Collaborating

I am convinced that when it comes to making great films the real challenge is how we go about collaborating.

We've all heard about the studio system nightmare.  Executives with lawyerly, accounting, or administrative backgrounds attempting to guess what the mainstream wants.

Mostly I believe the mainstream doesn't know what 'IT' wants.  People on the other hand, want a good story well told (to quote McKee).

What does it take to pull this off?  While I do believe it is possible for an individual to pump out a work of genius in solitary, I think it is very difficult, unlikely, frankly not going to happen.

Why?  Because we rapidly become unable to evaluate the strength of our ideas.  You have it, you fall in love with it, and as they say, love is blind.

More importantly, we conflate the idea with our identity.  We see them as one and the same.

Let's not get into what 'identity' is.  That's a whole other matter, a very different conversation (and a worthwhile one).

The point is that we need each other to build a good story.

"But all my friends think my script is fantastic!"

Yeah, we're not talking about your friends here, not about your girlfriend, your parents, your children.  We're talking storytellers, market experts - yes, but storytellers first.

So how do we go about collaborating?

This is the challenge.  Luckily we have Pixar these days to look up to.  Their story process is legendary and there is no reason it can't be replicated on an indie level.

If the problem with so many studio films is the 'designed by committee' vibe, the problem with indies is the 'I did it all on my own' vibe.  So many of them (the ones you never see because they don't get released) are artistically interesting but storywise flat.  Boring.  Nonsensical.

We need story conferences.  Egoless brainstorming sessions of the type that TV writers are accustomed to.

Development workshops (almost but not quite writers circles) by indie filmmakers, for indie filmmakers.

And I'm going to start one, right here in Vancouver.