What's Stopping the Revolution?

washere said:
Link superb movies here that no one or only a handful have seen and got shelved or buried, will be fun either way.
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Linking any movie no one has seen is pretty hard ;-)

This 'dare' is like: show me a living specimen of an extinct species:
being unable to do so is no 100% proof there are no more specimen alive.
While history has shown that some species did 'come back' from extinction, like the Coelacant.

At the same time: a lot if not most superb movies did take at least some monetary investment. The higher the stakes, the more budget is allocated to marketing to diminish the risk of losing money.
So, maybe, al superb movies are well known, but it will surely be wonderful to get a list of forgotten or ignored masterpieces :)
 
WalterB said:
Linking any movie no one has seen is pretty hard ;-)

This 'dare' is like: show me a living specimen of an extinct species:
being unable to do so is no 100% proof there are no more specimen alive.
While history has shown that some species did 'come back' from extinction, like the Coelacant.

At the same time: a lot if not most superb movies did take at least some monetary investment. The higher the stakes, the more budget is allocated to marketing to diminish the risk of losing money.
So, maybe, al superb movies are well known, but it will surely be wonderful to get a list of forgotten or ignored masterpieces :)
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Your metaphor is false, a Post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. There are no correlations between the two cases or the cause/effects. In fact it proves my case, if it exists, and you know many cases, link one superb unseen indie feature here.

Also money does not mean quality, correlation wise in all cases as you claim, hence irrelevant.

Here we are talking about commercial indie features shot on the "Revolution's digital cheap equipment" per topic which are narrative. Not true lost gems of other genres like experimental or avant garde or art genre or non-narrative or World cinema forgotten gems or rediscovered silents presumed lost etc etc.

If you link one of the many here, we'll all help to get the attention that superb indie mainstream narrative digital no/low-budget feature deserves. Much lesser venues or cyber realms than indietalk.com have helped features to rise and we will all help push it.

Also you misunderstand a plain sentence. I did not say superb films on low/no budget are not made. In fact that is what you imply with your money based worldview. I said they will rise to the top. In fact I am the positive one here rather than you objectors if you think logically, correctly and analytically about the discussion.

Finally I did not say a good or very good or an excellent feature, I said a superb film.

Go break a leg darling.
 
Any superb film will rise to the top.
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Outside subjective methods, how would you define a superb film?

that no one or only a handful have seen
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While we're at it, you might as well qualify this. Is it a percentage of the population? Actual eyeballs? If so, what's the number?

Would you include films by Georges Méliès? For the times, those films would have been superb though a decent percentage of his films have been destroyed, never to be seen by more than a handful.

a Post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy
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Much like the assumption if a film is superb its audience is guaranteed to find it.
 
Aspiring Mogul said:
I've been working overtime, putting my money aside, so that, when the time comes, I will be ready to go. My path is a very narrow path, with very little leeway, and it's also a steep climb, filled with obstacles.
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Keep climbing, brother! One foot in front of the other. While saving up that money, though, have you also been practicing your filmmaking skills? Cuz that's a rather important part of the process. No reason why you can't be the next Lena Dunham!
 
I actually think washere is onto something. Though I strongly encourage a low budget filmmaker to bust their ass on finding ways to get their movie seen via non-conventional approaches that don't require money, the most sure-fire way to get your film seen is to make it truly superb, as washere (which, in my mind, is totally pronounced "wash-here") puts it.

I think the reason you might be getting some disagreement, wash_here ;), is because there are plenty of low-budget films that get lost in the mix, seen by nobody, but are perfectly entertaining, and "decent", even "good". But yeah, I can't think of any that were "superb". I'm incredibly proud of my debut feature. But it's a long ways from superb.

So let's make that next one superb!
 
Cracker Funk said:
And what happens when an art-form becomes accessible to the masses? ... It flourishes. What a beautiful time to be alive.
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Define flourishes.

I heard EXACTLY these arguments in the '90s with regard to the music industry, when instead of half a million just to get started, digital technology made it potentially possible to achieve pro or near pro results for just a few thousand. The number of home/project studios exploded, hundreds of thousands started making recorded music. The art flourished, the number of new genres and sub-genres of popular music dramatically increased. A great and exciting time to be alive!

That view was relatively short lived though, because in hindsight it was naive in the extreme! The industry did NOT stay the same but just more people had access to it, that wide changed the industry. Consumers didn't just go out and buy more music, they didn't even go out and buy the same amount of music. The may have consumed as much or more music but they started getting it from the internet and paid far less or nothing at all for it. The new sub/genres made by amateurs in garages was of poor quality but much of the mass market fragmented and moved away from traditional concepts of "quality", they embraced attributes other than high production values and they expected to pay a fraction of the price or nothing for it. With falling income from new products the major labels cut the amount they invested in potential new talent and even the amount they invested in existing talent. 90% of the major recording studios went out of business, the labels amalgamated into less than a handful of huge conglomerates and made more of their money from back catalogues than new products. Today the commercial/professional recording industry is almost dead! What's left has been subsumed into the marketing industry. Even the top artists make relatively little money from recordings any more, instead, albums are mostly made as promotional material for tours. Those lesser than the huge mega-stars, hoping to break into the "big time", who could once scrape a living until they did, can't any longer as there are just too many competitors and too little consumer spending spread amongst them. Talent once had a hard task getting noticed, today it's way harder and more importantly, if there's relatively little living to be made even if you are noticed, what's the point in spending all the time, effort, perseverance and dedication to get "noticed"? What commercial incentive is there for new potential talent? The situation today is magnitudes better than it's ever been for amateur music makers but for those who want to progress and one day make a decent living from it, it's never been worse! It's a sad fact that many (and possibly virtually all) of the great talents of the past would, if starting out today, sink without a trace.

