What if you don't have time? (I speak from experience here) The reality is that our culture moves soooo fast that IMHO I wonder if indie filmmakers won't have to adopt a method of faster and smaller, instead of slower. I've always been jealous of song makers and painters who can crank out a piece of art quickly and respond to the cultural moment of Now. One of the jobs of an artist is to hold a mirror up to the culture -- but a mirror that is last year's news is just an old mirror. It's irrelevant, right?
excellent point, James. I think it is a "both, and" scenario and not "either/or". It would help with both art & business I think if more filmmakers could balance their practice with the short/fast and the long/slow. Imagine a universe where artists were using platforms like these in a media rich manner, using short form to not just build audience but also develop them to greater appreciate a varied aesthetic. Each side would be growing from the back and forth. And then with the filmmaker dropped a long form piece in a slow rollout, there would be an event for all participants to gather around. I want THAT world now please.
Amen, Ted! FYI that's what I'm trying to do with our PSA -- I'm imagining the 60 second spot that we'll shoot in September as a 1 minute narrative movie. Then, if all goes well etc, move to a feature film. The short and fast, followed by the long and longer.
For your subscribers who read this and want to know what the heck PSA one minute movie we're shooting is: www.notlosingyou.com
The corollary to this is to consider, if you accept you will be spending a LONG time with this project as you guide it to its audience, you really should spend time refining the project to make it one worth all that time and effort. Stop rushing films to market quickly so that you can move on to the next one, even if the rough edges are cutting chances right and left. Stop trying to build a career with lots of films and put the best product you can out first, ride it well into the future and use its success, derived from the hard work and care of attention you put into it, to sell you as an artist for your next work.
I know far too many filmmakers cranking out films/scripts in a toss it at the wall and see what sticks fashion. They COULD be talented, but, the quality level they leave these early draft attempts don't show that potential, in fact, it could be deleterious.
Work on product that you will be proud of and won't mind living with for the next few years and beyond. That's the "new" path to success that Ted is speaking of here.
Yes, and perhaps I was taking that commitment for a given perhaps. The effort to lift the film that we undertake -- often called the "final 10%" -- takes so much effort, and yet the reason one does it, isn't to improve box office. It is just to make the film better. Same with the script. In each case it isn't necessary from a business POV, as the film is greenlit. We do both as commitment to the art. I do think however the script process can be embraced ideally when a filmmaker is on the road promoting their film. I will write more about all of this later. Thanks Christopher!
While your premise of spending lots of time on one film, refining it and refining it, may sound logical on the surface - it is untrue. If you want to make great films, you need to follow potters methodology and make a lot of them. Potters don't become great because they spend a lot of time on one pot. They become great by making lots and lots of pots refining their techniques and methods along the way toward making better pots.
Chefs don't become great by making ONE great meal. They make many meals, chop many veggies and meats, develop their palette, and make meal after meal after meal - refining their food along the way. Adding and subtracting where necessary.
You want to be a good filmmaker? Make a lot of films...
There are a couple of slight but significant differences between films and pots or films and food, and I know you know it Bill. There is a slight price difference. And then there is the way most films are made: through large teams of collaborators. Of course I don't like the kind that feels like a team decision-making, but that's the art right? How to keep a personal perspective thriving within the team process. I am closing in on 150 films, and when you add in development (and I do it all very deeply), it is closer to 1000. That said I work and will always work with many "first timers". Others of us have been the potters so the next gens don't have to. That said, there were some attributes to the "studio system" of old, where filmmakers could work non-stop making pots, but I am not sure that most of them were worthy; it was justified then though as it was a system based on double scarcity (supply and options). Everyone elected to go to the cinema regularly in that era because the options for their leisure time was few and far between.
Sorry, guys - I'm going to beat the chef analogy a little bit here:
If you've worked in a kitchen for any length of time, you know everyone is there to learn and to serve the customers. Chefs of any repute develop talent they see, mentor them in the proper methods, and allow them to add what they can to the menu as long as it meets the Chef's approval. Would filmmaking be better served by this methodology? Perhaps with refinement to address the costs, time allowed and so forth. I am a firm advocate of filmmakers going to school, meanwhile getting their "hands dirty" on the equipment and the set protocols to develop actual skills. The important things are to "make stuff" and "make stuff happen."
I think too many indie filmmakers waste their time and energy waiting for the perfect moment to make their films - shorts, features, docs, narratives, whatever. They should be making everything they can to develop their palette, their "taste" in cinema; and they should be making these things now. With as many free platforms we have to get whatever you make out there - and potentially earn from it - then the onus is on them to fill the void with their media creations and to find their audience.
