The low-budget bubble has well and truly burst

[Christoffer Glans]

Hmm... Any suggestions on how to fix that?

For them it fixes itself, they get tired when they realise they just had dreams and not what it takes. The problem is that they bring the industry down with them while doing it, pushing rates down to get jobs and then quit the industry when producers have gotten used to their low rates, demanding the same from the ones who stayed with experience, then going back to finding newcomers with the same low price and the circle is complete.

The only way to counter this is for production companies and producers to say no to newcomers and their low fees, having a standard of minimum wage that no production company goes under. An industry wide agreement of the fees paid out to filmmakers.

And because there are too many "filmmakers" or rather dreamers as I call them, they need to get their shit together if they actually want to become real professionals. Going back ten, twenty years, the newcomers needed to work under experienced people for a while, doing assistant jobs and learning the craft by this. Almost all of those who stayed in the industry doing this came out the other end as professionals with the knowledge required and the means to support a normal fee for their work. Nowadays any dreamer with enough to pay Adobe it's yearly fee will call themselves an editor and then pulling in jobs because they have a quarter of the price of anyone else. All while the technology force editors to do more things than edit, like compositing and grading for some jobs.

And film schools need to just stop their shit. They are a "dream factory" in it's worst possible way, pulling in all these dreamers going through education to believe they will start their journey to be the next Steven Spielberg, but they are putting out far more "filmmakers" than the industry can actually handle. I mean, how many freakin educations on film direction is there in the world? How many of these people actually gets a full time job directing movies? How many of all the film school graduates goes on just giving up working in the film industry?

It's like there's one opening for a job in a warehouse stacking cans on shelves and there's hundreds of thousands of people outside trying to get in to stack those cans, but no one seem to understand the simple fact that only one can do it. Maybe it's a generational thing, too many parents of 90's kids who put the "you can be anything when you grow up, you could be the president if you want" ideas in their heads. So too many people with unreasonably high narcissistic thoughts about themselves thinking they could be the next Christopher Nolan and then quits when they didn't get the jobs on a silver platter. I've been doing filmmaking and low status jobs in the industry for over 15 years now and I'm still not close to directing anything, but I have my expectations in a reasonable place, knowing that it's not a dream, it's just hard fucking work and experience comes with enduring that. As you might suspect, I hate dreamers in this industry, they're narcissistic and pulling the quality of the industry down just before dropping out and leaving a mess behind for the rest of us to try and put together again.

Wasn't there a thing just recently with the VFX artist studios in LA? Where the prices were pushed down so extremely that everything just imploded into a big pile of shit for both production companies and people working with VFX? The solution was that the studios and production companies went together in a collaboration to not go under unreasonable prices, keeping the industry going in a more vital and stable state. THAT is how it needs to be done on every level.

 

[Zeb B]

^Life After Pi

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

There's a million stories in the naked city, always will be. Just last week we had a producer reply to our market rate bid with a lowball rate that we rejected. It's not easy, even at the lowball rate I could have made a couple payments... For every ad hoc story there's a hundred unknowns, and no time to waste. So let's turn our attention to the broader forces shaping our industry and how we can find win-win solutions for labor and production.

The industry is in upheaval, the new players from the streaming side have serious leverage in multiple inflection points - plus - massive war chests. During this period of re-organization many of the long time players will reinvent their business models to adapt, others will be left behind. In any case, it offers a great opportunity for employers to rewrite terms to their advantage. You know, capitalism. It must also be a wakeup call to the modern digital workforce to create a broad framework for standard practices in contracting. Gig economy should not be code for "we saved a buttload of money by not having to provide benefits to our workforce".

Employees vs contractors is an artificial construct that has been adroitly exploited by the media and entertainment industry. It's a global workforce that has the same needs for medical care, parental leave, pensions, etc - whether you call them contractors or employees. This would potentially be much simpler in nations with government programs for things like health care and pension benefits.

Our industry does have some active, strong unions and guilds in place. Due respect to everyone involved, but producers are wily penny pinchers and have developed dozens of strategies to avoid meeting union requirements. I don't have any hard numbers, but I believe there is a ton of non-union work going on every day all over the world employing hundreds of thousands of folks annually. If we ALL stand together, perhaps we can all be fairly rewarded for our work. I rarely complain about long days or rough working conditions, it comes with the deal. But does perennial financial uncertainty HAVE to be included? I think not.

