Do you think it's possible to shoot an AMAZING feature for under $10,000?
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vcassel
Veteran
Yeah, that makes sense to me in an unofficial way. Also, I always felt 'movie' could be attributed to any moving sequence of images, be it home videos, random YouTube nonsense, etc; 'film' I've always attributed to a serious attempt at dramatic structure whether short or feature length.
Brian_Rice
Carbonite Member
No, I'd define importance of what's being said by the magnitude of the message itself. And I'd view that magnitude in basic sociological terms. E.g. messages regarding equality, human and animal rights, love and religion are important whereas a message about the comfort of slippers is not.
Whether or not an audience responds to that message doesn't affect the importance of the message, it only speaks to the execution of the persons who packaged the message.
But if your question is whether or not entertaining people or making them *feel* something is important, I think that it is -- it's just not the primary reason I would do something artistically. That position is reserved more for performance artists and exhibitionists.
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Zak Forsman
Major Contributor
three years ago I directed Heart of Now, a drama about a young pregnant girl abandoned at every turn. And in conversation, I call it a movie.
In my opinion, ALL motion pictures are entertainment. But there are niches in the audience that respond to different kinds of entertainment. For some, Transformers is the entertainment they seek. For others, it's Woody Allen. For others, it's Disney. And still for others, it's The Double Life of Veronique. The size of the niche audience varies, of course. But I'm not down with the notion that "serious film art" is somehow separate from entertainment. Art is entertainment. IMO.
In my opinion, ALL motion pictures are entertainment. But there are niches in the audience that respond to different kinds of entertainment. For some, Transformers is the entertainment they seek. For others, it's Woody Allen. For others, it's Disney. And still for others, it's The Double Life of Veronique. The size of the niche audience varies, of course. But I'm not down with the notion that "serious film art" is somehow separate from entertainment. Art is entertainment. IMO.
Brian_Rice
Carbonite Member
Agreed. And I think it's that perfect marriage between great producer and great creative talent that usually brings us the best "motion pictures".
Brian_Rice
Carbonite Member
But doesn't art, even with all of its "entertainment" stripped away, still exist?
If it does, then the entertainment is not the art, the entertainment is a vehicle for the art, a mechanism for the art to function through.
Art at its core, with everything stripped away, is about education and enlightenment. That's why it was invented and that's why it's never lost its importance in the human experience.
I'd be hard pressed to find in our day and age an example of art that only educates and doesn't entertain, but it can be done. Art and entertainment are not mutually exclusive; some people instead use shock or question as a vehicle for their art to function through in lieu of entertainment.
But we're getting to the n'th degree here and it's probably not necessary. lol I doubt any of us here will be moved enough to attempt art without a functioning delivery system. Most of us got that out of our system when we were four years old.
For all intents and purposes (and certainly as filmmakers or storytellers), entertainment will almost always be our way of delivering our art to the masses.
pulpfiction007
Veteran
Yeah...I didn't mean to say that what I labeled as a film is not entertainment as well (and the labels were just ways to distingiush two very broad types of motion picture) In reality we all call them movies or films at any given time of day. I also believe both are equally valid forms of entertainment. Sometimes we want to be challenged to think, sometimes we want to turn our brains off and enjoy the ride. Sometimes both.
vcassel
Veteran
Art at its core, with everything stripped away, is craft, the exercise of our unique capability as a species to imagine cause and effect in accordance with each of our contextual knowledge/training--that imagination being our primary tool of survival. It's a byproduct that has taken runaway precedence, like a cat sharpening its claws on a couch.
Jawa Ex Machina
Veteran
But if there's no audience response, then it has no effect and it doesn't change anything. How can something that doesn't change anything be important? That's just one guy sitting in his dark apartment talking to himself and saying stuff he thinks is profound but has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the world. It's one hand clapping. What's so important about that?
I agree with this.
Not sure I understand the cat reference but at least I like it.
Brian_Rice
Carbonite Member
How many people do or do not experience a thing doesn't dictate how important or unimportant a subject matter is. If that was the case then the plight of shape-changing robots would one of the most important topics of our time. That's a ludicrous barometer to gauge a subject's worth and importance.
If something is written on the subject of civil rights and no one ever reads it, the subject itself would still retain its importance. There are any number of things happening right now on a microscopic level that no one is witnessing that are hugely important to humans, the world and the universe. It doesn't matter that no one is here with a microscope to gaze into my cats' litter box though what's happening in there could be hugely important and of great consequence. Importance is not gauged by how many people witness said importance.
That reminds me, I need to scoop the litter box.
The only thing that makes something "important" is whether or not people think it is. There is nothing incandescently important.
The conceit of the artist is that what HE thinks is important IS important simply because HE thinks it is. Most of the time, he finds out that just isn't so. Your choice is either to accept it, or grumble in solitary frustration about how people are stupid and just don't "get it."
The conceit of the artist is that what HE thinks is important IS important simply because HE thinks it is. Most of the time, he finds out that just isn't so. Your choice is either to accept it, or grumble in solitary frustration about how people are stupid and just don't "get it."
Brian_Rice
Carbonite Member
As we continue to split hairs and divide the point.
What I was referring to with regards art was the art of storytelling with words or with pictures. Obviously art is a byproduct of craft in evolutionary terms, but storytelling's purpose and reason for invention is to educate and enlighten. Along the way, someone came along and realized that they could LIE in their stories and so could then make their stories (and probably themselves) appear more interesting. I would assume what followed then is the educators realizing that they could educate more people if they injected similar fictions into their own lessons and voila we have artistic storytelling as we know it today.
