Corrado Part II

Hollywood is recession proof, it is cheap entertainment given the options. Even more so with the advent of Netflix and OnDemand. The difference is what gets made during economic downturns. Audiences generally want lighter fare. For that reason Shirley Temple was very popular during the Great depression for instance.

You see it now with the move by the networks to comedies with Leno going to prime time and a pull back of the hour long drama. They say the sitcom will be coming back with industry people pulling out shows that had been shelved because they weren't in vogue the past ten years.

As for Indy filmmakers it's tougher in that it takes longer to realize a project and there are less options as to content. Indy filmmakers can't react because they typically have one project they have developed for years which they poured their heart and soul into. If that doesn't fit with the times, then they are at a disadvantage. all films will still get made, but there is a shift taking place just the same.

There are positives as well though in that Indy Filmmakers know how to make films for short money that are adaptable to the new media. In the end, there will be plenty of opportunity, just different ones.
 
I Quit Filmmaking.



These are words you'll never hear me say. I thought I'd have this little pep talk with you guys in case we have anyone on the fence here.

Making films is the toughest thing I have ever done. It's an uphill battle all the way. It's hard to write a good script. It's hard to raise money. It's hard to hire crew and cast talent. It's hard to produce a movie, to deal with the constant daily fires, problems, battles, etc.

Miscellaneous Ramblings:

When you make your film, you will almost always be sorely criticized. Anyone who ever hated you will come out of the woodwork, publicly deride you, trash your work, and call you names. It happens to the best of them. You all remember my pet peeve comment "Spielberg is a hack" or "I hated Indiana Jones". The cuts go all the way up to the top, baby. No one is exempt.

If you risk all that you have, put your heart and soul into the film (and $40 Million), release it, and it flops, you'll be universally lauded as the biggest flop ever to have a wide release (Delgo).

If you are starring in a competing picture, you will trash the competition verbally and publicly ("Batman sucks ass" - Robert Downey Junior).

This is probably the most thankless tough room you will ever be involved in. No one truly wants to help you. Most of your groupies have an agenda.

You will be approached by sales agents offering you deals on your film. They will come armed with a library of films starring absolute nobodies... and then tell you that they wished your film had a bigger cast.

However much you spent on your film, you'll wish you had double.

Every heckler you get will have accomplished exactly nothing to speak of in his own life.

You will feed your crew the best you can. You will hire caterers. They will complain.

You will hire primadonnas and egomaniacs as your cast.

No matter how well you location manage, you'll get the "shakedown" by some angry citizen who is losing revenue because of your film.

Actors whom you pay scale will nickel and dime you to death. They have a copy of their respective SAG contracts tatooed on their body and will cite you for every infraction.

The police will visit your film set at least once. The better the movie, the more they will visit. (Corrado - three times)

Your biggest critics will never say anything to your face.

Agents are liars. Sales Agents are sales liars.

Actors are all dysfunctional or imbalanced in some way. If you don't think so, you haven't hung around the guy long enough.

Your competition will jab you every chance they get, then will systematically deny referring to you when you call them on it.

You will receive unsolicited advice from anyone who has even so much as watched a movie.

Someone who keeps making film failure after film failure after film failure, refusing to quit, is not lauded for his perseverance, rather, he is reviled for his work (Uwe Boll).

Become and egomaniac yourself. If you are a director, your ego is your friend. Become too big, however, and it will ruin you (Troy Duffy).

It's never too late to direct your first feature film (Ridley Scott - 38)

Don't use Michael Madsen in your movie. Everyone else already has. He's worthless as a name actor.

Shorts are not features. Short film festival awards are not feature film awards.

*******************************************************
It's a hard road, and not many can follow it. Persevere. Bankers and doctors are going broke nowadays. Why not go broke doing something you love?

Get off your duff and do it. And keep doing it!
 
taormina said:
Shorts are not features. Short film festival awards are not feature film awards.
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Yeah, 'bout time someone said this. And I agree with much of the other stuff you've said. I had a person who was in my last film criticize me publicly with his friends (a martial arts stunt crew here in Chicago). Then they sighted the one bad review I had for the film to make the case I make lousy movies. As a matter of fact I made this guy look good. He's the only guy I lose a fight to in the film. I rewrote the role so he could show off. He would've had more scene time if he wanted it. I opened my arms to this guy because he was good.

While yes he was a great martial artist and he wants to be a martial arts star up until my film what other feature film was he in doing martial arts. None? Sure he was in a short that was real good but his IMDB reads of nothing but extra roles. At least when someone sees him on my film they can say "daaaamn, who was that?" Will they say that about "Bystander 1"?

Yes you can say my film was cheesy, it indeed was supposed to be a B film. We advertised it as that and knew what we were making when we went into it. You can criticize the lighting and many other things. But I was one man with $5000 who wrote, directed and starred (not to mention edited and did part of the soundtrack as well). I made an action feature people wanted to sale and believed they could sale. When he does this then come and talk smack to me. He has a whole crew to back him up. I have me and a rotating crew of students and non-martial artist, not to mention only about four of the fighters in the movie actually knew martial arts and/or could pull it off convincingly.

