5 of the Zaniest Things About Making Movies #atozchallenge

Anyone who’s made a few films by now has lots of funny, astonishing and/or horrific stories that are, for the most part, all in a day’s work. The fact that actors, directors and crew members who make movies have experiences in their line of work that would be abnormal and downright absurd in other industries, is what I find to be kinda interesting.

1. Your job interview is for a role position that requires you to either be an active smoker or be willing to smoke. In other words, you are not only expected to smoke on the job, but the company will provide the necessary materials to help you do so.
2. Local officials give you permission to close off an entire city street just to record people dancing to Michael Jackson’s “THRILLER.”
3. No one calls the cops when you follow a masked man holding an axe who chases another man around a (different) city street.
4. Business casual is still overdressed, since the very nature of your working environment allows for attire that is both comfortable, durable – and hopefully – can be put to multiple uses.
5. It is highly possible that you will, at some point, break one or several laws (knowingly or unknowingly) on any given workday during the lifespan of the project you’re working on.

What are some of the Zaniest things about YOUR field or profession that might not occur in other industries?

You Have to Save You – The Problem with Filmmaking #atozchallenge

Look around long enough and you’ll find a lot of independent filmmakers who are frustrated and struggling to find an audience for their movies. Keep venturing further within this group of writers and directors, and you’ll likely come across many who also desire to make the kind of living that will enable them to continue creating work without going hungry or sleeping on the streets. Of all the causes for our struggles and frustrations – it is my belief that one of the reasons we constantly find ourselves getting the short end of the stick is because we often fail to realize that we feed into the major problems of filmmaking – the waiting game.

• We wait for distributors to come save us by taking our creations to the masses.

• We wait (and pay) for film festivals to rescue our work from oblivion and help us appeal to distributors.

• We wait for agents to make deals that will give us opportunities to make more movies, or television shows or commercials or whatever.

• We wait for reviews from critics to determine the validity of our work.

• We wait for media outlets to tell us whether what we have to show is important or not.

• We wait for judging panels to let us know if our work is worthy of recognition.

The problem with filmmaking is that we spent more time than necessary waiting for another person or entity to come in and save us, when the reality is that sometimes, they can’t. Other times, they won’t.

We have to save ourselves.

When/Where do YOU find yourself playing the waiting game in your career, or in your life?

Have YOU ever had that “aha” moment when you realized that YOU are the only one who can save yourself?

Let’s X Out of the Cineplex for Once, Shall We? #atozchallenge

Today, I choose to X out of writing about why we make movies because subject has been covered enough for one month and frankly, I don’t have the energy or interest in exploring this matter any further right now.

I also choose to X out of the Monday Movie Meme because all of the time spent doing research, interviews and writing about making movies has left me with little to no topics for this weekly meme. The Monday Movie Meme will return next week once I wrap up the 5^th Annual Blogging from A-to-Z Challenge.

This news comes at a time when I’ve decided to X out of submitting to a few popular film festivals that I once had high hopes for, and instead, put the fees that I would have incurred to better use in ways that would directly benefit either me, my film, select supporters of my work or a cause that I believe to be just. The festivals in question are appealing on the surface but when you really get down to business – they are not worth the time or money. More on this to come at a later date.

Have YOU chosen to X out of any activities or plans today that once seemed more promising until reality and/or a dose of poor time management kicked YOUR butt?

Read yesterday’s post about A Whole New World – Why I Make Movies if you’re looking for something more meaningful that what’s being offered up at the moment.