Creatives Still Fighting An Invisible War - Why Do So Many Employers Discredit Short Films?

Filmmakers – When was the last time ‘outside’ of film, someone knew ‘exactly’ what you meant by the term producer?

We know how exceptionally difficult this can be if you’re doing it correctly. Reaching out to cast, crew, building the relationships, the lines of communication, organising everyone’s time, the risk assessments, call sheets etc and the rest of the responsibility you have if you’re working without a production manager and you’re even having to direct some projects yourself. Why? Money, right? There’s none of it to get someone in to do it. Now whilst this is the best way to learn, don’t you find it a mystery why employers whether they’re in OR out of film – they ask you to have previous experience in paid roles that have a decreased load of responsibility?

Yes, yes, we all know a production company is going to have more money invested but at the same time, you take shows as simple as those silly daytime shows about old antiques, home improvement or cookery. Are they ‘really’ trying to tell us how difficult that is for the average independent filmmaker who’s worked similar hours, taken on similar responsibility, all the right production skills, worked on a good range of projects and has had to find their own work, source for and liaise with clients to get their own work, file their own tax returns, manage their own time…

All that doesn’t suit a potential employers ability to consider us? – Bullshit.

My latest project ‘Jenna The Great’ I am building out of several years worth of knowledge of;

Writing; coming up with the idea, researching and developing it on my own and with others, understanding the format, the audience, portraying its characters personalities believably, pacing it, responding to feedback and redrafting it, sending to competitions and script editors.

Producing; crafting crew and cast from relationships I have built over many years of working both paid and unpaid, my teaching and mentoring, trading favours, negotiating for locations, equipment and professionals, participating in festivals and networking, applying for funding out of my own pocket, promoting my work and the work of others, arranging the transport, responsible for budgeting, call sheets…

Directing; maintaining professional lines of communication, respecting and leading teams through various productions with a clear objective, knowing the story, shots, characters, locations… everything backwards, preparing shot lists understanding direction, how to communicate to your 1^st AD, to your actors, to your director of photography constantly. Knowing how to fix a shot when something goes wrong at the last minute.

Cinematography; Again, not just understanding how to add value to a shot list but fixing problems with under/over exposure, the capabilities of your camera, lenses, settings, focus, aperture, shutter speed, ND filters, rigs, jibs, dollies, shots – what they all mean and how to do them, how to justify shot choices, thinking about colour temperature, therefore colour correction / grading, WS, MCU, CU, ECU, focal distances, gels, types and tools of lighting, flooding and spotting, wattage, sparks, 1^st ACs… The list goes on

Editing; Knowing Adobe Premier Pro or Final Cut Pro and its newest versions, how to transcode, aspect ratios, how to import / export footage, sync footage, when to cut and why, how to work with directors / clients and negotiate and enforce decisions. When to compromise, types of cutting, fades, colour, cropping, wireframes, transitions, basic graphics.

Of course there are more we could talk about, I’ve previously mentioned in earlier blogs, such as sound design, production design, composing and colourists but we’d be here all day.

Is this one of the reasons the industry is overly difficult to join? – Ignorance? You don’t see accountants, travel agents or sales people having this problem. Therefore, are we being judged a different way? God only knows how many requests I get from production companies and students, saying they’re looking for someone with lots of experience but are they in turn just going to carry on this cycle? Where does it stop?

I feel as though this may be a time when we do away with some of these repetitive daytime TV shows and nonsensical hard work for little return and solve both problems at once. How about a couple of channels run throughout the day, where pre-selected independent short films of various genres, documentaries of various breeds, experimental film are given a chance to shine ALL day long?

 

Think about it – A platform to showcase the filmmakers and their work, engage an audience and fan base, give something new perhaps at a mere cost of £5 or maybe £10 to the entire crew & cast, so the channel can continue to run if it weren’t to feature any adverts, anybody interested in film, has someone to reach out to and get involved… Just imagine what this could do for entertainment and the industry for just one moment – Why not? Have Netflix or Amazon Prime not been enough to show the world the power of choice in a digital world by now?

 

In fact if such places like ‘Indiewise’ was allowed to be broadcasted – an online hosting platform for short films, it could all happen within a matter of days.

