follow your gut or your heart?

M

Matt_asimspon

Member
Im looking to get on the feature ladder, after landing a good agent.

My ideal first project would be to gain funding for, and direct my own spec, (thats not complete yet).

My agent has contacted a financier/producer,
who has offered me a few scripts. (mostly torture horrors)
None of them packaged to go yet, but with established writers.

While torture films are not really my bag, they seem to be the most attractive in the market, and one is actually not half bad. Good characters, good revenge aspect etc
do I hold on to shop my own feature, or jump onboard another project,
that realistically is more sellable/likely to go ahead.

Is it more important just to get a properly financed feature under your belt,
or to make sure that your first feature is an original and cool concept?

:undecided
 
I would just try to do something you're proud of, and represents you as a filmmaker.

Curious how all of this works out for you, keep us informed.
 
only you can decide, of course.

however, and i'm no fortune teller, i think if you chose to make the horror movie and it were successful, you might get stuck making horror movie number 2, 3, and 4. but if you fail, then you wouldn't have made the movie you waned.

on the other hand, if you were to make the movie you want, and it succeeded, then you'll continue to make movies you want. but, if you fail, then you might have a hard time getting back in the game.

not much help, huh?

according to decision theory:
"The action to be chosen should be the one that gives rise to the highest total expected value."
-wikipedia
 
Haha I like that decision theory Fahad, nicely posted ;)

Well I faced a similar situation to you but it was still based on my own work so not exactly what you're describing. Basically, I thought about doing my first feature film as a horror movie up in Oregon, where I have access to a great location that I think if I wrote the write script could make a fun horror film. My problem is I'm very traditional, I don't like buckets of blood, torture, any of that crap. I'm old-school -- I like old-school horror and thrills, I don't like seeing the villain much, I don't like lots of gore, minimal blood is fine, psychological horror is simply much better and much scarier. But current appetites for horror films lean towards blood, gore, and boobs. So trying to make a GOOD horror film, rather than one that is simply sellable, would have meant probably compromising my vision a good deal. A lot of people said horror sells the best for indie films, though, so I should go with that. I thought about it a lot, I tried developing a story outline, and it just never clicked. I never came up with even an outline that I liked let alone a script.

So I ended up deciding my first film, which for all I know will be my last since life is uncertain and we really never know, was going to be something that I cared about and that has a great story and the potential to be something really original that shows off my talents and my personality as a director. Something where I would feel comfortable saying, "This is a slice of me, watch this and you can begin to understand me as a storyteller and a director." That wasn't going to be possible selling out and doing a horror film just for the market. I also worried that if I did that, as Fahad said, I'd be stuck with doing yet more horror films rather than what I really want to do, which is a variety of different genres and projects.

So I ended up writing what I think (and my producers think) is a really fun, entertaining romantic comedy. I hesitate to call it that because I don't like the genre that much, it brings up too many negative stereotypes of cliched genre films, whereas mine is more of a satirical comedy that pokes fun at new media and celebrity-culture, gossip magazines, etc. It's something that is very smart I think, very topical, and I'm proud to call my first feature. And yet I've read from several sources that romantic comedies are the toughest sell to distributors. That being said, I really don't care, because statistics ignore the fact that if you have a great film with a great story and the elements come together right, you will be able to make money on it and get it out there. Besides, comedy is by far the most popular genre on DVD, with something like 30% of the market, nearly double that of the nearest competitor (action / adventure) and 10 times as much as horror (only a 3% marketshare).

The problem is nobody should give you advice on what are essentially very difficult decisions because it's bound to be difficult to say what is right for you. For me, it reminds me of when Vince tells E, "Let's roll the dice -- it's always worked out for us before!" I'm rolling the dice. If the film works, it's going to start a successful career for me. If not, I'm in trouble and out a lot of money. But I'm willing to gamble. Even then, however, it's all about figuring out where to ignore "common wisdom" and where to apply it. While I certainly am willing to push forward with a film in this genre on this budget and take these risks, I've done it in a smart way and minimized the risk beyond that point by partnering with a known production company with the right connections and the right experience to make a project like this great. We will have a tested, seasoned crew of professionals and actors I trust on board, so while the risk is always there you have to take the plunge and know you're taking a risk but then try to do it in the smartest way you can.

