Filmmaking anymore?

[silyn]

Exactly. Luck, pure, simple, unadulterated, plain, is a huge factor in each and every single success story.
....
That said, the conditions for success in any given career, including filmmaking are better or worse in any given time frame. I think the argument made in this thread is that today it's harder to have a career as a filmmaker, compared to x-number of years ago. Personally, I just don't know - in some ways it certainly is easier, in other ways it's harder, but net-net?... I don't know.

There is another way of looking at filmmaking - as an art, as a passion, as an urge to tell stories in a visual form. That passion may or may not result in a successful career. But that passion and desire to express emotions and events as a visual story, IMO, are the best and most reliable way to have success (if indeed that's the primary goal). Luck (or lack of it) and circumstances are important. Always. But in my experience (BTW, I'm 65 and know a few things about life) are more often than not are used as an excuse for doing nothing, for betraying yourself and killing that spark of inspiration (assuming it ever existed) and desire to create things. Just saying.

 

[Patryk_Rebisz]

I cancelled my Netflix account as it was saturated with TV shows (which i don't watch as they don't have a big point) and mediocre films.
I keep Amazon account only because it comes with Prime membership.
I cancelled my Hulu account (that i kept only because they bought Criterion collection) because their interface simply sucked.
I opened up Fandor account as they play a ton of art films.
I kill time with mini YouTube films but i know they have no effect on me beyond the time-killing factor.

I do tons of commercials and corporate work that paid for my recent doc. I don't want to pay for my next one all from my pocket so i'm connecting with some rich people. The previous doc was a financial failure but artistic success (tons of awards at various prestigious festivals) that gave us tons of pedigree for the future projects. I can't imagine myself in the shoes of so many filmmakers who failed both financially and artistically. This only convinced me more that if you are making a low budgeter and are not pushing the art form - you will FAIL. As such it's incredibly refreshing to be in position that requires so much new ideas for just a chance of success. We are living in great times indeed!

 

[Scott F]

Yeah I do the corporate commercial thing to pay the bills, but that's not what I wanted to do with my life. That's just a bi-product of my skill set when I need to apply it to something to make a living. I really wanted to make films.

I was thinking about this thread yesterday....

For those who are in a rut or whatever, if you had the inclination, time, and wherewithal to make something, what would it be? I'm just curious what kind of films, projects, shows, documentaries people wish they could create*. (LOL, if it's some mindblowing, secret concept I'm not pressing you) Sci-fi, action, drama, comedy, documentary, etc?

Talking about luck, drive and circumstance is fine...but at the heart of the matter, what would you create?

*EDIT: or if you ARE currently working on something cool, I'd love to hear about that as well. I mean, this still is a film making forum, right? : )

 

[Patryk_Rebisz]

You have to make art without any expectations of having it seen, listened to, read... It was always the case but every one of us secretly hoped that it will not be the case, that somehow magically the audiences will find us and our personal art will resonate with the "masses" (quotation marks as the masses never care about art, here it implies significant amount of people). The time has come that differentiates people who have a drive to say something from the ones who would want to do it for other reasons grossly encompassed by the saying "for fame and fortune."

Some time ago i wrote a paper looking at what differentiates art from kitsch using paintings by Thomas Kinkade (look him up) v. painting of cottages from famous painters. In one of concluding paragraphs its says "Kitsch wants you to put yourself into the scene. In essence YOU are a vital part of the experience as without you kitsch as art doesn't exists. Only when you take the leap and transport yourself into the kitsch's world - thus invest yourself emotionally - the transaction is complete. Art, on the other hand, doesn't want anything from you. It exists, and that's about that. When you chose to experience, you can be transformed by it but your transformation is not necessity for that Art to fully exist. In that sense, kitsch uses your emotions to validate itself while Art burns itself up for your experience. Art gives, while kitsch takes. Thus Art doesn't have the same necessities as kitsch. Kitsch needs to be liked - it needs for you to want to experience it. And so TK takes pains to make environments that people would want to be in, that people would want visit and experience. Art doesn't have that constrain. Thus Art allows for paintings of swamps, rotten buildings, cottages too far to walk to, stormy skies that might blow off the roof at any moment.... Art is not trying to create an inviting space - as it doesn't have to. Art doesn't need you to be there as its fulfilment ends with simply being created as a painting, a song, a film - whatever."

