Now here we are, some 14 blog articles in and we’ve come full circle looking at the early start of the media industry in New York, the shift to L.A. and what caused it. We’ve compared the Hollywood model to the Canadian way of making media. And we’ve looked at new technology and distribution method enabling some folks I’ve called “New Hollywood”.

No doubt there are things I’ve overlooked or just don’t know about media creation here and abroad. I am, after all, just a studio owner who set out on a journey to understand the lay of the land in the field I work in.

Even so, I have to put some ideas up worth thinking about. It seems like Canada missed the boat 100 years ago when Hollywood first began to boom. Are we smarter now? Or are we missing the next thing also?

Canada has some Youtube action going on. By far the most popular is Epic Mealtime, which typically draws 2 million views per upload. In every episode host Harley Morenstein, a former substitute teacher, creates and consumes a heart-stopping combination of Jack Daniels, bacon strips, and some kind of meat product. Alternates include candy.
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In the last article, we took a look at the small independent producers doing big things in online distribution by writing, directing, shooting, and staring in their own productions. They have complete creative control, much like the creative freedom sought by D.W. Griffiths when he headed west to L.A.

I don’t know if you noticed with the previous article, but fully ALL of the featured producers at one point relocated to L.A. Coincidence? You might think so, but for one thread that brings them all together.  That thread is Facerocker (once called Overcrank Media), more commonly known as Freddie Wong and Brandon Laatsch, two alumni of the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.

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If you recall from our history lesson, Hollywood began when D.W. Griffiths discovered the quiet little town while in L.A. shooting short films for the Biograph company with their in-house troupe of actors.

Griffiths already had ambitions about shooting longer feature-length films. But at the time the films were primarily seen by the corporation as promotional pieces, more or less technical demonstrations. They were not that concerned about advancing the content of cinema as much as the hardware.
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Up to now we’ve journeyed through the start of media with a look at Hollywood, and we’ve taken a look at how things differ in Canada. We’ve jumped into some of the technology changes making waves and enabling a new generation of independent producers. Let’s take a break to look at the amazing work of some of them.

Riding the wave of recent technology advances, some individuals have distinguished themselves by recognizing the potential and running with it. In some ways, it resembles very much the early days of the Biograph corporation. It looks like history is repeating itself! If you’ll recall, in the early days of the Biograph corporation, the company created short films for the purpose of promoting their equipment (in effect becoming the first dedicated film company in North America).
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Up to now we’ve looked at DSLR shooting, as well as the next wave of camera equipment coming out. This is just the tip of the iceberg, as we could get into the wide world of lenses, monitors, lighting equipment, stabilizers and stands, and on it goes to no end.

Some of the numbers we’ve looked at start to add up pretty quickly. But I really want to emphasize that you do not need to have the latest and greatest to produce things that people will love to watch and subscribe to.
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