The Silicon Valley Pivot will Kill Hollywood

 Made with certain parts of my brain, and my two opposable thumbs.

As both the SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guide – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) and the WGA (Writers’ Guild of America) are on strike and the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers) refuses to negotiate, we’re probably wondering what the studios’ end game actually is.

Apart from the quest to make so much money they can use it as mattress stuffing.

I have friends in the industry who are mostly in crew and VFX (but also a couple of actors), so I can tell you right now that the life has never been glamorous. At all. It’s exciting, heck yes, but the novelty wears off after a few years. They’re trapped in a gig economy with no promise of a steady pay check. They might make some sweet, sweet money one year, and go into a lull and not work for years after that.

Crew wind up working in dreadful locations (too hot and surrounded by bugs, or too cold and in danger of getting frostbite), working very long hours (load in times of 6.00AM and load out times of 10.00PM or later are not unheard of), for very average amounts of money because they’re below the line on a film budget.

Working in VFX sounds like a nightmare. People sit in front of computer all day, pushing out shots while they’re get hassled by everyone. The higher-ups view their carefully crafted sequences and then (cover your eyes everyone) the higher-ups indulge in a bit of pixel-fucking. I’d never heard of this term before, but apparently it involves multiple directors or producers or others starting off with the phrase, “I love it, buuttt....” and then telling you that they think the blue of the sky is too blue and you should make it less blue. Which shade of blue? Who knows. They’ll leave it up to you, so they can come back in three days time and tell you that the sky looks wrong because it’s not blue enough.

Actors lives aren’t exactly alluring either (unless they’re in the elite company of the very few who are at the top of the ladder). Even well-known actors are aiming for a solidly middle class existence. A surprising chunk of their pay gets trimmed off the top by their agents, along with various other fees. The actor pays tax on the full amount, even if 10 – 40% of their pay has already gone to others.

In a nutshell, the studio execs sell the world a lie. Hollywood is pushed as the dream factory. And working in the dream factory is amazing. This was never really true and it’s even less true in modern times. Today the execs are mostly people that regard content as a product. Like a cheeseburger. If they could just figure out how to make the cheeseburger as cheaply as possible, in a consistent manner each time, then the product will make a profit with zero downside.

As Silicon Valley becomes increasingly involved in the industry, the execs seem to have pivoted to a ‘tech bro’ attitude. Why pay anyone when people are just producing a widget? The AI and various bits of software will do the actual work. In this model writers and actors aren’t talented creatives – they’re just like the people who work at Amazon warehouses (no insult to the people who work hard at Amazon) or Uber drivers (no insult to the people who work for Uber). The software on their phone/device tells them what to do, and they go do it. If that’s the direction the executives are working towards then the novelty of working in Hollywood will wear off, much like it did for Uber drivers. Once Hollyweird loses its glamour, people will do other things and only agree to be a writer if they’re desperate. Which means the studios will not be getting the best of the best.

On a positive note, as anyone who works in IT knows (and I’d be one of those people), it’s rare for any software project to be delivered on time, on budget and without defects. The execs in Hollywood have never been near an IT project in their lives. As long as IT has been running, it’s always been a bug-filled hellscape that runs on a wing and a prayer. The executives can’t just plug all of their requests into a cloud AI instance being shared by all the common people (and other studios) out there. They like to keep secrets so they’ll have to move their AI model in-house. And they’ll need one instance per studio. And infrastructure (cue the massive server room and expensive air conditioning), and security to prevent people accessing the server room, and a team to deal with things like production databases where you store the widgets and AI generated ideas. And people who ensure the wonderful AI is up and running 24-hours / 7 days a week. And ongoing license fees on a yearly basis to support everything. Studio executives have no idea have much they will be screwed over by Silicon Valley once Silicon Valley convinces them that it’s the right way to go. One wrong move and someone can accidentally wiped out a studio’s entire production database containing all of those dumb ideas, and all of those widgets – and the backups never worked. It’s been that way since 1973 and it’s exactly the same today.

It won’t cost $150 million to produce a movie any more. They’ll ensure writers and actors are paid peanuts. Directors will probably be tossed out of their jobs entirely (don’t worry – we’ll use an AI to determine what to do). Instead it will cost them $300 million every year in operating costs alone. They’ll spend money on extremely expensive enterprise licensing agreements, on infrastructure support, and on staff to support their brilliant AI. All while their AI, who doesn’t know what a human actually is , pumps out an endless stream of shit while supported by a dedicated AI team that needs their own building and a thousand employees just to keep it stable.

