STEADY LEAK: WHAT THE MOVIE BUSINESS HAS DONE TO THE MOVIE SITES

Well said.

Huzzah!

In short, what COLLIDER has become.

I love CHUD because of the boutique content (lists, columns, humor) and quality reviews. I'm not big on news or scoops. Who is and isn't attached to Ron Howard's latest has never been high on my priority list. In that respect, I think CHUD is better than it's ever been.

That said, Fetal Films was a useful resource and I hope it is reborn.

Nick I agree with everything you said

Just putting it out there but why not go rogue and start taking peoples reviews from test screenings etc? It's what put some sites on the map back in the day and something we loved them for, doesn't seem tO happen anymore...

Go old skool to be new skool...

So basically CHUD is the NHL of internet movie sites.

And I'm not saying that as a bad thing...I love the NHL.

That's a good way for CHUD's actual staff to lose access to screenings.

I have fun fucking around in the dumb threads. It makes me laugh. But the real reason why I come here to post is to talk earnestly about movies and tv in a way I'm unable to do in real life. So thanks for that.

Back in the day, scoops and spoilers and news really had my interest. Anymore, all I care about is personality and original content. Most news stories don't even need to be read, anyway, because the information held within is right there in the article title.

I follow a lot of movie people in twitter. Occasionally, I click on the various articles they mention. But I never bookmark their sites. I don't feel I need to because CHUD has all that stuff and the wonderful CHUD stuff, too. Everyone here does wonderful work, and I think distance from Hollywood is a positive factor.

I really love it here--both the main site and the message board--and I hope CHUD keeps on rolling with the punches (and commenting on the punches) (and occasionally punching back).

I thought that was an unpleasantly self-pitying and self-serving article that betrayed a contempt for your own audience that I hoped had left this place with Devin.

Too many tag-team reviews, never my favorite feature on the site, and baffling when it comes to television shows. Too much meandering and not enough clarity in the single-writer reviews. So, so, so much goddamn whining and hand-wringing over one's station in life. And what Paul C said.

That's why I'd rather talk about Kei$ha's box.

That was long.

As others have said, the way this site doesn't chase "scoops" to the exclusion of other content is what keeps me reading it.

Nick, is it too much to ask you to pepper your articles with lolcats and maybe the occasional video of a fat person falling down? Because if I have to read words for more than two consecutive minutes (and heaven forbid those words be thoughtful and introspective) my brain stem ruptures.

You do realize that we have had to try and get everything covered, right? A gajillion screenings in a short amount of time, while keeping the site fresh and relaunching the site and creating a brand new site that's bigger than CHUD.

I think we've done alright.

I don't give a fuck about the new site, Nick. I just want a place where I can be challenged, made to look at movies in new ways, and talk about movies. I don't want to know what your favorite booze is, or new and interesting ways to get laid, since this new site just seems to be Maxim on the Internet.Com. I have actual Maxim for that. I want the CHUD voice, with a clear editorial vision, dedicated to talking about movies, and maybe videogames, comics, and television shows. Most of all, I want you to stop whining about the fact you started a website to get into the movie business, and everyone but you has gotten into the movie business.

As Stephen Joshua Sondhiem says:

1. Content follows form
2. God is in the details
3. CLARITY.

And as David Milch says:

"Loyalty expanded is not loyalty betrayed...We are mortal. One hopes for the best. One perseveres. One re-evaluates constantly. One is an asshole if one doesn't."

None of that is anywhere on the site these days. It's a mess, and it's got jack shit to do with the redesign.

You forgot to add "this fucking place, seriously" at the end Rath.

It's actually "This fucking place. Seriously."

My mistake.

This quote is kinda how I see CHUD expanding. I love this place and only see it getting better.

Am I a dick if I gently disagree with one of the sentiments you posted Nick?

When you mentioned in the column that, to paraphrase, you write about film without making it about yourself...I think in general the opposite is true. There was a good run there where it seemed like every article you touched had some mention of your aspirations.

