The difficulty of the Filmmaking Journey

[Michael Wisniewski]

Originally Posted by Graham Bernard

This is a craft - hard won - but remains a craft. It is "honed" and sharpened, sometimes, often, over a long period of time. Any good craftsman will tell you, it ain't the tools! Knowing and getting to understand your materials AND their limitations is central to true craftsmanship. ... Grazie

This quote from Graham got me thinking about what it is that limits people nowadays. It's not the technology anymore, it's the craft ... or lack of it, and the difficulty of finding a true "master" to learn/apprentice to.

There are a lot of very talented, skilled, experienced, and competent people out there, many attracted to DV Info, but a true "master" of the craft is very, very scarce - and that's who you really want to apprentice to.

It's a cliche, but think about Kung Fu movies, where there are tons of people who know Kung Fu at different levels of competence, some make money, some are famous, etc - but there are only a very, very select few who have that almost supernatural, other-worldy knowledge about their Kung Fu, those who really know what it takes to bring you to the next level.

As an example, one of my good friends is a concert pianist, she has studied at the highest levels all over the world since she was 8 years old - for 20+ years now. She's very accomplished, and very experienced, but even she hit a plateau and didn't know how to get to the next level of her craft/art. She was completely stuck, and couldn't find any help.

Luckily, through happenstance, she met a true master of the craft/art. He told her, everything you've ever learned up to this point, which has brought you so far, is now holding you back. The experience and technique that are so ingrained in you, are what limits you. He was able to give her the knowledge to completely re-learn her craft from the ground up. She had to go back and re-learn the most basic ways ... in the correct ways ... so that when she brought it up to the level that she was used to performing at, those ways would now expand infinitely instead of holding her back. It was very instructive for me because she took almost a whole year off, to re-learn everything she knew about playing the piano. When she was done, she came back more amazing than ever.

This is what really holds us back, a true master who knows what it really takes to become a 99th level filmmaking wizard.

This doesn't mean we can't become extremely competent by continuing to learn and gain experience, but like my pianist friend, at some point, finding someone who is really a master of the craft to help guide you properly is the biggest limitation.

I've learned a lot about technique and craft in the past 6-7 years, but I still feel like I'm missing that extra bit of knowledge that really helps to tie it all together and make it complete, so that you can infinitely grow into your art.

And thus ends my lament.

[Richard Alvarez]

Ahhh grasshopper

When the student is ready, the master will come.

[Joshua Provost]

Sometimes the right idea, right time, and right person just converge. Some of my favorite films are from first-time filmmakers, or the first films of filmmakers who later became successful. Sometimes the first instict, unfiltered, is the best. I don't know how they do it. Some never do it again, never try it again.

I think sometimes we never figure out exactly what it is we should really be doing, what films we should really be making. I've had some fun making films, but I still haven't found the exact right film to make.

[Kevin Red]

If you made the exact right film, you probably wouldn't feel much need to keep making films. And you dont want that do you?

[Quito Washington]

Originally Posted by Kevin Red

If you made the exact right film, you probably wouldn't feel much need to keep making films. And you dont want that do you?

anything made, can be made better in some aspect....(acting, shooting, style, music, sound, dialogue)
and films are just expressions of inner questions, conflicts, and aspirations...and as you can only express as much as you can verablise, visualise, at times a film that is "so right for you" at the moment, can be redone later, when you have more experience, talent, history to better express that inner question that you want the audience to consider. Hence the reason that while there are one hundred films or more released a year (way more), everyone is still trying to create the absolute perfect expression of the same universal ideas and questions....what is the height of true love, what are the depths of pain, how far is to far to go for a friend, how much pain can you take from a friend....and the other four (or eight, or sixteen, depending on your method)
Q

[Kevin Red]

Thats what mean. Film, like other art, is striving to express. And thats what is fun about it, finding new ways to do so.

[Quito Washington]

is that every filmmaker has only one story to tell, and spends the rest of his life telling that same story, getting better and better
Q

[Jipsi Kinnear]

Originally Posted by Quito Washington

is that every filmmaker has only one story to tell, and spends the rest of his life telling that same story, getting better and better
Q

Good Quote...

[K. Forman]

Originally Posted by Kevin Red

If you made the exact right film, you probably wouldn't feel much need to keep making films. And you dont want that do you?

Then you make sequels... and when that dries up, you do prequels

[K. Forman]

Then there are spinoffs...