Why film?

[Liam]

It's looking like I could do a webcomic soon, which is cool, but admittedly less exciting than if I was making a film.

Why did you pick film over other similar mediums to tell stories? Or is it no longer a choice for a lot of us at some point? Or are you in multiple arts that appeal to you? Just curious to hear some thoughts

[fuzzynormal]

It's visceral, literal, metaphorical, technical, and plenty of stuff in between. 

[tupp]

1 hour ago, Liam said:

Why did you pick film over other similar mediums to tell stories?

I was trying to impress a girl,

 

Kinda wish I had become a stock broker instead.

[Axel]

2 hours ago, Liam said:

It's looking like I could do a webcomic soon, which is cool, but admittedly less exciting than if I was making a film.

Yes, film means additional challenges because you have to master the techniques. Because it's more complicated, the nimbus is greater. Orson Welles on cinema: the biggest electric train set any boy ever had.

I find myself enjoying books and comics more than movies. They became too elaborated in film language and are constantly trying to overwhelm me. They look too perfect to make me suspend my disbelief. It's like you are offered a wooden horse for the hundredth time. I am actually more immersed with less audiovisual input.

[kaylee]

2 hours ago, Liam said:

It's looking like I could do a webcomic soon

dude sweet~!!! i cant wait to see it!!!

bottom line is: its as good as you make it. you could make a webcomic that BLOWS PEOPLE THE F AWAY. and at the end of the day, no one really cares what your content is, its about ideas

that being said ive spent a lot of time learning about filmmaking because i determined (after doing damn near everything else in the arts) that it is the ultimate art form – one that combines all others: and more importantly there is no better delivery method for your ideas, no more resonant, moving form of impregnation to the human mind

ppl love comics dude. do it up. and dont feel like youre "not" filmmaking. all the shit ive ever done in my life has gotten me to where i am now. every part of your art practice informs every other part of it – much like life itself

-----

/ykno i just reread that post and i was so tempted to add a bunch of random spacing to make it like one of ed's 'poetry' posts but then i was like Nah these guys put up with enough already

[Mattias Burling]

As a young journalist/producer I almost immediately after school drifted into Radio- and TV-production of entertainment, sports or news.
I was a decent writer but didn't have the patience. Im more of an creative director that don't want to spend time doing stuff that I can tell/hire someone else to do. I want full control over projects
Any aspirations of fiction and "movies" I had started to fade since I preferred a faster and more "real" medium.
Within a few years I had drifted more and stopped making short films all together.

My personal video work became documentary and my work left the journalistic side and went into communication, public relations and advertising in a governmental agency.
Currently switching jobs again after almost eight years to work public relations, communication and marketing for one single company in the private sector (its a huge company). There I will get to spend enough time making videos that I don't think I will keep it up as a hobby much longer. Other than some youtube and family stuff.

But during this whole time my interest for still photography has really grown.
Now its almost all I think about.
I think the reason is the challenge. To take a situation that you would normally capture with 3-5min of video, audio, grading, angles, movement, slow-motion, effects, music, dialog, and so on.
To capture all that in one single frame.
Click!

I see photographers telling the longest and most engaging stories, really moving me, with just one frame.

I still see myself as just a beginner in still photography after some 20 years, 3 of which Ive taken it more seriously. I don't think most of my images tell much of a story at all. And thats why I like it. There is so much to explore and learn. I guess Ive found the ultimate medium for my type of person who wants a quick fix but still have endless possibilities. 
 

[Liam]

@Axel do you think it's just inherent to a novel that it would have more of an effect on you? Or would you say a good author is generally more creative than a good filmmaker?

@kaylee totally agree. I'm mostly just worried about it not being taken as seriously as a film would. Webcomics almost seem like an even more saturated field than film, with maybe less of an appeal to the public. That's pretty intimidating.

@Mattias Burling do you worry about the flip side, that there might be too much ambiguity in photography? 

[austinchimp]

5 hours ago, Mattias Burling said:

As a young journalist/producer I almost immediately after school drifted into Radio- and TV-production of entertainment, sports or news.
I was a decent writer but didn't have the patience. Im more of an creative director that don't want to spend time doing stuff that I can tell/hire someone else to do. I want full control over projects
Any aspirations of fiction and "movies" I had started to fade since I preferred a faster and more "real" medium.
Within a few years I had drifted more and stopped making short films all together.

My personal video work became documentary and my work left the journalistic side and went into communication, public relations and advertising in a governmental agency.
Currently switching jobs again after almost eight years to work public relations, communication and marketing for one single company in the private sector (its a huge company). There I will get to spend enough time making videos that I don't think I will keep it up as a hobby much longer. Other than some youtube and family stuff.

But during this whole time my interest for still photography has really grown.
Now its almost all I think about.
I think the reason is the challenge. To take a situation that you would normally capture with 3-5min of video, audio, grading, angles, movement, slow-motion, effects, music, dialog, and so on.
To capture all that in one single frame.
Click!

I see photographers telling the longest and most engaging stories, really moving me, with just one frame.