Now, this is your site, yadda yadda and there are nothing wrong with aspirations. By all means you should utilize the hard work you've put into this site to reach your goals.

But maybe you should emulate folks like Bogdanovich. There's no doubt he's a talented filmmaker, but he's also a film scholar that has contributed to criticism and discussion. Sure he can be a bit 'inside baseball' in regards to his Welles' experiences...but there is a sense of compartmentalization.

I realize, maybe I'm being hypocritical. I post a blog on this very site that has entries about my personal experiences in filmmaking. The trick is I'm able to go outside myself a bit and just enjoy the process of writing about other people's work.

You honestly have no idea what you're talking about, but I suspect that you really don't care. Indignation is soooo much more fun, after all.

I care a ton. I don't comment on every new piece of the new site that's released, because we've been hearing about it for what seems like YEARS now, but as I said earlier today, I've spent way too much time on these boards and gotten far too much out of the experience to just stay quiet and fade away when I disagree with what I percieve to be long-standing, very basic flaws in how the site is run. I'd love to be proven wrong. I've been waiting for a while to be proven wrong. But maybe there is no Santa Claus, the emperor doesn't have any clothes, and there is in fact violence inherent in the system. That's just me.

I think ads kinda ruined it. In the late 90s and early 2000s webmasters earned really good with ads. You enjoyed writing about stuff? Yeah, even more when it made some good money. But then people got annoyed by the ads and began installing adblocking plug-ins, add Google taking over almost every ad thing and setting up it's own rules. Suddenly your whole income decreased to 20, maybe even 5 percent of what you had before.

Sudenly the only ads that run really well are direct recommendations, but sadly it's not only the stuff you really like. So you are forced to recommend mediocre to bad stuff, which cuts into the quality of your content. So you face a drastically reduced reason to actually keep on writing, add a growing family, at least two dozen competing sites and an everchanging world of new media. Suddenly your stuff had to work on twitter, rss, mobile. You had to facebook your site. You don't do that? Well, others do and your readers leave, because they want to do that too.

People give CHUD a lot of shit for not being super amazing in every corner (anymore), but you shouldn't forget that it's really not easy to keep a site up. I bet there's so much else Nick could do to earn more money instead of running a movie website, but he still holds on to it. I'm actually surprised CHUD still lives on and hasn't been reduced to a blog, twitter or facebook page yet. It's easy to rant about not having more great reviews and great scoops, but why should anyone do that if he's depending on income and site work doesn't provide it the way it once did, or only in small doses?

If having discussions about Natalie Portmans box being munched, dvd ads and Funny Videos need to be there to keep insightful and great movie articles alive, so be it. Let Natalie Portmans box be munched! edited to add: apparently it was Ke$has box being munched, sorry. I thought we were talking about Natalie Portmans box being munched by Mila Kunis.

I gotta say I agree with this. When CHUD has been focused on movies and television, it's been a lean, mean internet machine. It's when the site -- and the efforts of those associated with it -- has tried to spread out and be all things to all people that it's stumbled. What happened to the Sci-Fighter? CHUDStories? The Nation's Punched? And every other venture that wasn't CHUD.com? Yeah, man's reach must exceed his grasp and all that, but after a while, you've got to actually grasp something. I'd rather see all this effort go into making a better CHUD than in making yet another Cracked.com.

That's fair enough but what you perceive to be flaws aren't flaws at all and this whole beef with the new site is kinda ridiculous. You don't care about it? Okay. A LOT of other people do and it's become a tremendous undertaking. There are few (very few) people who don't find SOMETHING to appreciate with the site as it currently stands. We do a LOT of shit, if something doesn't work for you something else will because we do THAT much. If NONE of it works for you, well, then I dunno what to tell you. But to take it as, what seems to me, like an affront to you personally because the site isn't everything YOU think it should be doesn't help anything. If you love the place then stick around, roll with it. And nobody's asking you to stay quiet and fade away. If you don't like something you're more than welcome to say so. But constructive criticism is a far, far different beast than being an abrasive little prick. And more often than not, your little barbs hit the target on the latter.

