On the Masters, the Majors, and Financing,

On the Masters, the Majors, and Financing,

For more information visit: Why Are People Frustrated with Film Financing? Maybe They Aren't Going After the Right Investors

As a case example I'd like to reference:http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/martin-scorseses-silence-gets-funding-will-shoot-in-july-2014-20130419. < It's the story about Marty campaigning for a dream project at Cannes. Assuming he'll need to find new investors, or has found them already, it begs the question if more niche projects wouldn't get press if the big-wigs came down and opened up shop with the rest of us trying to get in. It's my belief that career progression should stay grounded. I believe it's to our credit to work in the local communities, with the youth, and with emerging professionals with less experience while we work and push ahead. It controls egos and keeps problem-solving fresh. Teaching is a major component of becoming a master. 

This often means mitigating setbacks associated with weak-links. So diversify the production elements. Some can be passion projects built on good will. Some can be high-stakes gambles where only the professionals come together. But if you build your income around ego alone then it may become a prison when you're brand has to compete against an existing franchise. Spielberg is big, but is he bigger than the Avengers? No, not in this generation. Yet many film students will look to him, the Cohen brothers, Coppola, Hitchcock and Scorcese as the model for the auteur, even though the auteur is a phenomenon of the past, preceded by star power and succeeded by the spec script - all of which Hollywood has gambled upon to explosive ends and subsequently pulled back from. 

Now is the age of the franchise and the global package. For these nuanced directors to work they have to use the stencils and stay within the lines (this is an exaggeration, but the pressure is certainly there as Studios now look to popular content to please shareholders and one name can't be worth more than a pre-existing universe of content and fandom). Were they to look and reinvest in younger and more daring filmmakers and make partnerships, they would find all the resources needed to reinvent themselves several times over - well as long as they could contain costs or put some skin in the game, and they may not have had to do this in a long time. So we can come away with "Beware the frankenstein complex" warning about our own futures. Stay scrappy and classy, know where you came from, keep connected with the builder's community, and when you make it and the machine tries to compress the very heart of what got you there in the first place, you have an industry of support independent of it to come to your aid and help you do what you want without burning your carefully crafted fiscal persona.

Let's get what we came for,
C. M. Sanchez III