Yes, make them good. Yes, learn from your mistakes. Yes, refine your methodologies to address those mistakes. I would also add: Don't make the movies Hollywood would make. You don't have the money (resources) and people can get Hollywood everywhere. Make the thing that only you can deliver... and make it quickly. Times a wastin' ! ;)
100% in on the refinement. Everything dwells in the details. I definitely agree we have been corrupted by a false notion of hierarchy and execution. Sorry Plato, but here is no ultimate form. Yes, when it comes to growth, best to leap to the stage and claim you are a band when you scream and shout. Do it early and often, voting for your right of expression as you get the urges out. But don't neglect the refinement along the way. Both/and not Either/or. Move in all directions. As I make the point below with James, I think short form may be the best method for most to do this, but by no means do I mean that exclusively. I love No Budget features. I want artists with a great devotion to them. And I also love it when such artists are highly generative and I can feel like with my consumption of their work, I am in some sort of conversation with them. There are NO RULES to apply to any one, but there is a dominant mindset that we need to escape from. Hence my efforts here. I really appreciate this conversation Bill. Thank you.
Agreed, Bill. This is why I also advocate multitasking for all filmmakers and screenwriters. Always have multiple projects going at once. That way you can put in the work needed as much as you can stand, then before you burn out on it, turn to the next project and push it forward. I've never taken a meeting where the question, "What else are you working on?" didn't come up in some fashion. So, don't work on the one and only perfect film. Work on a bunch of films and make them all as perfect as you can while waiting for the next shoe to drop.
And just one tweak to your "You want to be a good filmmaker? Make a lot of films..." It goes back to the correction of the adage, "Practice makes Perfect," to "Perfect practice makes perfect." You want to be a good filmmaker? Make a lot of GOOD films... And I'd add, never be satisfied, so always strive for better every time.
I was told to make sure you were ok with spending 10 years with the film you are making and probably more. After making my first, I now understand why that rings true. There is value in quality over quantity but we have to be patient enough
I think the words are not time, time, time, but marketing, marketing, and marketing. I think we all take too much time to try and make it perfect. We need to get our message out there and concentrate in getting the word out to the largest audience. We should be thinking about marketing from day one. If I am making films that can change the world for the better, I don't have any time to waste. I have to get the message out there. I have to build an audience. I want to make movies that are more than movies, movies that are a movement, a movement for positive change. Marketing is the key to getting this message out to the world. No time to waste. I will never make the greatest film ever made or the most artistic, but I definitely will make some of the most important. It is Marketing, Marketing, and Marketing that will get the message out to the world.
I hear you FF, but I still believe that cinema is first and foremost art, and then entertainment. As you know, I also care deeply about films that can connect us and bring us together, even spring us to action. As both artists and entrepreneurs I don't think we should shy away from the opportunity to say something with our work -- and doing so does not diminish the art, entertainment, or even the business opportunity -- but to make a film first and foremost an opportunity to influence, I think both drives away and makes suspicious much of the potential audience. Great ideas are entertaining, particularly when delivered in an artful way. I also think SOLUTIONS can be even more entertaining -- and thus you are on to something. But in a world where we have such an abundance of titles, much of the audience demands a superior experience. We can't neglect that. And TIME is needed to deliver it, even when urgency is there. Both/and not either/or. Thanks.
Thank you very much for the thoughtful reply. For many years I thought the same way, but realized that I wasted all that time and energy striving for art and perfection, and money to compete with the studios. Now I am concentrating on making important films. Not that art for arts sake isn't necessarily beautiful and enduring, but art for humanities sake is more important and can take film to a whole new level.
“Time” by RICHARD HELL & THE VOIDOIDS from his 2nd LP Destiny Street released Independently on the Red Star Records label. Unsatisfied with the original mix due to poor judgement via drug use, Hell revisited this material, re-mixed and re-mastered it to his satisfaction in 2021, and re-released it Independently yet again on his own Omnivore Recordings label via his website.
Beautiful piece, Ted. Thank you. I hope that many will take it to heart. Over the past 40 years, I've had no choice but to make features slowly, but can attest to the value that resulted from spending that time on them. I've often proselytized that the difficulties of financing a project can be a ruse to get the maker to deepen their relationship to their material, to open a lot of narrative doors that you don't ultimately walk through. In the case of my two most recent features, that was certainly the case; although they were both fiction, they entailed a long journey of discovery that was well served by the 7-year average that each took. But I confess that, when I now contemplate the several pictures I'd like to make going forward, and estimating my longevity, I'm at least trying to keep on a 5-year-per-picture average. And given the urgency of some of the storytelling that's calling, I can well imagine moving more into the faster and smaller mode that others have described in their comments. Agreed, it's not an either/or scenario.
