For all the fantastic people who offer their ears and minds to my ramblings, here are some more thoughts from the mind of Rich.

I’m being retrenched; although I haven’t officially been told this in as many words yet. I trust my ‘gut’ 99% of the time though because often that’s how God speaks to me, and my gut is telling me “start looking for new opportunities” pretty loudly.

It’s been a week now that I’ve wanted to write something about the strange mix of emotions I am experiencing, but I thought I should wait a bit for some kind of coherent thought or process to form. All I can say is I’m overwhelmed and not sure what my next step should be.

For the most part, I have peace in all this which is strange considering most would be worrying themselves sick being unemployed in today’s global economic climate. I’m not most though, and I for one know God as my Father, which helps immensely. If God is your dad, you’re pretty sorted really no matter what. It’s like being the son of the President, but better, it’s actually like being the son of the Creator and Ruler of everything, son of The King, a Prince forever because He is never voted out, there are no elections, no democratic process and you have no choice but to live under His kingdom and His reality whether you believe or not.

If you don’t know Him, or deny His existence altogether… for the most part you’re on your own, and are pretty screwed actually. He loves you anyway, regardless of whether you acknowledge Him or not, but it really limits what He can actively do in your life if you pretend He’s not there. I can’t even really contemplate that kind of reality or what it must be like.

So that said, I know that this transition I am in will be amazing, totally in my best interests and will push me, make me more mature and benefit me in more ways than I can list in this blog. I know this because I am a son of The King. I am royalty.

I still have to keep telling myself that a few times a day.

So, I don’t know what I will be doing next. I’ve got many diverse skills and I can’t tell what doors will open to me. It could be in post-production, supervising, editing, producing… it could be behind the camera, photography and cinematography, it could be technical, creative, a combination… I can’t tell at this point but I do know that my Dad has a plan in mind that is greater than anything I can see right now.

Exciting times are ahead, I am standing in a long corridor with many doors extending on both sides, I am just not sure which one to push.

"Saint Richard's Gate" - One of my favourite photographs of my daughter Marita that I took at St Micheal's church in Amberley. This is a great picture of how I feel right now... small, humble, but curious and not quite sure what's on the other side. The name of the gate is quite fitting however.

Some fantastic thoughts that mirror and underline my own articles on indiewood, Trigonis writes with authority and eloquence… thanks Trigonis! If you aren’t following him on twitter… you are missing out… @trigonis

In Alain Aguilar’s first film Cog, which I wrote and starred in, there’s a brief montage of me in London smiling big beside the bronze statue of Charlie Chaplin in Leicester Square. The smile was all acting back then (I hated silent films prior to 2001), but Chaplin has since had a most profound impact on me as a storyteller and filmmaker. Two nights ago I saw The Circus on the big screen at the Film Forum in New York City. It’s a movie I’ve seen … Read More

via John T. Trigonis Presents

This is pretty cool… many thanks to Deon Louw for the link to this, maybe things aren’t so bad, it’s good to step back and see the bigger picture.

So true…

http://www.viruscomix.com/page523.html

…write until your knuckles bleed all over your keyboard. Throw it away and start again, over and over again, ask the hardest possible questions of your material, be honest, not just honest… BRUTALLY honest.

This post is about being brutally honest.

I actually want to make a documentary, or even better… write a book called “the digital revolution, the democracy of film making and the demise of the independent film industry.” This is a story of many acts but a single thread that winds its way through the explosion of high speed broadband internet, piracy, free to view public domain video hosting and streaming, unprecedented technological innovation, social networking… a thread that is heading at the speed of fibre optic cabling to some as yet unknown destination… we are still very much in the swing of this technological, social and creative revolution.

I spend a lot of time thinking through all of this, trying to plot my own course through these choppy uncharted waters.

My overall conclusion is that no matter how all this pans out in the end… if there is a end, now more than ever STORY is king… to be a successful film maker = being a successful writer that can produce / or a producer who knows great writing and can buy the rights to produce work from other writers.

Story is the #1 key to unlock finance and distribution… to unlock everything actually. Forget about shooting, editing, technology… all of that is becoming more and more childs play and can be bought later… cheaply. Rather write, write, write, and write some more!

