There’s a great thread over Cinema5d.com on Making a Living: Being an Image-Maker in Times of Change. This comment from Chimay cuts to the chase:
No matter how happens, one must embrace changes. Complaining will not put food on the table. New technologies are awesome. And, in the end, quality work will always prevail. Digital filmmaking is so affordable these days that lots of independent films are being released. Some of them are really bad! But, in the midst of all these, a few extraordinary talents are emerging.
Yes!
The real question is how can you be one of the emerging talents that gets recognized and not dismissed as a piece of chaff in the revolution?
It’s tough.
Filmmaking is the most humbling of all artistic disciplines since it encompasses all of them. And falling down in any single aspect has the potential to negate the entire piece. Of course you could also shine so brightly in one area that let downs in other areas will be forgiven.
One of my favorite things to do in my early days of trying to be a filmmaker would be to read interviews with directors that became successes and watch the films that broke them out. My universal conclusion was that in order for you to become a success your movie had to have two things.
First thing, it couldn’t suck. Now this is much harder than you think. Most movies suck. It’s just true. It’s so hard to put together a film with all of the moving pieces and ill-defined creative processes and know that it’s not going to suck. You can hire people known for not sucking, but this time out, they sucked. The ways of potential suckage are infinite and know no bounds.
But having a film that does suck isn’t enough, it also has to have “something”. That “something” could be spectacular dialogue (Clerks), a groundbreaking look (Pi), a ground breaking performance — just anything that sets it above competence, above the rest and makes it memorable.
The same thing applies now in the web video space. First and foremost it has to not suck. So many shows that get sent my way do not pass this threshold. Acting is awful, editing is meh, and the visuals are grating.
And fewer still pass that second hurdle of having “something”. The Guild is watched because it has both, same with Easy To Assemble and others.
So how does one find that “something” and learn how to not suck?
The real secret is to just follow your bliss and keep getting better. This is not a quick process. Give yourself permission to grow and learn and then do it again.