I spent 10 years on a documentary about Nashville musician/comedian Chris Crofton and I can attest that time brings stronger results. Had I put out what I initially shot, it would pale in comparison greatly. What started as a concert film/documentary has become a story about growing up in chaos and reaching out for outside approval and finding yourself hitting the same wall over and over again until you seek help. That never would’ve happened had I not been giving the time to shoot additional footage, re-work the edit, and go through my own experiences to let those reflect in the movie.
My question is- now what the hell do I do? It’s finished, all that’s left is a sound mix and then ??? My last non-dependent film (about the band Silkworm) sold digitally through my own website and made a considerable amount for another self-funded produced niche documentary but I’m wondering how to reach more people with this next one. Is it festivals? Filmhub? Selling to a streamer? How the hell do I even do that and is that worth it? Loved your article, inspiring to read. Would love any advice you would have on this! Thanks!
I like this perspective and Philosophy on the process. We know the train is going to take a long time so better to embrace it. A bullet train on an express, fast track, won’t pick up valuable passengers and goods along the way, won’t be carefully loaded on its course. Better to look out the window, ponder & and consider, and make pickups or change course when it makes sense for the destiny of the film. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
Almost agree with you that mindful cinema requires commitment to a slow-moving train. Question is, how do you get the customers on that train. I think the new school of thought, whether your making thoughtful cinema or fast movies, the movie itself isn't enough these days. If it was, the theaters would maybe be fuller. People would show up to vote with their dollars for that female director or taboo subject matter that was address head on. Instead, it's me and like 3 other people in the theater.
I think we must seriously consider not a revolution in the film industry, but a "rapid evolution." I think if all of us work together we can do it and in a shorter period of time than most of us could ever imagine. This industry would be turned on its head and for a while we would be walking on our hands, until we got a good foothold and independent film prevailed, not just in the U.S., but around the world.
What if you don't have time? (I speak from experience here) The reality is that our culture moves soooo fast that IMHO I wonder if indie filmmakers won't have to adopt a method of faster and smaller, instead of slower. I've always been jealous of song makers and painters who can crank out a piece of art quickly and respond to the cultural moment of Now. One of the jobs of an artist is to hold a mirror up to the culture -- but a mirror that is last year's news is just an old mirror. It's irrelevant, right?
excellent point, James. I think it is a "both, and" scenario and not "either/or". It would help with both art & business I think if more filmmakers could balance their practice with the short/fast and the long/slow. Imagine a universe where artists were using platforms like these in a media rich manner, using short form to not just build audience but also develop them to greater appreciate a varied aesthetic. Each side would be growing from the back and forth. And then with the filmmaker dropped a long form piece in a slow rollout, there would be an event for all participants to gather around. I want THAT world now please.
Amen, Ted! FYI that's what I'm trying to do with our PSA -- I'm imagining the 60 second spot that we'll shoot in September as a 1 minute narrative movie. Then, if all goes well etc, move to a feature film. The short and fast, followed by the long and longer.
For your subscribers who read this and want to know what the heck PSA one minute movie we're shooting is: www.notlosingyou.com
The corollary to this is to consider, if you accept you will be spending a LONG time with this project as you guide it to its audience, you really should spend time refining the project to make it one worth all that time and effort. Stop rushing films to market quickly so that you can move on to the next one, even if the rough edges are cutting chances right and left. Stop trying to build a career with lots of films and put the best product you can out first, ride it well into the future and use its success, derived from the hard work and care of attention you put into it, to sell you as an artist for your next work.
I know far too many filmmakers cranking out films/scripts in a toss it at the wall and see what sticks fashion. They COULD be talented, but, the quality level they leave these early draft attempts don't show that potential, in fact, it could be deleterious.
Work on product that you will be proud of and won't mind living with for the next few years and beyond. That's the "new" path to success that Ted is speaking of here.
Yes, and perhaps I was taking that commitment for a given perhaps. The effort to lift the film that we undertake -- often called the "final 10%" -- takes so much effort, and yet the reason one does it, isn't to improve box office. It is just to make the film better. Same with the script. In each case it isn't necessary from a business POV, as the film is greenlit. We do both as commitment to the art. I do think however the script process can be embraced ideally when a filmmaker is on the road promoting their film. I will write more about all of this later. Thanks Christopher!
