{"id":2105,"date":"2008-01-12T13:00:48","date_gmt":"2008-01-12T18:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mathewingram.com\/work\/2008\/01\/12\/writers-strike-and-web-video-a-continuum\/"},"modified":"2008-01-12T13:00:48","modified_gmt":"2008-01-12T18:00:48","slug":"writers-strike-and-web-video-a-continuum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2008\/01\/12\/writers-strike-and-web-video-a-continuum\/","title":{"rendered":"Writers’ strike and Web video: A continuum"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some more details from Liz Gannes over at NewTeeVee about the efforts of movie writer Aaron Mendelsohn and some fellow striking writers to put together a mini-studio to produce Web content<\/a>. They’re looking for VCs to put up $30-million or so to launch their studio, Virtual Artists — a name that appears to be a reference to United Artists, the seminal 1920s studio founded by Charlie Chaplin and others.<\/p>\n

Incidentally, it’s worth remembering, as Paul Kafka points out<\/a> at Silicon Alley Insider, that United Artists didn’t work out so well<\/a>, in part because movies became longer and more expensive to produce. Most of those who formed the studio were also well-known actors — in other words, the “talent,” and not just a bunch of writers whom most of Hollywood (rightly or wrongly) assumes are a dime a dozen.<\/p>\n

So will Mendelsohn and his gang be able to follow through on what Marc Andreessen recently described<\/a> as the remaking of Hollywood in Silicon Valley’s image? That remains to be seen. Kafka worries that the economics of Web video are uncertain at best<\/a> and there is certainly some evidence<\/a> that that is true. But why does it always have to be a black and white question of Web vs. traditional TV and movies?<\/p>\n

With Quarterlife<\/em>, Marshall Hersovitz and Ed Zwick have shown that there can be a lot of overlap between TV and Web video, in both directions<\/a>. Meanwhile, some comedians, actors and directors who started with short video clips — Andy Samberg and the Lonely Island crew<\/a> come to mind — have managed to extend that into more traditional (and presumably lucrative) spheres. To me it seems a lot more like a continuum than a black and white separation of worlds.<\/p>\n

<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some more details from Liz Gannes over at NewTeeVee about the efforts of movie writer Aaron Mendelsohn and some fellow striking writers to put together a mini-studio to produce Web content. They’re looking for VCs to put up $30-million or so to launch their studio, Virtual Artists — a name that appears to be a … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Writers’ strike and Web video: A continuum”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crsspst_to_mathewingramblogwordpresscom":false,"mf2_syndication":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}