Producer vs Artist


	MOVIES ARE A BUSINESS

A tear. A smile. A laugh. A scream.

Nothing can create these emotions in a producer as quickly, immediately, as powerfully as a movie’s Box Office.

Because of this movies are the ultimate business venture.

In a former life I’m sure I was a 49er, cause Movies are this centuries Gold Rush.

All this money is invested into a movie and then you wait for opening weekend to see how muchof it is pouring back in...or not.

If the numbers are good, then there’s no better feeling in the world. If it misses, there’s no worse feeling in the world.

It’s the ultimate risk for the ultimate rush. Some people go skydiving. Others go mountain climbing. I produce movies.

Welcome to my world.

The business world.

The REAL WORLD.

I’m tired of so called “artists” saying that movies need to be “pure” and have “higher reason” for being made.


	You know what the “higher reason” for every person is? SURVIVAL!!!


	The bigger picture is that there are these things called “bills” and about 99% of the people in any economically stable society have to pay them.


	I make movies because I need to put food on the table...sure, it’s personally prepared by Charlie Trotier, but it’s food none the less.

There’s a “real world” bigger picture here that most self-indulgant artists fail to realize cause they’re too busy water color painting with their toes in the bedroom they grew up in after having boomeraged back home to mom and dad after spending 10 years in grad school thinking that their poetry was going to change the world and “the universe” would karmically take care of them because they only did things with “pure” intentions.


	The bigger picture is that there are these things called “bills” and about 99% of the people in any economically stable society have to pay them.


	The way they pay these “bills” are by doing something called “work’ which they are then paid for with something called “money”.


	Maybe if your parents would have knocked some this-is-how-the-real-world-works-sense into you instead of letting you wear all black and support your artistic lifestyle you would have an idea of what I’m talking about.


	But you don’t so here I am.


	I’m tired of reading your this-is-my-theraputic-way-of-exorcising-my-personal-yet-boring-as-a-movie-idea-demons-scripts and tired of watching your I-think-I’m-inventing-abstract-avant-garde-made-on-sh#tty-consumer-grade-digital-video-my-teacher-didn’t-have-the-heart-to-tell-me-I-suck-films.


	It’s called Show Business not Show Art. As a studio head once said, “If you want to send a message, use Western Union.”


	“Think in terms of market, not merit.”


	I’m here to make a living...sure I’m making a better living than most people. I live in a mansion, have 5 luxury cars and sleep with more exotic women than most men see in nudie magazines during the course of their lifetime, but that’s the life I choose and create because I know how the real world works.


	If you want to make it in this business then get real. Create something that is marketable, crosses culture and age and brings in box office and DVD sales from all walks of life. Think in terms of market, not merit.


	“I am a business man and I work in a business world. It’s called Hollywood. We make movies.”


		And don’t talk to me about chaning the world. Movies cannot do that.

	Has any movie ever changed the world? Changed things? Other than bank accounts for all parties involved?


	*Did Fight Club* make you shed your materialism. No, but it did get the head of New Line Cinema fired.**


		Did American Beauty make you “wake up” and live your life to the fullest? For about 2 days - Sat and Sun, then when you went back to work and had to deal with the responsibilities of your life you forgot all about it.

	Yes, movies are an art form in that they need people who know how to write a story that moves forward, keeps people interested from moment to moment. They need a director, actor, technicians, costume designers and editors and blah blah talent blah...but if a movie doesn’t make money then all these artists are out of a job.

		So, if you have your Moleskin and your sitting in Starbucks pretending it’s a 1940’s cafe in France just after the war, remember that your not writing a novel or capturing human existence on a oil painted canvass...your trying to get into the world of movie making. Into the business world.

			If you want to make it in this world, go to business school. Save the film school money for renting DVDs with filmmaker commentary.

		Take my word for it. It’s all true. If you want proof I can give it to you. I’d rather you believed me.Don’t make me throw numbers at you.

If you want to be an artist, by a pack of cigarettes, get a feather quill ink dipping pen, grow a mustache and learn how to snap your fingers to as you nick-nack-paddy-wack your existential angst to a coffee shop crowd of like-marajuana-cloud-minded-still-living-at-home-or-in-squalor-individuals.

	If you want to make movies create something that will sell on the market.


	Remember, I’m a business man and I work in a business world. It’s called Hollywood. We make movies. We make money.


