The Big Mistake Filmmakers Make "Supplying" The Market
Today, let’s look at one of the reasons too many great movies do NOT get made.
I get it. We don’t keep doing the wrong thing because it doesn’t make sense. The problem is that the wrong thing often makes the most sense.
Most people yearn for a system that makes sense, that one can apply a logic to. The Logical Process may often work, but their utility declines consistently and in routinely embracing them, we shut ourselves off from the much-needed A-ha! Moment. We need those A-ha’s now more than ever, and we have to work to generate then. Can I tell you how?
I don’t claim to see the whole picture, but I know I have glimpses of at least a large picture. Maybe even a very large one. Or part of that large one. And to be clear, I am only speaking of the US Cinema Ecosystem. I have a beginner’s eye towards the Global Cinema Ecosystem. And even less than that towards life in general — but I am working on that, albeit a bit too late perhaps…
After all, I am a sensitive fellow (sort of) and see connections. I see the how and the why in the connections. And where they lead. Particularly in that aforementioned US Cinema Ecosystem. I invest time and energy into improving the incremental steps of the overall picture; I certainly invest time in the contemplation thereof. And I think I am also pretty good at seeing what we are becoming – at least in terms of cinema, both the art and business. And FWIW, I know that a lot of you have these same, or at least similar, talents and skills, even if you haven’t cultivated them as I hope you one day will. Working together, we can make something truly powerful. Maybe timing will be such that we can collaborate one day…
When it comes to art, we need a system that generates cultural course correctors. Otherwise, we can’t see the forest for the trees. We are standing in the dinosaur’s footprint, unaware of where we are, following those beasts down the path of extinction. We need to jump from one track to the next. And we have to do this regularly. And know what? We can do it regularly, and even to do it just a bit, is also great for our business.
Too many studios, streamers, financiers, and producers have a “followers’ mentality”. They base their behavior on supplying the market with what they think the market thinks it wants. Audiences and markets don’t know what they want; they learn to like what they get. We’ve even perfected this form of behavior control, with the Skinner Box of our internet algorithms. And this horror story doesn’t end there. The biggest jump scare is that the market will always saturate itself. It first overeats, and then it eats itself. And then some, gruesome as it is. It’s all a metaphor, so of course: we are one nation under obesity — in everything we consume. And did I say, we are tone deaf at the same time? Yup. That too.
But I am going to help you solve that now, at least for yourself. You’ve earned it.
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