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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Kevin Smith launches Indie distribution

What Kevin Smith needs is a guy like Jim Jannard to set aside $20M to be spread out for directors who have names/desire like Kevin who need a little financial kickstart for being their own person and going out doing things their own way.

Jim????

$20M spread out for 5 ish movie makers with a decent track record is not very risky...
 
I think a George Lucas or maybe a Steve Spielberg would be more suited to setting up such a thing, but I never get too excited about that stuff because I'm the type of Director who would really benefit from such a fund but also the type of Director whom would probably never receive anything from such a fund.
 
Thing is, we should not forget that people only give a s__t about what Kevin does because they have heard about him, and they have only heard about him because of a huge hype machine that was funded, over the years, by... The Studios.

It's like Radiohead with their "independent" album launch a few years ago. Who would care if they were not stars? Who made them stars in the first place?
 
Kevin Smith can dismiss the studios and proceed this way as he already has a fan base and a cult following.

How is he going to build this same level of excitement with other movies by other directors possibly not as well know?

I think this is disingenuous, and all serves as a further means to self promotion.

But may he prove me wrong. If he works out a wicked way to widely distribute via an alternate means, then I will be his biggest fan.
 
Tim Hole said:
Forgive me if this has been posted anywhere but thought it might be interesting to some...

http://vimeo.com/26330704
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Nice! Really makes you think about the future of the film-making process. What jobs can be thrown away? What new jobs will be created? And in this day and age, if you're a director who's not his own DP or editor... what the hell are you even doing then!? Just offing your opinion? That's hardly a position fit for such an important credit. If all you do is supervise and coach the actors, then "Director" should be changed to "Talent Supervisor"... and put below the titles of the people who are actually crafting the film.
 
Bryce O said:
Nice! Really makes you think about the future of the film-making process. What jobs can be thrown away? What new jobs will be created? And in this day and age, if you're a director who's not his own DP or editor... what the hell are you even doing then!? Just offing your opinion? That's hardly a position fit for such an important credit. If all you do is supervise and coach the actors, then "Director" should be changed to "Talent Supervisor"... and put below the titles of the people who are actually crafting the film.
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Totally disagree with that - this is a very technology centric way of thinking.

Kevin Smith cuts his own films and that's awesome for him. He also isn't particularly well known for getting landmark performances out of actors. Other directors spend a lot more time learning how to direct talent and get specific performances out of people, and that's an amazing a valuable talent to have - and not one learned lightly.

There is no one road, no one right or wrong. Also being in there and cutting yourself can sometimes make you more mentally fatigued than watching someone else and assessing their choices and collaborating.

You don't need to be at the keyboard to direct the edit - you do need to have the language and the understanding with the editor to get across your ideas quickly - this tends to comes through long time collaboration and a good working relationship between two professionals.
 
Bryce O said:
And in this day and age, if you're a director who's not his own DP or editor... what the hell are you even doing then!? Just offing your opinion? That's hardly a position fit for such an important credit. If all you do is supervise and coach the actors, then "Director" should be changed to "Talent Supervisor"... and put below the titles of the people who are actually crafting the film.
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I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous. You have no idea how hard a director works even without doing his own DP and editing work. Ask Terrance Malick why he doesn't shoot his own movies. Ask Ridley Scott. Ask Spielberg. Peter Jackson. And make sure you tell them that unless they are doing their own DP and editing work, they must really be slacking on the job.
 
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it's impossible to understand how absolutely difficult it is to be a good director until you've had that kind of pressure. it's been really hard for me to move away from the camera to focus on more important things. that wouldn't make any sense to myself a couple of years ago.

the director's chair is the least comfortable one out there... despite how appealing it looks.
 
Why limit it to DP'ing and editing? Why aren't directors also building their own sets and sewing their own costumes? Why aren't they holding the mic boom and mixing at the same time? Why aren't they parking the trucks? And what's with not cooking for the crew? Jeez, what slackers!
 
haha, come now david. just remember we have all been ignorant at times... ;)

but he's absolutely right guys, i'd take his word for it on this.
 
