Somewhere between the first Transformers movie from Michael Bay earning $700M domestically and YouTube star Jake Paul getting nearly 14 million views for a video of him fighting another influencer we lost our way.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the first Transformers movie and I totally get Jake Paul’s appeal to a certain demographic. There’s room in the world for both of these things. What they represent isn’t new; anti-intellectualism has always been mainstream entertainment’s lynchpin (see: 1980s action movies, Laurel and Hardy, Jackass, and Borat).
Unfortunately the emergence of big screen special effects for the independent film maker and the popularity of live-streaming stream-of-consciousness antics as an alternative to narrative cinematography has resulted in DIY filmmakers becoming an endangered species.
The COVID-19 pandemic, however, has disrupted the status quo in the entertainment world and filmmakers with a DIY spirit are suddenly back on the rise.
We’ve seen Hollywood fold its hand and ask to be dealt out of the pandemic. Sure, a few projects here and there got pushed through, but for the most part Tinsel Town isn’t open for business. It’s every movie for itself until further notice.