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How do you define success in filmmaking?


Liam
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The Oscars are rubbish. These days, anyway.

I believe filmmaking is the most powerful art-form. It has the power to influence hearts and minds, and allow people to feel things - truly feel things.

I really believe filmmakng can make the world a better place by means of subjective immersion, empathetic response, and telling the story of the human-condition.

Hence, I think success is if your film allows viewers to feel raw emotion via empathy (even with the most questionable of characters), and allow viewers to learn/experience something new from their subjective interpretation of your film.

I say this in regards to narrative fiction filmmaking.

With documentary filmmaking, I have the same beliefs, but the responsibility of remaining objective on the filmmakers behalf is very important.

With documentaries, I believe filmmakers have an obligation to remain objective - to strictly document - like a James Nachtwey photo - for the sake of the truth. However, even then, no matter how objective a documentary maker remains, the viewer will ultimately determine their own truth by means of their own subjective interpretation/research - well, I hope they do, anyway.
 

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Artistic and/or craft contentment from the work; hopefully allowing one to make a simple living from it.

9 hours ago, Simon Shasha said:

With documentaries, I believe filmmakers have an obligation to remain objective - to strictly document - like a James Nachtwey photo - for the sake of the truth. However, even then, no matter how objective a documentary maker remains, the viewer will ultimately determine their own truth by means of their own subjective interpretation/research - well, I hope they do, anyway.

I get what you mean, but (to get pedantic) this is inherently impossible.  The best one can do is to try and be fair in service of a truth.  The craft and art are always at contradiction to objectivity.  Almost everything about filmmaking is subjective.  I suppose you could screen footage from a security camera as a doc and call it extremely objective, but even then someone had to decide what the best angle of that camera would be.

And that's not even considering the craft of structuring story and editing.

If anything, docs are more, in a weird way, subjectively manipulative than narrative work.

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10 hours ago, Simon Shasha said:

The Oscars are rubbish. These days, anyway.

I believe filmmaking is the most powerful art-form. It has the power to influence hearts and minds, and allow people to feel things - truly feel things.

I really believe filmmakng can make the world a better place by means of subjective immersion, empathetic response, and telling the story of the human-condition.

Hence, I think success is if your film allows viewers to feel raw emotion via empathy (even with the most questionable of characters), and allow viewers to learn/experience something new from their subjective interpretation of your film.

I say this in regards to narrative fiction filmmaking.

With documentary filmmaking, I have the same beliefs, but the responsibility of remaining objective on the filmmakers behalf is very important.

With documentaries, I believe filmmakers have an obligation to remain objective - to strictly document - like a James Nachtwey photo - for the sake of the truth. However, even then, no matter how objective a documentary maker remains, the viewer will ultimately determine their own truth by means of their own subjective interpretation/research - well, I hope they do, anyway.
 

No need to add to that. Saved me a heap of time.

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2 hours ago, fuzzynormal said:

Artistic and/or craft contentment from the work; hopefully allowing one to make a simple living from it.

I get what you mean, but (to get pedantic) this is inherently impossible.  The best one can do is to try and be fair in service of a truth.  The craft and art are always at contradiction to objectivity.  Almost everything about filmmaking is subjective.  I suppose you could screen footage from a security camera as a doc and call it extremely objective, but even then someone had to decide what the best angle of that camera would be.

And that's not even considering the craft of structuring story and editing.

If anything, docs are more, in a weird way, subjectively manipulative than narrative work.

I agree completely. It is, ultimately, impossible.

It is akin to asking someone to define nothing - once defined, it not only has become a subjective "something", but is also no longer "nothing".

Paradoxical.

In the end, it boils down to this - Life is, ultimately, subjective.

The very essence of colour, light, shadow, darkness, and so on, and how each individual perceives such things, is subjective.

Furthermore, in reference to semiotics/colour semiotics, not only is the physical perception of colour, light, shadow, darkness, and so on, subjective to each individual, but the meaning of such things in themselves is subjective to each individual.

With objectivity being, ultimately, impossible, I guess we are left with this - to create our own subjective expression and experiences by means of cinema, to share them as objectively as possible, and leave them open to subjective interpretation - and to do so benevolently and without malice.

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Oscars, a few of them at least, and a lot of money, to the millions, per project, that is success. You can start from Cannes and Sundance though, it is good to have a somehow "indie" or "alternative European" background. But money, lots of them, and Oscars, at least a few of them. Oh, and share instagram jokes with Justin Bieber and Lebron James. And money.

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Hi,

To me the success is when your movie looks like and tells the story you've wanted as close as possible. This is a truly difficult thing. Even more when ideas are not yours.

I consider myself satisfied when i see my video on tv or on youtube preroll, when friends or clients call me to say the video has been seen there or there... Great feeling for the work that has been accomplished.

 

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