I've been thinking about this, and I think you need to work backwards from the existing awards and what makes them "tick" in the context of the industry. Why does anyone care about the awards?
- Directors and producers care about the awards, because winning an award will get your picture seen by lots of people (which means more recognition for all involved, and money for the investors). As a result of this, directors tend to hew to the formats specified by the awards bodies.
- Producing a film that doesn't conform to the requirements (i.e. not shown in theaters) is perceived as "riskier" and has less upside potential -- therefore it's not worth investing in as heavily. Unsurprisingly, the output tends to have obviously lower production values. This reputation is self-reinforcing once established; see straight-to-video releases in the 80s and 90s.
- Viewers, inundated with material, use the awards as a selection filter in determining what to watch, and theater chains tend to run award-winning movies longer, making them more accessible.
So if someone wanted to beat the current awards system at its own game, what they would need to do is basically guarantee directors/producers that there was a strong upside potential, so they'd invest and produce high-production-value (and hopefully, high quality) movies.
If Netflix/Hulu/Amazon/HBO/whatever got together and made a sort of equivalent to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, put together a broad-based judging mechanism (like the Oscars has), and then jointly agreed to give airtime to winning films on their respective platforms, that might make the awards very relevant indeed.
So, modest proposal: the streaming platforms conduct an auction for the right-of-first-refusal to winning films before the awards are opened; basically guaranteeing a payout and perhaps some publicity package to the top films. (There'd be no requirement that the winning film accept the offer, I suppose, but it would be money on the table. Presumably lots of money.) The various streaming platforms would still get exclusivity over some limited period if they were the top bidder (since otherwise, why are they going to bid? they want platform exclusives, nothing else matters to them).
The goal would be two simultaneous, benevolent (to the viewers/audience) arms races: one, between the streaming platforms (to win the auction for winning films pre-award); and two, between filmmakers (to obtain and spend the money necessary to produce an award-winning film, with the guarantee that if it wins, it will get in front of a lot of eyeballs).
I think something like that could snowball on itself and become a Big Deal pretty rapidly, given the incredible amounts of money that are shifting into streaming right now. If you look at the money people spend on cable TV (sometimes $50-100/mo just on programming) and imagine it getting shifted to streaming services, that's going to create an industry that makes the total spend on theater tickets look like floor sweepings. The quality of the content should reflect that.
acchow|8 years ago
Slippery_John|8 years ago
unknown|8 years ago
[deleted]
justinzollars|8 years ago
alecco|8 years ago
Kadin|8 years ago
- Directors and producers care about the awards, because winning an award will get your picture seen by lots of people (which means more recognition for all involved, and money for the investors). As a result of this, directors tend to hew to the formats specified by the awards bodies.
- Producing a film that doesn't conform to the requirements (i.e. not shown in theaters) is perceived as "riskier" and has less upside potential -- therefore it's not worth investing in as heavily. Unsurprisingly, the output tends to have obviously lower production values. This reputation is self-reinforcing once established; see straight-to-video releases in the 80s and 90s.
- Viewers, inundated with material, use the awards as a selection filter in determining what to watch, and theater chains tend to run award-winning movies longer, making them more accessible.
So if someone wanted to beat the current awards system at its own game, what they would need to do is basically guarantee directors/producers that there was a strong upside potential, so they'd invest and produce high-production-value (and hopefully, high quality) movies.
If Netflix/Hulu/Amazon/HBO/whatever got together and made a sort of equivalent to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, put together a broad-based judging mechanism (like the Oscars has), and then jointly agreed to give airtime to winning films on their respective platforms, that might make the awards very relevant indeed.
So, modest proposal: the streaming platforms conduct an auction for the right-of-first-refusal to winning films before the awards are opened; basically guaranteeing a payout and perhaps some publicity package to the top films. (There'd be no requirement that the winning film accept the offer, I suppose, but it would be money on the table. Presumably lots of money.) The various streaming platforms would still get exclusivity over some limited period if they were the top bidder (since otherwise, why are they going to bid? they want platform exclusives, nothing else matters to them).
The goal would be two simultaneous, benevolent (to the viewers/audience) arms races: one, between the streaming platforms (to win the auction for winning films pre-award); and two, between filmmakers (to obtain and spend the money necessary to produce an award-winning film, with the guarantee that if it wins, it will get in front of a lot of eyeballs).
I think something like that could snowball on itself and become a Big Deal pretty rapidly, given the incredible amounts of money that are shifting into streaming right now. If you look at the money people spend on cable TV (sometimes $50-100/mo just on programming) and imagine it getting shifted to streaming services, that's going to create an industry that makes the total spend on theater tickets look like floor sweepings. The quality of the content should reflect that.