Sunday, October 19, 2008

Hollywood and the economy of the calculated sequel

There seems to be a shortage of original thought in the industry of film and from what I am hearing from the audience members they are getting tired of the bigger explosion and faster paced action selling the show.
What about art? Why isn't that being really cultivated in the market?
Well it's a lot like the recent bailout of the stock market. The choices were made clear and what should have been done wasn't.
I will clarify this. One politician stood up in the forum and said that if the government was going to try to bail out the economy it should give the $700,000,000.00 distributed to the citizens of America instead of to the very people responsible for the debacle in the first place. (that is paraphrased of course or I would have named and quoted)
But he was right. Look at what the money distributed to the people would have done:

For each citizen that would have been about $300,000.00 as a economic boost from the government.
What would the majority of American's do with the money?
Spend it of course. They would pay off debts and buy new cars, electronics and all the things that they buy now and some would even invest in the stock market.

Honestly who cares what the stock market does if they don't have money on the line?

But the people we elected to make decisions with that kind of money, our tax dollars, decided to give it to the failures that got everyone scared in the first place.

I personally think that is stupid. They don't trust their own constituents.
I think it would have made this a much better country to live in over the next five years and before the money is spent they should put it to a vote.
This is supposed to be a representative democracy. The problem I see is the the elect are representing the wrong people.

And so it is with Hollywood. Instead of letting the artist have free reign in the creation of the cinematic piece, the industry is controlled by the non creative financial types and decisions are based for distribution on what a film just like x or y has boxed in the past. The sure thing, or as close as they can get.

Very much like Paul Zane Pilsner talked about in his book, "The Next Trillion". Predominately about the wellness industry. He talked about the drug companies being a for profit group making decisions for research and development based on not what the world needs, but on the profit generated in the outcome of the research. He gave the example of a comparison of the profit between a one pill cure for cancer and a maintenance drug that the patient (customer) would take for the rest of their life.
The decision is obvious. The greater profit is in the maintenance drug of course.

Therin lies the problem with a capitalistic approach to decisions of this nature.

Don't get me wrong I'm up for profit just like every red blooded American, but where do you draw the line between sanity and profit margins?

Art and politics, The carving of the future by the desire for the almighty buck.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Life goes on and targets come and go.

So I've been busy working on getting all the things together for a great new project that I think will help filmmakers.
I worked on a short film here with friends and wrapped about a week ago. I am starting the editing process and it looks like all I have to do is the capture and documentation. I'm really not an editor and looking forward to handing this off to someone else for a change and not having to edit myself.
I've got several projects nearing the production phase and one of them is a personal project that I have been working on the script for two years now.
Of course every filmmaker thinks his first vision is the next Citizen Cane but though I am not deluded into that megalomania, I do have confidence and am eliminating the negative forces in my life that sap my creative energy.

I have written many things in other places but feel that this is really the blog for the gritty details of carving a project out of the opposing universe. Which is really what it seems like I am doing many times.
I have met some really nice helpful people along the way and some real boneheads even been kind of gullible with the partners I have fellowed with.

But that is behind me now, with some new data and a head full of steam, some lofty goals and impossible odds I will triumph where others only persevere.
I have survived the desperate filmmaker series and come out nearly unscathed and one less anchor for the belly drag.
Yes, a new day indeed. For a man that is a filmmaker in his heart and would be an auteur.