I don't care how much you love the place, you don't love it any more than the people who put our asses in it every day and you really have no right whatsoever to be a dick to the people who are busting their asses to bring you something you supposedly love and only asking patience and support in return.

That's great, Jeremy, and I understand the work you guys are putting in, but I got none of that from the editorial this thread is about. Just the same type of contempt and self-loathing that Nick spews every six months or so.

Maybe there is some truth in what Rath is saying (I don't think so), but the way he's saying it, where he's coming from, is pure douche. The site doesn't fucking owe you, Rath. The new site might ultimately suck, but doesn't mean you have to be such a loud prick about how much you hate it before you even see it.

Ever think that maybe you're projecting something into it? I read the same article you did but I didn't get that impression. But okay, so you did, then why not comment on the article itself instead of bringing everything else (the redesign, the editorial focus, the new site, the whole kit-n-kaboodle) into it?

I mean, with all due respect (and I mean that seriously), there's more contempt and loathing coming out of you than there is in that article.

Why is it that every thread today seems to be about Rath? That said, I totally agree with this:

Completely. Totally. 100 percent how I feel.

Sounds like you should move on.

So much truth in that article. Great piece, Nick. One of the biggest reasons why I almost never visit any other movie sites, is because you all just run the news, and don't live for scoops.

CHUD is a website, Badass Digest is a blog.

I think this:

...is a little bit of a strawman argument when you consider that CHUD, at its best and when taken at its most seriously, never had to compete with such stuff; it had a distinct editorial point of view, and started conversations which got people talking and, more intriguingly, thinking - even when the jumping off point was stupid viral shit. You guys brought something new to the table; it was cool to read really well-written pieces on pop culture which had a genuine opinion ("You Got It All Wrong", "Fuck This Face", etc.). I don't feel that as much these days. I was entertained by the recent DVD War preview, but I wonder if people watched it and wondered how stoned you were while wondering where the fuck the new site(s) are/were.

To respond honestly to the quote above, lately I've been finding CHUD's best content on its message boards and on its users' Facebook accounts. As content providers, you guys need to really consider that as a reality and not take it personally because you've been working so hard on articles or on a sister site that's shrouded in secrecy to the point of frustration. I get your motivations and logic (and business obligations) for all that, but there's probably a fair share of "if you can't talk about it, maybe STOP TALKING ABOUT IT" in the minds of your readers lately. Again, not an attack, but just something to think about. You're hyping a new site, but you're doing so obliquely, delivering it in a medium of aggravation and frustration. In the meantime your (it's still YOUR) community has been coming up with discussion-worthy content. All that said, still not sure what the "movie business" did to the sites.

I hope what I typed doesn't piss you off. I'm still a fan, I'm pulling for the site to do well. But I think (or hope) that you want genuine feedback, and not just a rub-n-tug.

Gwai Lo's got such a boner for me.

Well said, Nunz. There seems to be less room for people not in the incorporated "pro" world or The Nerd Mafia.

Yes, that's a good distillation of what this is about.


I read content from both sites, and from a myriad of other film news related sites. I don't fuss with distinctions.

I'm with Nick 100%. Maybe some of you don't see it, or choose to see what is happening with movie websites.

Studios are literally forcing the way that reporting is being done online. Don't believe me? Back in January of this year I ran a review of the pilot script for THE WALKING DEAD. Several movie sites (and other outlets) linked to the script review and published their own pieces about it.

Several other well-read and large movie websites chose to not write a story up about it. One of these was Coming Soon.net. I thought it was kinda strange since they have a comic book specialty website (Superhero Hype) and I was seeing traffic coming to read my review from their forums.