 

[David W. Jones]

I was thinking about this thread yesterday....

For those who are in a rut or whatever, if you had the inclination, time, and wherewithal to make something, what would it be? I'm just curious what kind of films, projects, shows, documentaries people wish they could create. (LOL, if it's some mindblowing, secret concept I'm not pressing you) Sci-fi, action, drama, comedy, documentary, etc?

Talking about luck, drive and circumstance is fine...but at the heart of the matter, what would you create?

The last low budget feature film project I attempted was a Biblical drama. Even calling in all my chits and favors I couldn't raise the needed $700K for production. To quote a line from a very famous film, "Money makes the world go around". We can talk about art all we want. But without the cash, art is just an idea waiting to happen.

 

[DLD]

Back in the early 90's, when I lived in LA, I had a friend with a Masters in Production from NYU. Her connections got her a few PA jobs on several TV shows. Most were Ex'P'd by the same writer. And she told me that, while he presumably was writing a while priot to that, his first pilot sold. First pilot. And having looked up his credits on IMDB, I can see it even got some WGA noms. So, that was his first credit - an executive producer/showrunner of a big budget network TV series. Some people are just that good.

PS. Once again, looking up his IMDB credits, he's basically been working non-stop since then - a few shows he created; a few where he was a hired gun.

You want another story? This was from that infamous Ricky Gervais Garry Shandling interview ('twas supposed to be a part of a long running series but Garry was being Garry and Ricky decided to stick with writing/acting/directing rather than with hosting). This was a Q & A (paraphrased obviously)

Q - So how did you get started in the biz?

A - I was working for an ad agency, decided I wanted to do something more creative, so I wrote a comedy spec and sold it to "Sanford and Son". Then I began to work as a comedy writer.

That's it. For many a struggling writer, it takes years between "decided to do something creative" and "sold a script".

Another story?

This is from years ago that comes to mind. I was reading a piece on Louie Anderson. He did standup in his home state of Minnesota for a few years, won some local showcase, moved to LA. And this is the part I recall - he said, "I am going to take a year in LA and see if I can get on the Tonight Show. If not, I'm moving back to the Midwest". One year. That's all it took him. One year of working the clubs in LA.

Another story?

Peter LaSalle, an Ex-P on the Tonight Show, was going to Boston to see his son do the whole Harvard freshman thing. While in the area, he thought, it'd be a good idea to have the local comedy club organize a showcase for the top local talent. Peter had patience, so over a dozen local comedians participated. The king of the Boston comedy scene then was Lenny Clarke. But La Salle wasn't impressed. Then, some time into a show, a sloppy looking balding comedian with frizzy hair comes out and starts telling the weirdest jokes. And, for the most part, people don't get them. Peter, on the other hand, believes he just found a star. Quickly, he makes arrangements and flies the frizzy hair comedian to LA for a Tonight Show gig. Johnny loves him, asks him back for another appearance a few days later (almost unprecedented). And the guy has been working ever since.

 

[roxics]

I was thinking about this thread yesterday....

For those who are in a rut or whatever, if you had the inclination, time, and wherewithal to make something, what would it be?

For me it's sci-fi for sure. Strangely I've never done sci-fi. I've done horror, comedy and drama, but my favorite genre is sci-fi. Although I'd be just as happy doing some other kind of fantasy genre films.
My biggest problem is locations followed closely by props and costumes.
My other problem is that I have this tendency to believe I need to write every film I want to make and I have a hard time writing shoestring budget films I could actually afford to shoot. My mind just doesn't go there. But I'll give you an example.

