Because We Are Definitely NotDeadYet
Just a quick sketch. Working to make this kind of project happen in real life is one of the goals of Our Better Future.
Get ready for the antidote to so much, including the “what to watch” conundrum: Uncanny dread, crime, menace, unlikely couples, and outer space. Honestly, I didn’t think that “content is king” was going to lead us here, but here we are.
Put together a consortium of paid and volunteer content creators and communications professionals to produce cultural content based on real principles, our real circumstances, and the concerns of real people. And have it break way mainstream, become incredibly popular, and completely change everything. It would be called NotDeadYet Productions, and the new kind of content would be called The New Relevance and they’d write about it in Time Magazine.
The New Relevance tells stories that focus on values and activities that are different from nearly all commercially available entertainment and it intends to become maniacally popular.
Working together, cooperation
Working against oligarchy and oppression
Real communication between people
Creating communities that take care of everyone
Dealing with extreme weather and other catastrophes
Culture jamming against evil rich people
Taking control of politics
Celebrating direct action and activist victories
Because it’s driven by a vision, a vision of a brand-new cultural dispensation, one that delivers to ordinary people the deep relief and pleasure that comes from the long-delayed admission that real reality is actually real. And it’s a hell of a lot more fun, and better for you, than any cultural content cobbled together in the last 20 years.
TIME MAGAZINE: The New Relevance. There’s no more gatekeepers, and more and more television programming and films are directly concerned with the real-life issues confronting real-life people, or at least including a few characters or situations that have something to do with people’s lived reality.
With three million dollars (less than one one-hundredth of Avengers Endgame budget) NotDeadYet productions has produced many hours of televised content and three
full-length films that made back their budget. In an unprecedented financing arrangement, the three million-dollar start-up capital was contributed by three of the planet’s most beloved celebrities: Brian Eno, Emma Thompson, and Mark Ruffalo.
Veterans of writers rooms and screenplay drafts are embracing this new model, a new way of doing business where previous limitations based on commercial concerns no longer hold sway. In fact, explicitly going against those limitation are often a big part of the point.
“And that’s not the only content we’re producing,” said Founder Paul Stark, “we’ve also put together a network of comedy writers, comedians, and comedy venues we’re calling the Real Comedy Network that even now is producing hours of relevant and frequently hilarious stand-up. And the budget for that is so small you need an electron microscope to even see it. And don’t even get me started on how we’ve already transformed the way America does theater.”
Much like the writers, many production company executives and literary and acting agents are flocking toward the prestige and money available in the New Relevance space — making deals for content that would never have been made even a few short years ago.
