Film technology innovator and Strada co-founder Michael Cioni confronts how the creator economy is transforming Hollywood in his recent industry keynote. His presentation, “Is This the End of Hollywood?”, analyzes the growing tension between traditional media and the creator economy, offering both sobering warnings and strategic pathways for the future of professional entertainment. As creator economy platforms like YouTube reshape audience expectations and consumption habits, Cioni outlines how Hollywood can adapt rather than resist this fundamental shift. Michael Cioni is always an interesting guy to hear talk – he’s literally been at the heart of Hollywood’s technology for decades and we’ve talked to him several times before – at last year’s NAB, we also awarded them one of our coveted CineD Best-of-Show Awards for NAB (and submissions for this year’s awards are open still). The Competitive Moat That Became a Barrier In his recent keynote at the HPA summit, Cioni begins by describing how Hollywood built an impressive “competitive moat” over decades, centered around the pursuit of high quality. This moat consists of specialized talent, bespoke technology, sophisticated distribution systems, standardized practices, and professional organizations, including trade groups, unions, guilds, and professional associations like the HPA. “Hollywood has built this incredible competitive moat… it’s this barrier that protects you from bad actors,” Cioni explains. “But there’s a byproduct of this competitive moat… in order for us to maintain that quality, we introduced a lot of friction.” Cioni argues that this friction permeates the entire process – from production and post-production...
Published By: CineD - 2 days ago