Now that both the Writers and Actors Strikes are both over, the entertainment industry will be looking to new ways to make up for massive lost revenue over the last several months. Much of their strategy will rely heavily on leveraging emerging technology in order to catch up. This is a unique time in the entertainment industry, where fears regarding emerging technology run just as high as sentiment regarding the new opportunities this tech creates. However, there is a little-spoken of, yet powerful portion, of this sector that is ripe for significant profitability in new and exciting ways.
Dubbed the “emerging storytellers” or “emerging talent,” African-American and Latino creators are ones to watch in a re-imagined Hollywood. This demographic has been historically undervalued yet is massively powerful because it has the unique capability of being able to both leverage its own sub-culture while simultaneously being able to critically analyze and operate within the larger cultural narrative overall. This group is becoming much more aware of this power, and is beginning to not only leverage this awareness but also wield emerging technology in a manner that will not only create new business models, but new products in the market that will create a deep competitive edge.
Indeed, such analysis took place during the 27th Urbanworld Film Festival, sponsored by media giants as Warner Bros. Discovery and NBCUniversal. Festival founder Stacy Spikes, who created the Festival, believes the business need for this event is still critical for the entertainment industry even though greater inclusion has taken place. In fact, consulting firm McKinsey found in 2021 that revenue in Hollywood could increase by at least $10 billion if greater racial equity were created.
But with the advent of new levels of technology, these numbers could begin to shift very, very quickly. Spikes said, “Technology [is] moving fast regarding storytelling. AI helps filmmakers not only be able to create storyboards in a faster, richer way but it will also help to bring costs down dramatically. This is where the power will lie.” He continued, “Filmmaking is still pretty much a rich person’s game with a number of insular gatekeepers, but with new types of tech tools, costs will go way down, and when that happens, the industry will see an absolute explosion from filmmakers of color.”
Much in the same way that music sampling gave rise of a multibillion dollar global hiphop culture, Spikes envisions such shifts in the film industry as filmmakers begin to license certain visual parts of films selected by AI, for example, to create new ones, creating an entirely new faster and much less expensive business model. And as underrepresented filmmakers of color start to leverage such tools, the power dynamics in the industry will shift.
Indeed, historically it has been Black culture that has amplified technology that becomes mass adopted. Twitter’s early traction is only one example of the consistent out-indexing usage by people of color. This behavior applies to most media/communications, from mobile phone usage to social media frequency and much more. Mass attention around the metaverse was driven in large part by Snoop and Eminem performing in a metaverse-like space on a recent MTV Music Awards and everyday discussion regarding AI and voice was launched from a track that utilized clones of recording artists Drake and The Weeknd.
Black culture and its creator economy, especially hip hop, continues to drive commerce and impact. The culture continues to shape cool globally, and it’s power is all the more remarkable given the fact that the demographic makes up just a fraction of the U.S. population.
“All hardware and software companies playing in the storytelling space need traction,” says Spikes. “They desperately need audiences that can use the tools and showcase them. If they want traction, it is absolutely critical to have Black and Brown people as a cornerstone or their competitors will overtake them.”
Thus investors in the space should deeply analyze any hardware tech companies in the space to determine the level of strategy, tactics, and capabilities to reach all targets, but especially this one given its unique sensibilities and insights. Ambassadors, Creative Directors, Strategy Consultants with access, reach, and insights within this particular demographic must be part of the mix in any emerging technology company hoping to penetrate the entertainment sector today.
Similarly, investors should look to new software solutions in this space that can disrupt the industry, similar to how Airbnb, Uber, Spotify disrupted theirs. Indeed, Spikes is preparing to relaunch MoviePass, an application intended to shorten the distance between creator and audience with a movie theater subscription model enabled by technology.
Given all these fact, it is no surprise that OpenAI sponsored the Innovation portion of Urbanworld’s Festival. The company promotes the usage of its technology to create storyboards, content for marketing, and more. We are at a time now where great economic balance will be created, but only by those who are savvy and informed on the emerging tech space.
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