An Unsuccessful Filmmaker

trueindie

trueindie

This rant was inspired by Cracker Funk, instigator in chief :)

Ever since I saw Platoon, I’ve wanted to make films. I was 14. I was always in love with war movies, but to me it was a kind of self-criticism I had never seen before in the genre. I fell in love with Oliver Stone and started watching all his movies. I wanted to be a filmmaker. But I also wanted to play world cup football/soccer, and cricket. So I put it away as just another un-achievable dream.

I came to the US for college, got a great job in Palo Alto, then moved on to work in another high paying job in LA. One day I went to the LA film festival. I was so underwhelmed by the film I saw there, I thought to myself, “If this is the caliber required to get into a film festival, I can do it. This is definitely not world cup soccer or cricket.”

At the time I also decided to leave the US, as I didn’t think I was going to get residency. So I quickly wrote and shot a film before I left the US. I went back home to Bangladesh. I got lucky and got another high paying job working for my cousin, and traveling the world selling his products. I got to go to Scotland, England, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Australia, China, UAE and South Africa twice a year. I edited my film in the meantime. Then my Canadian residency came through and I decided to move to Toronto. I showed my film around. Non-filmmakers always liked it more than filmmakers. But nobody really wanted to do anything with it.

I tried to get another finance job, but everybody seemed to want a recent graduate or an ex-president of some company. I thought I’d make films instead. My family thought I was crazy, and told me so. “What is your game plan? How do you plan to monetize your time and your products? How do you plan to buy a house and pay for mortgage?” my loving and concerned NYC banker brother would ask me (He’s great :)).
I didn't know the answer, but it felt right. I thought, maybe if I just learned how to increase my production value, this time people would notice. So I joined a summer film program. I learned some things about lighting for the inordinate amount of money I paid for the summer. That’s about it. Nothing about audio, other than how to switch on and operate some audio gear and what buttons to push. I disagreed with everything they taught in the scriptwriting class.

- We discussed how to get a job. They said it would be easiest to get a job as an editor. I thought great.
- They said it would be best if I also learned ‘motion’ or ‘after effects’ because that would make me more marketable as an editor as I would also know titling. So I learned ‘after effects’
- I tried to get a jobs as an editor. I got some freelance gigs, which were all really time consuming and low paying.
- They said, “maybe you should learn 3D, and then your pay will go up.” So I learned Cinema 4D. I started getting greater interest to my reel. But people still didn’t want to pay very well.

Every filmmaker I met had the same complaint. “I’m really good, I just don’t have a reel for people to recognize my talent and give me a job worth my mettle.” I didn’t meet anybody who had made it. I couldn’t figure out the process. It wasn’t as simple as it was in college – "Study economics, get some finance summer jobs, have a decent gpa, then go into an interview with a nice suit looking presentable.” It seemed to work wonders at the time. In this filmmaking business there was no process. Everybody just said grandiose things. “Concentrate on your story, everything else will take care of itself.” “Be good at something and people will notice.” I wanted to ask these people how they knew this ‘secret’ and why they were not applying it in their own career plans? I wanted to ask them why everybody spent so much time discussing prime lenses vs. some other equally useless thing.

To some degree, almost every filmmaker I’ve met in the indie film world is, useless - to some degree. They wouldn’t last a day in a typical US high stress work environment where people get to call you names if they wish ("You make one more mistake like that and I'm sending your ass back to Croatia"). Only ONE dp I’ve met so far, who really was sincere about his craft. He didn’t talk much, but when I told him what I wanted he always knew how to do it. Too bad he’s currently living in British Columbia, or I’d work with him constantly.

Anyway, this is a pointless rant about my pointless filmmaker life, my feelings toward my now chosen profession and my colleagues. There is no game plan, but everybody thinks that if they just did ‘this’ or ‘that’ then everything would fall into place. I’ve been listening to the ‘this’s’ and the ‘thats’ for almost two years now. Nobody has pulled off anything. I’ve seen people spend money, based on other people’s advice. I’ve seen the crap outcome of all this money spent, but I’ve not seen real progress. I’ve not seen work, around which everybody could rally around and say, ‘take that Hollywood.’ I just haven’t seen it. And time just ruthlessly keeps passing on by, and I keep wondering to myself how long I can last in all of these lies and misplaced faith. I’m lucky. I’m not the spending type and so I was able to save my money. I still wear the $50 watch I wore in college. So now I’ve built a little studio in my living room. There is no sofa, just lights and scaffolding to hang things from so I can shoot things cheaply. I plan to do this for some time. I’m okay with things not working out for some time. But I’m just tired of listening to the ‘success’ plans other filmmakers keep offering to me. I just don’t know what works anymore.

