Film Strategy

Filmmakers sacrifice alot for their art; their sleep, their bank account, their time, their family, their sanity, even their health. That is understandable to a degree since the need and desire to express yourself trumps the more rational necessities of life. But while filmmakers, as artists, might believe there is no limit, there really is and that is when you take someone's life in your hands. It feels morally repugnant to risk someone's life for art or money. But it happens in film. And the reality is that it has to happen. It has to happen because without taking risks you can't "get that shot" or "finish the film" or "make the fight scene look amazing." But because there are risks to making movies, the filmmaker has a sacred duty to do all within their power to minimize the risks.   What is truly morally repugnant is when a filmmaker risks someone's life without doing all in their power to minimize the risks. Accidents will alwa

How many times have you asked someone about a movie and they just said, "It was great!" or "It sucked!"? More times than you can count, I'm sure, in fact we all do it, even the person who writes a dissertation on the brutality in millenial horror films and French art cinema . There is nothing wrong with that per se since we don't always have the time or the interest to analyze a film.  BUT as budding filmmakers and lovers of cinema, it is worth the time to dig deep into a film that moves you to love it or hate it. We have all heard the stories of film directors who never went to film school but just watched tons of movies and learned everything they needed to know about directing and storytelling from that. Legendary screenwriting teacher, Syd Field, always recommends watching movies as part of his way to teach screenwriting. Advising filmmakers to watch movies to become better directors is nothing groundbreaking but it bears repeating. Howev

REPOSTED FROM MY OTHER BLOG: LENSATIC I have always admired the low-budget filmmaker who can make something beautiful or daring or entertaining with the tiniest budget.  Unfortunately, the low-budget filmmaker is not the rarity but the norm.  There is no shortage of filmmakers trying to create even if it means at negative cost to themselves because there is so much potential financial and personal reward in the end.  Maybe that's why the industry has been able to get away with paying nothing for highly creative and technical services and expensive equipment.  That's done more harm than good in the grand scheme of things.  That is why Charles Davis has done the industry a service by reporting on the internship abuse in the entertainment industry.  In a post for The Baffler, he  tracks and outs  the production companies that continue to perpetuate one of the worst practices of the film and TV industry: failing to pay workers a real wage by offering instead "pay on an

  The no-to-low budget director is a man of many hats and throughout the production, the director will, at different times and simultaneously, wear the writer's cap, the executive producer's top hat, the director's beret, the line producer's helmet, the editor's hood... hell maybe even the caterer's toque. This is simply a reflection of how a no-to-low budget forces one to do more with less and so the director becomes a hybrid doing many of the most important jobs on the set by himself.  In an otherwise standard or big budget production, the director would pass the head gear to someone else who can devote all their attention to that specific job at hand.  One of the most important jobs that a director MUST perform with a no-to-low budget production is the job of the line producer.  In fact, even when he can delegate to someone else, the director would still benefit from wearing the line producer's helmet. It's easy to imagine the line producer wear

One drawback of making shooting and editing technology accessible to the masses is that the field gets crowded with more filmmakers vying for the limited attention of audiences and clients.  And while technology has made the field more democratic, it hasn't leveled the pyramidic structure of the movie industry.  At the top of the movie industry are the titans like Spielberg, Lucas, Scorcese, Malick, Nolan and all the other A-list Hollywood filmmakers.  Below them are the top indie filmmakers like Spike Jonze, Wes Anderson, Jared Hess, Neill Blomkamp, Shane Carruth (you could also add the top directors in television, music videos, commercials and documentaries here). Below them are the filmmakers who have had their films appear in the top film festivals, at least once, and are in a good position to move up the pyramid with their next project.  Below them are the filmmakers who have a very good track record overall; a combination of lots of festival screenings, financiers willi

Trading Places | John Landis | 1983 | USA | Format: 35mm | 116 min  Business Insider gathered the recollections of director, John Landis ; writers, Tim Harris and Herschel Weingrod ; and, actress, Jamie Lee Curtis for what many consider one of the greatest Wall St. Movies ever made (I think they're right).  It's a fun and intriguing look at how a great comedy was made even though it seems like no one expected it to be a great comedy while it was being made.  However, I think that's more due to modesty because as you read their accounts, besides the fact that it seems like everyone was having a ball working on this, you pick up an essential element of their filmmaking strategy; they trusted their instincts even when the naysayers and higherups did not .  They were a talented bunch but without the confidence  and persistence to back it up it would have been a different movie. During the development of the film: TIM HARRIS, co-writer: There were these two

Pi , also titled π , is a 1998 American surrealist psychological thriller film written and directed by Darren Aronofsky . It is Aronofsky's directorial debut, and earned him the Directing Award at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival , the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay and the Gotham Open Palm Award. The title refers to the mathematical constant pi .    Like most of Aronofsky's films, Pi centers on a protagonist whose obsessive pursuit of ideals leads to severely self-destructive behavior. Pi was written and directed by Darren Aronofsky , and filmed on high-contrast black-and-white reversal film . It was produced on a sufficiently low budget of $60,000, but proved a financial success at the box office ($3,221,152 gross in the U.S.) despite only a limited release to theaters. It has sold steadily on DVD .  ~~ Wikipedia E xcerpts f rom director Darren Aronofsky's diary: January 31, 1996 Back From Sundance '96 Just go