George, I hope you're right.

In 2006, George Lucas not only made comments about the future of the movie industry, but he also made a very large contribution to USC's School of Cinematic Art. A $175 million contribution.

"In a lot of industries, the people in the industry give a lot of money to the schools that produce the people who are their employees," he said, pointing to the auto industry as an example. "The film industry doesn't seem to be too enthusiastic about that idea. I'd love to see the industry do more.

"As self-interest, it's good to have the best trained people working for you. And the best trained people come from film school.

"The world of moving images hasn't had a lot of respect (in academia)," said Lucas. "But it's the major form of communication in the 21st century."

This $175 million, he said, is meant to "put other universities on notice that this is an important discipline that needs to be fostered."

-From the October 4, 2006 article on Variety.com

I hope you are right, George. As a graduating film student looking for a job, this gives me a little hope. I'm looking forward to the industry seeing the hard work we have put in to our love for film. As much as possible, film students are producing films. However, our programs are one of the first to be cut from universities' budgets. Without this funding, our equipment is not what it could be and definitely not what it should be. UCF used to have three film degrees, and now we are down to two. One of which doesn't even get to go into the equipment room because there is not enough funding to insure all the students. The school does not have enough of the staff it needs for the film department, and after many years there is still just an interim head of the department. The film department needs more money so we can make better films!

Even though it is too late for some of who have graduated, or will be graduating soon, to receive extra funding, hopefully the industry will heed Lucas's words and see that film students are well trained and willing to do whatever it takes for the film. We have learned that the film comes first above all else. It is all for the film.

The Future of Movies: Vanity Fair is Totally Wrong

In October of 2006, George Lucas made a statement at the USC School of Cinematic Arts ceremony that big blockbuster movies were out, and the trend would be for smaller budget, online distributed films to rise. And yet, since we are in this time of recession, box office numbers are up since October 2008. People are still going to the movies - but then again, online film viewing is up.

Ten bucks a ticket is not something that is affordable for Hollywood's main audience 16-35 year old. These are the people who are having a hard time finding jobs that will give them enough money not to be house poor. These are the people who are turning to YouTube and Hulu to watch entertainment. These are the people who are downloading pirated movies off the Internet. These are the people that are hitting up sites that stream movies that are currently in theaters. So what if the quality isn't excellent, it's better than paying all that money to go to the movies.

Vanity Fair criticized Lucas for his statement that a new film wave is about to happen. It has only been two and a half years since Lucas made this comment. That was just when the movement was starting, and now it's gaining some ground. Yes, Fast and Furious made a ton of money opening weekend. Let's see how well it does over all. Opening weekend are mostly the guys who are looking for fast cars, action and boobs. Let's face it, that's what most of those films are.

Let's take a look at Joss Whedon's Dr Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog. That was a purely Internet distributed film. It was distributed in three parts which added up to a run time of 42 minutes. The pre-production began during a time when the writer's were on strike and nothing was going on in Hollywood. Whedon took on the task of an independent filmmaker. He paid for the film himself and called in favors from a whole bunch of people. A lot of his family worked on the film as well. What Whedon did was offer the films online to be viewed for free, using Hulu, on drhorrible.com and then after they were up for a week, they were available to download on iTunes for $4.99. That could not be beat. The soundtrack hit number one in a matter of days on iTunes. Dr. Horrible is considered THE Internet event of 2008.

Whedon was attempting to make a statement about filming during the strike. However, everyone went back to work right before shooting began, and instead a different statement was made - Internet movies do work. If nothing else, Nathan Fillon said in an Entertainment Weekly article: "It's a brand new deal. The people who created it are the people who are in control of it. It's such a weird thing, an incredibly cool thing. I think a very interesting peek at how I think things are going to start to be: the future of entertainment, I believe."

Not only does Dr. Horrible help make Lucas's point, but YouTube sensation Julian Smith does. Since 2006, Smith has posted a short film on YouTube every Friday. This 21 year-old filmmaker is starting to make some serious waves on the Internet. With his "25 Things I Hate About Facebook" starting to get notice, Smith is being noticed as well. Smith was recently flown out to NYC to appear on the Tyra Banks Show. He has also been to the Facebook HQ in California. This kid is making some waves, and he's doing it all through the Internet.

These are just the beginning, but let's address the issue of Vanity Fair's article - since that is what I am really responding to. These are what Vanity Fair thinks is going to be the change instead of the Internet.

Fewer middle-range movies
VF says that the Hollywood bubble of producing a bunch of films popping doesn't mean there will be fewer blockbusters produced, they see it as the films that have a budget between $25 million and $100 million will be cut. That's films like Twilight. If anything, Twilight showed Hollywood that they could make a film for $37 million that looked like a big budget film that also raked in the cash. They obviously got the hint from opening day numbers. (See Impassioned) If that teeny-bopper film could do it, and have been done with quality, Hollywood should take notice and make more of those lower budget films. Some innovations might have to be made, but we have the technology, we can make movies for cheap. Just ask any film student.

People will keep investing in movies
They may keep investing in movies, but that doesn't mean the movies are going to stay on the big screen. A lot of the independent investors will invest in independent films, which may get better distributions rights if they go for Internet distribution. This isn't an alternative, VF, this is just a fact. A fact I hope you are still right about in the next six months.

DVD sales will plummet
Very true. Not only that, but Blockbuster Video is going out of business as well. DVD prices are just too high, and with the piracy issue, DVD sales have to rise to combat it. This does not bode well for the consumer. However, Red Box is doing very well. Pay-Per-View also does well. Being able to rent videos for a dollar a day is a luxury we could get used to. Pay-Per-View just needs to lower their prices a little, because if I can just go to my local Wal-Mart and get a Red Box rental for $1, I'd rather do that than pay $3 to press a button, and those films don't have the extra features a DVD would have. Then again, it depends on the consumer's preference. But VF is right, DVD sales will and ARE plummeting.


Let's face it: it all comes down to the consumer in the end. The new consumers are those coming of age who have grown up with the Internet. They are more comforatble getting their news and watching their entertainment online. With Facebook and Twitter on the rise, isn't it obvious where the new media is going? As a student recenlty wrote in his composition class: "The benefits of new media are boundless and teens [as well as college students] aren't wasting anytime trying to reach those bounds."