What do you work with? Any thoughts on career choice?

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Oller Visuals

Well-known member
I've done some freelance video work and it was OK, but not great. I'm a creative person and do like business, but it was so much more than that... found it to be stressful in a bad way.

"I want to direct Hollywood movies" is what motivated me as a kid, and still does. That's the thing; I've done experiemental films, a couple serious short films & corporate video work and the one thing that actually interests me is telling stories with images. Being the boss behind the camera. Working with actors. All the other stuff (including cinematography) was fun a few years ago... now it's more like, yeah I know my way around, but now I want to direct. Tell stories. I'm not a camera geek anymore.

And while "work hard & get a foot in the door" applies to most careers... does it really to the world of filmmaking? I mean, REALLY? Look at all these new directors popping out of nowhere... I get the impression that today's Hollywood producers do very much indeed hunt for the next big talent, instead of spending money on a famous director that is far from certain to make another hit. How many directors have streaks of financial hits? There's so many examples of directors that got to make a big film and then disappeared. You are very, very replaceable in this business (in the wake of #meetoo, how many big names have now exactly zero upcoming projects on imdb? Yeah... you might have special sought-after talent in other businesses, but here people are lining up to fill your spot).

Currently I've decided to pursue a career in IT, at the same time planning & working on my feature film. Either it becomes a massive Youtube hit, or it gets 5/10 on imdb and I become another movie director passed into history. Because I'm thinking that if I have what it takes, then that one single film with many years of planning & hard work behind it will be enough.

Do you work in this business, and what do you do?
 
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Oller Visuals said:
I'm a creative person and do like business, but it was so much more than that... found it to be stressful in a bad way.
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Then you won't want to be a major feature director. Think about someone spending $100 million-plus on a movie you are directing that has to come in on budget and on time. Talk about stress. I worked at a major feature house. The hours and stress are non-stop; way beyond anything in a normal stressfull 60-70hr/week job. It takes a major toll on your life. Now that I am out of that facility, just trying to have lunch with my former colleagues takes two or three months to find a time when we can all get together for an hour.
 
Paul F said:
Then you won't want to be a major feature director. Think about someone spending $100 million-plus on a movie you are directing that has to come in on budget and on time. Talk about stress.
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Nah, that's something else. I'm talking about "do I have food on the table tomorrow?" kind of stress.

I love pressure. But scrapping enough money to feed yourself as a freelancer is not something I find joyful.
 
There is no easy answer but your proposed approach will not get you there.

If you can’t not make films, you’ll have a difficult time. That’s different than “want to.”

Best way is to get noticed, which is easier and harder than anything today.

Don’t pour everything into one project. You’ll fail. Quality actually emerges out of quantity, and success tends to follow an exponential curve, not a massive leave.

“Make something you love.” Make it short and achievable. Do it 100 times.

For me I did it getting paid. Make a video for some boring company and make it like your life depends on it. Turn it with passion into something you love. This isn’t a metal factory. It’s one small part of a larger machine making everything in the world better, and the owner or an employee has a crazy story. Tell it in 2 minutes like it’s your feature film and magnum opus. Do it for free at first if you need to.

Make a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff you love. Do it like your life depends on it. Use the momentum to reposition yourself a little bit at a time, continually, until you are where you want to be.
 
I have a career in IT, and that's what puts food on the table for me. Filmmaking and my other creative pursuits were something that in a large part happened because I was getting burned out on software engineering (which I love), and needed something to help balance things out for me.

I started out last year doing it at work (yeah, I was "that guy" doing corporate video work on the side inside of my company), but eventually convinced my company to get someone professional to do the work. It was great experience, but it wasn't my place to be putting myself in the position of a professional. I'm thankful the reality check a few folks here gave me on that :)

One thing I've learned here, I'm under no illusions that I'll ever be as experienced or skilled as those on this forum that I have immense respect for who do this for their actual living. By accepting that, I have a much better perspective on what's going to be realistic for me to achieve with this pursuit. But hey, that still doesn't stop me from enjoying the gear!

