The State of the Industry: A Love Letter to the Machine That’s Eating Itself

By Rick Van Meter  Alan Smithee

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Intro

This is the first in a series of brutally honest essays about working in film and television — from someone who’s been chewed up, pitched out, optioned, ghosted, and somehow still shows up to the next meeting. It’s part therapy, part obituary, and part love letter to an industry that promises to call you - and I foolishly wait by my phone like a hormonal teen waiting for his first crush to star 69 me back. (I've already lost all the new network execs on that one).

Remember when “content” wasn’t a word that made you want to die a little inside? When we said things like film or show or story — before everything became “content,” a word that sounds like something squeezed out of a toothpaste tube and uploaded to Hulu?

Yeah, me neither.

We’re in a strange time, friends. But Hollywood isn’t dead — it’s just being kept on life support by reboots, superhero IP, and the faint pulse of the people who still give a damn enough to create something new.

And yet, we keep showing up. We still write the deck, the treatment, and the 200-word log-line that we somehow believe will change our lives. Then we’ll send it off to a junior exec named Skyler who majored in “Brand Synergy” and thinks Goodfellas is a type of chocolate bar their dad liked in the 70's.

This is the business now: talented people playing musical chairs on the Titanic while someone in accounting insists we cut the violins for budget reasons.

The Great Disillusionment

Once upon a time, we were dreamers. Now we’re freelancers with trauma. There’s a new religion in our business: optimization.

Every decision must be backed by “data,” which is funny, because if you ask the average exec what that data actually needs to say, they’ll stare at you like you just handed them a script without IP attached. But sure - let’s greenlight another reimagining of Gilligan’s Island as a gritty prestige drama. Maybe this time, Gilligan has PTSD and a podcast (New network execs feigns a laugh, still lost.)

Meanwhile, the studios are merging, much like divorced parents getting remarried for the tax break. Mergers, acquisitions, “strategic realignments” - fancy words for “fewer jobs, same chaos.” Every few months, some new megacorp announces a “content consolidation plan,” which roughly translates to: lay off the people who actually make things, and give the savings to the board and pass along increases in streaming services to you our fine viewers. Less "content" higher costs.

You can’t swing a sound boom in L.A. without hitting someone recently “streamlined out of the company.” Half the industry’s on LinkedIn pretending they’re “taking time to recharge,” and the other half is waiting for severance to clear before going freelance. And those already freelance, have been out of work and have now started looking at alternative careers from trading stocks to driving trucks. Hell, I run a blueberry farm now, which is great practice for Hollywood, since everything I grow eventually dies waiting for the right season.

Writers are expected to think like marketers, directors like influencers, actors like brands and producers, not at all. Meanwhile, the audience has the attention span of a caffeinated squirrel — and that’s on a good day. Everything’s “content,” nothing’s sacred, and, if you’re lucky enough to have a show in production, congratulations - you’re now in a race to finish before the network execs remember they greenlit you.

Development Hell: Now With Wi-Fi

The pitching process has become a kind of interactive purgatory. You send your idea in through your agent, or friend who has an "in", or that one actor you met at a mixer. Maybe you even get the coveted pitch meeting, granted it has probably been rescheduled a few times due to a number of excuses. Then, months later, you get the polite breakup email: “We love your passion, but we’re going in another direction.”

That direction, by the way, is downhill.

Or worse, you get the email that starts with, “In full transparency, we actually have something very similar already in development, but thank you for your time and thoughtful pitch.”

Right. Of course you do. What a coincidence, you “loved” my idea so much you accidentally reverse-engineered it with a new title and worse talent. Gatekeepers are younger now, which would be fine if they weren’t also allergic to risk, nuance, and anything that doesn’t involve a pre-existing fanbase. But it’s not their fault, they’re terrified too. The whole system’s powered by fear and Celsius energy drinks. (New network exec discreetly Googles “Celsius” to see if it has less calories then a RedBull.)

So what do we do? We keep pitching. We keep producing. We keep making “content” because not making it feels worse. It’s like Stockholm Syndrome but with craft services.

Why I’m Still Here

Because despite all of it, the chaos, the cancellations, the endless ghosting, there’s still that five-second rush when a network says - YES, when an idea clicks, and for a moment you remember this is the best job in the world. There’s nothing like watching something you made flicker to life. Even when the budget’s gone, the notes make no sense, and your lead is threatening to “go method” on a cooking show.

This industry breaks your heart and calls it “development.” It makes you doubt your worth, your sanity, and whether that last “We’ll circle back” meant this year or next century. But every once in a while, a project lands, a line hits, a story connects, and for five minutes, you remember why you ever gave a damn.

Then someone calls it “content” again, and the spell is broken. (New network exec "This will crush on TikTok.”)

The Future (If You Can Call It That)

Maybe the future of film and television isn’t sitting in a glass tower in Burbank, or buried inside another “content strategy” deck. Maybe it’s back where it started, in garages, barns, and borrowed basements. On phones, on handhelds, on anything that lets someone who still gives a damn tell a story that matters.

Maybe the next great wave won’t come from an algorithm but from people who’ve stopped waiting for permission. The ones who remember that you don’t need a greenlight to make something real - just light, a lens, and a reason.

Maybe it’s time to get back to the basics, not as nostalgia, but as rebellion. To build our own movies, our own shows, our own worlds again. To stop begging the gatekeepers to open the door and start kicking holes in the fence.

So yeah, the industry’s a mess. But it’s our mess. And like any good dysfunctional relationship, I’ll probably never leave. At least not until they reboot me.

Rick Van Meter is a film and TV producer running a blueberry farm in the Catskills. He’s still hung up on Hollywood — the ex who broke his heart, never calls back, but somehow keeps showing up in his dreams. To contact or hire Rick, you can reach him at NoEgoFilms@gmail.com.