I emailed the owner of the site to ask him if he knew of the piece and if he would like to mention it on either of his sites. He wrote me back and told me that script reviews weren't the kind of things that Coming Soon chose to write about.

It's kind of strange because in the 2 years that Coming Attractions has been back online, Coming Soon hasn't linked to a single story that CA has broke. Not the THOR casting story, not the WALKING DEAD story, nothing. And I find that consistent for several movie websites. It seems to be a modus operanti.

In today's online world, content isn't king. There's SEO, there's backlinking, there's negative keyword stuffing, there's meta tag stuffing, there's creating thousands of links to one movie website on Wikipedia. In short, there's a lot of gaming of the system going on.

And I don't think it's all because of site owners that want a bigger slice of the online advertising pie. I also think some of the pressure comes from movie studios. We already know that studios don't want scoops getting out, or leaks from the production. We've seen first hand how sites have been spanked by studios for getting out of line, or at least how the studios deem "getting out of line".

I can't prove it, but I think that for some movie website owners they wouldn't risk losing their access to set visits, cast interview requests, preview screenings, DVD review copies and cool swag (like the recent GREEN LANTERN ring sent to the higher echelons in the movie website world).

What we're looking at is a certain level of control being dictated by the studios on independent movie websites, and a level of not wanting the competition to get any extra eyeballs/traffic.

That's the way I see things from my view in the trench.

This may be the best thing I've read all day on CHUD. Well said, Phil.

You nailed it right on the head. Ad revenue has been squeezed. Ad agencies want 50% or more of a site's revenue. Also, how many movie studios do you see advertising on movie websites? Not a lot -- but these same movie websites want to give free set visits because that way they'll all get content across a dozen movie websites at the same time. Controlled, free publicity.

You know how cheap an online ad buy is compared to TV time? One 30 second spot on a network channel could buy all of the ads across all of the movie sites for a month. But the movie marketing people believe that you're going to go see TRON LEGACY anyway because you read a movie website, so tossing a set visit to your favorite site ain't a loss to them at all.

And if you think that the sites at the top of the ad revenue heap have it good, think again. They barely make enough to pay a team of 5 people. With ad buys constantly shrinking and competition high in the medium, do you think these site owners (both at the top of the heap and at the bottom) are making enough money to AFFORD paying a writer to do real movie journalism?

Mike Fleming jumps ship from Variety and goes to Deadline. Deadline is kicking ass in breaking scoop level news stories. How many other movie websites can afford a Mike Fleming? How many can afford a Drew McWeeney, a guy with a family to feed? Pick your favorite movie website and writer and ask yourself this question: can they earn enough to provide for a family?

Think about this right now: how many ads do you see on movie websites for TRUE GRIT opening this week, or LITTLE FOCKERS, or GULLIVER'S TRAVELS or SOMEWHERE? Ask yourself, How much financial support are movie studios giving to these sites? What are the ads for this week on Ain't It Cool or CHUD or Badass Digest or Slashfilm or Dark Horizons or Coming Soon?

How many writers "working" for movie websites are actually getting paid? Good question. My guess is less than half are seeing any coin for their work -- and this is an industry that's been around now for 15 years.

Movie studios are only part of the problem. This whole online advertising model has been whittled down so that sites are forced to do easy content for eyeballs -- thus the viral videos, the top 10 lists, the set visit content.

There's a real I have a full-time job. It's because I can't depend on running a movie website to pay a living wage for me and my family. I've been complaining about the direction this train is headed for years. How many other movie webmasters are?

Props on you Nick for giving voice to some of the mess that we're facing cuz we love this industry (both online and the movie biz.)

Patrick, I get what you're saying, but isn't that just kind of what happens?

I mean, Jesus, even Punk Rock has corporate meddling these days.

