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Showing posts from August, 2011

Poverty, Pluck & Perseverance: The Life Of The DIY Artist

"I make my pictures for what Hollywood spends on lipstick." - Maya Deren There is a negative sentiment shared by some in the industry these days toward the term "DIY": For those individuals, going DIY can be a precursor to failure . Of course, that kind of connotation doesn't benefit anyone of us who are plugging away at our own DIY endeavors. As DIY filmmakers, we're prone to suffering. We can take it. This was never going to be easy. Besides, whoever said that the DIY mindset/route was the ticket to becoming a conglomerate movie-producing titan? Or that anyone of us could become blockbuster filmmakers? The line in the sand needs to be drawn. DIY, at its core, is the lifestyle of the true independent artist. It's about risking life and limb (and that's not an exaggeration) to attain a truly fulfilling work-flow of creating engaging and valid content, without compromise. And if we can somehow leverage today's new media tools

"Storytellers Are Simply Curators Of Information"

  There have always been the core ingredients behind the act of storytelling but as we propel wildly into the new media age of digital storytelling, we're seeing that most of the dialogue among content creators moves away from the storytelling fundamentals and more towards brass tax questions like--why aren't we making money at this? An interesting thing has happened among the independents. For the first time--at least in my lifetime--we're seeing more of a gap between seasoned mentors and hungry apprentices in our workplace. The democratization of film has left up and coming indie filmmakers to become more cavalier and guerrilla; these days the indie industry resembles a volatile landscape packed with hungry and desperate artists.  On the other hand, seasoned industry pros seem to have become blindsided by the digital revolution, not knowing what to make of the fall of print journalism, the demise of regional film criticism and the introduction of non-traditional