 |
Business | Industries | Finance | Tax |
| Index: > A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z |
|
|||||
| First Prev [ 1 2 3 ] Next Last |
Filmmaking needs to be discussed in terms outside of the studio system, because what is popularly called "independent" today is only a watered-down version of the studio system.
Those outside of Hollywood who do not have a direct connection in - ie: really know someone with "juice" on the inside, are related to someone with "juice" on the inside or are romantically involved to someone on the inside with "juice" - face the Hollywood lottery. And, as with all lotteries, the odds are tantamount to zero that you will win.
What's missing from traditional approaches to filmmaking, such as film schools, seminars, specialty schools, books, "experts", etc., are crucial topics that every outsider must have if they are to liberate themselves form the Hollywood lottery. They are:
1) A working understanding of the way the Hollywood lottery works;
2) Knowledge of financing;
3) Knowledge of marketing, and
4) Knowledge of distribution.
Let's take #1 first.
Most - every - approach to filmmaking focuses on three areas: technical production (writing, cinematography, editing, sound, directing, history, and critical studies if you're lucky). Thus, they are about the plastic production elements of film. But they never educate would-be filmmakers as to how the studio system came to be, much less how it is controlled, the first error by omission...
This approach - what will here be called in a nod to Noel Burch the zero point of film production - assumes that the way to "break in" to the system is via production. That may be true and will be elaborated upon shortly, but the danger is in assuming that production also controls the industry. That is patently false.
The early moguls such as Laemmle and Zukor built their empires via distribution - pure and simple. THEN they backed into production. Fast forward some 80 years later, and the Weinsteins at Miramax performed the very same feat, in exactly the same way.
Since production is theoretically infinite - with DV the means of production becoming vastly more democratized - and distribution concretely finite, an oligarchy results. The oligarchs being the studios, or rather, the mega-corporations that control them. They are the gatekeepers on a relatively miniscule number of studio jobs, compared to the vats numbers that seek entrance in.
Thus, the Hollywood lottery.
BUT if filmmakers on the outside without connections face no chance of breaking in, what's the solution? The answer is to become entrepreneurial and encompasses points 2-4.
Once again, traditional methods of matriculating into filmmaking ignore the business functions - financing, marketing and distribution - THE VERY SUBJECTS THAT EVERY OUTSIDER DESPERATELY NEEDS IF SHE IS TO HAVE ANY KIND OF A CHANCE OF MATRICULATING INTO THE STUDIO SYSTEM.
Filmmakers MUST open up their minds and look towards other fields of entrepreneurship in order to re-orient themselves away from giving their precious energy over to chasing the Hollywood lottery. Instead, look at examples such as the early hip hop DJs who, when rejected by the music industry (which is tantamount to the film studios in that they are a mega-corporate controlled oligarchy) got entrepreneurial and created the mixtape phenomenon. Mixtapes created a sensation on the streets, and, more importantly, created those powerful OUTSIDE market pressures that woke up the staid music industry out of its narcosis.
But the worldwide phenomenon of hip hop would never have took off if the DJs had just banged their heads against an industry wall that just didn't get them.
These are the first crucial "understandings" that a filmmaker must grasp, lest she play the Hollywood lottery and become yet another failed statistic.
Filmmaking is the act of making a movie using a film recording medium . Moviemaking is the act of making a movie using a film or video recording medium.
The filmmaking and moviemaking Production Cycle comprises five main stages:
An entire Production Cycle typically takes three years. The first year is taken up with development. The second year comprises preproduction and production. The third year, postproduction and distribution.
The nature of the film determines the size and type of crew required. Many Hollywood adventure films need Computer Generated Imagery (CGI), created by dozens of teams of 3D modellers , animators, rotoscopers and compositors. However a low-budget, independent film might have a crew of only fifty people.
This is the stage where you turn a thought or hunch into a desireable commodity - the movie. The following steps are normally initiated by the Producer of the movie:
| Politics | Business | Finance |
 |
 |
 |
|