Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Well, let's get to someone who's definitely a triple threat.
Speaker 2: We're talking about Mark Duplas, who is award winning actor,
Speaker 2: filmmaker producers company Duplas Brothers Productions, joins us here live
Speaker 2: at screen time.
Speaker 3: How are you? I'm great? How are you guys?
Speaker 2: Doing okay?
Speaker 3: Doing okay?
Speaker 2: I'm a big fan of the Morning Show, But.
Speaker 3: Thank you, you do it all.
Speaker 2: Is there one that I'm sure you get this in
Speaker 2: a million times, that you like more than most in
Speaker 2: terms of doing, producing, directing, or do you love how
Speaker 2: everything kind of helps the other thing.
Speaker 3: I do like the blending of all the things.
Speaker 4: And I come from the independent sector, you know. I
Speaker 4: came into this business making three dollar movies in my
Speaker 4: kitchen with my brother on our parents video camera.
Speaker 3: So I'm no stranger to doing at all.
Speaker 4: But that said, I think that as I've been fortunate
Speaker 4: enough to do both indie projects and also be on
Speaker 4: a show like The Morning Show, which you know, one
Speaker 4: day's catering on that show is more expensive than most
Speaker 4: of the work I make.
Speaker 3: I like the balance, you know.
Speaker 4: I like hanging lights with my friends and sweating on
Speaker 4: my indie projects. But then I like when my burrito
Speaker 4: has brought to me in the trailer of the morning
Speaker 4: show and I'm taking care of So these.
Speaker 3: Are the things. Well, someone who likes burrito is.
Speaker 1: It doesn't like a burrito delivery, also a trailer pretty nice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm wondering about if you were getting into the business
Speaker 1: right now and how that would be different. It's like
Speaker 1: you're making movies in your kitchen with your brother, but
Speaker 1: maybe you'd be using an iPhone, you'd be editing it
Speaker 1: using AI.
Speaker 4: I think the headline is the democratization of the technology
Speaker 4: has made it so wonderful that you can make anything
Speaker 4: you want now so much more cheaply than I had it.
Speaker 4: So you have it a lot better than me on
Speaker 4: that front, but you have it way worse than I
Speaker 4: had it in two thousand and five when I came in.
Speaker 3: Because we talk about that.
Speaker 4: But the distribution channels are not there, right, and so
Speaker 4: we're now experiencing sort of the death of the hyperbolic
Speaker 4: television movement.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: And we staffed up and we got all ready for it,
Speaker 4: and here we are and then it just dried up
Speaker 4: on us. So now we're going to have to start
Speaker 4: a new road of direct consumer distribution. You know, we're
Speaker 4: working in so many different models now. We're making television
Speaker 4: series completely independently and taking them out and selling them afterwards,
Speaker 4: because it is the wild West.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's funny that you say that, because
Speaker 2: I think about something like YouTube and how much I
Speaker 2: want YouTube and specific channels and like anybody can put
Speaker 2: anything up there. When you think about distribution, channels or
Speaker 2: what seems to provide the most opportunities for you, especially
Speaker 2: since you say you play a bit more in the
Speaker 2: indie world.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean, look, I'm very very fortunate and
Speaker 4: that I've been doing this for twenty years, so you know,
Speaker 4: I at least have somewhat of a name that people
Speaker 4: are interested in working with us. But I think YouTube
Speaker 4: is certainly exciting because you can put it up, it
Speaker 4: can catch fire. But the monetization of that and sustainability
Speaker 4: is really questionable in my opinion.
Speaker 3: But then you have these.
Speaker 4: Smaller substreamer services like you look at Dropout TV and
Speaker 4: what they're doing in comedy, and you look at Shutter.
Speaker 4: You know, they've become the home of horror fans as
Speaker 4: a subsidiary under ams, you know, and they're doing things
Speaker 4: in a low cost model. So I think the future
Speaker 4: here is going to be figuring out how to make
Speaker 4: things relatively cheaply, cutting your big producer fees, cutting a
Speaker 4: lot of everybody's fee across the board, and then when
Speaker 4: you're in a position to be on top and power,
Speaker 4: really share that back end with people. And that's how
Speaker 4: I came up an independent film. We would make movies
Speaker 4: for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Everybody would make
Speaker 4: one hundred bucks a day. It was creative communism, and
Speaker 4: then you get points. We could take them to Sundance
Speaker 4: and sell them for a couple of million bucks, and
Speaker 4: the sound guy would make fifty thousand dollars and buy
Speaker 4: a home.
Speaker 3: It was a beautiful time.
Speaker 4: It's not quite that easy anymore, but there's something in
Speaker 4: that model that will still work.
Speaker 1: I talked to somebody who lives out here's in the industry,
Speaker 1: has been doing this for thirty years, and he was like,
Speaker 1: I've got award winning casting directors walking dogs on rover
Speaker 1: to make ends meet.
Speaker 3: No, it's real, I did that bad.
Speaker 4: I mean I live in the valley, which is you know,
Speaker 4: the place where basically below the line union heads were
Speaker 4: able to buy their homes, you know, and that was
Speaker 4: under the sort of unspoken promise that this industry would
Speaker 4: continue to boom. Strikes fires, but not just that, the
Speaker 4: death of the streaming wars, which were unsustainable from them.
Speaker 4: That was just an arms race to see. So Netflix
Speaker 4: one who could chuck somebody out?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Netflix and Apple are the winners.
Speaker 4: I mean TVD because we could see a merger happen
Speaker 4: in five minutes after this that changes everything, and there
Speaker 4: are won't I won't go that far, but yes, there
Speaker 4: are certain people that have interests.
Speaker 3: In those mergers and don't have interests.
Speaker 1: So does do you see the industry getting better?
Speaker 4: I think the industry is going to change. Look, I've
Speaker 4: been in this for twenty years. I know people who
Speaker 4: are been in this for much longer than me, and
Speaker 4: we there are times when, oh my god.
Speaker 3: It was the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 4: If you had a movie that had, you know, a
Speaker 4: gun and blood and some fighting in it, you could
Speaker 4: take it to VHS and you'd make your money and
Speaker 4: it was a killer. In the nineties, it was that
Speaker 4: for DVDs and the two thousands. The streamers came in
Speaker 4: and I got to make all these cool movies for
Speaker 4: Netflix and TV. But it's going to change. We don't
Speaker 4: know which way it's going, but we got to be vigilant.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's We've seen it in the media industry and we
Speaker 2: still like being in it. It's incredible to be thirty
Speaker 2: seconds still having fun.
Speaker 3: You like it, I love it. I don't say I'm
Speaker 3: having fun all the time.
Speaker 4: Bill A deep responsibility for like my brothers and sisters
Speaker 4: in LA and in New York and everywhere who are
Speaker 4: just getting choked out by this business. So I'm trying
Speaker 4: to find what is that thin lane that I still
Speaker 4: want to make outlier interesting content but at the right
Speaker 4: price that.
Speaker 3: Makes sense and sustains us. And I don't have all
Speaker 3: the answers for that, So appreciate.
Speaker 2: You joining us. I know you're growing up on a panel.
Speaker 2: Looking forward to hearing that as well. Mark, Thank you
Speaker 2: so much.
Speaker 3: Sureus guys, Yeah, take care.
Speaker 2: Mark Duplas joining us right here of course on Who
Speaker 2: Burgers this weekend.