Will the filmmaking industry go the same way as the music recording industry? There are certainly some signs that it's taking the same early steps into oblivion as the recording industry but who knows? At least the film/TV industry is not just blindly walking into the future with rose-tinted sunglasses but has the cautionary tale of the recording industry to guide them.

Will there be a revolution in Hollywood? Possibly, more likely it will just be an evolution but evolution or revolution, what makes you think that where it's going will be better than where it is now? For the hobbyist filmmaker it's already better and will certainly get better still, but it's unclear if it will get better for the amateur filmmaker wanting more out of it than just a pastime/hobby.

G
 
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AudioPostExpert said:
Define flourishes.

I heard EXACTLY these arguments in the '90s with regard to the music industry, when instead of half a million just to get started, digital technology made it potentially possible to achieve pro or near pro results for just a few thousand. The number of home/project studios exploded, hundreds of thousands started making recorded music. The art flourished, the number of new genres and sub-genres of popular music dramatically increased. A great and exciting time to be alive!

That view was relatively short lived though, because in hindsight it was naive in the extreme! The industry did NOT stay the same but just more people had access to it, that wide changed the industry. Consumers didn't just go out and buy more music, they didn't even go out and buy the same amount of music. The may have consumed as much or more music but they started getting it from the internet and paid far less or nothing at all for it. The new sub/genres made by amateurs in garages was of poor quality but much of the mass market fragmented and moved away from traditional concepts of "quality", they embraced attributes other than high production values and they expected to pay a fraction of the price or nothing for it. With falling income from new products the major labels cut the amount they invested in potential new talent and even the amount they invested in existing talent. 90% of the major recording studios went out of business, the labels amalgamated into less than a handful of huge conglomerates and made more of their money from back catalogues than new products. Today the commercial/professional recording industry is almost dead! What's left has been subsumed into the marketing industry. Even the top artists make relatively little money from recordings any more, instead, albums are mostly made as promotional material for tours. Those lesser than the huge mega-stars, hoping to break into the "big time", who could once scrape a living until they did, can't any longer as there are just too many competitors and too little consumer spending spread amongst them. Talent once had a hard task getting noticed, today it's way harder and more importantly, if there's relatively little living to be made even if you are noticed, what's the point in spending all the time, effort, perseverance and dedication to get "noticed"? What commercial incentive is there for new potential talent? The situation today is magnitudes better than it's ever been for amateur music makers but for those who want to progress and one day make a decent living from it, it's never been worse! It's a sad fact that many (and possibly virtually all) of the great talents of the past would, if starting out today, sink without a trace.

Will the filmmaking industry go the same way as the music recording industry? There are certainly some signs that it's taking the same early steps into oblivion as the recording industry but who knows? At least the film/TV industry is not just blindly walking into the future with rose-tinted sunglasses but has the cautionary tale of the recording industry to guide them.

Will there be a revolution in Hollywood? Possibly, more likely it will just be an evolution but evolution or revolution, what makes you think that where it's going will be better than where it is now? For the hobbyist filmmaker it's already better and will certainly get better still, but it's unclear if it will get better for the amateur filmmaker wanting more out of it than just a pastime/hobby.

G
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There's my Negative Nancy! Sorry, didn't read. I've become really good at tuning you out. If you'd ever made a film you'd know that filmmakers need words of encouragement.

There would be no Alfred Hitchcocks, no Stephen Spielbergs, no Tina Feys, if not for people encouraging them to attempt the impossible. Dream big, do things you might fail at. That's what cinema is made of!
 
washere said:
...............

Also you misunderstand a plain sentence. I did not say superb films on low/no budget are not made. In fact that is what you imply with your money based worldview. I said they will rise to the top. In fact I am the positive one here rather than you objectors if you think logically, correctly and analytically about the discussion.

..........
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I don't think you totally got what I said. (Nor the subtle joke inside of it. ;) )
I'm not denying that superb unseen movies exist or do not exist.
Your claim that every superb movie will rise from the vast amount of movies in the world is just hard to disproof by posting an unseen superb movie, because unseen is unnoticed, so nobody has the link :P
If it is not seen by many, than odds are relatively small that someone in this pretty small IT community did actually see it and thus can post the link to show that there was a superb movie waiting to be found somewhere on YouTube or Vimeo.
Hence the comparison with the living fossile: it was there all the time, but when the fossile was discovered nobody could prove the species was still alive. While it survived for over 60 million years, so in some way you could say it's build is superb AND it looks pretty special. It was just unnoticed all the time, so nobody could disproof it's 'extinct' qualification for a century.

