(Mike Verta)
Star Wars Fan Films: A Review
You Know Who You Are
*snip*
Having a camera doesn’t make you a photographer. Final Draft software doesn’t make you a writer. Telling your fat friends in Jedi bathrobes to make mean faces doesn’t make you a director,
*snip*
The truth is, the world is full of photographers, writers, composers, directors, actors, and editors, who have made their craft a life’s pursuit; who have more to contribute to the world than meaningless ego-glorification pieces. Maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll never have to face them in a darkened theater. Until then, fill up the world’s bandwidth with your incomprehensible, uninteresting stories and painful, cringe-worthy dialogue. Humiliate your friends in costume and watch your film over and over and over. Proclaim yourself an emperor in your shiny new clothes; but don’t call yourself a filmmaker.
Star Wars Fan Films: A Review
You Know Who You Are
*snip*
Having a camera doesn’t make you a photographer. Final Draft software doesn’t make you a writer. Telling your fat friends in Jedi bathrobes to make mean faces doesn’t make you a director,
*snip*
The truth is, the world is full of photographers, writers, composers, directors, actors, and editors, who have made their craft a life’s pursuit; who have more to contribute to the world than meaningless ego-glorification pieces. Maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll never have to face them in a darkened theater. Until then, fill up the world’s bandwidth with your incomprehensible, uninteresting stories and painful, cringe-worthy dialogue. Humiliate your friends in costume and watch your film over and over and over. Proclaim yourself an emperor in your shiny new clothes; but don’t call yourself a filmmaker.
Well Writers write, film makers make films.
If you make a film you are a film maker - period.
You might not be a good one (yet) but if you are taking the time out to try.
By actually doing it you learn, and even the worst fan films actually take a lot of time and dedication to get finished. (If nothing else you learn how *hard* it is to make good films.)
You learn what works and doesn't work. You learn how to take (lots of) criticism. You learn how to complete something, and you put yourself out there (which can be scary) and each time you do it you get better.
You may get bitten by the bug and spend more and more time doing it. You might get more interested go and get some real training, and sooner or later if you stick with it, you will start making good films - or at least ones that don't suck.
Anyone who thinks "my stuff is shit, I'll never get anywhere" - just go and rent Peter Jackson's film "Bad Taste" and try and sit through it. Nobodies first movies are all that great.
Film making is a craft learned by doing. It is hands on and takes dedication, time and a willingness to learn.
Tomorrows next great writer, director, SFX artist could be 12 years old at home with imovie and a DV camera making the worst fan films ever made *right now*, but if they stick with it, they might one day produce a breathtaking work of art.