What do I suggest? Make participation in the union a super easy online experience that includes taking a picture of yourself arriving at the call and leaving (with timestamps of course) for tracking. Work with producers to make shooting union as simple as possible, with clear rules against using any self-reported data against them. The idea is to make the whole process so ubiquitous and mundane that people mostly forget about it, like sales tax.

Just a thought.

Cheers - #19

 

[Zeb B]

There's a million stories in the naked city, always will be. Just last week we had a producer reply to our market rate bid with a lowball rate that we rejected. It's not easy, even at the lowball rate I could have made a couple payments... For every ad hoc story there's a hundred unknowns, and no time to waste. So let's turn our attention to the broader forces shaping our industry and how we can find win-win solutions for labor and production.

The industry is in upheaval, the new players from the streaming side have serious leverage in multiple inflection points - plus - massive war chests. During this period of re-organization many of the long time players will reinvent their business models to adapt, others will be left behind. In any case, it offers a great opportunity for employers to rewrite terms to their advantage. You know, capitalism. It must also be a wakeup call to the modern digital workforce to create a broad framework for standard practices in contracting. Gig economy should not be code for "we saved a buttload of money by not having to provide benefits to our workforce".

Employees vs contractors is an artificial construct that has been adroitly exploited by the media and entertainment industry. It's a global workforce that has the same needs for medical care, parental leave, pensions, etc - whether you call them contractors or employees. This would potentially be much simpler in nations with government programs for things like health care and pension benefits.

Our industry does have some active, strong unions and guilds in place. Due respect to everyone involved, but producers are wily penny pinchers and have developed dozens of strategies to avoid meeting union requirements. I don't have any hard numbers, but I believe there is a ton of non-union work going on every day all over the world employing hundreds of thousands of folks annually. If we ALL stand together, perhaps we can all be fairly rewarded for our work. I rarely complain about long days or rough working conditions, it comes with the deal. But does perennial financial uncertainty HAVE to be included? I think not.

What do I suggest? Make participation in the union a super easy online experience that includes taking a picture of yourself arriving at the call and leaving (with timestamps of course) for tracking. Work with producers to make shooting union as simple as possible, with clear rules against using any self-reported data against them. The idea is to make the whole process so ubiquitous and mundane that people mostly forget about it, like sales tax.

Just a thought.

Cheers - #19

well stated Blair

 

[Christopher S Johnson]

I don't know man... I just can't imagine being in this industry and saying anything along the lines of the world needs less dreamers... You guys sound like you're trying to close the door right after you got in.

I don't think there is any "fixing" this. I think it will always be the capitalism of talent. Either you find a way to have what it takes, or you don't.

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

I don't think there is any "fixing" this. I think it will always be the capitalism of talent. Either you find a way to have what it takes, or you don't.

I think I agree with that. Not only do we all want different things, we also want more than one thing. I used to want to be a CEO of something like Apple or IBM. For a short time, I used to want to be in the Air Force. But really, I didn't truly, truly want those things.

And it's not the fault of film schools. It's the students' fault. They shouldn't be wasting their time attending.

 

[Wayne Morellini]

Christoffer, yes. We have the same problems with "schools" selling dreams of careers in all sorts of industries. Our governments have doubled down on these dreams, and handled it in horrendous ways instead of putting in quotas to fill expected demand, and fully fund those students.

What really has happened is that it has driven down salaries of practical careers which people freindly to the government hire from. It also has stacked people into impractical courses that makes supporters for the other side of government. But they doubled down requiring hardly employable people to keep studying short courses to get jobs they realistically weren't going be offered. But the private companies doing the training are the sort of thing the government is supportive of (businesses). So, who knows how many billions and even trillions of dollars of time and taxes (and misery and suffering) down the drain by suppressing wages and wasting people's time on training for dreams, on the tax payers and private, bills.

The truth is, what do people do for a living, as many jobs can be done with less Labor. Where do you stick them to give self discipline and reward on life. So, they are pushing the services economy where somebody produces oversease drains your country dry, while you are pacified by dreams and training of a better life.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

I don't know man... I just can't imagine being in this industry and saying anything along the lines of the world needs less dreamers... You guys sound like you're trying to close the door right after you got in.