Right now my current project is a short documentary on the strange phenomenon of bones from chicken wings discarded everywhere on the sidewalks where I live, and the impact on people in the neighborhood who walk their dogs :)
 
Directing a film is a LOT of work, a lot of stress, and many headaches. Location scouts, trying to secure actors, meetings and more meetings, endless phone messages and emails that need to be answered, many people needing answers and decisions from you, having to delegate tasks, dealing with moody actors and the politics of a studio, and on and on and on. No thank you. I can’t see where it would be very enjoyable. Looking in from the outside it seems like a nightmare. Oh, and I left out having to watch critics savage your work. Or being crushed when the public doesn’t respond, the film flops, and you forever have that failure hanging around your neck. Sorry, but you have to be a masochist and a lot nuts to want to be a film Director.
 
Sounds like heaven. I guess I need to be a director. Then again, being a director is one of like five jobs that everyone has a dream to be at least one of. If you don't want to be a director, you want to be a rock star, a famous novelist, the president of a company, etc., depending on your individual interests.

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I should amend what I said by saying that being a Director isn't for me. God speed to those who Direct or want to Direct. But I'm fine with being an Owner / Op Cameraperson.

When I said, partly in jest, that you'd have to be a masochist to want to be a film Director, that wasn't said in ignorance. That is to say, I have watched many, many feature film Directors at work. Over 50 of them at last count. I've shot Directors at work for behind-the-scenes content. On some films I was "imbedded". I was on set every day of the principle photography. On a few films I followed the Director around during pre-production as well. Sometimes I've even had a Director mic'd up with a wireless mic and as a result I was privy to their conversations and conflicts. I have to imagine that they do indeed enjoy being a Director or else they wouldn't do it. But, lord, if they don't have a lot on their plate and they are always being pulled in different directions. When people say that they want to be a Director, I have to wonder whether they actually know what being a Director entails and what it is like to be a Director. I wonder whether or not they have any idea as to what a maddening, hair-pulling, pressure-cooked, relentless, and unhappy experience being a Director often is. But on the other hand there is the reward of seeing your vision come to life on screen. Even if only on Youtube or Vimeo.
 
To be fair there's probably a difference between being the director on a $200 million studio film and something you self-financed/crowd-funded for $20,000 or whatever. I mean, sure, SOME of that stuff will always be the same, but there's no way it's exactly the same experience.
 
Josh Bass said:
To be fair there's probably a difference between being the director on a $200 million studio film and something you self-financed/crowd-funded for $20,000 or whatever. I mean, sure, SOME of that stuff will always be the same, but there's no way it's exactly the same experience.
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Possibly the stress is not as great when you have a smaller budget. When you are Directing a film with a $200 million budget and the production can afford just about anything you could want as a Director, you have few excuses. And with all that money riding on it the pressure is that much greater to not only break even but turn a profit. I've worked on some mega-budget films that turned out to be dogs. And the crew knew full well midway through production, if not earlier, that the film was going to bomb. One recent such film was quite stormy. Another one was hexed.
 
I am sure. Didn't Peter Jackson drop a ton of weight during the Lord of the Rings trilogy shoot (wasn't he shooting all 3 simultaneously, supervising like 7 camera crews? Insane.)? Yes I agree at that level, not for me either. A smaller movie, sketch TV show, episodic TV (something like the Office?) Maybe. This whole thing is supposed to be FUN, after all. Let us not lose sight of that.

Sorta off topic but I have read that is often difficult to tell, for the crew, during a shoot whether a movie is going to suck. There's just so much going on and what the crew experiences is only a small part of it (they may not see/know about script rewrites, edit decisions ,etc. etc. that destroy a movie that might have had potential). Plus the shooting out of story order, etc.
 
JPNola said:
I have watched many, many feature film Directors at work. Over 50 of them at last count. I've shot Directors at work for behind-the-scenes content. On some films I was "imbedded". I was on set every day of the principle photography. On a few films I followed the Director around during pre-production as well. Sometimes I've even had a Director mic'd up with a wireless mic and as a result I was privy to their conversations and conflicts.
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Sounds like a dream. Not for the celebrity gossip, but just to learn. How they direct actors is still my weakest point.
 
The best thing about being a director is that your chances of your movie being a success are very small. So after you put everything you had into it and you are exhausted you get the rewards of a failed film. I'm speaking at the commercial level. Of course, one can get great satisfaction from doing your own project.
 
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