Tim with six-month-old son, Brick |
As a maker of movies and magazines, I’ve often reflected on the similarities between the two endeavors. What is a publisher, after all, if not a producer; what is an editor, if not a director; an art director, if not a production designer, and so on. Equal parts art, commerce, auteur’s vision and collaboration, both are volatile enterprises fraught with risk and uncertainty, forever plagued by the ancient battle between aesthetic aspiration and the mandate to deliver “on time and on budget.”
For those control freaks who try to function as unholy “hyphenates” (publisher-editor, producer-director), the struggle is particularly schizophrenic.
Still, I’ve come to believe that starting this magazine and creating a new issue every two months was the best training I could have had for making a movie. Film school just doesn’t prepare you the way an analogous business like magazine-making does. I would have liked to sign up for a course in how to deal with the call from the lab (printer) telling you they’re putting the brakes on your project without another influx of cash, or how to prepare for a skirmish with the distributor (distributor) over the number of screens (newsstands) your baby will appear on, or how to handle a cajoling session with the whiny, insecure actor (writer) everyone is depending on...
These are a few of the thoughts that seeped into my sleep-deprived consciousness as we approached the home stretch on our 36th issue in six years.
MovieMaker is six years old. That’s what I’d planned to talk about in this space. Next month we’ll be “entering our seventh year.” I happen to be the father of a six-year-old boy who’s entering his seventh year next month, and it isn’t hard to find similarities there, either. Seems like yesterday that Nicholas was only six-months-old, as my younger son, Brick, is now. And while Nick is still a baby in many ways, in other ways he now seems so grown up. I’m proud that all who know him seem to love him, and that he’s consistently a leader amongst his peers.
I’m pleased that I can say the same for MovieMaker, where we like to brag that at six years old we are “The Most Widely Read Independent Movie Magazine in the World.” That statement is true not just because our circulation numbers bear it out, but because no magazine could ever claim to be more independent than this one. We aren’t owned by some media conglomerate in New York, we aren’t beholden to any nonprofit group, and no advertiser, sponsor, investor, or anyone else has ever called the editorial tune. For better or for worse, I’ve been lucky enough to be in the driver’s seat for the past six years, and far more often than not, it’s been a lot of fun. From the days when the magazine was layed out on the floor of my tiny Seattle apartment to the challenge of our relocation to Los Angeles, where we’ve achieved most of our remarkable growth, to the recent addition of our swank new East Coast production/subscription office in Falmouth, Maine (just north of Boston, but with a better view), no driver has ever enjoyed the ride more than me. And as I said, I know that in many ways, we’re just getting started.
When you’re just getting started in moviemaking, it’s now a platitude that you should look to something you know about for material. That’s what our cover girl, Kimberly Peirce, did with her first feature, Boys Don’t Cry (pg. 44). And that’s what the makers of Goat on Fire and Smiling Fish (pg. 20) did. But Ray Carney, possibly the world’s foremost expert on American independent film, says that’s nonsense (pg 36).
“We have a mistaken notion that you make a movie after you’ve decided what you want to say. It’s actually the reverse. You learn what you want to say by making the movie—like conversation, which would not only be more boring, but stupider, if we tried to plan it out in advance. Use film to learn.” Ever think of it like that? More Carney gems:
“Most Hollywood directors are closer to being businessmen than artists. Schindler’s List has more in common with Donald Trump’s Art of the Deal than with Martin Buyer’s I and Thou. A producer’s cinema reflects a producer’s values. We need an artist’s cinema that reflects an artist’s values.”
Whether you’re a first-time moviemaker or a veteran of several, I urge you to read Ray Carney’s words, and to seek out his other writings in past issues of MovieMaker and elsewhere. Because everywhere you look, someone is telling you how to make a movie. Carney is is one of the few I know who will tell you why you should make a movie; why it matters.
Briefly, the Men in Scoring Position update, for those who have followed the saga of my first movie in these pages: Our distributors just returned from MIFED, where they sold MISP to various far-flung places. Thailand, for instance. Who’d have thought?
And who would have thought six years would go by so quickly? Here’s to independence, and to the wide-eyed beauty of being six. Thanks for being with us to help celebrate our birthday. See you in Park City. MM