FiRe 2010 in Review
Max was featured on a panel at the FiRe 2010 Program on May 12th.
“Technology and Entertainment: Hollywood’s Future”: A panel with Max Howard, President, Exodus Film Group; Eric Starr, Sr. Strategic Planner for Advertising, Media Arts Lab – Apple; Roy Salter, Founding Principal, The Salter Group; and Rob Hummel, CEO, Prime Focus Post Production, North America; hosted by Lewis Douglas, Managing Director, Ocean Alliance
Host Lewis Douglas convened a high-powered panel, featuring some of the giants of Hollywood, to discuss the future of moviemaking.
According to Max Howard, the price of entry into Hollywood tech changed drastically once production companies realized they didn’t have to build their own studios, like giants such as Dreamworks and Pixar, who still use the Old Hollywood model and permanently employ their talent. As Eric Starr put it, “If you have a computer and a connection to the Internet, you make Hollywood nervous.”
(L-R) Lewis Douglas, Max Howard, Eric Starr, Rob Hummel, and Roy Salter
Internet connectivity has unleashed a world of unlimited streaming content, which is a big problem for Hollywood. Its long-time model of high financial barriers to entry is no longer applicable. Consumers and technologies and the inter-space between them is driving the growth and direction of companies like YouTube and Hulu, and the movie industry is doing its best to figure out how to make money in these new business structures.
Still, Roy Salter argues, Hollywood holds at least one major driver of income in investing: the ability to get content out to the consumer through distribution agreements with television broadcasters around the world, among other tools. Tech tools that lie in Hollywood’s future include 3D technology, which is actually superior to our everyday vision (stereoscopic vision stops at a distance of about 20 feet), and an improved digital archival technology (the current migration scenario isn’t sustainable).