How do I feel about my future as a filmmaker? I’m not too sure. But I feel something like this:

“I’m driving a stolen car through a pitch black night
I keep telling myself, I’m gonna be alright
But I ride by night, and I travel in fear
That in this darkness, I will disappear.”
- Bruce Springsteen (Stolen Car)

Please don't take this rant seriously, and please do not take offense. It is really meant for no one but myself. The last half hour has proved immensely therapeutic for me. I'm glad I was able to write all this.

Best of luck to all the dreamers,
Aveek
 
I'm not going to give you any advice, 'cause you've had enough.

But I will say this:

Filmmaking requires a bullish stubbornness on the part of its practitioners, because it takes a winning combination of skill, luck, and determination to make it. The business weeds out the weak, the poseurs, and the talentless -- and it's a good thing that it does. I certainly don't have time for them.

If you stick it out, you will have made it through a trial by fire that turns you into a resourceful, committed, experienced practitioner of your craft who laughs at rejection and ignores the slings and arrows of the bitter naysayers who have either given up on their dreams, or never understood those who have them. Fuck those people.

Real filmmakers are warriors. Yes, they may not succeed, but they'll go down swinging that ax.

We've all been where you are, and facing down your own nagging self-doubt is part of the battle. For every piece of work I'm proud of, I've got ten more that make me question my talent and self-worth. For every pat on the back -- which I still often shrug off as coming from people oblivious to my flaws -- I suffer a kick in the teeth.

But this is the profession. This is what we endure. Anybody who does it purely for recognition or money is doomed -- if not to failure, then to mediocrity.

We do it because we must. Because we love it. In the end, nothing else matters.

So if you're going to fail, then fail with a huge fucking grin on your face, knowing that though you went down in flames, you did what you loved and never gave up.

Because you're a filmmaker.
 
Regarding the unknown path to a career in filmmaking, back when I was in film school we had a weekly symposium on careers that primarily involved former graduates (and others in the industry) coming back to talk about how they ended up in a successful career in film. There were only three things I noticed that were consistent across all of them:

1. Not one of them was less than a decade out of college. Very few successful careers come about quickly, and even when success itself was 'overnight' it came after a lot of years of struggle.

2. Only a couple actually ended up making a full time living as a 'filmmaker'. Everyone else made a living as a writer/editor/cinematographer/etc and was able to work as a filmmaker on their own projects because of their success at their paying work.

3. After introducing themselves almost every one of them opened with some variation on the same line: "My career path in the film industry probably isn't exactly typical". I took this to mean that for the most part there is no 'typical' career path which you can predictably follow to become a successful filmmaker, and whatever advice someone gives you in that regard is probably simply a reflection of what happened to work for them.

For example, one of the few full-time & successful filmmakers to speak was Harold Ramis. He got a lit degree in college, then worked primarily as a writer - initially for magazines and later for tv - for a decade before his first big hit as a writer (animal house) enabled him to become a full time professional filmmaker a few years later. For every guy like him though there's probably a thousand who never get that hit that takes them to that level.

Thing is things are a little different now. Back then, if you didn't get that break you pretty much couldn't go on actively working as a filmmaker for very long, it was just too expensive even to get access to the equipment. Now you have a studio in your living room. It's entirely possible - easy, in fact - to be a filmmaker these days. It's just as hard as it ever was to do it professionally. Whether you're a 'successful' filmmaker in either case depends entirely on how you want to define success.
 
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I think you need to figure out your goal as a filmmaker.

Is it to make films?!?!

Is it to make films in Hollywood?

Is it to make films and become "famous"?


You don't need to be in Hollywood to make films. You don't need to be in Hollywood to become famous. And you certainly don't need to be in Hollywood to be happy.

If you feel like you cannot be happy until you are a "successful filmmaker" in Hollywood... then you better get back there and keep trying!! :)
 
I read this when you posted it, might as well post.

Personally, I think it's a good thing to have low expectations. But even then, if you enjoy making films, then you should continue doing it. It's always good to do something you enjoy doing.
 
As I tell people, the filmmaking business is brutal and ruthless. And there's no money in it.

Thanks for sharing the story.

May I copy and paste it on my off site blog?
 
