ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

7 months, 3 weeks ago - John Lubran

If it's a fund requiring a producer who has also not produced anything, then it's another one of these schemes dreamed up by an institutionalised panel of folk, not dissimilar to other panels that invite people to tender for institutionalised budgets. Right now public and charitable institutions rarely know how to be the cause of great films, regardless of how pleased they purport themselves to be. The list is lamentable. Funding competitions that offer 'mentoring', very small awards and access to the wrong equipment, are becoming increasingly irrelevant to actual gumption. Of benefit to children or the most unworldly naive perhaps.

I did play that game of working with structurally discordant panels, occasionally, during the first years of my half century in film and media. I've learned not to engage with groups of worthy panelists, unless they're also betting their own personal arses. Too many suck other people's energy, and even worse, act as intellectual property pirates. Nepotism and preposterous behaviour has been a regular feature of such panels in my experience. Corporate business enterprises do it much better, ironically when not acting charitably for 'brownie points'. Other realities are available.

If one has a piece of intellectual treasure, ones energy is best spent being as creative with ones business model as with ones other treasure.

Alternatively, if ones creative property is insufficient to strike a chord with a viable audience, on any of the increasing plethora of platforms in extant, or one doesn't have a specific edge to influence those institutionalised panels, because either one or both parties just don't get it. It ought not take the brains of a rocket scientist to extrapolate the alternative options.

(That's another deep dive for deep divers; ironicaly there's a witty and satirical documentary parody for someone to explore with those issues too)

Whilst 'Big Media' has the resources to turn the unlovable into something that might at least save its own arse, sometimes known as the proverbial polishing of a turd, institutionalised panels have no majorly compelling reason to worry about viable audiences either. Too often it's a box ticking within narrow policies thing, consequential to someone's need to regulate and diminish rather than empower and encourage. It seems to me that the outcomes of these exercises are often weak, no matter how laudable in intent or how much adorned with laurel leaves awarded from places where the "sun don't shine".

The once much sought after accolades from inconsequential film festivals is a declining irrelevance beyond the massage.

The business of the business requires as much creative gumption as the content it wants to make.

In terms of Social Media opportunities, "we ain't seen nothing yet".

"Content is King", it's the only thing that might be treasure, even if one is a brilliant entrepreneur. Having said all that, it's a business career where many succeed by just starting at the top (sic). Never has that opportunity been so extant as it is today. Doesn't mean that just anyone can do it. Nevertheless the market is much more open, and very different.

The technologies and skills available are cheap and easy to acquire. There's a reason for the tumble weed blowing through so many parts of what once where thriving megabuck sectors. AI, especially after the game changing Quantum Chip, already created, gets its application, will give everyone access to a brain the size of a planet, probably in the same smartphones that the kids will soon be running around with, together with a multiverse of diverse platforms that have opened up entirely new business models for film makers, that can avoid the slippery slopes and ladders often presented as a reasonable career path. There's a
reason for the decline in opportunities for single skill crew trades. They might not like it but the paint by numbers technical skills are now much easier to master and much easier creatively explore. The once held sacred, types of expertise and experience aren't anywhere near as core as they were even a decade ago.

Back in the late 70's I had a friend, much in demand as a 'computer operator', she used to earn a fortune.

Callow, humourless and endlessly derivitive projects aimed at adult audiences are unlikely to flourish. Kids stuff is a whole other paradigm.

If one has creative treasure, and that's the rub, and perhaps as little as £5,000, it ought to be enough to get traction without the need to place ones soul into the keeping of others.

Best bang for buck ? Semi dramatised feature documentaries that viscerally address issues and stories that sufficient numbers of people actually care about. No need for big named actors either.

Pure fiction feature movie projects, aspired to be made by many young, and or eager beginners, is likely to be an uphill struggle unless one has an inside track or independent wealth. For every movie that gets made, there's thousands that can't. Quality sometimes seems to be low on the list of priorities,
even for hundred million dollar projects. One can't squeeze a quart into a pint pot. Even amongst those films that do get made, too many aren't financially viable from a business model that requires one hit out of three to be successful, let alone sustainable. Statistically the odds aren't great for those pursuing the traditional largess of the great and the good in movies. Othe great and good options are emerging from outside the gargantuanism and slowing inertia of that traditional sector.

The odds are exponentially better for documentary, especially the semi dramatised ones. For some with the knack, they can be much more rewarding in terms of benefits over costs.

I learned never to share treasure with employees, no matter how seemingly important, of corporate or institutional entities beneath the rank of a proverbial 'Admiral of the Fleet'

Again, other realities are available.