How do you know if an idea is good enough?

"This sounds a little too much like a recipe for quantity over quality to me."" Not saying the former describes you, but just saying..."
Fair enough, Ted, I'd love for you to see (and judge for yourself) a short film I wrote very quickly that was directed by an actor you can see on HBO currently. The producer/director are just starting the festival submission process so it will be a while before they post it on dvxuser/you tube but I am more than willing to arrange (not in Texas currently) for you or anyone else on the forum to see the film in downtown Austin Texas.
 
lambert said:
"This sounds a little too much like a recipe for quantity over quality to me."" Not saying the former describes you, but just saying..."
Fair enough, Ted, I'd love for you to see (and judge for yourself) a short film I wrote very quickly that was directed by an actor you can see on HBO currently. The producer/director are just starting the festival submission process so it will be a while before they post it on dvxuser/you tube but I am more than willing to arrange (not in Texas currently) for you or anyone else on the forum to see the film in downtown Austin Texas.
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I'd love to see it, or anything else you've written, but I'm pretty far away here, in NYC. When it comes out on DVXU I hope you'll find a way to let me know and I'll be happy to look at it and offer my feedback if you'd like.

Regarding my previous comments, concerning artists in general, there certainly is a subset of them that are 'quick study' types, who can do great things right off the cuff, and these types are usually conversely not very good at protracted, meticulous efforts. But that doesn't detract from the excellent quality of their work. It's just another temperament. I happen to be generally of the meticulous type, and there are plenty of those who consistently produce crap as well, so neither camp owns the franchise on success. But as general advice for writers, I wouldn't suggest the quick study approach, because *very* few have the ability to do that at all well, and most will do much better when they work harder at it and 'hold their feet to the fire' on an ongoing basis.

I truly envy the great 'quick studies' though. What a gift to be able to sit down and in a fraction of the time it takes us meticulous types, turn out something of real beauty. I wish I could be like that...for about a month...then get to choose whether to stay that way or return to my old meticulous self : ) Dream on...

Back to your work though, if you'd like to PM me one of your scripts in the meantime, I'd be my pleasure to read it and offer whatever insights on it I can.

Cheers!
 
Michael Wisniewski said:
I agree with the idea no one really knows.
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I don't. That well-worn fact that Hollywood studios have made massive blunders in choosing what or what not to release does not invalidate their skill at making such choices. If you were to look astutely at their overall hit/miss ratio over time I think you would find that the overwhelming preponderance of greenlight/redlight decisions were good ones. Probably 90% or more. A 10% error rate does not constitute "not really knowing [what they're doing]" in my book. Think major league baseball players - Ted Williams had the highest on-base percentage of all time at .482. That's less than half the time. So an over 50% 'failure rate' pretty much sounds like he sucked, right? Nuh-uh...

Concluding it's all a crapshoot where filmmaking is concerned is, IMHO, nothing more than a conscious, willing abdication of responsibility for your work. Quality *does* matter, and skilled, talented people *do* succeed at a vastly higher rate than those who lazily churn out crap and then blame their failure on other people "not getting it" or whatever...

Take a look at James Cameron's career story (or Tarantino, or Spielberg, or Hitchcock, or any number of others) and in particular his approach to mastering the craft of filmmaking, and the relentless, near-obsessive pursuit of quality in his work from start to finish. The mega-success of "Titanic" and "Avatar" shouldn't be all that terribly surprising if you do...
 
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