A director "parking trucks", that's ridiculous, the actors should be made to do that, since all they do all day is act like they're doing something. (;
 
paulherrin said:
it's impossible to understand how absolutely difficult it is to be a good director until you've had that kind of pressure. it's been really hard for me to move away from the camera to focus on more important things. that wouldn't make any sense to myself a couple of years ago.

the director's chair is the least comfortable one out there... despite how appealing it looks.
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I think it's much more of a your mileage may vary situation, of all the shorts I've directed the most stressful job I had wasn't directing the short itself but rather writing a script from scratch and having to finish it with enough time for me to have a little bit of sleep and I can direct the movie the following morning, pacing around at 2 am drawing a blank on what is or is not good writing when you only really have yourself to rely on is very stressful.
 
During production, a director is one of the busiest persons on a set, and works the longest hours. His off hours are spent prepping, dealing with studio politics, talking to actors, producers, and making decisions for things down the road -- picking this or that song, approving this or that upcoming whatever, could be anything. Not to mention, there is reviewing dailies and starting the editing process.

On the set, his primary job is directing performance and communicating to the crew how to shoot a scene in a manner that conveys the narrative, supports the performance, while dealing with out-of-the-blue things that go wrong and causing planning to be tossed out the window. A few directors manage to be their own cinematographers (Kevin Smith is not one of them and I don't think he has much interest in that job anyway) -- often doing so with a lot of help from supporting people. And some of them may be short-shifting the acting aspect (as some actors have conveyed to me when describing working with a director-DP combo). But a few can pull it off. Soderbergh is a great director-DP combination.

During a set-up, when the cinematographer and crew takes over, the director uses that time to deal with other important things, maybe visits the editing room or reviews a cut, picks wardrobe, looks at location photos, goes to the actor's trailer to discuss the scene. There may even be casting issues to deal with during production. So there aren't a lot of directors that want to lose that productive time by taking over the cinematography themselves.

The thing is that being a good director does not necessarily mean you'd be a good cinematographer; they aren't the same job exactly so one may or may not have skills that cover all the bases. I'm sure Ridley Scott could shoot his own movies if he wanted to (and yet he doesn't choose to, for good reasons), but what about someone like Woody Allen or Sidney Pollack (when he was alive) or some other director who had strengths in writing or performance but not necessarily photography. It's not really a matter of the technology becoming so dirt easy that anyone can do cinematography -- after all, the technology behind writing a screenplay or acting is minimal but that doesn't mean that anyone can do those jobs well. Cinematography is a lot more than getting the exposure right and the picture in focus. It's an art like any other art. Some directors may have a talent for it, but some may not. Maybe Orson Welles or John Ford could have been a good cinematographer but maybe not Howard Hawks or Billy Wilder, but that doesn't make them any less important or valuable as directors.

Now as for director-editors, that's a bit more commonplace because a lot of the editing work takes place after production where the director has a bit more time to concentrate on that aspect. So it's possible to get through production with the help of editorial assistants and then cut the movie yourself after production. But again, there are advantages to working with a fellow artist like a good editor. I'm sure Spielberg could edit his own movies, but he feels he's working with the best editor in the film industry, Michael Kahn, so why work with anyone else and why not collaborate with someone so talented? I'm sure he feels the same way about working with cinematographer Janusz Kaminski. I'm sure Christopher Nolan could shoot his own movie but why when he has someone as talented as Wally Pfister to collaborate with? Is there some sort of extra brownie points you get from avoiding collaboration?

I think the problem comes from some assumptions, like the assumption that cinematography -- particularly lighting -- is some sort of chore that gets in the way of filmmaking rather than a creative act.
 
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collaboration can be the most rewarding part of making a film. collaborating with people who have more experience and talent than yourself is even better. If you have the balls to do it that is.
 
Well, I guess I should have said "... in the future" rather than "these days". I dunno, I guess I see the traditional model of production coming to an end soon. With the unions keeping new talent out, and technology becoming more affordable and integrated with people, I see many jobs converging purely out of escalation. Hell, I bet in 5-10 years will see on-the-fly real time editing in camera... just shoot a clip, set your in-out points, then drop it into your camera's "meta-timeline". The movie will almost be finished by the time your done shooting. Even things like focus and lighting will become meta-data in under 10 years...