And Hollywood will come crashing down into a sea of overly engineered mediocrity that nobody wants, thus killing the entire industry.

Then again, maybe the AMPTP reconsiders their stance and avoid venturing into the darkest timeline.

Enjoy the following examples of databases and systems being breached and burning various companies to the ground. (Scroll down the comments on the GitLab comments to see someone talking about Toy Story 2 almost getting wiped out completely in similar circumstances.)

Good luck, Hollywood!

Two Years Later... I'm Back?

This post was made by my own sad little human brain and my uncoordinated meat fingers.

If you received an email notifying you that D. A. Howe published a new blog post, you were probably thinking, “Huh?”

However, if you cast you mind back to the good old pre- ChatGPT days, you would have signed up for my newsletter because you got a free story, or read one of my books for free. Or you liked my blog (all three of you).

Since 2021, zero things have happened on the writing front. No blog entries and my second short story collection is still stuck in edit mode.

Part of the problem was my migration to Wix. I never completely got the hang of it, and every year they seemed to increase their prices. The other part of the problem was the complete over saturation of the writing market with self-published stories and I was but one of gazillions. In a nutshell: I lost interest.

Now there is an over saturated market filled with terrible stories written by ChatGPT. However, for some reason this has perversely reignited my desire to blog again (every so often), and maybe even finish the book.

I suspect it’s because I hate social media, hate trying to put together newsletters, and hate advertising. I’ve never been that interested.

But now, much like that old person from the 1920s who refuses to give up riding their horse into town while everyone else is using a car, I feel like I have a purpose I can be the old person from 2023 who continues to blog and write books with nothing but the wetware between their ears while shaking a fist at the younger kids using that new fangled AI.

Me, When I see the Font Used on Some Book Covers...

Also, whenever I was forced to write documentation as part of my office job and the corporate guidance on fonts was to use Arial. Or Calibri. For hundreds of pages. Oh, and each paragraph needed to be numbered. And the same people that demanded numbering levels five deep, would also complain that they couldn’t understand what they were reading because they didn’t like the numbering. Or the font.

Obscure Issues Faced by Authors: Onomatopoeia

 

My Brain is Andy Dwyer

This post is going to go over the head of anyone who hasn’t watched every season of the TV show Parks and Recreation at least three times, but here goes. Apparently there are lots of people out there with Chris Traeger brains. Ever optimistic. Able to motivate themselves. Supremely fit. Always able to stick to their diets.

I am not that person. I am the person with the Andy Dwyer brain. The brain that wonders how just-in-time supply chains work in supermarkets when the toilet paper is running low. Who got distracted by learning astrology as research for a character in the next novel, and is now thinking of becoming an astrologer. Who starts a diet at 6.00 AM and breaks it at 7:05AM. Also, I can’t run. My brain is distracted by everything, but occasionally decides to do grown-up things. Which is terrible for a writer. 😂

Me, Whenever I try to Use Amazon KDP

 

Community’s Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Episode: Is it Racist?

 

If you’re not a fan of the long-cancelled TV series Community you won’t have heard the news that Hulu, Sony, and Netflix pulled the episode Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.

Here’s a basic summary of the sub-plot which resulted in its disappearance from streaming services.

Chang wears blackface while cosplaying as a D&D character. Shirley calls him out about it, but he brushes it off by saying he’s a dark elf or “drow”. Chang’s D&D character is killed off during the game.

I think we can all agree that:

A) Blackface is wrong.

B) Racism is wrong.

So, at first glance, Sony, Hulu, and Netflix made the right decision.

However, there’s the problem... Community is not a ‘first glance’ show and never was. By ‘first glance’ I mean a show that you watch with your brain turned off. I mean, yeah, you can just sit there and absorb the jokes and be done with it, but Community was never just about that. The characters learn things, and they experience growth, whether it’s for good or bad.

The main cast of characters are shown as flawed individuals with quirks. They’re also a diverse bunch. Abed is clearly on the autism spectrum, and he’s a non-practicing Muslim. Shirley is a single Mom just trying to do right by her kids and live her dream. She’s also a devout Christian. Troy is a young man trying to figure out his place in the world and fiercely protective of Abed. Pierce is older than the rest of the group, and he’s constantly trying to win approval but goes about it in all the wrong ways. Annie is young and impressionable, and an ex-addict. And Britta is, well, Britta. Finally, there is Jeff Winger, a former lawyer who lied his way into a law firm. He’s found out, and forced to leave the firm to get a real law degree. He’s a man, he’s white, he’s good looking, and he’s all privilege. Attending a community college is his worst nightmare.

