Why do you do it?

[Vince K]

I was wondering....what drives you to want to create in the film/ video/digital medium?
There are so many different types of people on this forum with different styles, ideas, processes, and varying degrees of experience, yet we are all here to learn off of each other, and share our thoughts, ideas, and the projects we helped make.
I think it's absolutely amazing, that this can be done from 'behind the curtain' so to speak.
To get a better understanding of who we are or why we do it, would anyone care to share a story of how OR why you are in this industry, or what drives you to want to be more successful in it?
I'll start this one off.....
I started in acting in theater when I was 5 and film when I was 10. I got the itch to work in film immediately. Later, realizing that I had the perfect face for radio :crying: lol, I applied and became a PA, and was lucky enough that with the small amount of experienced crews and growing number of unionized shows that were rolling thru town, that I got steady work. This allowed me to quickly move up the 'networking ladder', and not only gain a ton of experience on larger sets, but also allowed me to look around and see what I really wanted to do within the creative atmosphere.
Wanting to be on the more 'technical' side of things, I started to get to know people in camera, and thought the process was one that I NEEDED to be a part of, and went to work learning what I had to, so that I could achieve that goal. That lead to film school, working for free on indies, and doing what I had to, to gain the respect within the film community.
Taking into account where I live, I've been lucky enough to work with some great actors and crew, and some not so great, but it has all been an amazing learning experience.
I currently work as a 2ndAC on various film and HD productions (when there's HD work), and spend my downtime as a DP / videographer on various projects, producing artist promos and EPK's, editing small indie films and shorts, and have recently started to dabble in digital animation. Fun Stuff!!
....and I ain't done yet!!! :)
Anyone else?

[Coco B]

This is gonna be a great thread! Thank you Vince! :thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Raul Gonzo]

I read this quote from Guillermo del Toro that explained it all for me:

"When you have the intuition that there is something which is there, but out of reach of your physical world, art and religion are the only means to get to it."

Also, for me- I was always liked making up stories and drawing my own pictures for them.

[Alex Carr]

When I was in High School I wanted to be a painter, As soon as I figured out how to paint with light I fell in Love with Cinematography.

[Mark Phelan]

I fell in love with photography in high school one day as I walked by a darkroom and saw the enlargers, trays, chemicals, etc. That led to me buying my first camera, a Nikkormat. LOVED that camera. Only had the one lens, the 50mm, but that forced me to be creative with what I had rather than relying on other lenses.

Went to the University of Georgia, majored in Journalism, (Radio, TV and Film) and while in school was fortunate enough to work as a PA on a television series, "Breaking Away" being filmed in Athens. Was drawn again to the camera and was fascinated by how different their approach was to shooting to anything I had known previously. After college I worked for one year as an assistant photographer with Chuck Rogers whose best known photograph was "The Runner" from the Peachtree Road Race which Nike bought full rights. (It's in the Nike store at Lenox Square as we speak) Then spent the next 30 years of my life creating and producing annual reports and other corporate collateral for Fortune 500 companies, still do. As the Art Director, I work closely with the corporate shooters we hire on location and this feeds my enjoyment and interest in the industries we shoot. Have had several clients wanting us to produce corporate films for them, so we morphed over to that side of things. The RED is absolutely perfect for this environment. Just like Esquire magazine this month, we can use the footage both in print and motion. It's a great time to be in this industry, technology-wise.

[P Andersson]

at the core there is a fascination with looking at stuff

i grew up with a mother working in a camera factory and my dads best friend was a photographer/filmmaker who always brought gear over to the house and invented projects to do

the motives have evolved - at first i thought i would be happy just working as anyones helper as long as it was within the field of photography or film - then i got more courageous - photography took off in an overwhelming way at first - now i am more focusing on film -

for me there are reasons why i am drawn to tell this story or that - wanting to express something - and then there is an intuitive thing that simply knows when something is right for me

probably here - judging from the passion this forum has - a lot of us are the lucky ones - as we pursue both the smart loud logical voice and the still small intuitive voice - it doesn't mean that we have to have the projects realized or finished - but that somehow we know what direction we are going

[Vince K]

This is gonna be a great thread! Thank you Vince! :thumbsup::thumbsup:

What a great start! I'm loving it already!! :sifone:

[Danish P.V.]

