Follywood

November 6, 2005 by Jeff Jarvis

Rafat Ali says LA is becoming the hub for digital media. Oh, I hope not. LA is where creativity goes to get botox.

  • http://www.2020hindsight.org/ Susan Kitchens

    Oh good. Now that house prices are so high, I can sell out of my LA-county townhouse, buy a place elsewhere, do my digital media dream and stay creative. As it is now, I just better give up on it all, thanks to your wet blanket proclamation about an entire region. Based on my location, I guess I’m all washed up.

    Jeez Louise, Jeff! Care to back up that statement with anything of substance? Or are you just matching botox for botox?

    Susan in Monrovia, the San Gabriel Valley, Los Angeles County

  • Linette in Redondo Beach, Los Angeles County

    Gee, is it still hip to dis LA? Seems down right quaint to me.

  • http://www.buzzmachine.com Jeff Jarvis

    Susan:
    The state of movies. Rest my case.

  • http://oodja.blogspot.com Jersey Exile

    Jeff,

    And what about television? Never been better. And it’s TV that’s driving digital media right now, not movies (witness episodes of “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives” selling like hotcakes on iTunes, even the day after they air).

    The stars have aligned at last for a revolution in video content that will eventually make an end run around Hollywood, but for now LA still has the tactical advantage of the old entertainment infrastructure. But if you look at the latest fan-produced Star Wars movies produced by bright kids in their basements on their G5 Macintoshes, it’s just a matter of time before the era of “garage band” TV begins.

    Then it’s anyone’s bet as to where the new hub of the digital media will be.

  • http://www.2020hindsight.org/ Susan Kitchens

    Yes, Jeff, the only thing in Los Angeles is the movie industry. There is nothing else there. Nothing. As Gertrude Stein said, there is no there there. Who was it that said that the largest book market in the country is in Los Angeles? Nope, that doesn’t count. Los Angeles is only movies. Jersey, alas I have no TV (tho boyfriend has one, and TiVos The Daily Show, to my great amusement. But that’s not LA-TV, it’s New York TV, which, I suppose, just provies Jeff’s point that there’s nothing, nothing at all here in La La land), so I really have no comment. I guess I better up and move because Jeff calls this place a wasteland. Or a bo-something place. Ah well.

    (BTW, I’d be ready to discuss the merits of your point re: movie industry, ‘cept that having made it by a sweeping generalization about a city of 3.6 million people in a county of 10 million people, all I can do is laugh and shake my head. This post —and response to my first comment— provides a fascinating lens through which to look at all the topics you’ve been jumping up and down over—the triumph of personal media, opening up the news process to bloggers, etc., etc. Guess all this flourishing of this-here new-fangled weblog and personal media thang works everywhere but in this wasteland of 3-to-10 million people.)

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  • http://www.blackrimglasses.com Ethan

    Come on Jeff, you can try better than that. Movies are no worse or better than they have been, it’s just with the lack of revenues, the bad has gotten louder, while the good has had a harder time getting distribution. But “good” films are being made in the same proportions as bad.

    Television is in a great state of affairs right now. Lost, and (dare I say) some quality reality shows, as well as the return of actually funny sitcoms (How I Met Your Mother).

    And more personal to me, the music industry is doing OK, especially innovative companies (toot toot) that realize you can’t combat people not buying stuff, just give them better stuff to buy, in more ways than just a CD.

    Anyhow, territorial pissings aside, I think while LA certainly has problems (mostly creativity underneath corporate structure, which dilutes things a bit), the people that are driving the industry through the bureacracy are damn good.

  • http://mattwelch.com/warblog Matt Welch

    Well, we’re no New Jersey, but we do try.

    And you forgot the one about being able to make a right-hand turn at red lights!