My worldview is much less moneybased than you might think. My explaination might just have fallen short: more funds create more possibilities to create a superb movie. But with more money involved comes the desire to reduce the risk, so more money is spent on marketing. Making it indeed less likely that a superb movie will go unnoticed. At the same time the opposite can also happen: attention can be taken away from superb movies by fun movies that have millions more to spend on maketing.
Because, whether you like it or not, a lot of attention is being paid for.
So I'm not saying superb movies can't be made without money, I'm just saying the odds get smaller in both execution and getting attention. It would be a perfect world if quality always surfaces automaticly.

That doesn't make me negative, btw.

And I agree with CF: we should alway strive to create something superb.

washere said:
...............
There are no correlations between the two cases or the cause/effects. In fact it proves my case, if it exists, and you know many cases, link one superb unseen indie feature here.
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Your disagreement does not prove your case ;)
Nor did I ever say that I know many cases.
Cause and effect are not the same, but they have a great analogy:
"Show me something presumed to not exist!" can only be met by showing something unknown, but since it is unknown it's pretty hard to show. Unless someone happened to stumple upon some new discovery.
Hence my little thought experiment that the inability to show an unknown superb movie is not proving that every superb movie will rise above the masses and get that vast audience it deserves.
(Just like the inability to proof that the world is a globe didn't make the world flat.)

Has anyone seen Rok Dabla? (The year of the devil)
(Although it's probably shot on film, I think it is a movie that is entitled to more attention. But then the trouble starts: it is really superb? Is it unknown enough? Or did it do rise to the top of it's potential?)
 
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Cracker Funk said:
..............
There would be no Alfred Hitchcocks, no Stephen Spielbergs, no Tina Feys, if not for people encouraging them to attempt the impossible. Dream big, do things you might fail at. That's what cinema is made of!
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Very true!

(Watched Dial M for murder last night: anyone struggeling with a limited amount of shooting locations shout watch it)
 
Lots of typical forum circular arguments and even more fallacy types but still no feature mentioned or linked as what you consider is a superb hidden gem of this digital mass revolution.
 
Hilarious. No logical responses after being shown just spiralling into personal attack gutter from who one would expect. I repeat:

washere said:
Lots of typical forum circular arguments and even more fallacy types but still no feature mentioned or linked as what you consider is a superb hidden gem of this digital mass revolution.
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Still, no cigar.
 
Cracker Funk said:
I've become really good at tuning you out. If you'd ever made a film you'd know that filmmakers need words of encouragement.
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The response of child who dreams of becoming a star and needs a pat on the head for their childish efforts. If you ever decide to make a film which people actually want to watch then tuning out those who've made a living for decades doing what you are only able to dream of, is foolish at best. Fortunately for you, indietalk doesn't ban people just for being a fool!

Cracker Funk said:
There would be no Alfred Hitchcocks, no Stephen Spielbergs, no Tina Feys, if not for people encouraging them to attempt the impossible. Dream big, do things you might fail at. That's what cinema is made of!
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No, that's not what cinema is made of, where did you learn that, Cinema for Dummies? If Alfred Hitchcock, Spielberg and others had only attempted the impossible you would never have heard of them! Attempting the impossible is stupid, because it's impossible! The reason Hitchcock and Spielberg succeeded is because they excelling at maximising the potential of what was possible, of their resources and circumstances and by deliberately avoiding the impossible. Sure, they took calculated risks, even quite big risks but that's very different from attempting the impossible, only a star-crazed infant would not recognise this difference!

Dreaming big is easy, the difficulties only arise when trying to turn the big dream into reality. A child might try and do this by attempting the impossible, someone who is really serious though, would look at their circumstances and try to maximise their chances. By stating some of those circumstances, I am only being "negative" to those dreaming of achieving the impossible!! To those dreaming of attempting something possible, albeit something extremely difficult, stating those circumstances is not a "negative", it's just information which could/should be used positively.

If you just want to dream and continue childish attempts at filmmaking, then you're right, you should tune out what I'm saying, because it's not aimed at you, it's aimed at those who are actually serious about turning a filmmaking dream into a career!

G
 
psychodrain.gif


Even more personal attacks after losing a debate. Also wonder what work can emerge from such minds. Still, the rest of us and the world is waiting for a single superb and hidden gem example.
 
Sweetie said:
What do you think they achieved that was impossible?



Who are you trying to kid? You're the only fool waiting for proof that the world is flat. Hold your breath. The answer is coming.
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The fool is whoever taught you your ill manners and set your doomed mindset as a pathetic miserable bully of new members. Your comments are all generalities and waffle when not making unprovoked personal attacks out of the blue. Thousands of waste of time posts of yours, nonsense walls of text peppered with racist overtones. The IQ level seems particularly low too not to mention your lame wit. What can such a mind create but what we see aplenty in waffle and insults by you.
 
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