Dana Brunetti, producer of the movie The Social Network stopped by on his whirlwind visit of the bay to talk about his upcoming projects, thoughts on how technology is impacting Hollywood and his favorite apps.
Dana’s own back-story is pretty fascinating, he was working for a mobile start-up in New York and had a chance encounter with Kevin Spacey whom he sold a phone to. Kevin convinced him to leave his start-up and to become his personal assistant, an idea that did not completely appeal to Dana. However, he took the risk and now over a decade later Dana is Kevin’s business partner, President of TriggerStreet Labs, and an acclaimed Hollywood producer. Sometimes taking those risks pays off, a lesson many of us here in Silicon Valley still aspire to.
Ironically, Dana created a social network before there were social networks or Facebook even existed. His company TriggerStreet Labs is a platform that enables budding screenwriters to get their work discovered and workshopped providing real world unbiased feedback that helps aspiring writers & film-makers hone their craft.
Dana’s big mantra “Silicon Valley needs to take over Hollywood” is one that he extols passionately and and seeing the coming intersections of the two industries, makes him very excited. The Netflix project he is undertaking with Kevin Spacey to remake the British show House of Cards is without a doubt a game changer. His feeling is that Silicon Valley now has the technology and means for distribution, getting into the content creation business if done the right way will certainly make enormous waves in an industry controlled by old school behemoths and sure to disrupt in much in the same way that the music industry has been turned upside down by digital content. And with this deal and others in the pipeline, Netflix aims to take on those giants. And in spite of its recent service pricing debacles, Dana remains quite positive about the company’s future. Industry moves by other web titans are also pointing to the coming disruption of the traditional Hollywood model. Youtube recently put some skin in the game as well, announcing its foray into creating original content channels with the likes of Madonna, Amy Poelher and Snoop Dog.
Pretty strong validation that the tides are shifting and Dana’s predictions are soon to be reality..
In the very near future, consumers will soon be able to select the ala carte version of the media they want, all controlled via their smartphones activating different chiclets, apps or programming when and anywhere they want it.
In the movie business, having a project make it the screen often involves a complex juggling act that provides little to no certainty of completion, until the filming takes place and distribution is set – it was interesting to note the time involved to get projects completed, the Social Network itself took roughly 2 years to complete and that was accelerated because the manuscript and screen-play were being worked on almost simultaneously… in reality projects can often take 3-6 years to complete, a completely foreign concept to those of us in the tech industry, especially in the age of agile development and lean start-up methodologies. Yet, Dana is a new breed in Hollywood aligning himself closely with technology and infusing a new innovative spirit into the old guard.
Off camera, Dana also discussed Jameson First Shot project with Kevin Spacey and sponsored by Jameson whisky. It is a very noble project which in Kevin’s words “sends the elevator back down” to aspiring film makers looking to break into the business. It involves a screenplay contest that will select and feature several winners whose pieces will be produced by TriggerStreet and star Kevin Spacey. A very cool project that will undoubtedly bring some very interesting short stories to us and pay it forward to those talented and lucky enough to make the cut. Check it out here.
Dana also shared some of his favorite iPhone apps with us – top of his list Twitter, Cor.kz, Uber, & Waze to name a few.
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