I don't think there is any "fixing" this. I think it will always be the capitalism of talent. Either you find a way to have what it takes, or you don't.

Having dreams is a good thing, being a dreamer is not. The difference is that having a dream fuels hard work and dedication while being a dreamer is just someone who wants to have it all without the needed work and learning the craft. I don't close doors on those with dreams, I close doors on those who are dreamers, scam others into getting jobs for a quarter of what it truly costs and when shot hits the fan for them, they drop out and do something else since the dream the dreamer had was about the glory of working in the film industry rather than the passion of the art.

To rephrase or refine; there are far more people in the industry who want to go to cocktail parties with big stars to take instagram photos in order to brag about how they're working in the industry. I'll happily close the door right in their faces since they have nothing to do in an industry where people are struggling to actually make their dreams come true.

 

[C. Burkhart]

Having dreams is a good thing, being a dreamer is not. The difference is that having a dream fuels hard work and dedication while being a dreamer is just someone who wants to have it all without the needed work and learning the craft. I don't close doors on those with dreams, I close doors on those who are dreamers, scam others into getting jobs for a quarter of what it truly costs and when shot hits the fan for them, they drop out and do something else since the dream the dreamer had was about the glory of working in the film industry rather than the passion of the art.

To rephrase or refine; there are far more people in the industry who want to go to cocktail parties with big stars to take instagram photos in order to brag about how they're working in the industry. I'll happily close the door right in their faces since they have nothing to do in an industry where people are struggling to actually make their dreams come true.

There's nothing wrong with dreaming.
But there is a difference between dreaming and having a vision.
Dreams, if left unrealized become fantasies and escapes.
A vision always has a road map built into it to take us towards our destinations.

However, we still are responsible for the energy it takes to get us there and, more importantly we need realistic maps for our future.

This is where the difficulty comes in. The routes towards success are changing, as well as our desired destinations.
I don't think any one of us today has a very clear idea where all of this stuff is going.
It is thus very hard to build something without more clarity about how the future is reshaping itself.
This is an industry wide dilemma, not just amongst independent creatives.

 

[Wayne Morellini]

This discussion, trying to retro fit terms into some thought of expression of reality, is delusional. It is initself a dream of an answer. But what is pointed out has merit.

Better words are hopeful (in new terms rather than old terms where there was firm hope you trusted), fanciful, and delusional. I've refused to work with delusional, with people for their own sense of power want to own all my work for themselves. To them, anybody with a vision can be, outside what they see power/benefit or threat, is a dreamer. Fanciful is ok working for you, but not stuffing things up. Hopeful, is they hope to archieve something, even wishful, but practical. Then there comes HOW to archieve it (purposefully).

In relation to hopefully purposely how to archieve something. I come up with many practical things and how to do them, but if I can't realistically archieve it in the time frame budget, it gets put aside until I'm in a position to do it (or it becomes impractical), and go onto working out how to do something else to archieve that position. It's not like we have a hundred million to just throw away on something (or several hundred million) and that's the sort of resources it takes to setup business on some of these things. The world doesn't practically stand up and say you have something good to contribute, it tends to say who are you, and another dreamer, and then lubricate the delusionally powerful with lesser contribution/negative contribution to get the money. Believe me, I've seen bad faith and bad investment of good after not so good. So people misunderstand the difficulty and nature of doing these things, it's not like Hollywood and grafting after financing, it is individually far harder. A good design is like a grand movie, very intricate and expensive to get through, but with a lot less people doing most of the work over longer periods. Just ask Eric. His modest project has likely sucked up everything and taken many years with a team. The standard answer from dreamers of nightmares, is that peppleime that are dreaming, sure to their own futility in not being able to see the reality of what somebody like that can do, or the significance/contribution or reality of what they are trying to do. So dreamer is an insult that comes back on people who use the word, as delusionally on those cases. But the issues is these people have probably sunk 90% to 99% of human advancement this way. It has taken us less than 500 years of recent human advancement to reach the moon. Scientists are claiming to show humans as capable as we are today for tens of thousands of years maybe, maybe hundreds (I don't know where they are at with their thinking on that now). That would mean we could have reached the Moon in any previouse 500 year period n that time. But the reality is that, in that 500 years (and I'm not forgetting the low grade
of advancement before that) there has been a lot of waste, and it could have been done centuries sooner. One reason it was done now is a shift in thinking, culture and mechanisms to help archieve it. One of the reasons it wasn't done faster and sooner, is the delusional and bad dreamers.

