Do installations/museum pieces have a place in a filmmakers career?

[jghenderson]

Hey guys. So I have a few ideas for "museum pieces", or installations as some call them. The ideas are experimental in nature, and interactive in a sense. Kind of similar to the "new frontier" category at Sundance.

My question is, do pieces like this actually benefit a filmmaker and potentially help their career? Or is the "art world" completely separate from the film world and therefore doing well in one area will not enhance the other? I ask this because I also have many short film ideas, and I wonder if I should focus all of my time/energy on them (with my ultimate goal being to make a feature within the next 5 years)

What do you y'all think?

 

[adamrahn]

I think if you can sell it to a museum/gallery then hell yes. What would it hurt? I imagine that's a pretty niche market though - but look at some of the high end video stuff that's out there, the Lincoln museum just south of here has an insanely realistic Abe hologram that comes out and addresses the audience. it definitely had some high end production values that someone had to do. I've also seen some really bad interactive art videos at museums too though (the Contemp Art museum in Houston had some utterly horrific 'art' interactive art videos there last time I visited). more along the lines of commercial usage: the local visitors and convention bureau has some really nice interactive kiosks that would fall into this general category as well. Not only is it an interactive kiosk with maps, sounds, pictures, and video, but a lot of local businesses have high end videos on there as well. I'm sure most decent sized communities have similar examples - not as artsy, but definitely high visibility and paid gigs, neither of which can hurt.

Best,
Adam