Don’t Let Anyone Tell You It’s Not Art
The line between "films" and “content” isn’t a boundary - it’s a bridge.
Every generation of filmmakers believes they’re the last ones making real art.
When color film arrived, people called it a gimmick.
When digital cameras hit, they said the craft was dead.
When YouTube came along, they said it wasn’t “cinema”.
And now, in the age of AI, TikTok, and creator-led storytelling -
the gatekeepers are panicking again.
💬 The Comment That Sparked It
After I published my recent piece, Hollywood 2.0: The Decentralization of Production, someone sent me this email in response:
“What a fucking joke. Now the market will be totally saturated and devalued even more with AI-generated soulless garbage. And you’ll be making all this crap in your garages and basements with universal income supporting you. Yay! Way to go!”
It’s the same tired argument that’s been weaponized against every creative shift in history: “If it’s new, it’s not art.”
But that’s just fear talking.
When Eclair released the NPR and cinema moved from the dolly inside a studio to a shoulder in the real world, that wasn’t the death of filmmaking… it was progress.
It opened a whole new world for filmmakers and sparked the French New Wave - forever changing how stories were told on screen.
We’re living through another one of those moments right now.
Yeah, it can be a little scary. Where is everything going to end up? The tools are evolving and the distribution is changing. But denying that shift won’t stop it - it’ll just make you irrelevant to it.
People still watch films in theaters.
They also watch YouTube on 65-inch TVs in their living rooms.
That’s not the death of art… That’s just art finding new screens - new ways in.
🧱 The Gatekeeping Problem
I spent nearly 20 years in Hollywood, and the message was always the same:
If you didn’t fall in line with the system - the studio politics, the archaic hierarchy - you didn’t belong.
I will never forget being a young college student working as PA on a major national TV commercial…
One of the seasoned film pros asked me what I wanted to do in the industry.
Me being me, I said, “I want to be a filmmaker.”
The film pro said, “That doesn’t mean anything. Do you want to be a director? Producer? DP?”
I said, “Yeah. All those things.”
The film pro scoffed at my comment and said, “You can’t be all those things. You have to pick one, start at the bottom, and work your way up.”
I hated that statement…
I don’t want to be a PA for 10 years to become a loader for another 5, then a 2nd AC, and 1st AC, to finally become a DP when I’m 50 years old.
Mind you, this was right when the RED One and the Canon 5D mkii were making big splashes and changing people’s perspectives on what digital cinema meant moving forward.
It was also right about the time that YouTube came on the scene and people were starting to gain real traction and build audiences and viewership that was previously not possible.
So I KNEW there were other ways. If not in that moment… they were coming.
But this POV just reflected what I was already starting to feel about the industry, even before I graduated college and started really diving into it…
If you are “too new.” “Too digital.” Then you’re “Not serious enough.”
It’s an industry that talks about inclusion while quietly thriving on exclusion.
And the really funny thing is, many of the same people who look down on content creators today once idolized the rebels who broke the rules - the French New Wave, Dogme 95, guerrilla filmmakers - all of whom were accused of “ruining cinema” in their time.
🎬 The “Films Aren’t Content” Debate
Recently I read a post LinkedIn that said:
“Films aren’t content. Calling a film ‘content’ is like calling a cathedral ‘real estate.’”
I get it… It’s poetic and protective. It feeds into that purist hipster ideology that light touching celluloid is a requirement for greatness.
But it’s also wrong.
There are plenty of soulless films made purely to fill slates, just as there are countless heartfelt, creative, and beautifully shot YouTube videos that connect deeply with millions.
The difference isn’t in the format. It’s in the intention.
A 15-second video can have more truth than a 2-hour feature.
Because art isn’t about length or budget - it’s about connection.
🌍 The Collision That’s Coming
We’re not witnessing the death of cinema - we’re witnessing its decentralization.
The lines between film, branded storytelling, and creator content are blurring.
Music videos, commercials, docu-style ads, short-form series - these are today’s creative laboratories.
The same storytelling DNA runs through them all.
Hollywood once owned the means of production.
Now, everyone does.
And that’s not chaos. That’s evolution.
💡 The Takeaway
If you’re creating something - anything - with heart, craft, and intention…
That is art.
Don’t let anyone convince you that innovation cheapens creativity.
The same voices that dismiss your work today will be quoting it tomorrow.
Because art doesn’t die when the tools change.
It dies when the courage to experiment does.
And to the commenter who called this all “soulless garbage”:
Regardless of whether or not I agree with your point of view, I’m genuinely glad there are people like you in the industry.
We need both sides.
One side to push the envelope - and the other to try to stabilize the chaos.
That tension is creativity.
And it’s been fueling art since the very beginning.
Stay artistic,
Alex
Your perspective is wondrously open-eyed and optimistic. Since ChatGPT 3 took the world by storm, I've been pondering if the idea of Copyright has run its course. Most artists see Copyright as a human right, but it's not that old of an invention. I am not saying artists shouldn't be able to monetize their work. But artists created under a variety of models well before Copyright law was conceived. We will survive if the protections go away. A slice of the population with always be compelled to go the source; you can download a pirated version of a movie or you can pay a streaming service, or you can "rent" it on Amazon prime, Apple TV, etc. And finally we have a new, decentralized means of authenticating providence: the blockchain. What a time to be alive!