For me, ultimately, I think there is plenty of mediocre content out there and I kept coming back to, "Ok, so I make a horror film, best case scenario it sells and I make a little bit of money, and I have the first film under my belt. So what? I'm left with nothing I'm overly proud of showing to someone else because I don't love the ideas I'm coming up with for this film, I don't get to show my style and individuality through this project, and therefore it won't really help me do what I want to be doing." It would be different if there was a good chance of making a $100,000 to $200,000 horror film and making millions selling it. But there isn't. That's very, very, very unlikely. I'd rather make a film where it's so strong and original and energetic and fun that if I break even on the film, and make a modest rate as writer-director, I can still feel proud and be able to show it to people who matter and say, yes, I did this film, we got distribution, it turned out great, blah blah etc. Then hope that my talent shines through in that project and I get a crack at doing another.
 
Hey thanks guys for responding, especially you john, that's a meaty answer. It's kind of a dumb question really, as it's ultimately up to me. When you mix business with passion, this is always going to be an issue.

There's also a damn good chance that even if I do attach to one or more, they still won't generate enough investment. So id be in exactly the same position. but then at least ill be getting out there. while Im polishing my own spec,

Horror is my genre anyway, it was my horror short that got me picked up. So no one's gonna say here, make a comedy to me. The thing is that, Ive always been a horror fan, but actually hate alot of horror. The reason i started making films, is because i think the genre deserves better,
and people don't take it seriously. People love being scared, I know I do.

so doing something typical and mainstream, is kind of against my motivation. but at the same time with a serious budget, you can make a impact.

I just feel super lucky to have an opportunity, and realize my agent is working hard on my behalf.
so I want to seem grateful. Plus the Horrors that are on the table would have decent enough budgets (at least 1 mill) so room to be creative no doubt.

time to roll the dice I guess.
thanks again. ill keep you posted Jason.
 
Matt,

i agree, horror movies do need something better. the same old bloody, messy gore has been done to death (heh). i'd like to think there's two kinds of horror movies: a truly thrilling and captivating horror, and the shock-value horror. i think there's too much of the latter these days.

good luck with your movie, and i hope it's a success! better yet, make a cult classic! make the next eraserhead and blow everyone's mind :)

johnathan,

good luck with your movie too. i know what you mean about romantic comedies. it seems that there's been one formula in hollywood being used for way too long. i don't have anything against romantic comedies in an absolute sense, but whenever a new one comes out, it's the same old crap.

a recent romantic movie that was at kinda interesting is called "cashback". it had some good cinematography, too.
 
This seems like an odd question. If you're doing work for hire, the same as the boom op, lighting tech, etc. you're being hired to do a job. I guess I just can't imagine a boom op saying "I don't know how I feel about doing sound for a horror picture."

lol

You can either do work for hire, or you can do creator-owned. Regardless of what the work for hire is, it shouldn't really matter as you're being hired to do a job. You do the job to the best of your ability because someone is paying you to do it.

If you're doing creator-owned it's all on your shoulders. If it fails, so does, most likely, your career and any future financing opprotunities.

That's why people mix and match.
 
That's true, and that decision doesn't face me yet -- it's a good dilemma to have, if you are offered paid work in a work-for-hire situation and you also can develop your own content, you may have the option of deciding where your career goes. For me, I don't think I would be able to do the work-for-hire directing at all. Not to sound snobby it's just that to pay my bills, I'm ok with doing corporate work that I already do (essentially like work-for-hire) and I'm not sure that I'd even be qualified to do a lot of other directing besides my own projects. I can't figure out for the life of me what would be fun about directing a TV show episode (on average) or why a director is even that important. I guess for me, I don't look at a director as the guy who pulls performances out of actors. Sure, that may be the classical definition and that is indeed something incredibly important the director does, but for me, I want my stamp on everything, dealing with the actors is a very small portion of the whole. Dealing with what I want them wearing, what I want them looking like, what I want surrounding them, how I want to film them, what locations work for the characters, etc. is all important to me. So to hire me just to babysit the actors seems like something I'm not even really qualified to do because I don't want to JUST do that. But if you are the director of CSI, what can you really do? "Ok I want to shoot it this way, we need to do this with the cinematography!" "Uhh, no, we have an established style." "Oh ok... right." "Well this location isn't working out for me, the lab just doesn't look right." "It's the lab. This is our set. It's not going anywhere." "Oh yeah, you're right." "Well how about the character, I feel this character should be funnier, less uptight, let's make him more like a sidekick." "The character is already established." "Oh... ok." There is ALMOST no creativity involved whatsoever in my mind, and no creative control. The 1st A.D., the DP, the actors, the producers, everyone is ahead of the director. The director is a glorified babysitter who isn't even really necessary; he can watch the performances, but... meh. The actors know their characters way better than the director does, who comes in for every 6th episode *if he's lucky* or maybe it's only his 3rd episode in a show that has run 200+ episodes. Honestly you could have a PA be "director" and if everyone else did their jobs I still think it would turn out just fine. I'm not trying to be mean I'm just saying that job stinks and I really don't think directing TV episodes would be enjoyable except for the paycheck, and I would literally have to ask people what exactly I was expected to do since every detail of production is basically taken care of by staff who have been there forever. It would be different if you got in on the ground floor of a new TV series and you were directing 4 episodes of 24 the first season. You would at least be onboard early enough to shape some important elements in collaboration with other professionals. But once a show is running, if you come in on the 4th season, unless they're looking to move an entirely different direction, you're not going to be changing anything!