If all one can do is shoot and edit, the party’s over, so can everyone else, that doesn’t make anyone a “filmmaker”… but if you can conceptualize, develop, write, originate real original content for the big screen, tv, web… whatever, and not just good content or great content but absolutely fantastic content… you are rarer and more valuable than you imagine and have a very bright and prosperous future ahead.

Write… no, write well… scratch that, write brilliantly well and doors will open to you!

Now the question we all need to ask, and that I am asking myself is… do I fit that description? Am I a shooter and editor with pipe dreams, or am I a fantastic content originator and writer capable of moving even the most hardened and cynical audience to the extremes of emotion and human experience?

Think about it… and about how hard that is… be brutally honest… that’s what you have to do if you want to make it.

I still want to make little shorts, to keep my eyes and hands busy with camera, directing and editing… but really if I am going to take all this seriously, my own future and the financial security of my family… if I really really think I’ve got a successful lifetime career ahead of me in this industry… it’s time to put all that on the back burner and get pen to paper (or fingers to keys).

It’s time to dig deep inside for story material, for life experience, interests, passions, histories… most of all conflict, and there is huge conflict inside all of us… and to get all that into characters, motivations, settings and events, and to arrange all of that into well told, well crafted stories, draft after draft after draft… until your knuckles bleed.

but I know… it’s easier just to pick up the camera for a quick buck and make up excuses, waste time and procrastinate about doing what is really important.

Cameras these days (even cell phones) can just about take beautiful pictures by themselves, NLE software these days is easier than ever to use (iMovie is now on the iphone)… but there’s no automation to writing, no magical technological breakthrough to hit a button and wait for the computer to render a script out.

It is hard work, long hours, blood, sweat, tears… and nobody is going to pay you for it, but it’s the key, the key that will open the only door through the fifteen foot thick concrete wall that is in front of all of us thanks to the new democratic age of filmmaking and the digital revolution.

Before we could pretend, we could blag our way forward but those days are over.

There’s no pretending anymore, no room for wannabes and time wasters, no middle ground.

Put down the camera, turn off the edit suite and write.

WARNING: The following line of thought may not be what you want to hear, it may not make you feel warm and fuzzy, it may ruin your day. It’s been ruining mine for the past year at least but now I’m over it and have moved on with my life. Your thoughts, counter arguments and feedback are welcome!

Where has all the money gone?

We all know this business is changing daily. What I have now fully come to terms with, and will share here with you, is that the money in servicing production work is gone and will never be seen again. If your business is purely in shooting and/or post producing someone elses film, television series, documentary… you name it, you had better start looking for new sources of income. If you read to the end of what I have to say here, you’ll see how doing something else might in fact be the best thing you can do for your filmmaking.

I think this is true of almost any business in any industry where the technology required to produce has become cheaper and radically more accessible. Where facilities companies, equipment rental companies, and service based production companies were making money hand over fist ten years ago, but the barriers to entry were high, this side of the business was lucrative and well protected.

On the other side of the wall was a rapidly growing sea of would-be video producers, home-brewed cinematographers, editors, vfx artists… (us) you name it, all craving access to technology and the clients being serviced at exorbitant rates on the other side.

Well, the wall came down, and the bubble has well and truely burst.

The fact that I am sitting at home creating a 3D animated title sequence to a short film that less than 10 years ago was Pixar territory is a testimony to this fact, and this is not even mentioning that my short film was shot with a crew of 3 in a single day on 35mm film, basically for free… I bought everyone breakfast, that was my only cost.

This is the lazy no brain side of the business. Increasingly anyone can pick up a camera, anyone can learn to edit, and anyone can go through the motions of making a film. The market value of these skills has hit an all time low.

It’s simple economics, the law of supply and demand. The barriers came down, and the tables have turned from restricted supply and high demand, to over-supply and no demand.

Where did the demand go? Well, the market… the clients… those who previously had to employ the services of post facilities, expert creatives and specialized digital artists have realized that they can now do all this work themselves.

We have Apple, Red Digital Cinema, and largely Canon to thank for all this.

So, who is making the money?

