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Ben Silverman, Chairman of multi-media producer Electus recently keynoted a Venture Capital and New Media Summit in Los Angeles.
Ben noted that 100 years ago in order to make a film you needed 50 acres of land in the San Fernando Valley, an army of various craftsmen, sprawling soundstages, expensive specialized cameras, film labs and more.
He went on to say that in order to produce a film today you could likely do it with five dedicated artists, $30,000 worth of equipment and an office in Santa Monica with a green screen.
This got me thinking. A studio's main functions are finance, production, distribution and marketing of content. Considering how technology is greatly expanding the creative community’s access to each of these and the entrance of new well capitalized players to the entertainment game: are motion picture studios becoming irrelevant and what does the future hold for the business of filmed entertainment?
Finance
Money is fungible. You don’t have to be a studio to write a check. Additionally, with the increasingly prevalence of film co-financing deals, the checks written by the studios rarely cover 100% of the costs. Less risk for studios? Yes. But, also less control and less reward.
Tech players such as Netflix ,Amazon and YouTube are now financing original content which provides additional competition to studios.
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