FILM ART AND FILMMAKING

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or35060_ch01.qxd 7/19/06 8:13 AM Page 26 26 CHAPTER 1 Film as Art: Creativity, Technology, and Business 1.32 Studio production was characterized by a large number of highly specialized production roles. Here several units prepare a moving-camera shot for Wells Fargo (1937). Warner Bros., Columbia, and so on. These companies owned equipment and extensive physical plants, and they retained most of their workers on long-term contracts. Each studio’s central management planned all projects, then delegated authority to individual supervisors, who in turn assembled casts and crews from the studio’s pool of workers. Organized as efficient businesses, the studios created a tradition of carefully tracking the entire process through paper records. At the start, there were versions of the script; during shooting, reports were written about camera footage, sound recording, special-effects work, and laboratory results; in the assembly phase, there were logs of shots catalogued in editing and a variety of cue sheets for music, mixing, looping, and title layout. This sort of record keeping has remained a part of large-scale filmmaking, though now it is mostly done on the computer. Although studio production might seem to resemble a factory’s assembly line, it was always more creative, collaborative, and chaotic than turning out cars or TV sets is. Each film is a unique product, not a replica of a basic design. In studio
or35060_ch01.qxd 7/19/06 8:13 AM Page 27 filmmaking, skilled specialists collaborated to create such a product while still adhering to a blueprint prepared by management (1.32). The centralized studio production system has virtually disappeared. The giants of Hollywood’s golden age have become distribution companies, although they often initiate, fund, and oversee the making of films they distribute. The old studios had stars and staff under contract, so the same group of people might work together on film after film. Now each film is planned as a distinct package, with director, actors, staff, and technicians brought together for this project alone. The studio may provide its own soundstages, sets, and offices for the project, but in most cases, the producer arranges with outside firms to supply cameras, catering, locations, special effects, and anything else required. Still, the detailed production stages remain similar to what they were in the heyday of studio production. In fact, filmmaking has become vastly more complicated in recent years, largely because of the expansion of production budgets and the growth of computer-based special effects. Titanic listed over 1400 names in its final credits. Exploitation and Independent Production Not all films using the division of labor we have outlined are big-budget projects financed by major companies. There are also low-budget exploitation products tailored to a particular market—in earlier decades, fringe theatres and drive-ins; now, video rentals and sales. Troma Films, maker of The Toxic Avenger, is probably the most famous exploitation company, turning out horror movies and teen sex comedies for $100,000 or even less. Nonetheless, exploitation filmmakers usually divide the labor along studio lines. There is the producer’s role, the director’s role, and so on, and the production tasks are parceled out in ways that roughly conform to massproduction practices. Exploitation production often forces people to double up on jobs. Robert Rodriguez made El Mariachi as an exploitation film for the Spanish-language video market. The 21-year-old director also functioned as producer, scriptwriter, cinematographer, camera operator, still photographer, and sound recordist and mixer. Rodriguez’s friend Carlos Gallardo starred, coproduced, and coscripted; he also served as unit production manager and grip. Gallardo’s mother fed the cast and crew. El Mariachi wound up costing only about $7000. Unlike El Mariachi, most exploitation films don’t enter the theatrical market, but other low-budget productions, loosely known as independent films, may. Independent films are made for the theatrical market but without major distributor financing. Sometimes the independent filmmaker is a well-known director, such as Spike Lee, David Cronenberg, or Joel and Ethan Cohen, who prefer to work with budgets significantly below the industry norm. The lower scale of investment allows the filmmaker more freedom in choosing stories and performers. The director usually initiates the project and partners with a producer to get it realized. Financing often comes from European television firms, with major U.S. distributors buying the rights if the project seems to have good prospects. For example, David Lynch’s low-budget The Straight Story was financed by French and British television before it was bought for distribution by Disney. As we would expect, these industry-based independents organize production in ways very close to the full-fledged studio mode. Nonetheless, because these projects require less financing, the directors can demand more control over the production process. Woody Allen, for instance, is allowed by his contract to rewrite and reshoot extensive portions of his film after he has assembled an initial cut. The category of independent production is a roomy one, and it also includes more modest projects by less well known filmmakers. Examples would be Victor Nuñez’s Ulee’s Gold and Miranda July’s Me and You and Everyone We Know. Even though their budgets are much smaller than for most commercial films, Modes of Production 27 “Deep down inside, everybody in the United States has a desperate need to believe that some day, if the breaks fall their way, they can quit their jobs as claims adjusters, legal secretaries, certified public accountants, or mobsters, and go out and make their own low-budget movie. Otherwise, the future is just too bleak.” — Joe Queenan, critic and independent filmmaker
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FILM ART AND FILMMAKING

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