Can the common questions filmmakers ask… lead us to a deeper understanding of what we actually need?
Is there a process where we can learn to ask the BETTER questions that help us more?
We would have a better cinema ecosystem — one that better facilitated movies getting made and made well, one that rewarded the participants fairly for their contribution and risk, one that embraced risk, boldness, and a wider variety of perspectives — if all of us changed how we thought. Hate to put it so bluntly, but we think about what we do in all the wrong ways. I say that because it is how we think that has destroyed much of what we love; how we currently think is hindering us from getting what we truly want.
But are we actually capable of changing how we think? We will need to do it both individually and collectively if we are to build a better ecosystem for ambitiously authored cinema. It is a tall order, yeah?
I began this post with the thought I would write up the 100 most common questions filmmakers ask, and provide the companion 100 ones they should be asking instead. Okay, maybe that would take ten or more posts. So I started to break this interrogation of our questioning and thought processes down into thematic groups…
There are the questions filmmakers ask that they don’t actually need the answers of, or maybe they are not even truly ready for the answers of.
And then there are the questions filmmakers never ask but really should. We are often think that we are ready for something when, in truth, we’d do a lot better if we slowed things down, did a bit more research, and considered things a wee bit longer, and then probably asked DIFFERENT questions instead.
I am all in favor of always voting for action as the best option. Too much is lost in people’s contemplation. But often when it comes to filmmaking, I think the best advice is to slow it the eff down. Seriously. Particularly, when it comes to the topic of the first question most filmmakers have to ask. That topic is financing and the question generally is: “Where can I find the money for my film?”.
Not surprisingly, like with movies, everything in life starts to go wrong when money gets introduced into the equation. We think money matters more than most anything and that it is something we need so badly. Okay, maybe we are right on that latter front, but we are moving way too fast when we put such questions on the top of our list. Money can be a distraction if arrives when it has yet to be contemplated how best to transform it into what our goals truly are.
Yet, despite this nitpicking of mine, money is a useful path when used to study what can be accomplished. When we look at how our relationship to money changes the longer we have an opportunity to consider it, we see a change occur within ourselves. If we start to ask the correct questions about money, we transform from just wanting it, to knowing how to utilize it in services of the correct goals.
Most filmmakers want initially to just get the money and go — but I suspect many have learned something similar to what I have: most of my films have benefited from the time it takes to put them together. If the money came through when we initially wanted it, our films would have likely not been as strong as they later became or will become.
I think there is also something significant to be gained examining how the questions progress when we don’t get what we want.
As I mentioned, I think most filmmakers start by just wanting to know “Where do I find money for my film?” but… even armed with a list of 200+ financiers, we aren’t likely to secure it, particularly if those are the same financiers that all the other filmmakers are going to. Slowly a change starts coming over us. Or at least it should. The failure at getting what we want, starts to transform us. We recognize maybe we’ve been asking the wrong questions.
We start to pivot to more of the “How”, as in “How do I find the money for my film?”. How being the part of the search that contemplates more of actually securing the funds – the part that the initial question of “where” avoided. It is not like film investors want to invest in 99% of the projects that get to them.
That failure to find money leads to our third step that one gets to in the money search: “Why is it so hard to find money?”. Recognizing that is so effin’ hard helps start to change the nature of the questions. It is not that we need to know where to get money, it is that we need to know HOW to secure it.
Once we start asking the How, we start to wonder if there are better ways to incentivize others to work with us, or even ways to get them involved in ways other than just funding, perhaps even in ways that might incentivize them to consider investing. We have to think about how money thinks about money. Lucky again for you, I’ve done a little bit of that and am happy to share some of my thoughts:
Ideally, we want to come up with a better system than what has been here before. If people are not investing in films, it may not be because we don’t know where to go, and it may not be because we don’t know how to incentivize them to get involved. It can be that the model has the wrong incentives to get them involved. Perhaps the model for investing in film in America is all wrong.
Once again, I have done a bit of thinking of why our current models for investing in film are wrong, and how they might be improved.
I am glad I have been able to answer or at least to illuminate some of the situation around these questions. But the questions continue all the way down. Questions upon questions upon questions as far as you can see. If I had the answers for each one, I would have finished that second book by now. Still though, I think you can suss out a series of questions that follow, and that stream of thought might be even more important than the individual answers.
When we try to anticipate the next questions in a round, or just the questions that surround each question, we actually get on firmer ground. We start to think through what we need to know and what we need to present. Our questioning makes the path clearer. So what are those questions we should ask ourselves, particularly when it comes to the realm of money?
We need to recognize that the instinct for our first question is often not correct in terms of actually solving the issue. We have to dig deeper, and in doing so we find a new question and then a new question after that.
1. Where do I find money? The truth is you are not prepared yet to find it unless you know most about what type of money you want, why they might want you, how you will spend it if you get it, and how you will return it,
2. How do I find money for my film? Now you are starting to think about the type of money you want and what might incentivize them to partner with you.
3. Why is it so hard to find money? You are entering the realm of asking questions about the system you are in and whether or not you want to align with it.