The real world is so boring. So I wanted to created something that doesn`t exist.

[Justin Chin]

I'm obsessed with telling stories through images. Whether it be with film, photography, video games, or art.

So when someone asks me what I do, it's sometimes difficult to answer, and that's why I call myself a visual storyteller. They still look puzzled, but then I can explain it from that point of reference.

[Eren Ozkural]

Because I have no choice....
It feels like a compulsion, like an itch I need to scratch. Alot of people want to be firemen or astronauts when they're 5 y.o or so. I've wanted to make films for as long as I could remember.

Great thread!

[Coco B]

... So I wanted to created something that doesn`t exist.

How do you know it doesn't exist? The universe is so vast. The options are unending :cool:

[Mike Yonts]

a television series, "Breaking Away" being filmed in Athens.

For me it was the original movie. I was a freshman at Indiana University when that was being shot there, and I sat in the old stadium for two days as an extra in the big bike race at the end. (If you really know where to look, there I am for half a second!) But I thought what those guys were doing looked like about the coolest way to make a living I could imagine. I can think of several other people who saw "Breaking Away" being made and wound up in some kind of production career.

[Danish P.V.]

How do you know it doesn't exist? The universe is so vast. The options are unending :cool:

Hm...a nice, philosophical question! :)
Then I`ll alter my statement - I would like to create images and stories that could be!

[Neil Larson]

It's hard to say why I'm so obsessed with this medium. I think for me it's because I love to create something out of nothing. You take an idea and create something physical from the idea, much like sculpting or painting. I love the challenge of converting what's in my head into a picture on someone's screen.

[Ken Willinger]

The real world is so boring.

Really?

[Mark Phelan]

For me it was the original movie. I was a freshman at Indiana University when that was being shot there, and I sat in the old stadium for two days as an extra in the big bike race at the end. (If you really know where to look, there I am for half a second!) But I thought what those guys were doing looked like about the coolest way to make a living I could imagine. I can think of several other people who saw "Breaking Away" being made and wound up in some kind of production career.

I too rode in the final race in the tv series, what a joke. They brought in Olympic riders from Colorado Springs and man, could those guys go fast. Their thighs were the size of tree trunks. I remember talking with Gary (who rode in the movie for Dennis Christopher) and asked him what was the fastest he had ever ridden his bike. He asked, "Flat land or hills?" I said flat and he responded "60mph, behind that semi in the movie." That's bookin' it...

[Joe G.]

I would hope that the baseline is: because you have something to say.

[Craig Ryan]

For me it's a need to give others the same sensations that I've felt after experiencing a good film, and to go further than simply referring someone to a movie thats done that to me. That need is my primary motivation at this point (I am 22, and have one year left in film school); to offer something wholly worthwhile that is both mentally and physically stimulating that will stay with you long after the credits.

The beauty of cinema and visual media is that its purpose can be different for everyone who participates in it; for some it can be a deeply personal engagement with the purpose to explore a complex emotion undefinable by language, or it can be used to offer something to others whether it be an awareness for something globally universal, or a simple story. There are just so many ways you can use the medium. I am confident that my motivations for engaging in it will evolve as I age since our personal needs do change.

[Tom Lowe]

Like others, I feel an overwhelming NEED to be creative. Second, I want to leave this world at least slightly better than it would have been had I never been born.

When you are writing something good, or shooting something wonderful for stills or cinema, or editing moving images to the perfect music, and everything is clicking, you can find yourself very much "in the zone" -- detached from, and elevated above, the world around you. This is an inner peace, when you are channeling forces beyond your waking thought.