 

Instead of this parochial system of traditional media, why aren’t we evolving fast enough to give new generations a chance at what they’ve trained and worked at for so long, when employers are still

asking for prior broadcast credits and prior agency experience when they’ve already got it? Estate agents, accountants and the like don’t have showreels to apply with for jobs but filmmakers are asked to provide these ‘as well as’ their CV’s… Why?

Another insane thing filmmakers are expected to put up with are the number of sites, certain groups like ‘My First Job In Film’, ‘Production Base’, ‘Film & TV Pro’ or the newest little bullshit one thats surfaced, called; 'Creative Commission' expect us to “PAY TO APPLY” for jobs – are you fucking kidding me? Why is it that any electrician, project manager, graphic designer can just hop on to CV Library, Reed.co.uk or ‘Indeed’ and apply for free? Absolutely ridiculous!

 

Employers need to ask themselves this: If I send you that I was a production assistant on a daytime talk show, an employer has heard of before, its got so many camera operators, sound recordists, a VT gallery off screen somewhere, a production design team to put all the sofas and displays to go up – yet all I was doing was running back and forth, fetching food, drink and passing memory cards and batteries back and forth – HOW on Earth is that something that is of more appeal than say – a producer on a short film, where I was busting my ass to do all the roles I mentioned earlier? 

I’m taking a risk to do something completely original, putting together from nothing and putting in so many more hours and usually for no pay? –
PLEASE EXPLAIN!

In fact ANY of you that have paid subscriptions, cancel them NOW and report it through to Mark Watson and / or Mark Arnold. Its disgusting behaviour and even Universities don't take much of an issue promoting them to students who're broke enough. Walk away!

Are filmmakers like myself eventually having to consider areas such as animation or visual effects because our technology is made to feel ‘anyone can do it?’ When I go on Youtube lately, I constantly get hit by an advert about a piece of software called ‘Camtasia’ or something, sold with the line “With Camtasia, you can edit your videos together without being a professional” whilst some middle-aged bloke is sat there smiling at the screen, happy with himself….?! Surely, if you want your videos edited at all – You want them edited professionally, yes?

 

Seems to me, the filmmaking community is suffering very unnecessarily. In 2017 we have the ability to drive electric cars, solve all the bullshit in our economy if only the one’s in charge would get serious, education was made available to all, without prejudice etc but...

Do I regret being a filmmaker in 2017? Honestly, sometimes I think I should have done something different when I can’t make rent, can only rent a car, not afford a family… But its my calling. There’s nothing else out there that interests and excites me more. Its fucked up but its true.

Good News – Everyone’s An Expert Filmmaker! We Can All Breathe Easier!

That’s right! Everyone knows how to write a script, the format, understands the concept of narrative, importance of pacing, non-cliché storytelling, how to recruit cast, crew actors, equipment and how to book it, insure it, check it, transport and set it up as well as use it, correct any technical faults along the way and most recently I just found out that they know perfectly how to edit it after a client who’d already told me how quick I was on Adobe on editing one of their film trailers together THEN told me I had taken HOURS to:

• Insert an extra header
• Reposition some text
• Recalibrate music timing to leave enough time to read it
• All over 5 sequences

EAAAASY – No problem! EVEN when don’t know that until your client arrives almost an hour and a half late and seems more interested in selling his bike outside and doesn’t stop singing and whistling every 2 minutes. What does matter is that it’s a model of Final Cut Pro version 5 or 6 with a full RAM with hardly any room to render, NO files left in any discernible order so you have to rebuild most of these changes rather than just make a simple change that would update itself straight into the timeline. More importantly ‘EVERY’ piece of work you do on such an old version does NOT render in real time! For those of you unfamiliar with editing.

