where have the filmmakers gone?

Thanks again to all of you who've shared your thoughts on this topic. Some of you have been here longer than I have, and some of you are more recent members. But we value what you guys think, and hopefully we'll be able to address some of the ideas you've given us. Cheers!
 
I'm still making films. Shorts, writing features, and trying to fund bigger projects. I make movies because I enjoy telling stories and I enjoy the process. I'm just not active here anymore because I don't have time. I'm fortunate enough to live in the countryside and work for an organization doing film and video work overseas. When I have free time, I want to spend it creating my personal projects or doing something physical like parkour, not being constantly engaged in a forum like I used to. I check back here from time to time and what really made me lose interest is the User Film section. I used to love all the threads about how someone created their video. At one time, my thread for Rise of the Beast was even in the top ten for views and replies. But now, it seems the User Film section has become a catch all for "watch my short". Meh. There are still a few good production threads, but not many it seems. That's sad because it does appear like there is still a lot of good work being produced and I'd like to know how they did it. But if someone is just going to post a "We shot this on XYZ and had no money, so give us feedback" and link to a video, I'm not inclined to do so because people that post a short blurb and a link typically don't want feedback, they just want views and to be told how great their work is.
 
Not all of us here are "filmmakers".
I'm mostly a post production guy these days, though I've had a twenty something year career shooting everything from TV, snowboard movies, music videos, segment producing, directing, FX work, and even acted in a TV show once. I've worked on festival shorts, docs, and can't even remember how much else. I suppose I've got a career inside of the filmmaking industry, but I don't know that I'd really consider myself a filmmaker. Does that make me a second class forum member? I pick up a lot of useful info and I have enough experience to share where I can, and thanks to render times I can cruise the boards pretty regularly.
I'd guess that a lot of the other forum members fall outside of this narrow notion of the filmmaker too. Wedding shooters, news crews, music video, reality TV, there's so much more than just the narrative short and the feature. The thing that ties a lot of us together is having to use the tools to get the job done, and then to figure out how to do it better. That's where DVXuser has been great. I'm not surprised that it's moved more towards that as it's been pretty good at it (various brand fanboys rants not withstanding).
I doubt that a lot of the directors and filmmakers I work with spend much, or even any time on this type of forum. They don't seem to care too much about the minutiae of camera sensors as long as their DPs and techs do. They also don't seem to discuss their process and their projects outside of their peer group either. Once their work is released, there is some discussion but even that seems more to be about PR and promotion than really seeking any feedback or discussion.
I certainly do appreciate film and narrative work, and I'd love to see more of it here, but I don't think we're going to see Wes Anderson drop his new short film here. What we will see is the guy who was a PA for a couple weeks on a Wes Anderson movie post a zombie short here after going back and forth over what camera he should get to shoot it. That's fine. It's better than fine, it's awesome.
I'm not sure where I'm even going with all this, but just that at the end of the day is it so bad that a forum became a real go to source for how to gear up to make a short instead of the place where people talk about their scripts?
 
yes but i think the original point of the thread was that even the amateur/low end filmmakers werent posting or discussing much work here, let alone the big shots.
 
I'm still here. I just wrapped on a film of my own that I wrote and directed. I work professionally as a cinematographer and editor. It's not all I do to pay the bills but I am more dedicated to film making than anything else. I don't know that posting my work here is all that useful as a writer, director and film maker. I don't think of dvxuser as a place to work on story, or look for feedback on it. I don't believe it would be all that productive. I've just never gotten that this is a good place to work that out.

What this forum could really do really well is expand it's breadth in the area of cinematography. The absolute best so far is CharlesPapert on his setups for Key and Peele and now Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. That's where the gear and the art mix nicely on this forum - setups, exposure technique, technical stuff but in a better detail. I'd be excited to share more of my work in this way, screen grabs and lighting techniques, etc., and have at various times when our interests intersected.

I also appreciate that many of our members are engaged in other types of shooting besides cinema such as shooting events and they have different needs technically and aesthetically and so it's good to keep those conversations going. I learn a lot from them too.

