There is a prevailing mindset in Hollywood that regards sudden or unexpected business models as unviable, or highly suspect at the very least. Paradoxically, ignoring that big-business mindset is the fastest way to lose the trust of the very folks who can execute bona-fide innovation. That's what this blog is about.
Over the last few years, the readers of this blog have heard me talk about two "Hollywoods". On the one hand, you have the Hollywood that has existed more or less since the release of Star Wars, where agents and money-managers patrol the corridors and protect the American economy from wacko creative types like me. These are the city-slickers of Hollywood.
On the other, you've got the world's most vital creative community. In this Hollywood, which is every bit as real as the other, goodwill and the desire to create rule the decision-making process. On a foundation of mutual respect and admiration, artists work tirelessly to elevate one another and the overall community by sharing stories that are meaningful to them. While it's not exclusive to indie film, this is the frontier mindset audiences recognize as independent.
Many, many times, you've heard me say that business skills are not exclusive to "Hollywood #1". In fact, I could argue that the money-managers and the agents have established such a tightly-run system that running 'Hollywood #1" takes almost no business sense at all. Just follow the rules, and you'll be fine. At the same time, those rules wwere put there for a reason. Much of the time, they work. These days, "Hollywood #1" mostly concerns itself with getting rid of all the occasions in which those rules are insufficient.
In "Hollywood #2", things are different. Those people in "Hollywood #2" who do have a strong feel for the business are visionaries, willing to create the business models that suit their objectives rather than tailor the ends to suit the means of 'Hollywood #1". Of course, there's also a horde of romantics and dreamers who moved West to chase down the Gold Rush or the adventure novel lifestyle, and those people are starving to death, either metaphorically or in actuality. Basically, "Hollywood #2" is scary! At the same time, there's gold in them thar hills!
Of course, the real problem is that nobody in Hollywood lives entirely in "Hollywood #1" or "Hollywood #2". Every single one of us is caught somewhere in between, with plenty of pre-conceived notions of how the business is supposed to work and plenty of crazy dreams we're pursuing regardless. Our entire industry is composed of people trying to fit square pegs into round holes, and success in this town is determined more or less exclusively by how we handle that paradox.
See with the resourceful eye of a frontiersman, and with the shrewd discrimination of a city-slicker. Master those business skills, dear reader, because you need to know the rules before you know when to break them.
Then, you become the leader everyone is looking for.
0 comments:
Post a Comment