Try comparing the days of broadband to those of the dial-up modem! EVERY tiny inch you drag a single letter of text does not require rendering nowadays, usually these are aided by a tool within Adobe referred to as the Mercury Playback Engine.. Whatever… In the version of Final Cut Pro I’d been given to work with, for every 30 seconds of work, required around 2 minutes of rendering each time! It VERY quickly adds up. Furthermore, this computer had been JAM-PACKED and the constant warning of no ram being available 9YES, THIS AFFECTS RENDERING – NUMBNUTS!) Any editor will tell you their favourite out of the two they are fluent in will tell you Adobe – Why? Because we were sick of FCP’s speed. Of course since version 10 / X, this isn’t too much of a problem anymore but this version took hours to get the work done but at the end to have YOUR work ethic challenged and slagged off, who is getting freelancers to come and do his editing for him and claims to have been doing this for over 20 years –
How the HELL can you blame this on your editor?

Definitely one of the best freelance stories I’ve come across for a while. Just amazing how everyone thinks they’re an expert. What’s brilliant is that I’m sure it won’t be the last and it’s not even the worst story I’ve come across. Then again, here’s an interesting sketch of how bad its getting for freelancers in film. Of course, its been adapted to the profession of plumbing just to illustrate how fucked up our industry has become.

Recently, whilst I made a new friend; Louisa Trigg earlier this month from Darkside Studios at Film Expo South. Only got to one talk this time around annoyingly but I got to learn a bit more about the visual effects industry. Almost EVERY job hunt and film I come across wants these things thrown in and even indie’s are willing to pay out that little extra to get them. I went along to their talk and got hearing from far younger freelancers who were getting snapped up from as early as their work in the BFX festival by local post-production groups and sent all over the world working on compositing, modelling, textures… All sorts.
My brain started thinking; “These guys have been handed films that their clients MUST have their work to get from one part of the story to another. The older generation don’t really do computers… These guys are usually far younger and aren’t neglected by a set of rules and traditional bullshit that stop them from making a living. Lets go find out more.” What I learned is stuff I should have thought about earlier as I’ve come across it many times. Even corporate firms want people who can apply vfx to their adverts and events. All the shit you see on television with the incredibly painful stories, most likely written by the egotistical dickheads you see partake in ‘The Apprentice’ require something to morph into a fireball, create some animated graphic to illustrate some science bollocks on that smug cow’s face from the Oral B advert. This seems to be a sustained area of the industry. Why?

Take a look at gaming just as one example. All you need is an actor’s voice – THE REST – All animation and digital effects. Sure there may be green screen and motion capture but does that matter to filmmakers – YEP of course but certain coordinators from my postgraduate degree didn’t seem to think so. Despite it being called “Cinematography for Film & TV” not only did they not teach a single bit of TV but there was no motion capture or green screen either but guess what? They teach it in MA Digital Effects at National Film & Television School. We could waste time slapping our foreheads and asking why but it all comes back to higher education tossers more concerned with PhD’s & their salaries to give a toss for their students – their customers. This shit really needs to change – NOW! Not only are they missing the boat as it is by not mixing filmmakers with their PR & Marketing courses but also NEITHER one to be working more closely with animators and digital effects artists… No wonder some of us are finding it nearly impossible to get in and / or sustain ourselves as freelancers.

Like I said everyone out there is an expert – Another quick freelancer story to prove it? I was commissioned by a group last year who wanted me to help produce, shoot, record sound, edit, grade a film for them within a week. Yep… you read that correctly. Then they also expected I was going to create a magical book with all sorts of pages that would flicker when it opened with graphics and animations fly out of it and oooh… The best part… Only pay me £200, which wouldn’t even have included my car costs. Of course fellow filmmakers, you’ll already have guessed what they’d called this role, don’t you? Wink-wink* - Yep you guessed it – VIDEOGRAPHER!

I think I needed a new project so badly I ended up saying ‘yes’ to a new indie project and rolling on with one of my own just to take a break from the insanity. Believe it or not I’ve even started looking into VFX courses but to even get 6 months tuition back at my old establishment; Met Film School, they’re charging £10,000 for a mere 6 months. I’m telling you, the number of holes you can walk into in this game are ridiculous.

Been feeling so bogged down with the lack of career fulfilment lately I even decided to say ‘yes’ to the request of another struggling Bournemouth University student asking me as their cinematographer for their graduation film. At least its something productive and adds something new to my showreel. I’ve not been given much help in my career but at least I know with all the people I’ve helped over the years, no-one will ever be able to call me a hypocrite.