I think you guys are realizing that the Eden you created has been wrecked, and I think it's because you all had the idea that you were unique - that you'd stay rogue forever, and that the corporate suits would never find a way to co opt you (I'm not calling anyone niave here, I think every creator or innovator feels the same way), when really it was inevitable that people would sell out for better access. The question becomes, I think, is access really that important? You know how many interviews I read on this (or any other) site? Exactly none. Because I don't give a shit. Same with set visits and exclusive artwork and all that jazz. Instead, I read anything that has a focus to it, an engagement with a film or tv series or game or book that goes past the surface level.

I have a degree in American Literature, so it's entirely possible that I'm one of the few people who likes exploring these things, but whatever. It's what this site does best and if you all would focus on it, would bring all the intelligent people in. That might not make shit tons of money, but whatever. I already think that CHUD readers are the best group on the whole god damn internet, but if you guys offered content like Renn's TRON review every day, you'd get all kinds of people to the site. All kinds of intelligent people capable of having great conversations.... and isn't that the point?

Also... in the same spirit, the tag team reviews suck and need to stop.

My criticism isn't advocating that back in the late 1990s the movie website world was an Eden. It wasn't. I have the online scars, including some dust ups with Harry to prove it. And several times I faced the wrath of movie studios and filmmakers pissed at what CA had published.

This isn't about longing for the olden days. This is about how it's getting to be impossible to run a movie website and feed yourself. It's about how breaking the kind of news that a site broke back in 2000 will get you a cease and desist letter, or worse, your host to yank your site offline. Most of all it's about being a longtime, established website like CHUD and it can't be run like a legitimate business because there isn't a viable fucking business model for it or the dozens of other sites out there.

That's bullshit in any epoch of the movie website era.

Sorry man. This subject is near and dear to my heart.

Are you saying you guys didn't get cease and desist letters ten years ago? Or that you were ever promised an ability to "feed yourself" off this venture? From my admittedly cheap seats, everybody shot a flare into the sky way back when; some people got noticed and some didn't, and the reasons why were almost always rooted in dirty pool.

(CA was my main site back in the day, Patrick - good to see you still around.)

When I give birth to that bitch EVERYONE will know about it.

In other words, yes it is coming back real soon.

Woohoo!

Interesting discussion so far, I guess. I dunno what to say. I had something to vent and I said it. How people interpret it is their deal.

Just as an aside, this was not aimed at any websites (especially Devin's). Just the climate in general. Nothing was a catalyst for this. No one pissed me off. I didn't get my feelings hurt. It's just an editorial.

As an aside, if you hear that I died from suspicious mail, remember that Rath is my holiday exchange sender.

I think that Movie Websites are going the same way a lot of the internet is going. Its the same train that started at the 'instant anything' station. Peoples attention spans are getting shorter and people want everything as fast*snap*as*snap*possible. Its the future of Twitter, RSS Feeds, 140 characters of expression.

One thing about Chud that always brought me back was that it felt like hanging out with a big brother and his older, smarter crowd who knew what they were talking about (in this case, Cinema. not just fucking 'movies', the Art of Cinema) and if you had the moxie to stick it out while people adjusted to your (in the case mine) ignorance, you could really expand your notions of what film can do to, and for, the world.

that said, I commend all the hard workers who have kept this thing alive, that we all obviously love so dearly, as it evolves into something new and (I think) exciting. I think once a lot of the craziness has settled, things will improve, especially in the ways that people are seeing a lack.

I actually have started to see a shift in the past year or so -- readers are beginning to crave long form content again. I think the instant blog stuff was fun, but now people are craving those long stories you used to get in magazines. I've done a lot of that kind of work in my short career, and at first it was "Fuck off, this is too long!" and then it was "More, please!"


Then again, I read the comments on Nick's piece and see people clamoring for news, news, and more news (with scoops on the side) and I think maybe I was wrong.

The frustrating thing is that sometimes (and this is a span of the year where it's pretty common) there is no news, so if readers don't want lists or columns, I'm not sure what's supposed to fill the void.