I’m sure most of you have either worked on or made your own short film or webisode, and perhaps even a feature film. This has been the latest trend that have been consistently creating work and establishing new talent for Hollywood. The biggest disadvantage is that the majority of them do not pay anything or you have to spend your own money to shoot your project. The obvious advantage is that you’re creating your own work, with 100% control, and you’re no longer classified as just an actor. You’re now a filmmaker. Woo Hoo! But other actors will kiss up to you for acting jobs. Plus, you don’t have to rely on someone else’s decision to see if you got the part or not, because you always cast yourself in all your projects.
The main disadvantage here is that the funding is either your own savings, credit cards or favors from everyone you know on this planet. One thing that I will suggest for you would-be filmmaker/actors out there is to please make projects that people actually want to see rather than projects that you want to make. There is a difference. If you don’t understand this concept, go and sit through an entire film festival and you’ll see a lot of passion projects that main-stream audiences would not pay to see.
Believe it or not, your Audience IS the bottom line. You as a filmmaker may think that your project is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but if the audience doesn’t want to see it, then you just wasted a lot of valuable time, money and effort. I’ve seen numerous talented actors and filmmakers scramble to raise the money, make their film, then have a super tough time trying to sell it at the end of the day. The finished film ends collecting dust.
The moral of the story is, don’t be afraid to be true to yourself. Accept that fact that if you choose to make a passion piece, it may not gain the commercial success as you would hope versus intentionally making a commercial film that targets a specific audience. Last but not leased, the definition of value is, “what is the price someone else is willing to pay for your product?”