Back in the early 2000s I had written a short film about the last vampire on earth who turns people into vampires and then hunts them down for sport. One at a time. His last victim ends up in a large empty gothic church at the alter around midnight pleading for his soul to be saved, because in this story vampires go straight to hell, there is no route to salvation, but he doesn't know that since he's so new at being a vampire. A priest tries to help but the hunter comes in and executes the new vampire. The priest is more curious than scared and wants to know more. He's a man of faith but has never witnessed anything supernatural and was starting to question whether any of it was real. This experience validates his faith so he gets a renewed interest and wants to know more from the hunter, tracks him down and ends up getting turned into a vampire himself and then has to struggle to survive the hunt. The story goes on....

I got hung up on the church. My producer (at the time) and I went around looking for one of these churches to use. You'd be amazed how many churches say no to a couple 20-somethings looking to shoot a vampire movie in their church.
Rather than come up with a creative work around, I considered the project dead in the water. I ended up open sourcing the script and a woman out in California liked it enough to want to shoot it as her first indie film. They changed some things around, including the church scene (must have had the same problem I had) and used a church graveyard instead (or what was said to be a church graveyard - I don't think it was), which I thought was a great substitute. I got a credit for original story, a DVD and a t-shirt out of it, which I thought was nice of them. They didn't have to, I open sourced the story after all.

But the moral of the story is that I think big ideas and have a hard time finding creative solutions around them if they don't pan out. I've gotten better in recent years. These days I walk into corporate shoots all they time that have little to no preproduction done on them and have to figure out where we're shooting, how to light it and so on. Not my preferred method, but it's what I'm often stuck with. So it's trained me to be a more Johnny on the spot creative guy.
Even so, when it comes to personal passion project films, I struggle to size my story ideas down into something manageable that I could afford to shoot. I'm not the kind of indie filmmaker who has any interest in some artsy Sundance style film about a couple of lesbian ranchers in the 1800s who struggle with their identities. There has to be some other element to it. Like the discovery of a portal in a nearby cave that leads to another dimension or something occult going on or a crashed UFO on their ranch. Something that sparks my interest.
i sometimes wonder if I should just become a writer where I'm not constrained and can let my imagination go wild or maybe do something in animation. But I lust for that gold standard of live action motion pictures and I love being on location shooting.

 

[Josh Bass]

I feel you Roxics. Maybe we should go into hypersleep until they perfect that affordable virtual set technology?

 

[mainstreetprod]

I've been plugging away at feature filmmaking since 2009 and have now made 5. If you define success as getting national distribution than I guess I'm successful. If you define it as making a profit, than not so much. In 2014 I began to work very hard on improving my craft (I'm in my late 50's and if I'm going to accomplish anything it better be soon). I attended a training course in cinematography and lighting by a well known cinematographer and read everything I could find. The budget (nothing by Hollywood standards) and crew size (2-3) of my films stayed the same , but the quality went up and it resulted in the latest film being selected for a theater release along with multiple film festival awards including "Best Cinematography".

One thing I've learned is that outside of the action movie world, budget and quality of the end product are not even closely related. WIth today's equipment and a working knowledge of lighting and framing, it's possible to make something that looks like it belongs on a 40 foot screen for very little money. The trick is having acting, story and writing that is equal quality.

 

[Cryogenic Filmworks]

I was thinking about this thread yesterday....

For those who are in a rut or whatever, if you had the inclination, time, and wherewithal to make something, what would it be? I'm just curious what kind of films, projects, shows, documentaries people wish they could create*. (LOL, if it's some mindblowing, secret concept I'm not pressing you) Sci-fi, action, drama, comedy, documentary, etc?

Talking about luck, drive and circumstance is fine...but at the heart of the matter, what would you create?

*EDIT: or if you ARE currently working on something cool, I'd love to hear about that as well. I mean, this still is a film making forum, right? : )

As Dov Simmons would say, I have many projects in various stages of production. Mostly in idea, treatment, script stage. Ideally I would like to do Sci-Fi action/horror but currently concentrating on Harvey (not that other movie) which is sortof a historical thriller of sorts.

 

[Josh Bass]

I'm still into exploring short form stuff. Not even close to (and don't know if I ever will be) ready to do a feature. I could fathom getting to the point where I'd do either a sketch series like Key and Peele or a narrative comedy show somewhere way off in the future.