My biggest problem with a lot of what I hear on indie filmmaking is people chasing the market, like, "Well gore / slasher / torture horror films are all the rage now, let's make one of those!" "Something like Paranormal Activity is selling, we can do that!" Or switch to mainstream comedy, "Randomness is totally in, just look at The Hangover or Harold and Kumar, let's make a film stock-full of random stupid gags and illogical happenings and it'll be hilarious!" Ok, The Hangover and Harold Kumar are great films, two of my favorite comedies, but *only 1 in 10 films like that are any good at all!* Most of them turn out like Harold and Kumar 2. I basically hate random humor. I hate completely unbelievable elements in films in general. Give me one thing that's far-fetched, that's ok, like, "We can clone dinosaurs, accept it, here is Jurassic Park." Ok, I'm buying! Beyond that, everything that follows is 100% believable to me. It's played up, it's fantastic, but I can believe these events would happen. I forget quickly that you made me believe we can clone dinosaurs. But when I'm watching a comedy and it's like, "Ha-ha this cop is so stupid he's doing silly things isn't that funny?" No, it isn't. Police officers don't act goofy and retarded and it's not funny at all. It's just stupid and lame. That was the worst part of The Hangover. It just made me roll my eyes and cringe.

I'm very old-fashioned I guess in a lot of my movie tastes. I like classic horror films that always worked great in the past where the unseen was scarier than what you put right in front of us all film. And it still is. Those movies are still loved today, and there's no reason not to make a great horror film like that now. If the market isn't buying that type of film, who cares? I don't care. I'd rather make a great film like that and mine WILL be bought, and then the market will clamor to make films like mine. I don't want to follow what the market does, I want to be the guy who sets the trends and who changes what the market wants, not the guy chasing after the ice cream truck ;) Same with comedy. I'd rather make a great, logical comedy that works as a drama but is funny. That's my style. I like movies like Tootsie and Mrs. Doubtfire where there is one element that's hilarious but the films make sense. It's not like out of the blue a cheetah runs into the shot for no apparent reason. There isn't anything in Mrs. Doubtfire that couldn't actually happen in real life, or anything that is illogical either. Humor works best when it's not trying so hard to be funny, and it should almost never be funny for the people in the film, in my opinion. It should only be funny to us. The characters should think of it as life-or-death, it should be DRAMA to them, but to us as outside observers it is hilarious. That's the kind of film I like. Does Bill Murray's character in Groundhog Day think it's funny that the day keeps restarting? NO, not at all, he hates it, and he tries to kill himself to escape, which is pretty morbid frankly. But to us it's absolutely hilarious -- he is so desperate to have this day end that even death looks like a good alternative to reliving the day for the 576th time. That's FUNNY. But when the characters do something and have this very self-aware look like, "Ha-ha I just made a funneh aren't I so funny? Laugh at me!" it just really doesn't work. Jim Carey, who I think is a great actor and great comedian, is occasionally guilty of this and I think it's the director's fault and the editor's fault. He will do a lot of really random stuff, some of which is absolutely hilarious, Carey being Carey, but it's up to the director to tell him when it's too much or at least not let it make the final cut. If he tries TOO hard for laughs it makes you cringe. It's like a bad standup routine.

So I don't care how "in" it is to make random comedy where nothing need make sense "as long as it's funny," that's just not my philosophy of humor and in general it doesn't work. Isolated exceptions like The Hangover don't prove that it's a viable way to make a funny film, they just prove that every element must come together perfectly for it to be funny (and even The Hangover is hit-and-miss; they could have used an editor who understands that comedies shouldn't be 2 hours long when they have no deeper message than "don't get drunk in Vegas" -- that's a 90 minute film, max, the unrated is 108 which is way too long; I was surprised to see it's that short, it feels longer, which is why I don't think it's very well edited).