If you make a bad film on a million bucks, you're a goof. If you make a pretty good film on $5000 you've done something many can't do on $250,000. The people who worked for my old distributor hated their own movies because they were crap and they have $250,000 rule. (If it has less than a $250,000 budget don't shoot it). So what does it all mean? Nothing really. Take the criticisms you know to be constructive and ignore the rest. The question is are you enjoying what you're doing? And even better are you making money at it? If not keep doing it anyway if you love it and can.

-Nate
 
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That's a great list Adam.

There's always going to be haters, but they should be more motivation than the people praising you. Hecklers could be really successful people who are just jealous of your god given talents. They're not necessarily people that don't have accomplishments.

I think negativity in general can be squashed relatively easily. If you're perceived as a humble and down to earth person, most of the time people leave you alone and wish you luck.

The Troy Duffy reference is funny. He fascinates me.

The essence of filmmaking is storytelling. That's all it really is. It's either a good story or it isn't. The fundamentals are the same whether it's two hours long or 5 minutes. My friend wrote a 1000 page fantasy novel and it's utterly horrible. I wrote a short story that got published in Rolling Stone. Is my short story lesser than the novel because it took him longer to write it? Making a feature is a gigantic achievement... that's nothing to shake a stick at....

A published short story isn't a novel, but it's a degree of success in storytelling.
 
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The great thing about Troy Duffy is that he's found people to give him more money to do a sequel. He seems to have mellowed out a bit. He still has a very affluent arrogance about him. And I mean hillbilly affluent. But I can see him holding back his ego. His eyes are almost popping out of his head.

I just hope someone is documenting it.
 
Nathyn said:
While yes he was a great martial artist and he wants to be a martial arts star up until my film what other feature film was he in doing martial arts. None? Sure he was in a short that was real good but his IMDB reads of nothing but extra roles. At least when someone sees him on my film they can say "daaaamn, who was that?" Will they say that about "Bystander 1"?
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Hi Nate and I apologise for everyone for going OT for a moment. I know a great martial artist, that I could at least get you in touch with the next time hes in LA. You can see his IMDB here ---- http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2077159/ Moreover, and I mean this, hes a great guy and talented to boot. Drop me a pm and ill pass an email along. Ill probably catch up with him a few weeks in Japan.
 
taormina said:
However much you spent on your film, you'll wish you had double.
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Amen to that!

taormina said:
Every heckler you get will have accomplished exactly nothing to speak of in his own life.
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90% Agree. most people are more bark than bite. Unfortunately I used to be this way myself, then I recognized that I was all talk. So I started a new path to be more walk than talk. :)

taormina said:
You will feed your crew the best you can. You will hire caterers. They will complain.
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Ain't that the truth. what's funny to me, is that after 30 days of shooting and me never providing breakfast. They still come to the set hungry. Even if we only will shoot for 3 hours, they're still hungry! I'm like don't you guys eat before you leave your house - "No." Com'n...

taormina said:
You will hire primadonnas and egomaniacs as your cast.
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Had at least 2 of these. fortunately I was able to get rid of 3 of them before we started shooting. Attitude is extremeyl impt to me.

taormina said:
No matter how well you location manage, you'll get the "shakedown" by some angry citizen who is losing revenue because of your film.
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And don't be on a "no-budget" project. Then it seems like the Mother Nature is against you. I mean we shot outside two sundays ago. All day it was quiet, as soon as we start shooting, two guy sup the street decide they are going to fire up the leaf blowers!

taormina said:
Your biggest critics will never say anything to your face.
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This is something that is really key. Something no one should take lightly. I'd like to rephrase it though. Your biggest critics and those who may have the best way to fix your problems, usually won't say anything to you or anyone else.

I'll explain. If you check all the threads here on DVXuser from people who've posted things. People that get the most attention are those who have something that is decent, but not perfect. If it's close to perfect, they get praise only. If it's bad they get nothing at all. No one wants to comment and hurt their feelings or be considered a mean person.

Also you'll find people in general will try to "help you" until they stop caring. The worst thing in the world is to have someone that doesn't give you a comment anymore - at that point they don't care about what you do. When people care about you, they want you to be better - so they give you whatever advice they can or know about - but when they stop caring - no advice. You're alone. :(
 
jls4 said:
Amen to that!
I'll explain. If you check all the threads here on DVXuser from people who've posted things. People that get the most attention are those who have something that is decent, but not perfect. If it's close to perfect, they get praise only. If it's bad they get nothing at all. No one wants to comment and hurt their feelings or be considered a mean person.
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i'm guilty of that, i've found that 9 times out of 10 no matter how lightly you point out something that's wrong or the reason why you didn't like something the OP gets defensive and has a series of reasons why it was the way it was with the most famous response being closely related to "I meant for it to be that way" ("hey the boom was showing in one shot" - oh we planned it that way) or they begin qualifying it to you by mentioning how so many other people loved it and you must be the odd man out and the thread turns to debate, it gets old, you get tired of debating and after it happens 2 or 3 times you expect it from everyone so i've recently opted to only respond to the ones i'm really impressed by even if it's just got potential, not necessarily groundbreaking or really good.
 