I always think of that incredibly epic guitar solo Jimmy Page did in the live rendition of "Stairway" on the "Song Remains the Same" film:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFQC4gr_tvk

Watch Page at the 1:58 and 2:44 marks. If you look at his face and eyes during this solo, he's not even "there," not conscious of where he is, or that tens of thousands of fans are watching, or that lights are shining on him and the 35mm cameras are rolling. He's not aware that 30 years later someone might be sitting on a mountaintop in Nepal watching the performance on an iPod, having a chill race up his spine and his existence elevated, if only for a moment. Page is only existing -- a conduit for "forces" beyond our waking knowledge. When you're really, truly in the zone creatively, there can be no higher feeling for an artist, because there can be nothing truer.

I am without religious belief, a subscriber to existentialist thought, which posits that the only meaning in life is that which we ascribe to it. And so for me, beauty and wonder are what keep me going. Without something beautiful and wondrous, one might sink into a meaningless funk, and give up on life. Religious people can find meaning in their beliefs, but for others, we can find meaning in our experience, and our ability to share it with others.

Can there be any greater spirituality than sitting on a high mountain, beside a moon-dappled creek, under a blanket of thousands of stars listening to the first movement of Beethoven’s 14th piano sonata and pondering that the Milky Way you are gazing upon is really a collection of 200 billion nuclear stars, beyond which lies 200 billion more galaxies? This to me is wondrous! Perhaps the birth of a first child could top it, but I haven't experienced that yet. If a moving photograph of the heavens can trigger these thoughts and feelings in others, I have shared something worthwhile.

For years I worked as a political speechwriter, which combined my love of writing with my desire to make a positive change in the world.

But the beauty of cinema is that it melds even more artforms – writing, music, editing, photography, storytelling – into one statement by an artist and his collaborators. This is why someone like Terrence Malick quit his job as a writer and philosophy professor at MIT to join AFI’s first filmmakers’ program, along with the likes of David Lynch. Malick recognized that through film we can improve the lives of others, while at the same time fulfilling ourselves. Imagine I spend 2 years making a film. 20 years later, some guy who is down on his luck, having lost his wife or his job or his desire to follow his dreams – if this guy watches my film and only for 90 minutes forgets his sorrows and feels an improvement in his life, maybe even some hope, then I have accomplished something. :thumbsup:

[Craig Ryan]

Right on Tom, reminds me of that Emerson quote, "To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded. "

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

Joy.

:)

[Zakaree Sandberg]

because i would assassinate myself if i had a 9-5 desk job

[Adrian Correia]

because i would assassinate myself if i had a 9-5 desk job

agreed....

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

because i would assassinate myself if i had a 9-5 desk job


That's a very good reason too. Hahahah. :rofl:

[Coco B]

because i would assassinate myself if i had a 9-5 desk job

Nothing's wrong with 9 to 5 desk job. You can use 8 hours to imagine/write your future film. And still get paid. :)

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

Nothing's wrong with 9 to 5 desk job. You can use 8 hours to imagine/write your future film. And still get paid. :)

I guess that depends on what your 9 - 5 desk job is... hmmm do you think it would be bad form for a US congressman to write scripts and make movies on the side?

[Coco B]

If a congressman is ispired enough to imagine/write a movie (that inspires me) I would easily respire (To breath easily again, as after a period of exertion of trouble.) :)

[Vince K]

because i would assassinate myself if i had a 9-5 desk job

Oh...I hear that one LOUD and CLEAR!! :) I don't even know how people in the production office can stand it...albeit, the ones in accounting who sign my checks are my faves, and I encourage them to work as hard as they can! j/k Lorrie :)

Tom...:beer: I could not have put it more eloquently.
I have been an artist and musician my entire life...I seriously cannot think of what I'd be doing right now if my parents hadn't thrown me into the 'creative mix' at such a young age.
I do, however, have my own beliefs about religion coming from an extremely religious family...and although I don't go to church or practice in any way, sometimes, when I see the beauty in nature that you kindly remind us of thru your awesome pics, I can't help but think there is something 'bigger than ourselves' giving us the opportunity to share in the beauty, and be inspired and influenced by it to create...and in turn, be inspired by those creations.

For what it's worth, your vid 'Learning to Fly' does just that. :beer:

[Danish P.V.]