	After all, it is a business.


	MOVIES ARE AN ART FORM


A tear. A smile. A laugh. A scream.

	Nothing can create these emotions in a person as quickly, immediately, as powerfully across cultural boundries like a movie can.

		Because of this movies are the ultimate art form.


	And becuase they are the ultimate art form they have power, “Movie Power”. And they must be respected for that.


	“MP” must be in the hands of pure hearted artists who will not abuse it for personal gain at the expense of the paying public.


	“Movies are being whored out by the business man at the cost of our souls.”


	Unfortunately It seems the more time that goes by the more movie making is disrespected. The more it devolves. The more it is bastardized and exploited for the short term near sighted goal of profit and the long term damage is catastrophic - to our souls.


	Movies are being whored out by the business man at the cost of those elements which makes us human..


	Like mediums of previous ages: novels, painting, song, poetry, these forms moved the human spirit, united diverse peoples and bound us in spiecihood.


	Where are the Shakespears, Rembrants, Da Vincis and Homers of moviedom?


	Where is the repect, discipline and responsibility of the craft of movies?


	Are there moviemakers who will not sell themselves and the audience out to the man?


	“Like the A-bomb, ‘Movie Power’ must not fall into the hands of those who would use it for their self-interest.”


	Movies tell story and story has the power to change the world.


	It is the ultimate medium for the artist to explore and communciate the truth of reality that only the artist sesnes, sees and feels.


	Like the A-bomb, “movie power” must not be in the hands of those who would use it for their self-interest.


What ever happened to telling stories that matter? Stories that reflect and remind the audience of their shared humanity? The bonds that tie at the invisible and spiritual level?

		Is this not the goal of every artist? To connect, to reflect, to remind, to make sense of?

		Can a price be put on the value of the artist’s pure expression?

	Never. There is no dollar value for creations from the inner depths of an artist’s being.

		The artist must act selflessly. Must sacrifice all to obey the inner truth, the cosmic voice. For it is the artist that is like a radio or television, tuning into the fequency of life, and hearing it, understanding it, creates art and gives it back to the masses to decipher, recognize and realize its truth, the truth everyone knows they have but cannot make sense of without guidance of the code breakers of human experience: The Artist.

		Times have changed and many of the once popular forms of art have taken seat in the back row of the theater of artistic expression to the champion form of the masses: The Movies.

			How many of us have seen ET? Titanic? Casablanca?

	Could we not name the complete works of Steven Spielberg far more easily than those of James Joyce? Of George Lucas more than Michealangelo?

			We are a culture eating, breathing and sleeping the movies. The movies inform our entire existence.

				Is this a small responsibilty inherent in those who would make any movie?


	It is the greatest of responsibilities. Next to that of raising a child.


	A filmmaker is a parent to the audience. What their movies say and do set examples just as the actions of a parent would for thier children.


	“Can we not name the complete works of Steven Spielberg far more easily than those of James Joyce? Of George Lucas more than Michealangelo?”


	Are movies being created by artists whose sole purpose for creating these celluloid life lessons is to enhance understanding of human experience? Or does their blood run green with greed?


	Are they so corrupted and mutated by the bottom line that they will manipulate and bamboozle the trusting, unsuspecting movie going public by overwhelming their senses with a Roman Food Orgy of sensational high calorie images devoid of spiritual nutritional value that lends insight into the human experience just to make a few dollars?


	Perhaps they are. Or perhaps they’ve forgotten what movies mean. The power they have. The art form that movie making is. The life teaching tool it is no matter if the moviemakers are trying send a message or not.


	A movie cannot help itself. No matter the story it tells. The images it projects. It is always influencing, shaping, guiding the life behavior of the audience.


	“Who do you want creating the world? The businessman or the artist?”


	Movie Power cannot be stopped. It is in every movie no matter the writer, director, actor or producer.


	Choose story wisely, for once combined with Moive Power it becomes something transformative, metamorphical. Movies become life guidance for the audience and the audience in turn guides their outside life which creates the ultimate story in the ultimate movie...title: EARTH; staring: EVERY ONE OF US.


	Movies are the art of life. Is that not the highest goal of all arts? To impact “reality”?


	The question is now, “who do you want creating the world? The businessman or the artist?”

		Just as you wouldn’t let the milkman do your taxes, why is the businessman making our movies?

	After all, it is an art form.