@ DirtyPicturesTV - damn that was motivating. I feel reinvigorated already :)
@ Guerilla - Yes, you most definitely can repost it. Thanks for asking.
@ Ray - Glad I was of some use today :)
@ ItDonned - Exactly. There is no 'typical' path. I guess I just better start believing that if I keep trying hard enough, I'll get lucky
@Dejager & Noob - What is success? I don't know man. I'm happy when I make films. Do I feel successful? Not really. But I can't describe the happiness I feel when I'm on 'my' set. So I don't think there's another life for me anymore.

Thanks so much to everyone for reading. Thanks for the comments also. Very much appreciated.
Aveek
 
trueindie said:
I'm happy when I make films. Do I feel successful? Not really. But I can't describe the happiness I feel when I'm on 'my' set. So I don't think there's another life for me anymore.
Click to expand...

Isn't that feeling great? It can be hard, exhausting work but it's so fulfilling.
 
This is a very well-written post. I'm glad that, in the process of writing this, you felt this had some therapeutic effect for you. I hope that one day soon you can read it again and think of how far you've come since.
 
Great original post, and a lot of good replies, perhaps the best among them by dirtypicturestv.

Dedication, committment, networking, business, financial, tech, art, leadership, negotiation, writing, mental clarity, and a dozen other things are all needed skills. There are few professions so universally challenging as Director.

The best advice I can give is to take the ladder one step at a time, and build up to it. Trying to go from your back yard with $0 to the silver screen in one leap is the cause of many of the problems people talk about here. Take it in bite sized chunks, and do work designed for other people to use in some way. A 30 second tv ad is useful, saleable, cheap to produce, and people will watch it. An ultra low budget short serves no one but the filmmaker themselves.

I learned a hard lesson at one point in life, which was that what the world gives back to you is determined by how much you are willing to give it. Focus on providing something people want, and can use, and you'll start getting better results. Think about them, and they'll think about you.
 
Nice coherent rant. Mine never make sense.

I think where your initial problem comes in, you're making movies for profit, not for the love of the art.

If I wasn't having fun (and I wasn't on this last movie) I'd drop it (which I did).

The hardest business to make a career in is the Arts. For every Painter that sells for thousands and millions, there's countless others who can't make a dime. The majority of waiter and waitresses in NYC are struggling actors.

I won't even go into the lowest most lazy of them all, MUSICIANS. I'm a musician, so back off.

The one thing all these so-called artists have (for a time) is determination and dedication. Then reality of life sets in and they get regular jobs blah blah blah.

If you really love something, you will do it regardless of monetary success. I've recorded four full length albums and only sold one. I've always just given them away. But, from that one sale, I got my best (and last) gig. I headlined a multi media festival in Bolzano Italy. The first Sconfinarti Festival. We played in a 14th Century Castle Courtyard. Rockin time. Plus, I have a retirement fund set up in Bolzano. I thought the money was taken out for Italian taxes, it wasn't. Weird.

I've known numerous actors who are content acting in regional theatre at night while working regular day jobs.

Failure and success depend on the individual's state of mind.

Who is the painter who lived and died a pauper? He never sold a painting while he was alive. Now, they're worth millions. Was he a failure or success?
 
ussinners said:
Failure and success depend on the individual's state of mind.

Who is the painter who lived and died a pauper? He never sold a painting while he was alive. Now, they're worth millions. Was he a failure or success?
Click to expand...

I don't think most of us are doing it for money/fame/success, because it appears that at our level, there's none in it.

I don't even know what success or failure is. I think most of us want the opportunity to make films, want people to watch them, and want people to like them. If you're a musician, then you want people to appreciate your music and you want as wide as possible an audience to listen to it.

I'm not sure I want anything.... just reaching the conclusion, that I got to figure out my own way, because most people don't really have the answer. And that's the key, realizing that AAAALLL these other people don't have the answer either. So just be intelligent about what you do and how you do it, and do the best you can I suppose.

I needed to let that out yesterday. So that was good.
Great replies.
Aveek
 
trueindie said:
I needed to let that out yesterday. So that was good.
Click to expand...

I certainly feel better!

My reply was just as much for me as for you. It's the kind of thing I need to tell myself all the time. It feels sometimes as if struggling artists are like that salesman who has to psych himself up every morning in the mirror -- though maybe our mirror conversation is sometimes more like Travis Bickle's. :evil:

Keep on punchin' away.
 
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