Will film even matter?

Sun

Sun

Carbonite Member
In a thousand years will anybody care about anything I filmed? no I know. What I'm I doing then? What's the point of making something so temporal its value is nil by the end of our lives. I don't care about commercial value here. Plato survive because he had something to say, Lao Tzu had something to say and has survived two thousands plus years and will survive two thousand more. What do modern film makers have to compare? Are we just calligraphers and book keepers? Text and words are more robust than movie images and that is what we are replacing. If the planets reset button gets hit, what would survive of this craft? What are we doing here?
 
Geez, Louise.... I just figured that filmmaking beats working for a living and would be a great way to meet chicks.
 
Neither of your cited examples wrote for us, they wrote for their contemporaries. That their writings continued to have relevance beyond their era is either happenstance or the fact they helped to shape the future. So write for today and your dreams of tomorrow. Of course it helps if you can draw a cult of followers to promote your work for time immemorial, whether they be religious, academic or politic.
 
Haha, I thought the same thing when I joined a band but turns out you have to be handsome too, damn! (although a smart woman notices strong dexterous bass fingers!) :Drogar-Dum(DBG):
 
I kinda think you do your best, and if by luck the 'best' you do reaches a level where it sticks around, then great. But I guess in the end it's all about doing what makes you happy, so, in a nutshell, screw the critics and their stamp of approvals lol

Although it would be nice to be ready to move on from here and look back and know what you did will have a lasting impact... Guess all we can do is live in the moment and try our hardest? Dunno
 
Filmmaking is relatively young (in comparison to your examples). It's going to be a long time before we hit a thousand years for film, so there's no telling what'll happen. Hell, a thousand years is a long time! The way I see it: All the stuff that's stuck around so far has been original and boundary pushing in one way or another. Bad Boys won't be around for a thousand years, but I'd like to think that Momento will. So, if you want your stuff to stick around then make it as original as possible. The risk with doing this is that our current-day audience will probably reject you and you won't live to see your own success. Citizen Kane was considered a flop back then, but look at it now...

David G. Smith said:
Geez, Louise.... I just figured that filmmaking beats working for a living and would be a great way to meet chicks.
Click to expand...

You know, this has surprisingly worked for me a few times. Lets have a quick analysis:

When you're not a filmmaker:
- Friends introduce you to chicks. You're a normal (and not handsome) bloke. It usually ends there...

When you're a filmmaker (batteries not included):
- Friends introduce you as a filmmaker. The conversation begins, you see, because people enjoying hearing about something that isn't "normal". There's also an association of glamour with filmmaking, which also attracts the babes.
 
I doubt very much that the writers who spoke to the ages actually thought they were speaking to the ages at the time. They just did what they did.

I would also bet that trying to speak to the ages is one of the most frustrating activities imaginable. Not least because no one likes someone who tries too hard.
 
The Greats write of the essentials of the human condition, which of course can be set in a more pedestrian setting, but still look at deeper truths.
 
Nothing really matters if you're going to get cosmic about. Our lives are short and insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I just worry about mattering to the people around me...I will say that as we move into the digital age, films will become even less permanent. A reel of film, properly preserved, will probably last much longer than digital information. It's a physical object that can be looked at with the naked eye. A bunch of ones and zeroes encoded on a drive, even if it does survive the millennia uncorrupted, may not make sense to a future civilization. Remember Plato and Aristotle and all those greats probably survived not only because of their ideas, but because their words were written in stone or parchment, which are extremely durable.
 
For me and some others I know, I would say it's not just about the finished product. Its about the process and going through the motions of making a film. As that can be as rewarding as watching the finished product. Especially when your , "you're own worst critict". I get what your saying though. when you think about it like that, you can come up with many reasons why it wouldn't matter. Even if you make a film for future generations of your own family it's worth it in my eyes. Heck I always loved watching old 8mm, and slides of family. So when I'm dead and gone, at least my great great grand kids will have something to check out when they all get together.
 
I wonder how many better writings were created but didn't survive. Maybe the were lost when the Library of Alexandria was destroyed? Maybe Plato had a neighbor named Ralph who was a truly deep thinker but wasn't good at selling himself so his writings eventually crumbled into dust without many people having known about them?
 
This thread sounds more like you need approval and acceptance by the masses to feel like you've done something important in life. With this attitude you'll most likely never be happy with anything you've done, and you'll just consistently be depressed.

Being happy with what you do is about reaching goals, and accomplishing them. Setting a goal like "I want to create something that matters and will last for the next 100 years" is setting yourself up for constant failure. Even if you manage to create something that does, you'll probably still not be happy, thinking you're work isn't up to par.

Small goals, and achieving those goals are what should give you self-worth. If people can be happy working in an office, raising a family, getting married, certainly doing something you love like film is icing on the cake. Put your life in perspective.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top