CresCine Chronicles: SXSW Industry Insights with Sten-Kristian Saluveer

In partnership with Future Media Hubs and media cartographer Evan Shapiro, CresCine’s Sten-Kristian Saluveer's mediation session at SXSW 2024 provided insights into the shifting landscape and outlined strategic imperatives for industry players.

The annual South by Southwest (SXSW) event is a beacon of innovation and collaboration, uniting diverse industries, including film, media, interactive technology, music, and immersive experiences.

It is also a critical platform that drives connections between European, Asian, and US ecosystems and condenses trends for the present and future of content-driven industries.

Here, we delve into Saluveer’s key insights taken from the event on what’s next in the Industry:

1. The strikes have killed the traditional value chain - long live the value chain

Half a year of strikes and negotiations between the guilds and the studios have finally (but hard to say if irreversibly) collapsed the studio/financiers-producer-service provider-production/vendor value chain. The standstill of the industry has resulted in a) an overflow of content (i.e., everything that was not released or completed is released and completed now).

That means a tsunami of content on festival submissions and platform queues (17K submissions at Sundance this year). If you’re an independent producer or non-major organization, getting yourself seen in this flood is nearly impossible.

The strikes have also resulted in a second death blow - lack of capitalization diminished the need for resources, and layoffs (which have been widely already kicking in across the industry). Having spoken to tens of vendors and service providers, from high-end technology to studio partners, I can say that no one has the money or resources to go out as work is only resuming now. This means tough times for festivals (fewer industry attendees, fewer partners) as well as for the freelance-driven job market.

How and to what degree will this recover by 2025 - It is hard to say, though different voices in the industry are optimistic.

2. It’s about talent, talent, and talent, and why need a distributor at all?

The paradigmatic shift from a classical producer-distributor-consumer model has been ongoing for a while, but never before has the transformation to Talent/Creator - (Self Serviced) platform/tool-consumer shift has been more visible.

As Doug Shapiro lays out in his extraordinary deck “Year(s) ahead in Media”, the new reality is not about “premium content through premium channel = success” (my words) but “media is about monetizing attention and engagement”.

My fellow panelists Linette Zaulich (ZDF), Srini Ka (Amagi Corp), and David Freeman (CAA) put this out bluntly in their various arguments including:

• No one from the traditional industry is buying (as they used to) anymore.

• Media apps on the devices will soon fold into a seamless front-screen experience of digital shelves with self-distribution opportunities (but how do you get to that premium shelf life).

• Talents love to create content without (format and other) limitations historically set by commissioners and financiers and will release and monetize wherever they can. That means online (YT, TikTok, Twitch, Snap), and in streaming smart TV fast channels.

• Talent is migrating back to the streaming and smart TV-driven experience space (purists behold), and audiences follow. Think of Mr Beast getting his own Amazon Prime TV show.

• Ultimately, Anno 2024, you are the distributor, so you had better learn all the algorithmic tricks of every platform on which you put your content.

3. Brands, brands, and more brands

The brand centricity of audiences is nothing specifically new (and widely discussed by some of the high-end streamers and licensors at the Mediatech conference last year at Babelsberg), but the aggregation and importance of your content, company, talent… as a brand is nothing less than critical. With audiences spending almost 13 hours daily with tech and media, it’s all about attention and engagement, and building a brand (creatively, format or otherwise) is paramount.

4. AI is not a novelty, it is a practicality

As I’ve spoken recently at the Screen Australia conference, gen AI is not a novelty but practicality (at least in the US). The strikes have resulted in a highly operational outcome where SAG says “Yes, of course, but digital replica work is paid as real work”, which means “Go ahead, ensure relevant protections and pay”.

If there’s no use case, then contact SAG. Bafflingly their competence in the topic is very high as testified by the highly informative SXSW session. Studios, on the other hand, have heard the message, and are now focusing their efforts on building “franchise models” on the IP and assets they own. As Paramount’s CTO noted - there’s no better time than now to be a great archivist (with data labeling skills).

Expect first training based, ads, and solid animation and franchise products in 18-24 months. At the same time in Europe, we still debate whether “yes or no or to go or not”, which will result in a widening gap between the tech-driven media offerings of US and European consumers, expected to grow to 24 months (thanks, Sander Saar for pointing this out).

Eventually, the US and Europe will divert to two separate models - a pragmatic IP and copyright first US model, and a safety first EU model for gen AI applications in content and media. The strategic actions of the next European Commission, hopefully to set sail by the end of the year, will be pivotal in how this plays out.

5. Add Apple Vision Pro

The splash that Apple's extraordinary yet still somewhat flawed and super-priced device has made is nothing but groundbreaking. It’s XR as it is supposed to be - instant, user-friendly, high quality, and experience-driven.

Apple has cleverly built the foundations of a new ecosystem (iPhone as broadcast quality camera and XR device), the new XR standard, and now the device itself, and we’ll hear more about this in the future a lot. With their historically great content competence, we will witness some mind-blowing experiences on this device and future “consumer price tag friendly” devices (Apple Vision lite/regular or any other consumer branding Apple will designate).

The creator industry is thrilled (asking for Apple to come and meet the creators and demo the opportunities), and the competitors need to reprioritize and restrategize to stay in the game.

As industry stakeholders reflect on these insights and anticipate future trends, adapting, innovating, and collaborating becomes ever more pressing. Stay tuned to what’s to come in April from CresCine!