The point is I think you have to make what you want and what you believe in, and not try to follow market trends or focus on what is going to sell. That's a sure way to lack the passion needed to finish a great film. And I don't care what anyone in producing or marketing or film says, a great film will ALWAYS, ALWAYS sell. There is always room for a great movie in the marketplace. I just figured at the end of the day, if I make a really good movie that I'm happy with, at least I'll have that much, rather than making a film just because I think the market will pick it up, and if that doesn't happen I am left wondering what might have been if I showed what I can really do and what really interests me rather than just selling out. ;)

PS: I love horror movies too, I'm just not going to do one until I have a script I love that seems like something I can pull off and make fantastic. I'm not in love with the idea that if I make a horror film I'm expected to have guts, buckets of blood, and boobies. I know those are somewhat "genre staples" but many great horror films were made without any of those elements besides maybe light blood. Some black and white horror films are still far better than most of what is made today. Blood doesn't bother me at all, by the way, as far as in movies, that's great and it should be there and it adds realism, but do I NEED to see a zombie pulling a guy's entrails out and eating them? I'm sorry, I really don't. That's not scary it's just gross, and I don't personally like being grossed out -- my friend Erik sends me enough horrible links to every grotesque thing on the Internet ;)
 
Jonathan, even though as far as philosophy of life goes you are right, in practice you are wrong. Great film most likely will NOT sell. Let me use Budweiser beer as an example. I don't think you will find one person who will say that this is a great tasting beer but pretty much everyone will at least say that the beer is OK. Now you might wonder then how can it be that a beer that's just OK hold 50% of US market? Well, it's because the beer tastes just OK and not GREAT not in spite (plus some clever advertising). If the beer was "great" then for everyone that loves the beer there would be a person who potentially hates the very same beer. Now, this is not something that big corps really want. A great beer, an original idea, an outstanding something- anything will create as many friend as enemies while stuff that's just OK will not necessary create rave reviews but it will also stay in the safe territory that doesn't create enemies. Now with clever adverting if you can convince the public that the beer (or anything for that matter) is great (remember we are talking about the image of greatness not the taste!) then the money will follow.

In other words it's not the product that counts but how you sell it.
 
Chamber005 said:
This seems like an odd question. If you're doing work for hire, the same as the boom op, lighting tech, etc. you're being hired to do a job. I guess I just can't imagine a boom op saying "I don't know how I feel about doing sound for a horror picture."


this is a fair point, my day to day work is TVC's, and I would never turn a tv commercial down, because it pays my bills.
but directing my own stuff is a bit different.
up till now it's been funded by me, and for the passion of it.

but, id really like to chase the dream and make directing features a real job.

Also John, i totally disagree with your take on TV directing, Ok so most tv shows are awful and formulaic, but what about Deadwood? or the Wire?
I count those two series's as masterworks in their own right. equal to any feature, and surpassing most.
Obviously it's down to overall attention to detail, and the skill in the writing. However you cannot discount the skill of the directors involved.
They steer the boat, and ultimately its up to them, when to move on to the next shot. They have to judge if the tension, and relationships between the actors is working.
undoubtedly the most important factor of all.


People will always judge directors, on what type of things they have worked on.
for instance Tarantino turned down "men in black", and "speed".

probably because he thought it would not benefit his reputation.
but once you have written and directed a couple of master pieces, that have world wide acclaim, you can do that.
but if the producer came up to him while he was working in the video store, and said 'hey you wanna direct speed' would he have said yes?

who knows....
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Well here's some advice from an old fart ...

My experience has taught me a couple of things.

1. If you really want to live the dream, find the thing where both your guts and your heart say YES. Everything else is just you with nothing better to do.

2. Do those things that are good for you AND make you happy. Lots of things that are good for you but don't make you happy, there is no way you have the will power to make that last (think how many times you've started & stopped diets, exercise, life changing projects, all good for you, but in the end, if they didn't make you happy, you won't continue). The flipside there are lots of things make you happy, but aren't good for you, (and yeah that can be a whole lot of fun), but it won't last either. Find those things in your life that are good for you AND make you happy - if both of those are true, you'll find that those things sustain themselves, with almost no effort from you. The best part is not only do they sustain themselves, they will sustain you too.

Well there you go, a couple of farts for you.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top