If a congressman is ispired enough to imagine/write a movie (that inspires me) I would easily respire (To breath easily again, as after a period of exertion of trouble.) :)

That will rarely gonna happen - and sometimes I have the feeling that the task of making good, entertaining and meaningful films are amongst the most complex ones on the world...

[Yannick Hagman]

Nothing wrong with 9 to 5 dayjobs, pays for the bills.

Many in here will have them as well. There are other ways of course, like having rich parents or nicking social welfare (in Europe). But commercials that pay off a full fledged Red package must be scarce this days and you talk about personal projects..

The question hasn't any relation to the output though, so I don't get the sense of it. I have read answers on questions like this from people who really have no taste that sound like those from Picasso.

Success in this biz seems to come down if you are a good with people (or more to the point a dazzler) anyway. Sorry for the rant. :)

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

Like others, I feel an overwhelming NEED to be creative. Second, I want to leave this world at least slightly better than it would have been had I never been born.

When you are writing something good, or shooting something wonderful for stills or cinema, or editing moving images to the perfect music, and everything is clicking, you can find yourself very much "in the zone" -- detached from, and elevated above, the world around you. This is an inner peace, when you are channeling forces beyond your waking thought.

I always think of that incredibly epic guitar solo Jimmy Page did in the live rendition of "Stairway" on the "Song Remains the Same" film:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFQC4gr_tvk

Watch Page at the 1:58 and 2:44 marks. If you look at his face and eyes during this solo, he's not even "there," not conscious of where he is, or that tens of thousands of fans are watching, or that lights are shining on him and the 35mm cameras are rolling. He's not aware that 30 years later someone might be sitting on a mountaintop in Nepal watching the performance on an iPod, having a chill race up his spine and his existence elevated, if only for a moment. Page is only existing -- a conduit for "forces" beyond our waking knowledge. When you're really, truly in the zone creatively, there can be no higher feeling for an artist, because there can be nothing truer.

I am without religious belief, a subscriber to existentialist thought, which posits that the only meaning in life is that which we ascribe to it. And so for me, beauty and wonder are what keep me going. Without something beautiful and wondrous, one might sink into a meaningless funk, and give up on life. Religious people can find meaning in their beliefs, but for others, we can find meaning in our experience, and our ability to share it with others.

Can there be any greater spirituality than sitting on a high mountain, beside a moon-dappled creek, under a blanket of thousands of stars listening to the first movement of Beethoven’s 14th piano sonata and pondering that the Milky Way you are gazing upon is really a collection of 200 billion nuclear stars, beyond which lies 200 billion more galaxies? This to me is wondrous! Perhaps the birth of a first child could top it, but I haven't experienced that yet. If a moving photograph of the heavens can trigger these thoughts and feelings in others, I have shared something worthwhile.

For years I worked as a political speechwriter, which combined my love of writing with my desire to make a positive change in the world.

But the beauty of cinema is that it melds even more artforms – writing, music, editing, photography, storytelling – into one statement by an artist and his collaborators. This is why someone like Terrence Malick quit his job as a writer and philosophy professor at MIT to join AFI’s first filmmakers’ program, along with the likes of David Lynch. Malick recognized that through film we can improve the lives of others, while at the same time fulfilling ourselves. Imagine I spend 2 years making a film. 20 years later, some guy who is down on his luck, having lost his wife or his job or his desire to follow his dreams – if this guy watches my film and only for 90 minutes forgets his sorrows and feels an improvement in his life, maybe even some hope, then I have accomplished something. :thumbsup:


That's a beautiful post, Tom.

[Coco B]

And then again let's face it.

http://www.channel4.com/blogs/page/fourdocs?entry=do_you_like_movies_do

Well...

[hans de vries]

The real world is so boring. So I wanted to created something that doesn`t exist.

