Friday, January 4, 2013

Silicon Valley in the Media

For all of Silicon Valley's fame and prominence in the international business community, we have rarely been featured in the entertainment scene. So many TV shows and movies are set in New York, LA, SF, and Chicago... but Silicon Valley rarely if ever is featured even as a background location. The one exception would be the 1985 bond movie A View to a Kill, where the main plot was to prevent the annihilation of Silicon Valley. And look at what Silicon Valley was portrayed as in that movie below.



Well, things are about to change. Several new TV shows and movies are coming out where Silicon Valley is at the very least a supporting role. This actually started a couple months ago with the show Start-Ups: Silicon Valley. While I did enjoy seeing at least a dozen shots of San Jose throughout the show's 8 episode run, for the most part the show was considered a failure by the media. I'm not going to shed too many tears since I don't think it accurately portrayed Silicon Valley (and most of it was shot in SF). You can read the postmortem at SiliconBeat.

Now for what's coming up. HBO has just green-lighted a live action sitcom series called "Silicon Valley." This is a "single camera" dark comedy by Mike Judge, the creator of Office Space, King of the Hill, and Beavis and Butthead. Here is how the show is described: "Silicon Valley is set in the high tech gold rush of modern Silicon Valley, where the people most qualified to succeed are the least capable of handling success." Sounds very promising. For more info on this one check out Deadline Hollywood.

Next up is a feature film called the Internship. This movie has two big-name stars, Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, as a couple of 40-something salesmen who get laid off and decide to restart their careers at Google. Part of the movie is even shot onsite at Google's HQ in Mountain View. More info on this one is available at Marketing Land.



Last one for now is a new show by Simon Cowell and Will.i.am called X Factor for Tech. They are hunting for the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerburg. The producers are claiming that this show will generate a lot of jobs and give youth a platform to express themselves using science and mathematics. While this show is not yet confirmed to take place in Silicon Valley, it will no doubt fuel more media interest to the region which is king of entrepreneurship and technology. More info over at Venturebeat.

Will.i.am & Simon Cowell to debut TV show to find the next Steve Jobs

I'm sure this is only the tip of the iceberg. If any of these are successful, you can be sure that there will be more Silicon Valley-oriented shows to follow.

6 comments:

  1. What happened to the movie about Winchester Mystery House Josh?

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    1. It is still in the works. I believe the target release date is 10/13/13.

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  2. There are a few other movies with filming in San Jose, including one of my favorites "Birdy" starring Mathew Modine and Nicolas Cage.

    For a complete list see:
    http://www.imdb.com/search/title?locations=San%20Jose,%20California

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  3. Hollywood is so obsessed with Seattle! Too many movies been taking places there, even though they filmed a major portion of them in Canada. They need to film movies in San Jose and have take place in San Jose! What's the matter with Hollywood? They just filmed a movie in Pittsburgh, PA and took place there like "Jack Reacher". Oh, I remember Bruce Willis Movie there, too back in 1997.

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    Replies
    1. Seattle gets a lot of love because of its close proximity to Vancouver, BC (Hollywood north) and the fact that it is graced by an amazing natural setting and a large and discernable skyline.

      Also, Seattle has a thriving local film scene of its own - having local studios, an abundance of local film crew, etc. is a huge plus when determining a film location.

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    2. I bet most of the people in their local studios are from LA, which is solely the reason why Seattle is the most annoying, self centered and disgusting city in the country. They should have local studios in SJ. Why be in horrible Seattle, which is always raining and depressing?

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