While your premise of spending lots of time on one film, refining it and refining it, may sound logical on the surface - it is untrue. If you want to make great films, you need to follow potters methodology and make a lot of them. Potters don't become great because they spend a lot of time on one pot. They become great by making lots and lots of pots refining their techniques and methods along the way toward making better pots.
Chefs don't become great by making ONE great meal. They make many meals, chop many veggies and meats, develop their palette, and make meal after meal after meal - refining their food along the way. Adding and subtracting where necessary.
You want to be a good filmmaker? Make a lot of films...
There are a couple of slight but significant differences between films and pots or films and food, and I know you know it Bill. There is a slight price difference. And then there is the way most films are made: through large teams of collaborators. Of course I don't like the kind that feels like a team decision-making, but that's the art right? How to keep a personal perspective thriving within the team process. I am closing in on 150 films, and when you add in development (and I do it all very deeply), it is closer to 1000. That said I work and will always work with many "first timers". Others of us have been the potters so the next gens don't have to. That said, there were some attributes to the "studio system" of old, where filmmakers could work non-stop making pots, but I am not sure that most of them were worthy; it was justified then though as it was a system based on double scarcity (supply and options). Everyone elected to go to the cinema regularly in that era because the options for their leisure time was few and far between.
Sorry, guys - I'm going to beat the chef analogy a little bit here:
If you've worked in a kitchen for any length of time, you know everyone is there to learn and to serve the customers. Chefs of any repute develop talent they see, mentor them in the proper methods, and allow them to add what they can to the menu as long as it meets the Chef's approval. Would filmmaking be better served by this methodology? Perhaps with refinement to address the costs, time allowed and so forth. I am a firm advocate of filmmakers going to school, meanwhile getting their "hands dirty" on the equipment and the set protocols to develop actual skills. The important things are to "make stuff" and "make stuff happen."
I think too many indie filmmakers waste their time and energy waiting for the perfect moment to make their films - shorts, features, docs, narratives, whatever. They should be making everything they can to develop their palette, their "taste" in cinema; and they should be making these things now. With as many free platforms we have to get whatever you make out there - and potentially earn from it - then the onus is on them to fill the void with their media creations and to find their audience.
Yes, make them good. Yes, learn from your mistakes. Yes, refine your methodologies to address those mistakes. I would also add: Don't make the movies Hollywood would make. You don't have the money (resources) and people can get Hollywood everywhere. Make the thing that only you can deliver... and make it quickly. Times a wastin' ! ;)
100% in on the refinement. Everything dwells in the details. I definitely agree we have been corrupted by a false notion of hierarchy and execution. Sorry Plato, but here is no ultimate form. Yes, when it comes to growth, best to leap to the stage and claim you are a band when you scream and shout. Do it early and often, voting for your right of expression as you get the urges out. But don't neglect the refinement along the way. Both/and not Either/or. Move in all directions. As I make the point below with James, I think short form may be the best method for most to do this, but by no means do I mean that exclusively. I love No Budget features. I want artists with a great devotion to them. And I also love it when such artists are highly generative and I can feel like with my consumption of their work, I am in some sort of conversation with them. There are NO RULES to apply to any one, but there is a dominant mindset that we need to escape from. Hence my efforts here. I really appreciate this conversation Bill. Thank you.
It is my honor to participate in whatever small way I can.
Agreed, Bill. This is why I also advocate multitasking for all filmmakers and screenwriters. Always have multiple projects going at once. That way you can put in the work needed as much as you can stand, then before you burn out on it, turn to the next project and push it forward. I've never taken a meeting where the question, "What else are you working on?" didn't come up in some fashion. So, don't work on the one and only perfect film. Work on a bunch of films and make them all as perfect as you can while waiting for the next shoe to drop.
And just one tweak to your "You want to be a good filmmaker? Make a lot of films..." It goes back to the correction of the adage, "Practice makes Perfect," to "Perfect practice makes perfect." You want to be a good filmmaker? Make a lot of GOOD films... And I'd add, never be satisfied, so always strive for better every time.
I agree with this approach too. Thank you both.
I was told to make sure you were ok with spending 10 years with the film you are making and probably more. After making my first, I now understand why that rings true. There is value in quality over quantity but we have to be patient enough
I think the words are not time, time, time, but marketing, marketing, and marketing. I think we all take too much time to try and make it perfect. We need to get our message out there and concentrate in getting the word out to the largest audience. We should be thinking about marketing from day one. If I am making films that can change the world for the better, I don't have any time to waste. I have to get the message out there. I have to build an audience. I want to make movies that are more than movies, movies that are a movement, a movement for positive change. Marketing is the key to getting this message out to the world. No time to waste. I will never make the greatest film ever made or the most artistic, but I definitely will make some of the most important. It is Marketing, Marketing, and Marketing that will get the message out to the world.