The real world isn't boring, it's terribly interesting but not at all adapted to us, and we are only partly adapted to it. And that's hard. As a boy I always wanted to live in a story instead of the real world and I still get more excited by a story than much of daily life (although the number of stories that hold up is getting smaller and smaller). To be able to live in a story that I really wanted to live in I wanted to make my own. So I wanted to be a writer and studied English and American literature in Leiden and UNC at Chapel Hill. After 6 years I knew I wouldn't be able to complete a novel, so I picked up an older ambition, becoming a painter, so I went to the Gerrit Rietveld academy (artsschool) in Amsterdam, where after the first year I decided I shouldn't stick to one medium and mostly did photography. Now I have been active as a professional artist for several years, but the old urge to make stories and the older urge to make pictures finally combined in a logical conclusion: to make movies. the pana dvx100 was enough for the art world, but not for movies, and along comes Red!! (and several subsidies from Art funds :)) Actually Red came at exactly the right moment.

[hans de vries]

At the risk of becoming too gloomy here: creating something of your own is also an attempt to beat your own ending

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

The "real world"... what does that mean, anyway? :)

[Coco B]

The "real world"... what does that mean, anyway? :)

The "Real world" is a reality television program on MTV. First broadcast in 1992, the show is the longest running program in MTV history. :cool::)

---

And here's what the legendary armenian film director and painter Sergei Paradjanov says:

"I guess it's beauty. I get high when I create beauty.
I search for beauty in people, in life, in portraits.
It's hard making films and it's hard living in cinema.
But it's even harder living without cinema."

[Christopher Adams]

What a beautiful thread! There should be more like these. We spend a lot of time with numbers values expressions and skills. We should never forget that creativity and story is the heart of said expressions. Its amazing journey we are on. I for one would feel so empty without it. Keep on creating. It moves us forward. Even a bad film... can tell us much about what we are or where we need to go.

[Jared Caldwell]

I remember the moment I knew I was going to be a filmmaker. As a child, I watched a lot of films, but they were all films made for children. When I was 15, I saw my first rated-R film: "The Terminator". I was completely enthralled! I had never seen a film where I was completely connected to the characters and their plight. The next day, I went out and bought a DVD player (back when nobody had them, and they were just becomming affordable), along with Terminator 2. After watching Terminator 2, I knew there was no turning back. Terminator 2 is still my favorite movie to this day. :}

For myself, I feel it is less important to have something to say than it is to have something to share. When watching cinema, you may be watching a two-dimensional image, with actors, fake violence, unrealistic worlds, and special effects, but the emotions that are induced are indeed real.

Some may say that films are used for escape, are a luxury/waste of time, are fake or ultimately meaningless, but I feel that cinema exercises the one aspect that makes us most human: empathy. The human ability to epathize allows us to partake in experiences that aren't our own. When I am making films, I am experiencing the story through the act of directing, and I want to share this experience with others. If I can give someone a reason to show real epathy towards characters that don't exist in the physical world, maybe this can help people understand one another better.

I am not a preacher, and do not want to yell at people through film. I view the cinema as a shared experience between the audience, the characters, and the storytellers, not as a dictator that shouts his opinion from behind an elevated platform.

I am still relatively new to filmmaking. Filmmaking is difficult starting out. It is like learning a new language, and as a child, you are going to have trouble communicating as clearly as what you have imagined in your mind. Luckily, I am making some good steps, and am learning a lot by doing. :}

[Zakaree Sandberg]

I saw back to the future 2 as a kid.. saw MJF cruisn around on that hover board.. and instantly decided I wanted to be a film maker so i too could cruise around on hover boards (when not shooting of course)...

then I found out that the hover boards were attached to long poles and a car:/
but I still like making films:)

[Hans von Sonntag]

In my late teens I was not mature enough to accomplish an academic education and ended up as a junior spark in Berlin. My first paid job as a cameramann was a 48 hour shooting day when the Berlin Wall broke down. Now I'm 42, dad of two, and working as a writer and director for commercials and similiar productions. On my way I forgot to become a physician but started my own business which is now over 20 years old. I'm not a veteran but a seasoned beginner - you never complete training. My tool set expanded continuosly: First a camera, then lights, then bigger and more lights, then bigger cameras, then editing bays and then the pencil (laptop) which became the master tool: Nothing is more challenging than developing a new story. But I must admit I love cameras and lenses - in my heart I never quit the camera job.