The irony in all this is that those profiting the most from this massive “democratization” of film making is not the film makers, it’s not distributors either, they couldn’t care less about the billions of tons of waste content that comes up from the bottom via youtube. It’s the companies whose products are driving, encouraging and exploiting the delusion that the dream of becoming a filmmaker is. It’s a total delusion, a illusion, a dream… and a total dead end. Canon, Sony, Apple… they are the ones laughing all the way to the bank… and yet film schools are full of more delusional suckers every year.

Where a decade ago, only a fortunate few with real talent managed to push through and make it to earn a living and a lifetime career realizing thier dream in a protected industry, now, nobody makes it at all, nobody.

Sales, Sales, Sales

Still, the real money has never been in picking up a camera, shooting, cutting and delivering someone else’s vision. It has been a useful in-road, but not anymore. The real business has always been in owning and selling the content itself. Thankfully this hasn’t changed, it has however become a lot harder.

So it’s not all doom and gloom. There is still money to be made, but the focus of the film maker needs to be on developing IP… intellectual property… content, that means good stories well told, that can go on to be well SOLD! Stories, films, documentaries and television shows that are backed by well researched market analysis.

Forget about the technology, forget about lights, camera, action, focus on developing content, owning content and learning how to sell it. There is a growing demand for good content and if you can supply it, whether it’s yours or someone else’s that you’ve aquired the rights to, you’re head and shoulders above your peers who are still infactuated with thier new Canon 7D.

Leave distribution to the distributors.

In my opinion, forget about self distribution, forget about youtube and online streaming… it’s un-monetizable for everyone but the established distributors anyway. Why? Because they have the marketing backbone necessary to ensure sufficient audience reach. It’s a waste of time to even try and brainstorm new business models around these new methods of distribution. There’s better things to do with your time… read on.

Please… don’t try to be a revolutionist here, look what the “democratization of filmmaking” did for us all… it basically destroyed an industry. Leave the distribution to the distributors and learn to play thier game.

What I have realized is that the real money is in sales. That’s the bottom line. If you can develop a television series that Discovery Channel or BBC simply cannot afford to pass up… and it’s content or focus is particular to a mix of ingredients that only you can pull together, easier and cheaper than they can do it themselves… you’re on your way to making a sale that will result in lights, camera, action… and a healthy profit at the end of it all.

Understand the business, understand human nature… greed, understand that distributors can produce, but producers can’t distribute… accept it. Develop concepts and ideas that you can produce better, quicker or cheaper than they can, otherwise believe me, they will do it themselves.

Understand that in many cases, your unsolicited proposals, scripts, treatments cannot even be opened unless you waive any right you might have to sue them if they happen to already be producing, or produce in future any content that you might deem to be your own intellectual property.

Give up and do something else.

So focus on the stories you can tell better than they can. If they don’t need you, you will be cut out because you’re an expense and a liability. You MUST be a crucial ingredient in the project itself, legally owning it is not enough.

What are your interests? What can you do that many others can’t? What are your networks and circles of influence? Family history? What stories can you tell?

Work on those lines, work within the context of your own areas of authority. If you don’t have any, get some… interests, hobbies, what did you study? Do you have a degree that has nothing to do with the film industry at all (as many of us have)… do you consider those years of study a waste of time? Why not rather go back and build on it… use it, become an expert in something that gives you stories to tell, even consider a career change that can better support you financially.
Remember, filmmaking is more accessible now than it has ever been, it doesn’t have to take the front seat, let your story… your life, your family take the front seat… if you are an established editor or cinematographer… fantastic! but don’t be afraid to look further afield.

Write a book and study.

I’m serious, start writing, blogging, write a book, go back to school and finish your degree, get a Masters, get a Phd. Teach. Live a rich life and keep very close tabs on the independent film industry, know what it’s doing all the time, know how to sell your stories… because it is changing all the time.

Incubate ideas.

Constantly and religiously conceptualize and incubate ideas for content, develop the things that only you can do and work those to the top of the pile. Develop content that you know you can sell, and make the business of selling your focus rather than beautiful camerawork and editing. Remember, all that can be bought cheap… the value is in your story… which means the value is actually in you!