The art of the film business. . . .

My previous blog entry asked two questions. Do you have a story to tell? And Is it worth the effort needed to tell the story through a film. Let's skip the former and focus on the latter. What makes anything worth doing? This entry will be quickly focusing on money and business but there are many reasons beyond finances that makes something worth doing. I am sure I can find many people that climbed Mt. Everest that feel it was worth it and never made a dime. If you're in a position to have a ton of money you can afford to lose or equipment you own or talented friends that want to help out for free (and I stress, talented), then tell your story, any story without any further thought, purely for the personal gratification of seeing your story come to the screen. Maybe it will make a million dollars in the process, maybe it won't. Either way, that is one reason to make a movie.

But let's put the cards on the table here. Film is not art. It is a business. Allow me to clearly state that films can ultimately become great pieces of art, and many have indeed become amazing pieces of art. It is my theory that film is the only "art form" to ever be invented to exploit a machine. Thus, it is a business first and foremost. The Art of Film is a byproduct of the business that sometimes happens. First, let's quickly examine the other major art forms to see how they were invented.

Music as an art form dates back to the earliest civilizations as a part of their culture. The "Music Industry" came only after a machine was invented (phonograph) to allow exploitation. The first musical performances put on for profit were the brain child of a opportunistic "promoter" exploiting the talented villager who drew a crowd. "Hey, you can use my hat to put in front of you while you perform. Just give me 10%. Sounds fair." But most importantly, a human being using their vocal chords or hitting their hands on their thighs can make music without no outside investment by anyone. No one ever wanted to sing in the shower but first had to find an investor. (I guess you can argue someone has to pay the water bill but just stick with me here.)

Sculptors were molding human figures out of clay in the Prehistoric ages, long before Michelangelo was commissioned to finish "David." It is my primitive guess that one of the earliest clay sculptures was done by some obsessed guy trying to win over some girl in the tribe (1-800- Flowers still had some kinks in their website in 50,000 BC).

A painter can paint on any canvas with minimal supplies. The "lucky pebble" allows any immature kid to draw a penis on a rock in a playground. And I doubt the early days of graffiti had business plans with a budget line for spray paint.

A novelist with a good memory can write a novel in his head. (or with a yellow pad and a pencil) Hopefully, you get my point by now. . . .

Dramatic theater (stage plays) has its roots in religious rituals in India. This is where we start getting close to the film biz. There's staging, costuming, perhaps even lighting but again this was originally for the art (or religious aspects) of it, not the business aspect.

All of the above art forms were first developed for non-business reasons. Then came the business. Now, let's look at how films came to be. . . .

There are some great books on the birth of photography and I am not prepared to go into much detail on the subject. However, this technology was created from a scientific angle as opposed to an artistic angle. Once still photography was solidified, moving images was the next challenge the scientists took on. To make a long story short, we find ourselves at the 1893 World's Fair where Thomas Edison introduces the first moving picture camera (kinetograph) and the kinetoscope, a device to view the moving images, but only for one person at a time by peeking through a small hole (remember the old View Master toys, something like that). in 1894, Edison used this technology to open up "kinetoscope parlours" that charged money for people to see footage of mundane events such as the five second short film called (ready for this) "Fred Ott's Sneeze" (as in God Bless You sneeze). This is the first film actually copyrighted in the U.S.

So the technology was primitive but people were making money off of showing someone sneeze. Then came the Lumiere brothers in France who invented a way of projecting images for a group of people with their invention of the cinematograph (they were smart enough to realize it is hard to make out with your date if you are both sticking your eyes in different machines). Anyway, they started making money by charging the public to sit in a room and watch their films. They focused on documentary subjects. One of their films, the 50 second classic "Workers Leaving The Lumiere Factory" is considered by many to be the first real motion picture ever made released in 1895.

Then came The Silent Film era and I can go on and on on how the films being projected for the paying audience evolved. I won't, as this is not a Film History blog. My point is that Films as we know it were invented to exploit the technology to make a profit. From day one of the film industry, it has always been about the money, and more specifically, what can we project on a screen where people will be willing to pay to see it.

The question that needs to be answered to determine whether a story is worthy of making into a film is simply this. Will enough people pay for the right to see it so that it generates more revenue than the cost needed to both produce the film and inform (market) the public that the film exists. A future blog will examine how to approach this question for a specific film but first, we needed to establish why the question even exists in the first place. I am sure some film geeks out there will disagree and that is your right. I just hope you're one of the people I described above with a lot of money you can afford to lose.

OK, so let me regroup for a minute. I am not saying that the only reason to make a film is to make money. Actually, I totally disagree with that statement. You should make a film because you have no other choice but to tell the story. But the reality is the film industry revolves around financial considerations a filmmaker has to keep in mind from day one of a project. I hope this blog lays out the foundations of why this "art form" of film has such financial implications as opposed to the other art forms of the world.

A dollar sign is built into the DNA of FILM from the start . . . . . .