To answer the question: I don't know why I make films. I slipped into the busienss, I guess I'm not too bad at it and love the recognition I get from time to time. No need to start something new but to improve and try to reach new levels.

Hans

[J Davis]

The "Real world" is a reality television program on MTV. First broadcast in 1992, the show is the longest running program in MTV history. :cool::)


the oldest I know is COPS - 1989

[Luca Immesi]

My great-grandfather was a famous Sicilian puppeter, he travelled all Europe with his company. The shows were very well known for the quality of the represented stories (an opera could go on for several weeks) and also for the technical innovations. They merged together in their puppets the features of the two main puppet schools of Sicily: the school of Palermo and the school of Catania. Palermo puppets were heavy, tall and they have rigid bodies, Catania puppets were smaller, lighter and they had fluid movements, so they mixed them together and in the end they got very tall, lightweight and capable of very fluid motion puppets. With my grandfather the company grew up but with the coming of cinema and television all these sorts of entertainment began to fade away. The company ceased to be when my father was 17. Then he did completely another job but he told me a lot of stories about it and he used to move a puppet for me when I was a child. The puppets of the company are in a museum now. I like to think it's in my blood to be a story teller and an innovator.

[Coco B]

the oldest I know is COPS - 1989

J, you're flirting with the wrong girl here. :)

MTV, boy, not FOX :cool:

---

Ciao, Luca!

[Tom Lowe]

My great-grandfather was a famous Sicilian puppeter, he travelled all Europe with his company. The shows were very well known for the quality of the represented stories (an opera could go on for several weeks) and also for the technical innovations. They merged together in their puppets the features of the two main puppet schools of Sicily: the school of Palermo and the school of Catania. Palermo puppets were heavy, tall and they have rigid bodies, Catania puppets were smaller, lighter and they had fluid movements, so they mixed them together and in the end they got very tall, lightweight and capable of very fluid motion puppets. With my grandfather the company grew up but with the coming of cinema and television all these sorts of entertainment began to fade away. The company ceased to be when my father was 17. Then he did completely another job but he told me a lot of stories about it and he used to move a puppet for me when I was a child. The puppets of the company are in a museum now. I like to think it's in my blood to be a story teller and an innovator.

This sounds like an interesting subject for a feature film! Do you have any photos of your great-grandfather with the puppets?

[Luca Immesi]

This sounds like an interesting subject for a feature film! Do you have any photos of your great-grandfather with the puppets?
Actually I'd like to make a documentary about it but also a feature cold be interesting. I have a book with a lot of photos but not here, this is the cover of the book (i've taken from internet).http://www.immesi.com.br/capa1.jpg
This is one of the main character Ettore Fierramosca, a leggendary Italian knight
http://www.operadeipupi.moonfruit.com/#/ettore-fieramosca/4509623797
This is a structure of the puppet
http://www.operadeipupi.moonfruit.com/#/struttura-dei-pupi/4510246079
This was a kind of poster of the show
http://www.operadeipupi.moonfruit.com/#/locandina/4511021786
This kind of puppets called Pupi were different from the others types because they were warrior puppets (medieval knights) and they had to fight a lot during the shows. They had iron swords and the company of my great-grandfather used special fx like fake blood, entrails of animals that went out from the puppets bodies during the battles, cut heads, smoke...
http://ww2.unime.it/didatticamente/pupi_siciliani.jpg

[hans de vries]

Hey! my parents took one of those knight puppets with them for me at least thirty years ago, I think from Sicily:)

[Coco B]

Luca, wow, each one of them faces has got a story to tell! What are you waiting for?

[Luca Immesi]

Luca, wow, each one of them faces has got a story to tell! What are you waiting for?
Time and money...:)

[Jim Hoffman]

"I don't know why I do it... I just know it's got to get done!"

[Stefan Christou]

Feels right

[Grinner Hester]

I do it because I love it and want to rock at whatever it is I do. I'd not rock at a real job. Video is what I have done for a quarter of a century and what I elect to do for another.