The casting and characters feel fresh even now. A character like Abed is unique. There hasn’t been a character like Abed on TV before or after Community. This doesn’t feel like a show that has a racism or a religion problem.

However, let’s switch the conversation back to the sub-plot. The other thing to note is that Chang is a terrible human being. He gets a sort of redemption near the end of the series, but he’s a guy focused exclusively on obtaining power. He has few positive character traits and starts his own child army of security guards (the Changlorious Bastards) for the express purpose of assuming control of the college. (You’ll need to watch Community to understand that weird plot point.)

Chang is kicked out of the D&D game with his character’s death. This seems to emphasize the point that blackface is wrong, and Chang’s excuse that he’s a ‘dark elf’ is also wrong (and a comment on the racism bubbling along in D&D). You could argue that its a cheap joke and shouldn’t have been there in the first place, but it could also be argued that the writers were emphasizing what a turd of a human being Chang actually is. Chang is a narcissist, has issues with authority (he wants it and is prepared to do anything to get it), and is just generally awful. The character of Pierce is also awful, but in other ways.

Turning up in blackface and then claiming to be a dark elf, while making everyone angry, is exactly what a person like Chang would do. It’s all about being outrageous to get a reaction, and then gaslighting everyone by saying that it’s a joke, or it’s not what it seems. So, yes, the writers could have have decided not to write that scene, but at the same time, it’s in line with Chang’s character and agood commentary on how some people will do anything if it gets a reaction from others.

The YouTube channel Gamer Greg breaks down this issue, along with the issue of fantasy races in D&D.

Now that we’ve talked about Chang, let’s talk about the episode’s main plot line.

What this episode is actually about is that fact that a character nicknamed Fat Neil is prepared to kill himself. This is an episode about bullying and depression. The D&D game is a plot mechanism to talk about this issue.

In the plot, Neil is harassed at the community college. Jeff Winger isn’t always the most self-aware, but he realizes that Neil is depressed and pretends to like Dungeons and Dragons as a way to befriend Neil.

Neil is contemplating suicide, and gives his much-prized D&D books to Jeff Winger. Neil says he won’t need them anymore. Jeff realizes the stakes, and along with Annie, enlists the aid of the study group to find a way to help Neil.

The study group rally to Neil’s aid. They plan to invite Neil to a D&D game where Neil will win the game and hopefully regain his self-confidence and self-esteem during the campaign.

Chang’s dark elf character is killed but replaced with an even more terrible human being: Pierce Hawthorne. Who proceeds to wreck the game by bullying Neil and reading ahead in the D&D guide so he can figure out how to win.

Pierce is straight out evil in this episode. He belittles and humiliates Neil, and then tells Neil that Jeff was the one that coined the phrase ‘Fat Neil’. Pierce is so awful that viewers can only cringe at Pierce’s rampant displays of cruelty.

However, in a twist on the entire setup, Peirce is revealed as the most pitiful one in the room. He’s a bully, and he wants to exert control over the group. Neil defeats him in the game, reducing Pierce to what he really is: a sad old man.

With Pierce’s ego shattered, Neil, a kind soul, invites Pierce to play another game the following week.

In the episode Neil must find his path to inner peace, stand up to bullies (Pierce), and realize that there are people out there who care about him.

Which brings me back to the first glance thing. At first glance this episode features blackface. But the episode is actually about depression. In a culture that still doesn’t like to discuss these things, or marginalizes people with mental health issues, this is one of the few shows that addresses it in a meaningful way. Neil remains a complete person with multiple facets to his personality, rather than being reduced to a helpless child in need of rescuing by more well-adjusted people.

Sony, Hulu and Netflix have essentially said: bullying, and depression don’t actually matter. We don’t want to talk about it, and we’re prepared to sweep it under the rug.

Pulling an episode because a character appears in blackface should be weighed up against a corporation saying an episode about depression is of no consequence.

Like I said, ‘first glance’ doesn’t work with Community. You need to view the episode through multiple lenses.

Personally, I think a good compromise for this episode is to put a warning on the front. This would allow the episode to be viewed while acknowledging the issue of Chang appearing in blackface.