Once upon a time in the West, there were a slew of filmmakers. The filmmakers were handed a bevy of tools. And with these tools, the filmmakers immediately felt empowered and in charge of their own destinies. And as these filmmakers began to use these tool they felt a similar feeling. They felt like they had direction and purpose. They felt as if their goals were attainable. And with these tools the filmmakers went to work doing what they do best, making films.
After a period of time the filmmakers felt frustrated. They realized that the tools only truly became useful under special circumstances. And they realized that the tools were not tools at all, they were accessories. Accessories to be learned, used, manipulated and tweaked after the primary tool was wielded. The learned that they had possessed this primary tool all along, and it was double-sided. The primary tool was their creativity.
Creativity: it’s that thing inside of us that wants to turn nothing into… something magnificent. For screenwriters it’s the power to turn a blank page into a living breathing world where people come and go, live and die, grow, succeed, fail, do harm, get harmed and hopefully change.
Creativity: it’s that thing inside of us that wants to turn a one-dimensional object– a script — into a four dimensional civilization. A world where the human condition is explored through visuals, sounds and emotions that affect us as if we were born, weaned, lived and died in that very same four dimensional civilization.
Creativity: it’s that thing inside of us that wants to turn a dream into a reality.
Unfortunately I see more focus on the tools needed to exploit creativity rather than the tools needed to expand creativity. I have been a writing for a very long time, and I’ve written everything under the sun expecting each experience to expand my literary creativity. I take writing seriously. I take filmmaking (directing and independently producing) seriously. I take it seriously because it is truly all I want to do.
Sure I can do other things, and I have. But what I have recently realized is, all the other things I do cannot fulfill me like making a movie fulfills me. I can write articles, but I don’t want to do that anymore. I can watch films and write reviews, but I don’t want to do that anymore. In fact I’m probably not the best film reviewer because I only write positive reviews, that is, I only write reviews for films I like. If I don’t like a movie, I won’t write a review because there are enough people vying for the chance to be pithy and bitchy in their reviews.
Like so many others, I can multi-task and do many different things whenever I am not making a film. But then I realized something. My purpose in life is filmmaking and everything else is taking me away from that purpose.
I need to divide my life into four quadrants.
- When I am getting ready to make a film
- When I am making a film
- When I (family included) am recovering from making a film
- When I am considering what film I’ll make next
That’s it. And you know what? All the tools in the world cannot help me with these endeavors. And more importantly, tools will never make my movies better.
DREAM
Once upon a time in the West, I had a dream. I dreamed that I’d write a spectacular script and it would be made into a movie. I dreamed that the studio that chose my script over all the overs became my friend, my ally in this crazy labyrinth called Hollywood. I dreamed the studio made the movie and did it well. Everyone took notice and I became the guy who wrote the script that became the movie that everyone loved.
You know what? That dream probably describes the dream of every screenwriter in the world. It also probably comes pretty damn close to the dream of every filmmaker in the world — at least, once upon a time.
Now filmmakers dream of making a cheap movie and spending the next year or so self-promoting and self-distributing their movie. Oh, and not many of them are making any money. What happened to the dream?
I’m 100% for self-promotion, self-distribution, and utilizing every DIY method on the planet to get your film into the hands of an audience and recoup your expenses. But I think these methods should be employed after the dream has been attempted.
We’re still empowered. We still control our destinies because we can always tell a distributor, “No, I don’t like your deal.” We can always walk away from the deal table. But why avoid the deal table completely?
I’ll share a secret. I think I am completely wrong. That is, I believe that most of the cheerleaders for DIY everything secretly harbor the dream (see Dream above). I think they all want their little indie film to get picked up by a studio, who offers them a 3-picture deal so that they’ll never have to crowdfund or bother with DIY anything ever again. I know for a fact, that this is what I want.
But it all starts with a great movie. Not a good movie. Not a good $10,000 or $50,000 movie. A great movie, period. Beware, while you’re pondering whether or not you should aspire towards great filmmaking some filmmaker in a little town in South Dakota is already making a great film. And if you are not aspiring for greatness in your moviemaking you’d better become the world’s best DIYer because you’ll have a lot of selling to do.
Unfortunately, just before you take your first step on the righteous journey to pursue your dreams, people around you, even the ones who deeply care for you, will give you awful advice. It’s not because they have evil intentions. It’s because they don’t understand the big picture – what your dreams, passions, and life goals mean to you. They don’t understand that, to you, the reward is worth the risk.
