Is it me or do a lot of indie films in festivals feel kind of empty?

[Leister]

Look at films like "Requiem for a dream" or "The Road". They are very well made, technically, AND they have a deeper layer. In my opinion, these films are art. They make you think, make you cry, laugh, whatever it is. They leave you back with bittersweet feelings and sometimes they really make you so sick that you can't stand to watch them completely.

They are NOT "entertainment" in common terms. Compare these two with a big budget AAA Hollywood SFX fest and you will see the difference. Typical Hollywood movies are made to make you feel good. That's why they always have happy endings, stereotypes and a tacked on message on society/nature/racism and/or other problems of mankind.

A lot of people forget, that film is an art form itself BUT at the same time it is an compound of different arts!

A good screenplay can be art by itself, like a novel. A movie soundtrack can be art by itself. And one of the most obvious things is the cinematography, that derives from photography.

You can't take a shitty screenplay with stereotyped hollywood clichés and put it together with the other parts to create "art". Avatar may be loads of fun and entertaining to watch, but hell no, it will NEVER be art for me. It's not even in the same ballpark, like, for example, the Coen movies.

Hollywood entertainment is made to make you feel good, that's the whole point, while art can make you sick, weep, hate yourself and laugh, sometimes all at the same time. Maybe that's why I am so fed up with the movies today. I get nothing from it. Empty, emotionless stories all over the place and the bad thing is, the indies follow this Hollywood formula instead of creating their own style of movies.

To call a 20.000.000 dollar movie "indie" is an abomination of the term. It's the same that happened to "indie rock" some years ago. "indie" has nothing to do with independence, it's just a mainstream term the rich guys tack on their entertainment products to pretend like their crap has some artsy feel.

In terms of photography: I absolutely adore war photographer James Nachtwey. He is a true artist. He sends a message to you with his pictures in a kind of way only true art can. He shot some photos I will never ever forget as long as I live.

It's very disturbing if you look at a photo that makes you feel good because the aesthetics of it are absolutely stunning. shadows, lighting, sharpness, depth of field... and then you realize you look at a massgrave of innocent citizens, cut up and raped and thrown in a hole like trash. It makes you think and that's what art is.

 

[harmonica44]

I agree but the movies I am talking about at the festival that I thought were empty were not near as good as Requiem of a Dream or The Road.

 

[AudioPostExpert]

You can't take a shitty screenplay with stereotyped hollywood clichés and put it together with the other parts to create "art". Avatar may be loads of fun and entertaining to watch, but hell no, it will NEVER be art for me. It's not even in the same ballpark, like, for example, the Coen movies.

Hollywood entertainment is made to make you feel good, that's the whole point, while art can make you sick, weep, hate yourself and laugh, sometimes all at the same time. Maybe that's why I am so fed up with the movies today. I get nothing from it. Empty, emotionless stories all over the place and the bad thing is, the indies follow this Hollywood formula instead of creating their own style of movies.

I agree with much of what you wrote. Film is an art form. As film makers we have to have a story to tell and the ability to communicate that story to our target audience by stimulating their emotions and entertaining them. What constitutes entertainment and therefore art varies widely from person to person. Some people are entertained by being shocked, some people hate being shocked, etc., etc. As film makers it's important to have own strong artistic opinions and thereby develop our own voice, our own way of telling or communicating the story to our target audience.

It's obvious from your comments that you are not part of Avatar's target audience, it didn't stimulate your emotions and therefore did not communicate with you, you got nothing from it and therefore in your opinion Avatar is not art. As a member of the public, a cinema going punter, it's your right to have this opinion but as a film maker, IMHO, it's incredibly narrow minded and debilitating.

As film makers we must be objective. We have to be able to identify our own strengths and weaknesses and the strengths and weaknesses of other film makers and thereby improve and develop our own ability to communicate with our target audience. The simple fact is, that Avatar was incredibly successful at stimulating the emotions and communicating with it's target audience, which by definition makes it good art (though not necessarily great art). As film makers we must be able to identify, acknowledge and learn from this, even if it doesn't communicate with us personally or fulfil our personal requirements for "art".

