The author assumes that there is a linear relationship between the amount of money that a creator has at their disposal and the resulting "production quality". So, once Jenna Marbles starts making some real bank, out come the camera crews and director and post-production effects and...
No. There is no path from Jenna Marbles to the traditional kind of television that the author is used to. They're just...different. Jenna has a specific way that she likes to create things and more money doesn't necessarily change that.
To make the kind of TV that the author imagines, you need to drop some money up front. Let's be charitable and say $300,000 for a pilot. Needless to say this is out of reach for almost 100% of the content creators on Youtube, so it's unsurprising that the content that has risen to popularity within Youtube has its roots in methods that cost essentially nothing.
Now, there are some interesting exceptions. The Lizzie Bennet Diaries [1] was nowhere near a "real" TV show in terms of budget but it had writers, production staff, and hired actors. Vice produces a lot of content that seems like it could fit into a normal TV program [2] -- almost. There are some other interesting shows that are sort of half-way there (well, more like 1/10th of the way there) in that they actually have production crews and do things like post-production (see: Wil Wheaton's Tabletop series [3]). I'm sure there are a ton of other examples.
So, the community is sidling up to high-quality content, but it's still unclear exactly how they're going to get there. By my estimation, to create a "TV-ready" drama, you'd need at the very least 100k subscribers paying $3/mo. Obviously no one is going to sign up for something if they're never heard of you, so you've got to make some free content that people love, then maybe make the jump via a Kickstarter? Or will true "channels" appear that bring the money and the subscribers and that then fund the shows of their choice? This is a really fascinating time for video content -- I'm excited to see how the economics end up playing out.
I think what you're really saying here is that these current YouTube stars will not make the jump from their current content to TV-ready content. But they do play an important role in creating the ecosystem, bringing the viewers, and showing that there is a market for content through this distribution medium. Hopefully that will make people more willing to drop the money on a good pilot, but it won't be the current generation of creators that will be doing it.
It's not that they won't make the jump, but that they're not trying to. Videos of the kind "YouTubers" make have evolved into a distinct media genre separate from episodic television. Your statement is analogous to saying "comic book authors won't jump to writing novel-ready content" -- of course not, or at least, not in a way that implies the latter is a progression from the former.
And a corollary: genre is distinct from delivery mechanism. "House of Cards" is a TV show and Jenna Marbles videos are (for lack of a better term) YouTube-style videos, even though both are delivered via the Internet.
> "but it's still unclear exactly how they're going to get there."
Technology is a good bet. Camera technology as well as cost has come down by orders of magnitude in recent years - the Canon 5D Mark II was the turning point (the first DSLR capable of shooting 1080p video at acceptable frame rates), but we're way beyond that now.
And we're not talking about "making cameras cheaper so anyone can throw one on a tripod and make amateur videos", we're talking about the democratization of previously very capital-intensive equipment. There are now cheap steadycams almost as good as the expensive real thing, follow focus units, and a massively growing segment for cheap cine lenses that are suitable for video work, but don't cost $20-30K a pop like traditional cinema lenses.
We're dramatically lowering the cost of entry for effects that were previously associated with high production value (thin depth of field, follow focus, smooth camera movement, etc).
The entertainment world of the future is a friggin' exciting place.
The author is Ryan Holiday, who makes a nice side living as a professional rage-click generator.
It's likely that his only purpose with this post is to piss off thousands of Jenna Marbles fans so that they will come post angry comments (and receive ad impressions).
Please, I have written pretty extensively about the problems with the ad impressions model--I think it's the root of the YT issue and most the low quality blogging we see.
I don't get paid by the pageview and if I did, it would be an inconsequential part of my annual income at this point. I write columns about ideas I find interesting. If I wanted pageviews I'd probably publish it somewhere other than the Observer
No. There is no path from Jenna Marbles to the traditional kind of television that the author is used to. They're just...different. Jenna has a specific way that she likes to create things and more money doesn't necessarily change that.
To make the kind of TV that the author imagines, you need to drop some money up front. Let's be charitable and say $300,000 for a pilot. Needless to say this is out of reach for almost 100% of the content creators on Youtube, so it's unsurprising that the content that has risen to popularity within Youtube has its roots in methods that cost essentially nothing.
Now, there are some interesting exceptions. The Lizzie Bennet Diaries [1] was nowhere near a "real" TV show in terms of budget but it had writers, production staff, and hired actors. Vice produces a lot of content that seems like it could fit into a normal TV program [2] -- almost. There are some other interesting shows that are sort of half-way there (well, more like 1/10th of the way there) in that they actually have production crews and do things like post-production (see: Wil Wheaton's Tabletop series [3]). I'm sure there are a ton of other examples.
So, the community is sidling up to high-quality content, but it's still unclear exactly how they're going to get there. By my estimation, to create a "TV-ready" drama, you'd need at the very least 100k subscribers paying $3/mo. Obviously no one is going to sign up for something if they're never heard of you, so you've got to make some free content that people love, then maybe make the jump via a Kickstarter? Or will true "channels" appear that bring the money and the subscribers and that then fund the shows of their choice? This is a really fascinating time for video content -- I'm excited to see how the economics end up playing out.
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KisuGP2lcPs&feature=c4-ov...
[2] (Warning: NSFW) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsUH8llvTZo
[3] http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4F80C7D2DC8D9B6C