SACRIFICE

FILMMAKER PROBLEMS

I hear a lot of talk about the “distribution problem”. In fact, I hear filmmakers talk about lots of problems as they try to make a career in this biz. Dont’ get me wrong, MOST of the people I hear are great, positive, like the people I follow on twitter. The people I follow on twitter, facebook are GREAT! But I hear a lot of negative shit in forums, interviews, the industry in general. This is my reaction to all this.

I dont know, maybe I am from another planet, but when was it EVER easy to make a living in the movie business!. Beside the acting profession, its one of the toughest biusiness to break into in the world. I dont mean making one or two movies either. I am talking about making a “career”. To pull it off, you have to be a BRILLIANT problem solver. Thats what filmmaking is also about. If you can’t accept that, your fucked!

It also takes tremendous dedication to make a career in this biz. You need the heart of a poet, the skin of an alligator, and the mind of a general.  I think because we all have access to the production kit so easy, and we have skipped that long apprentice others done in the past, we think we deserve to get rewards overnight. Most people that get overnight shit, have the life expectancy of a house fly!

PAST FILMMAKERS STRUGGLES

Take Peter Jacksons first film “Bad Taste”. It took him four years to shoot it on film, financed from his job. Most of the top film directors today never got it easy or overnight.  In the last 10 years or more, its been a lot easier for us to show our talent because of low cost production kit. Thats not a major problem like it was for them in the past.

Ok, we know most micro budget films don’t set the world on fire, but thats not really what they are made for. Chris Nolan never made the £10,000” “Following” to have a mainstream hit, or to show a calling card for “The Dark Knight” Most people never saw it. The same with El Mariachi, and countless others.

First films should be made as part of our long apprenticship of your craft. They are a vehicle to use to get us out there, so we can then show our passion to financers, industry. They are also a series of mistakes, in the hope that one day you will be good enough to do this as a career! If I can make a handful of great films in my life, and pay the rent along the way, I am happy.

“OVERNIGHT” SOCIETY

In todays society, everybody wants their first film/s to be a hit! A vehicle to transport them into fame and fortunes overnight. The “Paranormnal Activity’s”, “Blair Witch’s” come along once in a while. Films like that can be a flash in the pan for filmmakers careers. Its a bit of luck. And in some cases, they can be a curse for the filmmakers. What have the blair filmmakers and actors done since! Not much, because it was not great writing talent, just great marketing.

Those films could easily have went unoticed. On a whole, we should have the attitude that we want to turn our passion, hobby, into a career one day. Lots of us delude ourselves that because we have made a film or two, then we have arrived now. And are frustrated because we are not getting the rewards that the others that have arrived seem to get. Personally, I am just a spark after two small films.

MAKE YOUR PASSION, HOBBY YOUR CAREER

I am learning, finding my way slowly to an audience, industry recogniation. In the meantime, we should be celebrating that we have access to make movies very easily to show our “potential”. In a way though, its not breeding tough motherfuckers, like the directors from the past had to be. Although maybe this so called Marketing & distribution problem will seperate the doers from the moaners.

To make a “career” out of this biz, not a single “film”, requires that you be a very tough and sensitive human being. I don’t see that in 90% of filmmakers, and people that want to be filmmakers. I only see people that want “The Dream” The dream will turn into your nightmare unless you wake up to the real world. Its ironic to make a career in fantasy, you have to be ultra real!

THE INTERNET

A little thing called the web came along just fairly recently. I mean we are only talking like 10/15 years!  Its still fricking amazing to me that I have a website where I can sell dvd’s from direct to people. Not only that, you can show your trailer, pitch, make videos. Fuck! I mean this is sci fi shit that you can broadcast a tv show from your home if you like. You can plug out movies from your office!

Now I know I might sound as if I have just walked out of a time machine, monastry or a fucking prison! But its my way of “Keeping things in perspective” of what we DO have, and not what we DON’T have. We all take this shit way too much for granted

I see it everybody as people get used to the technology, but then everything is (siighhh) still a problem! Remember, you want to be a filmmaker, you should eat up problems for fucking breakfast! Its the challenge to pull off the impossible thats fun!

If we don’t see it as a challenge, we become, or sound like victims! Instead of creatives with AMAZING opportunties. Maybe thats because we are a society that see people get overnight shit. Not many people create because they HAVE to, its seems its just a vehicle for many to “make it”. And Fast! But overnight careers dont last long! Why? If you have no passion in you for what you do, you have NO chance.

ONLINE VIDEO

Back to the point! Great video bandwidth comes along recently! I mean like 4 years!  It changes our video from postage stamp size, to full screen broadcast quality, and now hd. We can stream, create our own digital downloads in almost every format for a lot of devices, and sell them direct from our website. So we dont even need to get into Itunes.

There are many ways now, and many ways coming ahead to get our content delivered. I can hardly believe this shit is happening! And its just getting better and better. Ok, I will get to the negative shit too, as I know a lot of people want to remind me of that. I’m there! Bare with me! I will address the “problems”

SOCIAL MEDIA

Now social media comes along, and we can market to anybody in the world. We can partner with affillates that match our demographic, and get them to market our film too. We can create viral campaigns, do tours that are linked to video.OK, this takes some money, very hard work, focus, but welcome to the film biz!