I hear you FF, but I still believe that cinema is first and foremost art, and then entertainment. As you know, I also care deeply about films that can connect us and bring us together, even spring us to action. As both artists and entrepreneurs I don't think we should shy away from the opportunity to say something with our work -- and doing so does not diminish the art, entertainment, or even the business opportunity -- but to make a film first and foremost an opportunity to influence, I think both drives away and makes suspicious much of the potential audience. Great ideas are entertaining, particularly when delivered in an artful way. I also think SOLUTIONS can be even more entertaining -- and thus you are on to something. But in a world where we have such an abundance of titles, much of the audience demands a superior experience. We can't neglect that. And TIME is needed to deliver it, even when urgency is there. Both/and not either/or. Thanks.
Thank you very much for the thoughtful reply. For many years I thought the same way, but realized that I wasted all that time and energy striving for art and perfection, and money to compete with the studios. Now I am concentrating on making important films. Not that art for arts sake isn't necessarily beautiful and enduring, but art for humanities sake is more important and can take film to a whole new level.
Thank you for the reminder to slow down. Your writing helps my soul. Thanks Ted!
“Time” by RICHARD HELL & THE VOIDOIDS from his 2nd LP Destiny Street released Independently on the Red Star Records label. Unsatisfied with the original mix due to poor judgement via drug use, Hell revisited this material, re-mixed and re-mastered it to his satisfaction in 2021, and re-released it Independently yet again on his own Omnivore Recordings label via his website.
“Time” Richard Hell & The Voidoids
https://youtu.be/IFxwgcbqCRw?si=nov3hVzSLcFNJBgs
Beautiful piece, Ted. Thank you. I hope that many will take it to heart. Over the past 40 years, I've had no choice but to make features slowly, but can attest to the value that resulted from spending that time on them. I've often proselytized that the difficulties of financing a project can be a ruse to get the maker to deepen their relationship to their material, to open a lot of narrative doors that you don't ultimately walk through. In the case of my two most recent features, that was certainly the case; although they were both fiction, they entailed a long journey of discovery that was well served by the 7-year average that each took. But I confess that, when I now contemplate the several pictures I'd like to make going forward, and estimating my longevity, I'm at least trying to keep on a 5-year-per-picture average. And given the urgency of some of the storytelling that's calling, I can well imagine moving more into the faster and smaller mode that others have described in their comments. Agreed, it's not an either/or scenario.
I spent 10 years on a documentary about Nashville musician/comedian Chris Crofton and I can attest that time brings stronger results. Had I put out what I initially shot, it would pale in comparison greatly. What started as a concert film/documentary has become a story about growing up in chaos and reaching out for outside approval and finding yourself hitting the same wall over and over again until you seek help. That never would’ve happened had I not been giving the time to shoot additional footage, re-work the edit, and go through my own experiences to let those reflect in the movie.
My question is- now what the hell do I do? It’s finished, all that’s left is a sound mix and then ??? My last non-dependent film (about the band Silkworm) sold digitally through my own website and made a considerable amount for another self-funded produced niche documentary but I’m wondering how to reach more people with this next one. Is it festivals? Filmhub? Selling to a streamer? How the hell do I even do that and is that worth it? Loved your article, inspiring to read. Would love any advice you would have on this! Thanks!
I like this perspective and Philosophy on the process. We know the train is going to take a long time so better to embrace it. A bullet train on an express, fast track, won’t pick up valuable passengers and goods along the way, won’t be carefully loaded on its course. Better to look out the window, ponder & and consider, and make pickups or change course when it makes sense for the destiny of the film. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
It's not the quantity, but the quality that counts. Excellent post, Ted! 🌟
Almost agree with you that mindful cinema requires commitment to a slow-moving train. Question is, how do you get the customers on that train. I think the new school of thought, whether your making thoughtful cinema or fast movies, the movie itself isn't enough these days. If it was, the theaters would maybe be fuller. People would show up to vote with their dollars for that female director or taboo subject matter that was address head on. Instead, it's me and like 3 other people in the theater.
I think we must seriously consider not a revolution in the film industry, but a "rapid evolution." I think if all of us work together we can do it and in a shorter period of time than most of us could ever imagine. This industry would be turned on its head and for a while we would be walking on our hands, until we got a good foothold and independent film prevailed, not just in the U.S., but around the world.