You mentioned twice that Avatar and Hollywood films in general are designed only to make you feel good. I disagree with this observation but even if it were true, why are you so dismissive of this emotional response? I can only assume that either you never intend to use a "feel good" emotional response in any of your films or you are being disingenuous. IMHO, it is incredibly limiting as an artist in any field to exclude the possible use of any emotional response, even for the purposes of contrast.

There may be some film makers out there making films just for their own enjoyment, who won't ever show their films to anyone else and who therefore do not have to consider or care about communicating with a target audience. I believe that these film makers are a tiny minority of the film making community but if you are one of them then I apologise, my comments above are not applicable to you.

G

 

[Cracker Funk]

EDIT: I've just read this through and it sounds rather confrontational, possibly even insulting.

Yep. And that's why I stopped responding. But I also believed your sincerity when you followed this statement by saying that you don't intend it that way, and that you only mean the best.

Here's the thing, though. Not only are you being dismissive, but you're also not really responding directly to what I'm saying (kinda reminiscent of that other thread we don't agree on). I tell you that the trailer works for me because it got me to go to the movie, soon. That's what a trailer is supposed to do! You respond by telling me that it clearly doesn't work, because the audio is horrible, and I should've known better.

Uhh, you didn't respond to my point. Horrible audio or not, it did it's job -- it got me excited about the movie! So, literally, by definition, it worked tremendously.

As for your assertion that I should know better, well, that's like, your opinion, man. I don't tell you how to work audio, and I don't think you're qualified to tell me how to be a director. Yes, it is insulting when you say stuff like this.

PLENTY of directors delegate a great deal of responsibility (and decision-making) to their DPs. PLENTY of directors do nothing more than communicate an idea or a feeling, and allow the DP to do their thing. Why can't I do the same with a sound designer?

 

[AudioPostExpert]

I tell you that the trailer works for me because it got me to go to the movie, soon. That's what a trailer is supposed to do!

This is where we disagree, I don't believe a trailer is or should be designed to make Cracker Funk want to go and see the movie, I believe a trailer should be designed to make as many people as possible want to go and see the movie!

My brother loves really terrible films, the more inadvertently terrible the better. I've sat and watched films with him with my mouth open at how badly made they are, while he's been rolling on the floor laughing (even though they're not supposed to be comedies) and constantly telling me that it's a work of genius. He's also got a collection of the worse trailers ever made. So if I made a hideously incompetent trailer that turned off 99.99999% of people who saw it, could I say that "it worked tremendously well" because it made my brother want to see the film?

Obviously, this is an extreme example but it illustrates my point. I'm sure there were many people like you for whom the trailer worked tremendously well, you're missing my point. My point is, how many more people could it and should it have "worked tremendously well" for? I guarantee you, with high quality sound design, you would still have thought the trailer worked tremendously well but but it would also have "worked tremendously well" for a much larger percentage of the people who saw it.

My brother, without any effort, could make a film which he and others like him would love but as professional or aspiring professional filmmakers we've got to be objective, we have to look far deeper than just what works well for us personally and think about professional technical and artistic expectations and what critics, investors and of course a large target audience, will feel works well.

PLENTY of directors delegate a great deal of responsibility (and decision-making) to their DPs. PLENTY of directors do nothing more than communicate an idea or a feeling, and allow the DP to do their thing. Why can't I do the same with a sound designer?

Because you are the director and as such you are responsible! If you delegate responsibility to your sound designer and he does a great job, your film will be much better and you'll be praised for making a good film. If however the sound designer does a bad job, you will be blamed for hiring him/her, blamed for not replacing him/her as soon as you realised or even worse, you'll be blamed for being too ignorant to even notice it was bad sound design.

I don't know who did the sound design on the trailer but I hold the director responsible for how bad it is. A good director would have noticed instantly that the sound design of the trailer was terrible and would have replaced them pronto. The sound design on the film itself is weak artistically but technically it's fine and I guarantee it was not done by the same person who did the trailer. While obviously skilled in some areas of film making, the director will need to up his game to progress as a professional.

