Learning to Embrace The Struggle Of Filmmaking and Indie Film Resilience
Real talk, the world of indie film making is a struggle. There will be days where you want to scream into the void and throw into the towel. There will be days where nothing goes to plan and you gotta be ready to spring back into action with a Plan B, Plan C, or even a freaking Plan T. So why then, do we do it? What's the point of struggling to make a living from art and film? Only a few high-profile filmmakers will succeed right? Many filmmakers and artists are experiencing the same struggle, trying to survive financially even as their work might be featured across the world in film festivals or picked up by a distributor.
Making a movie is like pushing this big rock for 500 miles. No in fact, I think pushing the big rock might be easier.
So film making is a battle, a challenge that's gonna make you sweat and bleed, but that's kinda a good thing. If you could just to a A.I bot and type in a movie prompt, then sit back drinking your fancy Coke Zero and wait as the A.I bot renders out some movies for you, it would be kinda lame. You wouldn't have any connection to what you were watching and then everyone around you would just be typing in own their own movie prompts and watching A.I generated media. The good news is that dystopia future is still a few years away, so if you want to make a movie right now, you're going to have to do it the hard way!
Some of our most compelling and astonishing work comes out of experiences of struggle, while we are wrestling down the dark angels of self doubt, the demons of depression, and the pain of imposter syndrome. Now that might sound like some anime doom metal nonsense, but stick with me.
Sophie and the Serial Killers started development in the Spring of 2019, and Premiere in Early 2022.
The first thing about making a movie, is that it takes a long time. Longer then most people assume. The process from writing the first page of the script to putting the final product on the screen is quite the journey. It's more like a hike through the most sludgy swamp and then a climb up a 5000 story mountain. This is why you might work on a film, and then hear that it never got finished. Or even when a film is in the can and completely filmed, it might end up being lost in the Post Production abyss due to the amount of hours and effort that it takes to put together a film in Post. Some people might say they just don't have time to edit it and move onto other aspects of their life.
The good news is that filmmaking is a collaborative art form, so you won't totally be alone on the whole journey. Seeing the creative choices people make and how they impact the story is half the fun of film making. To be honest, I got into film making since I don't really have friends, so it gives me the chance to get outside and hang with people who have the same goal of bring a story to life. You can use that support and excitement to help boost you along the journey.
“What do you mean you can’t make it to set because of a flat tire?!”
When the odds are stacked against you, it can tempting to throw in the towel. You might have a lead actor call in sick, your location might cut your filming time short, or your sound recordings could get whacked around by heavy wind. But at the end of the day, you gotta ask yourself, who else is going to bring this story, this vision, to the screen. When will I have the opportunity to do something like this again? Film making allows you to do all sorts of silly things that a normal office worker, doctor, or lawyer will never experience. It's those experiences that are worth value, more then any form of paper currency or crypto nonsense some bro will sell you.
Even when the film is finished, and you get it out in the world. You can still feel the depression, those dark demons still haunting you. Did I make the worst film on the planet you might ask yourself? Did we fail at what we were trying to do? Sometimes, we can’t see the value of our new film creation, blinded by self doubt. Of course, not every film is something we’ll love. Not every movie will “work” for us or come out perfectly to the vision in our heads. Yet, every film, every exploratory movie is important. One of the biggest lessons for all film makers is the lesson of “allowing”. We’ve got to allow for the movies that feel “ugly”, the ones we don’t like.
I guess Sophie and the Serial Killers is not the worst movie on the planet.
“Then when you complete the first film, it’s time to begin the process all over again. Slap on that psychedelic doom sludge metal, and let’s roll into another journey of despair to bring our ideas to life.”