But, to me, the education and enlightenment should be the core of story. But I'm not a performance artist. A performance artist, I believe, would feel that audience engagement and interaction is the core of story.
What I will never, ever agree to, though, is that PROFITS are the core of why a story need exist. People doing that are polluting not only the fundamental purpose of art but are also degrading and eroding the intellect and spirit of our entire species.
Brian_Rice
Carbonite Member
Not true.
Important: "marked by or indicative of significant worth or consequence"
Look to the last of that -- CONSEQUENCE. Does your message deal with worth or consequence to ALL humans? That is the barometer of importance with regards stories of the human conditon.
Nothing has "worth," much less "significant worth," unless people assign such worth to it. And the import of any "consequence" is also a matter of point of view.
No one is required to assign the same worth to anything as you do. No one is required to assign the same value to a consequence as you do. Fact is fact, but your interpretation of the facts is just that, an interpretation. You may interpret something to be significant, but if no one else does, as a matter of overall human import, it's not.
Again, this is something self-styled "artists" have a hard time dealing with.
"No! NO! It IS important!!!"
"No one cares, dude."
vcassel
Veteran
Just that it's the practice or 'sharpening' of our primary tool of survival and therefore should be inconsequential, but of course it's not.
Chris Adler
Veteran
Man, this thread jumped the shark a LONG TIME ago. Will be interesting to see how long it meanders about.
I like it quite a bit because people are actually talking about film, the business of film, making films, artistic pursuits, and all that good stuff, and not pixelbating and bashing others' cameras.
So, here's to another thousand posts! :beer:
Brian_Rice
Carbonite Member
You're talking about intuition, I'm talking about scientific fact.
Endless studies have been done on the *importance* of relationships, death, sex, social acceptance, et al. These things are important not to me or to you, but to the species as defined by scientific fact, not opinion.
The Greeks figured this out a long time ago. Shakespeare perfected it, and we've been standing on his shoulders ever since.
You can have the opinion that a story should evolve only out of self-profiteering reasons and for no discernable redeeming value, but what is important cannot be argued no more than how we breath, digest and bleed can be debated.
No, you're not. You're talking about interpretation of fact. Art isn't about "fact." Science is about fact. Art is about interpretation.
Are you presenting a scientific, annotated paper on the study of relationships? Not a movie I want to see.
And their work survives only because people find it relevant. How about the millions who also spoke whom no one knows about? How about the many who said the same things as they did but remain unknown?
Dude. That's just . . . silly.
I will not debate any specific point, as that's not what we do here, but on your list above I can present perfectly reasonable arguments about why every single one of them isn't particularly important, and point you to the large groups of people who thought so and still think so. I can also present the arguments as to why they are important. But it's all opinion and point of view. Every bit of it.
A diamond is not a particularly valuable thing in any practical sense. It's not rare, and besides doing some cutting, there's not much you can actually do with it. But human opinion puts a value on it well above any practical or scientific measure, and people literally move the earth to get them, kill for them, enslave over them, start wars over them, along with all sorts of "consequential" things that they wouldn't do if people didn't assign value to the diamond.
Any currency is merely a slip of paper that everyone agrees has an arbitrary value, yet the flow of those slips of paper routinely leads to global consequences -- only, and solely, because people consider them important. Yet, an equal volume of blank paper, or paper with an equal amount of ink strewn about them randomly, would do no such thing, though in "scientific fact" there's narry a physical difference.
You seem to be doing exactly what I said -- you assume that because YOU find it to be inarguably important, that it must be so, and that it isn't debatable -- and anyone who disagrees is simply wrong.
Such an absolutist approach to art leads to one place -- frustration and anger. As I said, no one on this Earth is required to care in the slightest as to what you think is important. No one on this Earth is required to agree with you as to what's important. It's all debatable. Every single bit of it. No exceptions. All you can do is express your view and hope people agree. If they don't, they don't.
Brian_Rice
Carbonite Member
I'm completely confused by your response. I said that it is fact that what is important to humans includes but is not limited to relationships, death, sex and social acceptance. You replied by asking if I was doing a scientific paper. That reply makes no sense. I never said that what I was presenting was something that you would want to see but only that the subject matter itself was of importance. I'm sure there are many thematically important films that you or I would not want to see, but those films, because of their inherent themes, are of importance.
And then you go on to say that you can find any reasonable amount of human beings who are not concerned with social acceptance, sex, relationships or death, which is a ridiculous claim. Even a priest finds sex "important". These are basic human functions that have been established since the inception of our species and have been proven to be of ultimate worth and consequence (e.g. important). For you to just throw all that out the window and say, "I can find someone who doesn't care about life" is just an absurd perspective. I'm certain that you COULD find someone who doesn't care about life, but I would also then show you a person with a psychological abnormality.
I know that you want to feel that you are correct, but arguing this is just silly. We are made of what we are made of. The themes that define us do not exist because of art or societal or economic influence (the way you talked about a diamond's worth), these things are a part of our DNA.
Now if you want to argue against science and nature and take a more creationist approach, that would be a different debate but at least could be debated. But whether or not being ostracized by your community *matters* to a human animal isn't a debate you can win in the realm of actual science.
All this is to say is that there are human principles (embeded in our DNA) that can be defined in thematic terms. Their existence is incontrovertable.