people are retarded when it comes to criticism. it's impossible not to take it personally, but hopefully you're an intelligent person and can see the value inherent in trying to understand another person's unfiltered experience of watching your work. i always remind myself to inject a little levity into my responses to heavy criticism. someone said the end of IFHY was lame and my response was to thank them for watching, and an explanation as to how we arrived at the ending we did, and then a request to put "The Ending Was Lame!" at the top of the poster. that was enough to turn that critic into a fan.

anyway, this is also why I don't edit my own films. i've found an editor who is willing to explore every option. If I were cutting, I would be making assumptions about the last take being the best and missing out on a lot of the film's potential because I think I know what we shot. she has proven me wrong there so many times it's embarrassing. apparently, i don't know anything.
 
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Noel Evans said:
Hi Nate and I apologise for everyone for going OT for a moment. I know a great martial artist, that I could at least get you in touch with the next time hes in LA. You can see his IMDB here ---- http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2077159/ Moreover, and I mean this, hes a great guy and talented to boot. Drop me a pm and ill pass an email along. Ill probably catch up with him a few weeks in Japan.
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I've heard of the man but don't know anything he's been in. I'll PM you.

Zak Forsman said:
anyway, this is also why I don't edit my own films. i've found an editor who is willing to explore every option. If I were cutting, I would be making assumptions about the last take being the best and missing out on a lot of the film's potential because I think I know what we shot. she has proven me wrong there so many times it's embarrassing. apparently, i don't know anything.
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I'll probably still be cutting but I think I'm going to be passing a lot more footage over to my producing buddy because he's real good at pointing out things that I missed. I think I may have him in the room with me next. What I would really like is for him to direct my next one.

-Nate
 
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Zak Forsman said:
people are retarded when it comes to criticism. it's impossible not to take it personally, but hopefully you're an intelligent person and can see the value inherent in trying to understand another person's unfiltered experience of watching your work. i always remind myself to inject a little levity into my responses to heavy criticism. someone said the end of IFHY was lame and my response was to thank them for watching, and an explanation as to how we arrived at the ending we did, and then a request to put "The Ending Was Lame!" at the top of the poster. that was enough to turn that critic into a fan.

anyway, this is also why I don't edit my own films. i've found an editor who is willing to explore every option. If I were cutting, I would be making assumptions about the last take being the best and missing out on a lot of the film's potential because I think I know what we shot. she has proven me wrong there so many times it's embarrassing. apparently, i don't know anything.
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Both of these points struck a chord with me. In fact, they will form two new goals for me:

1. I want to be able to learn to take criticism as well as humanly possible.
2. I am committed to using an editor on my next film. Not because I did a bad job; I actually grew a lot as an editor on Corrado, rather I want to make sure no stone remains unturned in the cutting of the film, and have someone shed a new light on my work I otherwise wouldn't have seen.

Great points, people!
 
Zak Forsman said:
anyway, this is also why I don't edit my own films. i've found an editor who is willing to explore every option. If I were cutting, I would be making assumptions about the last take being the best and missing out on a lot of the film's potential because I think I know what we shot. she has proven me wrong there so many times it's embarrassing. apparently, i don't know anything.
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Ain't that a pisser? Can't tell you how many slices of that particular flavor of Humble Pie I've had to swallow, and what makes it taste even worse is how often it has come from people who only know a tiny fraction of what I do on the subject (in my case, music recording, mainly).

Yep, a lousy, lousy taste in the mouth until...you realize you just learned something you can use in the future to do the thing better. Then it hits you that it was actually a win, not loss.

Wisdom is always a good thing, no matter how you find it...or it finds you...
 
I could add another lame martial arts anecdote that's plastered on the T-shirts of my club, but it's so true:

"Black belts are white belts who never quit"

It's fromage, but someone here mentioned martial arts and as a martial artist I thought I'd throw it in.
 
LOL. I'm sure that's true. Then again good directors are just bad directors that kept learning from their mistakes. (I know this personally :) ). When it comes to martial arts the best guy we had was more of a stunt man. He was Asian guy that seemed to be right out of a Kung-fu film but claimed he wasn't a martial artist, but you'd never know it. He ran up walls, could catch a fly with his bare hands and was just insane with the trick-fu (martial arts tricks).

He was humble, didn't speak much. Came in, did his job and left. He did two scenes, worked for food and didn't even have dialogue in the script. He simply did the film because he wanted to be in a martial arts film.

I'd love to work with this guy again anytime especially for a paid shoot. He should get something beside food and copy. If I had a bunch of guys like this it would be worth it. While both guys made the scenes look good, one guy was simply more of a pleasure to work, did as they were told and actually did more with less (no) attitude. He watched what we were doing and really wanted to see the process.

-Nate
 
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