Nobody says its easy, but its still easier than it was for the pioneers! Some people might say, ohh, but they had distribution! Well, if you made a shit hot film today, then you can still get that major distribution deal too. Paranormnal Activity has proved that. Fact is, most people don’t make films that Hollywood want. Again, welcome to the real world!

My head hurts every night with the amount of possibilties we have, and this is WITHOUT getting permission, acceptance form the industry. All this, and the internet is still in its “infancy”! Around the corner, it will be the norm to have the TV/Computer all as one.

It will be the norm to watch content on mobile devices direct from filmmakers sites. It will be the norm for you do get thousands of direct orders from fans, if you have worked your ass of to find them over years!

Filmmakers, content creators as a whole like to think they have a vision, but a lot are blind when it comes to biz, and predicting what lies ahead. Ok, that includes me, I am no smart arse, but I am rapidly waking up to the possibilties, after I got my head out of my navel.

Bill gates & Steve Jobs had a vision in the 70’s. They could see the computer home market today, in every home. Thats almost jedi mind shit that they could see that, that they could predict what we would want, how computers would serve us in our everyday lives.  And yet, look at how far we are at, and us filmmakers can’t see the models that lie ahead! Jesus! We need to turn ourselves inside out and look at the online with fresh eyes.

MAKING MONEY, PIRACY, FREE SOCIETY

Ok, I said I would get to the negative shit! Although I still cant see it! But others do see the negatives, so will address.  We know this biz has changed drastically. But lets get real, its probably a positive thing for most of us, because without digital technology in production, post, the web, social media, most of us would be lucky to even make a film. And if we did, most of us would not become overnight sensations, get careers. Talent is not always apparent after one film. It can take many films, thanks to technology, we can make many films cheaply.

At least with the way things are today, we can ALL make a film. Several! We can ALL get it seen by the majors if we are the next Tarantino. If we are not major talent at this time, at least we can continue to practise, grow an audience, even make a living from it. And the hard workers can be very successful building personal brands. Financed by audiences, brand partners industry, whatever.

PIRACY PROBLEM

Here is an article about Lauren Luke: The Self-Made Makeup Maven of Youtube.

Her youtube channel here

Her website here

What’s the point? What does this have to do with filmmaking?

Lauren Luke gave her youtube face make-up tips for free. She shared her passion, skills, and now she sells her branded products to a global market. She is now ready to do a US tour to promote her personal brand. All from her bedroom in newcastle, started with nothing!! The free content launched her to these other revenue platforms. They kick started a personal brand.

Whether you make youtube videos that are beneficial to people, or movies, I think the key is to get as many people as possible aware of your work. Even if that means they are pirated. I have woke up to that recently. I am preparing, gearing up to getting my work out there better. It takes time because of a lack of cash, but thats a problem I can solve very soon.

INDIE FILMS WORTHLESS

In my personal humble opinion, indie films will no longer be worth shit very very soon. We could almost say we are already there. Ok, Lauren Lukes home videos did not cost the price of a movie to produce them. They are no budget youtube videos that are made fast, and given free.

As filmmakers starting out, we should also be coming up with inexpensive films to show our talent, kick start our personal brands. I think its fundimentally important to be able to tell a story for a very low cost, so that you can afford to experiment with it, or give it away for free. So it takes you to the next level.

Its all the other areas that we earn from, like Luke is doing. Merchandise, building our mailing list audience, brand partnerships, books, spin off graphic novels. Its all detailed and articulated better at the diy days video here. I get it, I see it. I am personally about to embrace it all in the new year.

I don’t see the problems. I dont see any problems, just opportunties. The ones that always see the problems, always will, even if it was all perfectly set up. The filmmakers that will make films for a “career”, who make a decent living inside or outside the industry, are the filmmakers that also get biz savvy, create great marketing campaigns out of nothing, and they will also be the ones who worked a 100 times harder.

Make no mistake about it, a lot of filmmakers have been content to make their film and hand it over to others for years. If thats your attitude, get into another biz now. Fast! Unless you have a talent that can get Hollywood calling you at the start. And even at that, you better be able to make 3D blockbusters, as that is what Hollywood will beknow for soon.

This is now like any biz. You set up a candy store, you have to sell and market that candy too now!! We have to get out of the mindset that we just “create”. Distribution and marketing is tough, but the infrastucture is there to do it for FREE! It all comes down to who will give up their lives for this biz, and work 24/7 on it to building their careers! Gathering one supporter at a time if need be.

COMMUNITY HELP

I know we are all trying to help each other solve problems, Whats the best way to do it. Thats cool. Its great we are all sharing, but it can also come to a point where we all just need a boot up the arse too. I know how to do it, but I see one major problem. I need to dedicate my LIFE to it 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. I already have came to that, so that is solved now.

Thanks for reading, listening to my rant! :0)

David

PS Please WAKE THE FUCK UP PEOPLE!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8

FOLLOW FRIDAY THANK YOU MESSAGE

David

www.missionx.co.uk

@indiemoviemaker

www.deathmovie.co.uk