The Death of the Middle-Class Musician

Successful musicians have way more in common with actors than any other profession. It’s about connections, wealth, and nepotism over anything else.

Let’s say your child wants to be an actor. One way to make this happen is to be a successful actor yourself - require your children to be cast in the film in return for you starring. This is how famous acting families pushed their kids forwards, including Nicholas Cage (Coppola) and Jeff Bridges.

More relevant for HN is rich people. So you are tech rich and your kid wants to act. Fund the movie on the condition your child acts in it. That is the way since movies began.

> Fund the movie on the condition your child acts in it.

The customer of such a movie isn’t the audience but the wealthy patron sponsoring the movie. I suspect this self-promotion motivation is a large reason why so many movies are so bad.

Yes and the fact that you grew up with e.g. actor parents means you know a lot about acting and the world it takes place in and the language used within it already, just like the kid of a farmer will know more than the average person about farm animals, tractors and crop.

On top of that come the contacts and being rich. But the contacts are not a thing other people couldn't make as well, especially if they are good. One of the somewhat hidden benefits of higher education are the contacts you will make. Maybe you're not rich and your parents are roofers while you want to become an actor, but if you're good and well connected you might benefit from other peoples connections. This is how I started to make my living in a foreign country with two parents without any shared background: There were people who had those contacts and I benefitted of them simply by being the one they chose because I am accurate, reliable, on time, knowledgeable, patient and good at what I do.

But

As a film maker who studied film, the reason why so many movies are so bad are manyfold:

  - making movies is hard. A lot of things that require years to master need to go right. A *ton* of tech is involved. 
  
  - making movies is expensive. Money alone won't make you a good movie, but many productions are so on the edge that some choice they had to make for monetary reason will cause the bad. 
  
  - making movies is complex, that means making a masterful one requires multiple botched attempts and experiences by all people involved. These botched attempts are also what you see.  
  

I can't stress enough how hard making a movie is, even in comparison to complicated tech problems, programming etc.

But it’s also never been easier, cheaper, simpler. So it’s not obvious that these dynamics relate to how the middle has been hollowed out

I suspect it is more likely that rich people will fund their actor-aspirant children more convention ways:

When they are younger they could pay for acting classes, acting camps and help them get into local productions.

Out of school they pay for livings costs, education and any additional classes. Living in New York or LA and being able to concentrate on getting parts of training rather than having to make money would be a huge boast.

Maybe at the next stage getting their kid an agent or manager who has contacts and experience to get their kid the roles.

Perhaps you mean throwing a few thousand dollars at student-level films to ensure their kid gets an important part. I guess maybe some will write 6 (7?) figure cheques to get their kid a part, but that probably doesn't happen often.

So many movies are bad because their customer is, intellectually, the minimum common denominator. It's a miracle that movie plots don't consist entirely of grunts, chest pumping and farts, but we are getting closer and closer every year. Most block-busters have an awful lot of primal violence in them, but I bet you can't remember when was the last time any of them had any accurate, actual science.