G

 

[NickClapper]

Get a room, guys.

 

[Cracker Funk]

Get a room, guys.

In my opinion, our conversation has been perfectly healthy. Yes, I admitted that I found some of his comments insulting, but I also clarified that I believed him as sincere in that he means the best. We obviously disagree, but there's nothing wrong with that. No flame-war here.

This is where we disagree, I don't believe a trailer is or should be designed to make Cracker Funk want to go and see the movie, I believe a trailer should be designed to make as many people as possible want to go and see the movie!

Oh, no I agree with that. But just a clarification -- I only ever said that the trailer worked for me. As subjective as movies are (as you illustrated with the comments on your brother), I only ever comment on how a movie (or trailer) works for me. In this conversation, I intentionally added the words "for me" to be clear about the subjectivity, and in any other conversation, if I say a movie or trailer is great, or horrible, I assume that everyone knows it is my subjective opinion.

As for your other comments, actually I don't think a director would ever be blamed for faulty sound design. The buck stops at the producer, and that is who would hire a sound designer, no? At my level, that's just a nerdy clarification though, seeing as how I am in a position in which I have to be both producer and director.

I'm sure we could both agree that a producer can't be an expert on everything. And I know we both agree that a producer must be pretty well-versed in pretty much every technical and artistic aspect of the industry, in order to be able to make good hiring decisions. The only place we might not fully agree is in the relative degree to which a producer needs to be able to recognize and judge the quality of work in each area. Yes, a producer needs to be able to judge the quality of work of a sound designer, but a producer will never be able to do that as well as another sound designer can.

Cheers.

 

[AudioPostExpert]

Oh, no I agree with that. But just a clarification -- I only ever said that the trailer worked for me. As subjective as movies are (as you illustrated with the comments on your brother), I only ever comment on how a movie (or trailer) works for me. In this conversation, I intentionally added the words "for me" to be clear about the subjectivity, and in any other conversation, if I say a movie or trailer is great, or horrible, I assume that everyone knows it is my subjective opinion.

Of course, all opinions about any artform are always subjective, however as professionals we have to develop the ability to have two opinions, a personal opinion and a more objective professional opinion. In my case, the two are not necessarily related and in some cases the two different opinions are the complete opposite of each other! For example, pushed for my professional opinion on the greatest composers, Mozart would be very near the top of my list and I can easily justify why but personally, I don't own any Mozart recordings and generally find his works predictable and boring.

As for your other comments, actually I don't think a director would ever be blamed for faulty sound design. The buck stops at the producer, and that is who would hire a sound designer, no? At my level, that's just a nerdy clarification though, seeing as how I am in a position in which I have to be both producer and director.

The director would most definitely be blamed for faulty sound design, it is the director's responsibility, why wouldn't he/she be blamed? You're right that the producer is the one directly responsible for firing the sound designer but that would usually be done on the advise of the director. There are no hard and fast rules in my experience, producers often take a very active role in post production but some take almost none at all, it varies from production to production.

As far as knowing how to physically create sound design, of course a director or producer will (almost) never have the level of expertise as a sound designer. But as far as understanding how effective the sound design is and if and how it could be more effective, the director (and to a large degree the producer) absolutely and without question has to be an expert!! This expertise is one of the major differences between most directors and the very top flight directors. In fact Spielberg, as an example you've mentioned before, is more expert in this area than most professional sound designers.

G

 

[Cracker Funk]

In fact Spielberg, as an example you've mentioned before, is more expert in this area than most professional sound designers.

You've figured out my kryptonite. Okay, now I'm diving head-in to learning sound design.

 

[AudioPostExpert]

Although it's particularly true in audio post that "a little knowledge can be dangerous", in the long run, a very good understanding of sound design really is essential if you want to be a good director.

For the uninitiated, audio post is a surprisingly large and complex area of film making and nothing will educate you better than the experience of working with a high quality audio post professional. There are very few good books on the subject but for a good starting point I highly recommend: www.filmsound.org

G