I owe a tremendous debt to dvxuser. I've learned an awful lot here and it has really helped me develop as a cinematographer, much less as a writer and director.

As to why there are fewer film makers here, I don't know. It's not for the faint-hearted. It takes more than it gives, and it takes a lot.
 
Last edited:
I hate to say this but technology has always been a driving force in film since it began. Sound? What? You'll ruin the actor's expressions if they speak! Color!? Black and white is cheaper and more dramatic! Technology comes first and then the artist finds uses for it.

I used to belong to another forum that focused on vintage life, and there are some really informed amateur historians out there that notice every detail in clothing, cars, radios, movies, etc. But then there's the crowd that talks about nothing but how much more style the days gone by had than our current society. Craftsmanship, regardless of what, is something worth talking about because it's part of understanding the advancements of our time, the limitations of invention, and how it reflects our society.

If one were to begin with an image and break that image down, listing the steps that were taken to get to that result, such as the camera, the lighting set up, the lights, the sound equipment, the subject & camera blocking, etc. How they all mold into the result, we're putting technology & art into perspective. Then asking how the result drives the story, it brings meaning to a discussion about something like 4:20 color space vs 4:22 color space.
 
Last edited:
I'm glad to see the regulars here. I had to take some time off, but I'm looking to get back into things now that life is a little more normal. :beer:
 
In 'honor' of this thread, I forced my self to participate in a 48 Hour Film Project sponsored event called Four Points Film Project. It was entirely online in terms of registration, and receiving the mission statement, as well as submissions.

For each timezone the participants were given their mission at 7 pm Friday and had to create a film, and send a MD5 fingerprint of their work, by 11:59 pm Monday, so it was really a 77 Hour film project...

In any case all uploads of the documents and media had to complete by 12 pm Tuesday. If the MD5 finger print did not match the submitted media... the film would be excluded...

I submitted my MD5 fingerprint at about 11:55 pm... no time like the last minute... I was in the process of uploading, but uplink speeds are far below the downlink, but every thing did complete by about 12:30 am...

I had tried to get a number of people to participate that I had worked with in the past... but every one was otherwise occupied. I put out a craigs list ad, and got a couple of hits, eventually the 'crew/cast' was 4 people, 3 of which worked all of the production activities for the weekend, the 4 had other obligations, so there was only one scene they participated in.

I did writing/camera/directing/acting, while the others acted or worked the boom, and camera when I was in the shot. (I'm not an actor... but heck, I'll do almost anything for the cause...).

I'll post it to the users film section when I am clear on when I can put it out for public consumption, or put a password on it when I upload it to Vimeo.

The biggest problems were shooting enough footage to put the story together... and sound. I wrote the script so sound was minimal in terms of dialog, there was a required line of dialog, but there was also sound effects, 'ambiance', etc. that needed to be included... which is why the 11:55 pm MD5 submission... I was tweaking these things till far later than I had wanted...

I shot with the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera, and I was pleased with the results... I did have to shoot at ISO 1600 and despite the 'noise' I'm ok with it. I didn't have time to run the denoiser filters I did purchase a while back... and probably will use them if I clean up the project to submit to some other fest, along with improving the sound. On the 'dialog' portions, I should have had the second actor in the scene run his performance for a series of second takes, with repositioning the mic to capture his dialog better... we were pressed for time, so my levels are 'sort of ok', but his are a bit anemic... c'est la vie...

I don't have a shotgun and it probably would have been the choice, and I'll probably add that to my sound equipment in the next year... I could have used wireless and lav's... if I had such equipment, but at the moment it is beyond my budget...
 
Released 1st feature film a few years after joining the forum, released 2nd last October, coming in on another to help get it geared up theatrical release next year, and a doc too. Day to day I've been helping market theatrical releases. Been a BUSY year in 2015. :) Looking forward to doing a short sometime soon here and writing another feature of my own, which I'll be sure to share when the time comes. DVXuser will always be special to me. I've learned a lot because of the generous folks who populate this place!
 