I still see myself as just a beginner in still photography after some 20 years, 3 of which Ive taken it more seriously. I don't think most of my images tell much of a story at all. And thats why I like it. There is so much to explore and learn. I guess Ive found the ultimate medium for my type of person who wants a quick fix but still have endless possibilities. 
 

Seems like we're both on a similar career path. Interesting to hear your thoughts on photography. It's something i do professionally more these days while my personal projects have dropped off. I can see photography offering me more personal enjoyment outside of work than video making for sure.

When you make videos every day for a living it sure can wear you down and take the fun out of it.

[Snowfun]

It's a very social medium - people watch it together - and it is easy to share ones "product".

I once carved a wooden rocking horse. Looked rather good. But I could only give it to one person which I felt was an inadequate reward for not inconsiderable effort. 

[Axel]

16 hours ago, Liam said:

@Axel do you think it's just inherent to a novel that it would have more of an effect on you? Or would you say a good author is generally more creative than a good filmmaker?

There are few contemporary feature length films I find interesting. No matter if it's mainstream or independent (or just independently produced but aiming for mass market), the patterns of the narrations seem to be final by now. You can tell every variation and theoretically give them names (like Kansas City Shuffle? ), you can watch the storylines develop and always stay ahead, because you've seen them all. This is not "inherent" (Inherent Vice, that was a crazy film and one of the exceptions, PTA has the mindset of a 70's filmmaker who questioned everything. Thousands of good films from everywhere over the world from this period), it's because mainstream audiences demand mainstream entertainment, and films are expensive. Short films and series can be more daring, for different reasons. And docs too.

A novel consists of words. The story must be told in such a way (style, structure) that the reader sees his own personal movie. There is a word for this in german, Kopfkino, literally head cinema, when someones' words trigger an intense scene in your imagination. I'd say that reading a novel engages me more than watching a film, and not because the author is more talented than he filmmaker. Books are not too popular anymore, you'd write for very few. But unless someone exceptionally talented re-invents cinema and creates a mainstream masterpiece, you also shoot for very few.

[racer5]

1 hour ago, Axel said:

Inherent Vice, that was a crazy film and one of the exceptions

Very much agree on Inherent Vice - I love it. It's not a film for "now" unfortunately, the zeitgeist is in opposition to something so wonderfully free and meandering. Gorgeous movie to look at too.

[HockeyFan12]

On 4/16/2017 at 0:53 AM, tupp said:

I was trying to impress a girl,

 

Kinda wish I had become a stock broker instead.

Yep. But don't worry, stock brokers are miserable, too. Only they're rich and miserable instead of broke and miserable. :/

The irony is that in LA any job except industry sounds cool.

[TrueIndigo]

I can't remember when I actually made the switch from being a consumer to being a creator. All I knew was that when I was a kid I was fascinated with TV shows, old Hollywood movies and European art house films, so it seemed quite natural to want to create something that would have a similar effect on other people. My parents bought me a second hand Standard 8 cine camera, on which I shot home movies and animated toys on the carpet. This was followed by a new Super 8 camera, which I hard-matted with cardboard to fake the look of CinemaScope. I didn't realise then how important the fun side of things was to me. By the time I went to art college I had a 16mm Bolex, which kind've slowed me down because the stock costs were too much for pocket money. I used the 16mm cameras at the college for the course projects, but never really used my own camera very much, and eventually sold it about 10 years later (it had become just a wonderfully built ornament on the shelf).

I followed my college friends to London and worked for a film and TV company for many years, working non-stop on TV series and that eventually wore me out -- I made a few personal projects along the way, but the joy of story-telling with film (as in those Standard-8 days) was just gone. I was also becoming tired of the city, too, so went back home where I can just go for a walk in the fields when I want to. I continued to work in multi-media, laying out books and magazines for a publishing house, then doing fine art printing for a gallery. I never forgot film making, though, because it was in me, but I wasn't doing anything about it. But then DV camcorder technology and affordable computer editing we're growing up together very nicely, and I was shooting just for the fun of it again. It was portable, it was cheap, it was available and eventually it was even full HD. And when the still cameras started recording video, well, there was a welcome filmic glamour to the video image that was quite exciting.

Coming more up to date, I was a full-time staff video editor for a small local video production company, though after five very busy years, I've since gone freelance. Doing much less work (and pretty broke as a result), but I have more time to work on my own projects. After an abortive start on one film, I'm currently making the props for another feature length no-budget project. I just can't seem to shift the idea that film making is something I have to do. I recently wrote a novel, based on a character from one of the scripts I wrote about twenty years before, so that was me genuinely trying another medium. And the freedom of writing, compared to all the hoops you have to go through even for unambitious and informal film making like mine, is quite remarkable. I've now written half of the sequel, so I must enjoy it, but, there's something about film making that really means something important to me. Perhaps it's because I like working with people on a collaborative art project, whereas writing is a solitary experience. Or maybe it's just that you never really forget your first love: Watching mysterious and surreal TV series like The Avengers, or 1940's American film noirs, and wondering if I too could create such atmospheres and involving entertainments.

[Chrad]

Film has a unique power because of how closely it resembles dreams. I love the creative posibilities of its language.