I definitely understand how complicated jobs are, CURRENTLY... but the process just seems super-inefficient and old. In the past, it took 10+ years to learn a craft for film... now with the internet it takes only maybe 1-2 years... maybe even months if you're not working full-time. Take the recent movie Monsters for example... that guy did almost EVERYTHING! I think that's what it's going to take to really break the mold in the near future. Hell, I think that if you can't direct, shoot, edit, score, do your own cgi, and write... you may have a hard time. The big executives are going to start seeing more and more amazing content being created on the internet (by basically one person) for almost nothing, and then on the other hand, they're going to start seeing higher and higher wages demanded by the unions for the same work... guess where they're going to turn.

So you can call me "ignorant" for not knowing the "industry" and speculating on the future or whatever... but if you really don't see this coming then your not looking. Progress usually comes from people outside of an industry looking-in from a different angle. If someone wants a job that that they can't get (no contacts, unions, ect.) then what do you do? Play by the rules and "work your way up"? Screw that. Just undercut everyone and re-invent the process. Capitalism's a bitch if you're playing defense.

I'm not really trying to argue with anyone... everything people have said in response to my first post is valid. I'm just talking about "down the road"... you really don't think we're still going to need 100+ people to make a movie in the future do you?

David Mullen ASC said:
Ask Terrance Malick why he doesn't shoot his own movies. Ask Ridley Scott. Ask Spielberg. Peter Jackson. And make sure you tell them that unless they are doing their own DP and editing work, they must really be slacking on the job.
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It's probably because it was never really practical. These days cameras let you light and expose in real time and editing and color correcting have never been easier. We're talking about a different set of tools here... and once you've gotten use to a specific production model it's probably hard to change. Plus, once you've got a crew of people you like working with and you're making millions of dollars... why change?

It's getting harder and harder to break into the industry. The "next-gen" directors are going to have to do all these jobs out of necessity... then they're just going to be expected to in the future.
 
Actually, most of the time, it's not really a choice to do several things for indy directors, but an obligation if they want their movie done (cost cuttings). I agree with David, if you have the money to hire the people to ease to work, why not ? The same thing goes for distribution : most of the time, to get things done and give the possibility of showing the movie, directors/producers are obliged to distribute the movie themselves. The show-business world is full of people who have projects in their minds, thinking about the way they are going to do this or that, waiting for a phone call or an answer, and in the end who are never doing anything, having nothing but small camera tests/5 minutes videos clips/etc to show after 20 years. Tough world. Things won't improve even if new technical ways of distributing movies are coming, because most of the time the average Joe is just interested in the new movie with Brad Pitt, Di Caprio, by Spielberg or Soderbergh, whatever, just industrial products in fact ;-) A pain for the soul ;-)
 
Kristin Stewart said:
Actually, most of the time, it's not really a choice to do several things for indy directors, but an obligation if they want their movie done (cost cuttings). I agree with David, if you have the money to hire the people to ease to work, why not ? The same thing goes for distribution : most of the time, to get things done and give the possibility of showing the movie, directors/producers are obliged to distribute the movie themselves. The show-business world is full of people who have projects in their minds, thinking about the way they are going to do this or that, waiting for a phone call or an answer, and in the end who are never doing anything, having nothing but small camera tests/5 minutes videos clips/etc to show after 20 years. Tough world. Things won't improve even if new technical ways of distributing movies are coming, because most of the time the average Joe is just interested in the new movie with Brad Pitt, Di Caprio, by Spielberg or Soderbergh, whatever, just industrial products in fact ;-) A pain for the soul ;-)
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I even don't think average Jo goes to see a movie for it's director name.
 
Brice Ansel said:
I even don't think average Jo goes to see a movie for it's director name.
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Well of course the "Average joe" doesn't see a movie because of the director but a directors name still has clout especially when it comes to getting movies made some big name actors will only come aboard a film if a handful of directors they approve of are attached to the project.
Box office is only part of the equation.
 
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