The film community around us is not only large in size but has quite a few strong talents in it in all aspects of production. We have a handful of great directors, lighting techs, editing wizards, and many wonderful actors to help take our projects to new heights.
I have seen many amazing films from friends. I’ve read some pretty powerful screenplays from colleagues. I’ve seen actors deliver performances that rival veteran actors in Hollywood. Yet with all the great I’ve encountered over the years, there is always the bad that outnumbers everything else.
I respect the filmmakers who want to go out and create something. They take themselves seriously but afterwards look at their own work and try to better their work. Of course, there are the ones in which think their projects are perfect and expect some Hollywood big-shot to offer them a million dollar development deal.
The problem that I see is the works of the great filmmakers around us are being held hostage by the not-so-great works that is released in great numbers. Held hostage of course, refers to causing limitations to get solid material out of our heads and onto the screens.
WRITERS
The local film community cannot excel without the creative minds behind those works to look at their films objectively and constructively. Writers are so desperate to make a film that they rush a script into development without properly setting up what they want to do. After completion they move on to their next project which suffers the same pitfalls as before. There is no learning. There is no growth. A reason for this is that our community is used to everyone sugar-coating their reviews of material in order to spare hurt feelings. If you cannot tell someone how you feel honestly or receive negative feedback on your own material then you are in the wrong industry. And it only gets worse when you hit the filmmaking capital of the world.
In our community, the flaws of writing are great, but the largest issues are the basic fundamentals of screenwriting.
I have read many bad scripts that are based upon a single great idea. A writer may have a good basic concept, but the actual execution and their structural set-up is flawed and ridiculous. More times than not, their script is filled with holes, and unnecessary/excessive or lack of exposition.
Writers fail to realize that every character must have a purpose to their story. The most crucial thing a screenwriter can do is to write characters that we care about. They should serve the story and not the other way around, big or small.
No first draft of a script should ever be considered final. This causes many problems as your story is not developed enough and fails on many levels.
Not only do the above pitfalls afflict many writers, but when one of these scripts is produced and released at a local event, every other writer is rushing their projects into production to compete with the others- and thus hitting every pitfall possible. Or sometimes not. Sometimes a bad script can slip through the cracks. It is not impossible to watch a film and realize where the flaws are. Was the film’s failure because of a bad script? Or was it because of a flawed director choice?
DIRECTORS
While a writer is the creator of the project, the life-force behind the project is developed entirely by the director. Sometimes both. A good director needs to understand their style. The best of Utah’s director’s all have drastic differences in their styles that separates them from one another. Out of the best director’s in Utah, I don’t think any one of them has a style like the other. These director’s are also not as foolish to accept projects that doesn’t fit within that style. While a director can take most projects and make them fit within their own creativity, sometimes not, and it’s important for them to make that call before time and money is spent on a project that just isn’t working. Beyond that, there are problems a director can face that can make or break our community.
I have heard from actors around our community of the director’s lack of vision. This only creates confusion on set and results in productions falling off schedule and at times, over budget. Consider this, in Hollywood, what makes a successful director/producer is the fact that they can deliver a film ahead of schedule, and under budget, regardless if the film is a financial success upon release. A producer/director who has a financial hit but failed to deliver their film on time and was over budget is deemed a failure. When dealing with productions that have no budget, it is the director’s responsibility to treat time as money. Not paying your actors or crew? Get them in and out of the set as soon as possible.
A director with no understanding ranges from director’s having no conceptual grasp on the material they are making, or even choosing poor scripts. I’ve had experiences in talking with a director and was stunned to learn how little they knew about the art of filmmaking itself. This is terribly problematic and a sign that most people should stay clear until they’re willing to listen.
Any first time director is going to have film’s under their belt that aren’t the greatest works. It happens. The important thing is to learn from those mistakes and make every film you do after better than the one previously. You’re only as good as your last movie. Yet I’m amazed to see a handful of director’s whose work never truly improves and yet still manages to find a cast and crew to work with him.
This confounds me. If a director fails to meet your expectations and the film you were apart of had major problems and flaws – don’t work with him again. The director is avoiding his need to grow if he’s still getting a cast and crew whose willing to work with him time and time again. A director’s bad work on a film that you were apart of is also a reflection on you as a performer.
PRODUCERS
A producer, like a director, must understand if they are capable of handling the duties of producing films that may be out of their element. A producer must understand if their involvement will help or hinder the project. Can someone else do the job better than you? Is a producer just working on the film because it’s a job, or do they actually think the film can go somewhere?
A producer should ask themselves two questions throughout all aspects of production; scripting, production, and final; Is this film sellable? And is this film good? Honestly….is it? Can you objectively look at the script or finished film and see it premiering alongside other heavy Oscar contenders, or is it merely a film to be used as a buy out option in the hopes the studio is more interested in the filmmakers involved? That is a big difference.
A producer should demand quality work from the people involved on the picture, starting with the script. A producer should know what makes a good script and what doesn’t. The above problems with writers should never happen in our community if our producers are actually doing their jobs.
While there are many things a producer does, the biggest and main priority of their job is to find the money in order to finance the picture. Yet, in our local community, this is something that is more times than not, misunderstood.
There should be no film around us that costs more than $15,000 to make. We are all big dreamers, but we can’t have unrealistic dreams. Furthermore, the chances of an indie film becoming profitable is less than 1%, so why spend a bundle of someone else’s dough to finance a film that will undoubtedly go nowhere and make no return on their investment?
Make a good product. Keep costs low. Sell it and make a profit so you can do it again.
