no large-scale way for them to reach their audience? Can they actually raise $50 million in wadded-up ones and fives, in order to produce a season's worth of a low-budget TV show? And how will the audience know whether they want to see the final product before it ever exists? Are the creators going to guarantee refunds to people who don't like it once they've seen it?
It sounds like you're proposing that all TV should work on the PBS model, with pledge drives every few months. But PBS shows get money from corporate sponsors and the gov and god knows where else, in addition to viewer donations.