Same here. I joined this forum soon after I pacled up everything and moved from Kentucky to Los Angeles. The people I've met off this forum are still some of my best friends.

i learned a lot here.
ive also been crazy busy and generally don't have questions applicable here. I'm far less the gear afficianado and leave a lot of those decisions up to my crew now.
 
Easily the best thread on this message board in years. I'm glad to see a bunch of familiar names in this thread.

I learned a lot from DVXuser as well and really used it as an opportunity to grow and network and try to understand everything from gear to crew dynamics to how to make money in this industry.

I'll agree that gear discussion has very little interest for me these days as well - there are industry standard tools that I now get to use and like Matty_g, a lot of the decisions are made by my crew.

I don't have a lot of time to get into it right now, but I think it's important that we really try to help the "emerging" or "aspiring" filmmakers/storytellers - that was the spirit of the board when I started and feel that if it steered in that direction again, we'd be on the right path to making an impact.

I'm working primarily in commercials, but I am still always looking for my next narrative project - telling stories is by far the most fulfilling part of this craft for me (and I'm a producer!).

Happy to check back on this thread regularly to see if there's anyway that I can contribute to making this site a better place.

Kegan
 
Was just sent this thread by Drew Ott who I met on these boards which resulted in us becoming friends IRL. I can say without a doubt that these boards changed my life in a big way and I wouldn't be doing what I am doing now without them. I am guilty of not coming around as often as I once did. Life happens it seems. I too have grown very tired of all the gear lust. In my photography, I sold all my DSLRS and shoot with 2 fujis and manual focus Nikon lenses. I know it may be super hip or trendy at the moment. But I just wanted to slow the **** down and get back to why I started creating images in the first place. Having less options is sometimes more conducive to getting **** done.

It is a strange reality and filmmaking is ****ing hard. It is definitely not a lifestyle many people can successfully maintain and I think that was a hard lesson for the children of hippies that told us we could do anything we wanted in this life. It's not to say that we can't, but the struggle is very real.
 
I am still working on my stuff in the development stage for the most part. I'm also currently working gaffer on a webseries they are trying to pitch to some networks. We have a new episode shooting 1st weekend after new years. Their linkhttp://www.bailouttv.com/ I did not work on the 10 that are currently up.
 
I recently visited Austin and dropped by Stephen Mick's place where we had a short chat about the direction this site was, is now, and pondered as well where it will be, to stay relevant.
Having given it a bit of thought, I also think the site has become a mirror of ourselves as a collective. When it was started, it was sort of a club of excited and empowered group of new and some veteran film makers/cinematographers, events shooters, the DVX and XL cameras were giving "cinematic" tools to us who never thought we could afford them.

As years went by, we grew with the site, our skill set, our projects and jobs, some went on to greater heights faster than others, some stayed on doing what they do, albeit, more experienced and older than when they started. As more years passed, more and more new and younger members came in, and they are in where we were years ago, it was the dvx for us, then for them they came in with the canon/nikon dslr/ much later we now have the mirrorless crowd. That's 3 generations or even more.

I think we have, what family and society would call, a generation gap. It's always gonna be there. Older members would have different interests and goals than the "hungry" for success and idealistic young ones. I recall the path I also took when starting, I'd go for whiz bang glitter of effects and later went for subtlety and character driven materials, be it corporate or narrative. I think the film makers that started here are still around, there just not that noisy and impulsive as the younger new ones who are as excited with their new interchangeable/mirrorless/cmos bla bla bla toy as we were with the DVX/XL1 camera when it was new.

And as far as making films, we just screened a 40 min short I shot and edited to a paying audience, to a sold out theater, in Dallas last Month, and I have 3 scripts for consideration for early next year.

I wouldn't relegate the technical stuffs "to a corner", the toys will always be a fun and exciting part of the game, and we like toys, young and old. But I agree the areas for cinematography/lighting, storytelling, etc might need some injection of adrenaline.
Perhaps a reformat or a redesign of the site? I'd even dare to add, perhaps a re-branding of the site? DVXuser, is just a tech/camera centric name, so its expected to draw in crowds looking for info about cameras and tech than those looking for the other stuff involved in making films or videos.

Just my thoughts....
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top