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You Have to Save You – The Problem with Filmmaking #atozchallenge
Tuesday, April 29, 2014 at 11:47PM Look around long enough and you’ll find a lot of independent filmmakers who are frustrated and struggling to find an audience for their movies. Keep venturing further within this group of writers and directors, and you’ll likely come across many who also desire to make the kind of living that will enable them to continue creating work without going hungry or sleeping on the streets. Of all the causes for our struggles and frustrations – it is my belief that one of the reasons we constantly find ourselves getting the short end of the stick is because we often fail to realize that we feed into the major problems of filmmaking – the waiting game.
- We wait for distributors to come save us by taking our creations to the masses.
- We wait (and pay) for film festivals to rescue our work from oblivion and help us appeal to distributors.
- We wait for agents to make deals that will give us opportunities to make more movies, or television shows or commercials or whatever.
- We wait for reviews from critics to determine the validity of our work.
- We wait for media outlets to tell us whether what we have to show is important or not.
- We wait for judging panels to let us know if our work is worthy of recognition.
The problem with filmmaking is that we spent more time than necessary waiting for another person or entity to come in and save us, when the reality is that sometimes, they can’t. Other times, they won’t.
We have to save ourselves.
When/Where do YOU find yourself playing the waiting game in your career, or in your life?
Have YOU ever had that “aha” moment when you realized that YOU are the only one who can save yourself?
Reader Comments (4)
I don't think I've had that aha moment, but rather I had my own "focus on why you do what you" moment. When I did that, I realized I had to be more active (doing something) instead of passive (waiting).
I'm a writer. The waiting game... yup, it's here too. Wait for contests to be judged. Wait for editors to point out what is "wrong" with your "child." Wait to hear from agents. Or go indie, and then wait to get enough reviews to be saved from obscurity (and the poor house).
Saving yourself is mostly about marketing. Gorilla warfare attack on social media. Pimping out the work like McD's trying to talk people into buying the new "artery-clogger triple-beefy topped with yellow chemical melted delight." (Doesn't matter if you'll actually go buy one, but you WILL hear of it. Oh yes, you will hear of it. You'll be able to discuss it at length at a water cooler. Everyone will have an opinion on it. And then, once there's enough chatter going around, it'll be gone from the menu! Oh, hmm.... the analogy stops working there, because books don't go out of print as easily as they once did. Okay- marketing like Disney! Oh wait, they put movies in "the vault" after a year or so. Umm... huh. Well than.)
Stopping by from the #atozchallenge !
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