I meet somebody with better than me, I might question to see how delusional it is, but then I get behind and support. It is more about the end contribution to socirty than the person. But this is the film industry... There is a lot of delusion in respect to the loving benefit to society.

 

[Hugh Scully]

The falling number of small independent, non-industry films is not so much a result of the poor character of the filmmakers but the vagaries of the business. It fails on the output side. There is a limited market that is well served by the well-heeled. Most self-realized films aren’t good enough. They need to be good, as Gareth Edward’s Monster was well conceived and well executed. It is still very possible.

The reality is that it’s not macrame or water color. The art form requires a crew of talented people who have to make rent. The promise of democratization was that the initial barrier of film costs was lifted. That happened, and inspired many, me included. Thanks to digital cinema - mostly RED but it is not enough. The “dream” that brings an artist to filmmaking, film students notwithstanding, isn’t to join the industry and take selfies with celebrities. The dream is to do it without the industry’s consent. The problem is finding an audience and realizing a profit so you can do it again. That is the daunting part.

This modulation is perfectly reasonable. It’s not over, though.

 

[Wayne Morellini]

Well. Expectations. If you don't go overboard and you are good enough, you can do stuff. So Vimeo, YouTube, private, local school, business, ad, corporate video, music video for locals, web video, web bloging, historical events, air shows, weddings etc. Mini series, shorts, maybe even a move, maybe even a feature one day. Do your level. Done will do more and one day do a movie or more. The democracisation just gives you the ability to do something hopefully according to your level. I know a guy, informally reviewing low end cameras, he now does video blogging with over 5k subscribers. But he has 5k subscribers, which may be more than you do. He's done something, and is doing things he's comfortable with. Good on him. But why shouldn't people have a descent post processed camera to film family events. Latter they can clean it up, or get somebody else to, to make it look good. Now, they have a little family record, rather than just photos. I have stated we need less writing, but previously a lot more people could do their life memories, or family history. Indeed there are many great stories in that too. One in a thousand people are extraordinary, they have relatives or friends that can write about them. There are more things to do than flood the fictional movie market. Democracisation helps ordinary people too.

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

This article might be interesting.

http://variety.com/2018/film/news/r...g-filmmakers-they-have-no-excuses-1202704558/

Ridley Scott Tells Aspiring Filmmakers They Have ‘No Excuses’

But he said aspiring filmmakers needed to be prepared to work hard or they should try something else. “There are a lot of them now,” said Scott. “I think they think it’s going to be all fun and parties. When I do a movie I’m shooting by 8:45 a.m. You have to or you’ll never catch up.”

 

[Eric Lange]

This article might be interesting.

http://variety.com/2018/film/news/r...g-filmmakers-they-have-no-excuses-1202704558/

Ridley Scott Tells Aspiring Filmmakers They Have ‘No Excuses’

Thanks for linking that great article.

I really loved Taboo (fantastic script, really well executed); Tom Hardy really brings it and makes it and IT makes him... hand in glove by design (of course), and amazing cast and sets and locations beyond that (great performances matched by exquisite historical research with some rather excellent tweaks and twists). So Good. And fantastic that season2 goes into production September of this year. Life is good.

BAFTA(s) great institution and so is Ridley (Scot). Hard to believe he is 80 years old (looks a lot younger to me, what energy courage and stamina; amazing.).

 

[Christoffer Glans]

Biggest problem with high profile directors telling "advice" to younger aspiring filmmakers is that these young filmmakers tend to end reading or listening after they said "there are no excuses, just go out and shoot". Fine and all in theory, but the "hard work" part is much more important. One of the defining factors of why so many fail at their films is that A) They can't write screenplays or have anything to actually say with their film and B) They can't direct actors.

Most people today are very much knowledgable with how images work and how to put together images into a coherent piece of editing. Even those who aren't filmmakers have a basic understanding of it since there are so much visual content today, everywhere. Many people edit their own home movies or youtube clips for their small channels so most people have the technical basics in place. But too many people don't have any philosophical, political, existentialistic, historical, psychological or scientific ideas to fuse into their films and stories. Most of the stories put out are weak duplicates of scenes in their favourite movies, they are in essence empty of any real "truths" that the filmmaker tries to provide. On top of that, most people can't write at all. Weak screenplay structures or incoherent characters with little to no life and no sense of beat rhythm. Then they go into directing with their weak screenplay and start by setting up the camera, drawing storyboards and here comes the actors and... just don't talk to them, they can handle themselves and more storyboards and more visual content and... oh, I have to talk to the actors? Ehm, ehm, stand here, say that, more angry more sad and happy at the same time and... so on. They have no insight into acting, into directing actors or how to collaborate life into the characters.

The knowledge of the craft of writing and directing for the majority of both film school students and those without education is minimal to non. Too much of filmmaking today focus on what camera gear and how to shoot something. Many aspiring directors are actually just focusing on the cinematography. Very few focus on what it actually means to write and direct. This is why the "go out and shoot" statement so often heard is such a simplistic statement that has little ground in reality. "Go out and shoot" only applies to getting a grip on how the camera works and how editing comes together, which most already has a grasp on.

My advice would be to not go out and shoot, but to sit still and think about life, about philosophy, about the world, write something that makes you cry, something true to heart and bloody brutal to your mind. Have a read-through with an actor explore the text you wrote and find that special place where the actors eyes get the intensity that makes you scared to death. Then and ONLY then, grab a camera. If someone could just shoot a close up of an actor speaking a text that they wrote and get that single shot to make people not able to look away... only then might they have enough to become a filmmaker with a vital career.

 

[Hugh Scully]

Great point. Writing a decent screenplay is really hard, writing a good one is almost impossible. This is, for sure, an input problem. I completely agree with this. My first short was, as you described and each subsequent one has proven that it is a mistake to start shooting unless you LOVE the script and even then, you may not execute.

Directing actors is definitely second to a great script. I’d add that casting is a big problem for indies. The notion that you can make a good movie with your friends doesn’t work unless your friends are working actors. Working film actors bring so much, even technically. They know how to be still, how to maintain their own continuity, how to execute blocking with camera... so much stuff. They let the camera in.

I’m an actor. I just got off a feature with A list actors and an A list director and the conversation before we rolled was clear, layered and succinctly focused on telling this part of the story. The difference between that and a rushed indy 7 page a day set is stark. There’s a reason these actors are so successful and it ain’t just their good looks. Really, get pro actors. Do the SAG signatory thing. It is well worth it.

In defense, I’ll say that you can get better. Nothing shows you more than watching your film, shot beautifully and well-lit flag miserably as the festival audience starts checking their phones. Experience is useful. I think my films are getting better but there is a lot to it. The one I’m editing now has trouble, mostly due to casting and my failure to get the actors where they needed to be to tell that story. Sh*t is hard, Man.

 

[Tom Dowler]

So confused by this thread. Isn't OP saying that the price of shooting has gone up?

Seven years ago 63% of UK films were made for under £500k.
Now only 34% are made for under £500k

So productions are costing more.

But everyone in the thread is decrying diminishing budgets due to cheap noobs.

 

[C. Burkhart]

So confused by this thread. Isn't OP saying that the price of shooting has gone up?

Seven years ago 63% of UK films were made for under £500k.
Now only 34% are made for under £500k

So productions are costing more.

But everyone in the thread is decrying diminishing budgets due to cheap noobs.

No. What is going on is that the endpoints have changed.
These figures are speaking about theatrical release. However, most cinema distribution can no longer afford to take risks.
Its become a high stakes game of survival. So while there are more low budget films being made than ever, their endpoint has changed. They will go to festivals, they may find they are bought to fill a television time slot, but most likely they will be diffused through the internet.
And they probably wont make back their costs.
The stark reality is that the public no longer wants to pony up for the big cinema experience unless its a sure thing.
The cost of production is more of a reflection of the type of projects being funded than a reflection of a rise in costs.

Lastly, most european producers get a fixed percentage of state funded projects. Today these are the only thing they can count on in a shrinking market for theatrical releases, so honestly which would anyone rather have 10% of (for the same amount of work) - a 350k project, or 1 million k one ?