Sunday, February 1, 2009

Films are unique in many ways!

Making a film is a unique experience in a lot of ways. There's the travel, the uncertainty about the project, the tremendous personal debt the filmmaker gets themselves into in order to make the thing. The list goes on and on.

Sadly, one of the constants of film making is unsolicited criticism. Thus far in the life of PURE, all I've released is the trailer, and here are some of the criticisms I've seen thus far: (this list is abridged)

"you need a proofreader. In the Pure trailer you spelt Fontainebleau wrong. You missed out the last A. It is a crazy french word and everything but if there's one crazy french word a boulderer should be able to spell, that's it. Plus about 30 seconds after the misspelled on-screen text we see it spelt correctly on a sign.

(by the way, spelled is spelled S-P-E-L-L-E-D, spelt is a type of grain.)

If this was a one-off incident I wouldn't have bothered writing, but sadly it's not. First Try, a brilliant little film, so good I have it ripped to my hard drive and can watch it right now, is riddled with spelling and punctuation errors. First up, it should be JOE'S VALLEY, with an apostrophe. Then you spell thieves wrong, it's PRINCE OF THIEVES, not THEIVES. Then when it's DANIEL'S TURN you need an apostrophe again. Then THIEVES is spelt wrong again, but at least you were consistent. That's quite a lot of mistakes for less than nine minutes of film. I think I have noticed mistakes in other ones too but I can't remember which ones right now."

"Movie looks like it sucks, I heard the rocklands scene copies most boulder problems Dosage 5 and reshoot footage for switzerland as well….I agree with angie, the robot voice sucks."

"That voiceover was the worst though."

"How much did it cost to hire Stephen Hawking for that voice over?"


I know, I know... water off a duck's back. We all have to deal with criticism, but a lot of people have the benefit of their criticism taking place in a two-way medium or better yet face-to-face, while the bulk of mine comes via one-way channels, such as reviews.

Is it just me or do films get scrutinized particularly... um... thoroughly?

I chose to make PURE 'A Chuck Fryberger Film' and I didn't take that decision lightly. It is very tempting to put UP a big front and hide behind a faceless logo but I am becoming drawn to the honesty of presenting my work under my own name. The criticism bites twice as hard though when, inevitably, it does come.

There, that feels better.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Eff the haters. Keep doin you.

Lee Cujes said...

How valuable that you have people that take the time to give you feedback, and for free. You'll learn from it won't you? It'll make your next production better won't it? So cop it on the chin and move forward.

Movecrafter said...

Yes, true. Some stuff is best to give the water-off-a-duck's-back treatment, but stuff like misspelling is certainly one for the 'chin'. Thank god for British people, proofreaders of the Earth. I just hope he sees the humor in my 'spelt' statement.

I live most of my life with a very light sense of seriousness, and some of the problem is just that other people sometimes take my work more serious than I do.

As a joke, I put some Australian music into the Austrian segment of the film. I'll keep you all posted on the ensuing backlash from that little blunder.

Thanks for the comments though.

sock hands said...

i'm withholding my evil critisizm until i learn just how many v7s there are, or are not, in you film...

muahahahahahaahaaa

i thought that the editing of the trailer was top notch... very professionally done... indicative of honing the art at a level far beyond the low-bar of climbing media.

good getting out with you kids saturday... i was hella psyched to climb with such a good handfull of smiling faces.

Tom Markiewicz said...

Take it as a good sign Chuck. The fact that you're getting a bunch of criticism means people actually care about watching a good film. I'd be more worried if no one cared.

Personally, I thought the trailer was great and can't wait to see the flick!

I'm Just Saying said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
brad said...

I personally am excited for the film and it seems to have a bit of a different pace than some of the other films out there already. Cheers and good luck!

Situner said...

I agree with Tom.

If people care enough to give you shit, you must be doing something right.

I'd be curious to see their climbing films...

Heh.

-Matt

Unknown said...

Yikes, guess it was the wrong time to mention it.

I believe the full sentence was "love your work, keep it up, but you need a proofreader." It does all sound a bit negative when you quote it out of context like that.

And spelt, as well as being a type of wheat, is also a verb, at least in Britain.

www.dictionary.co.uk/browse.aspx?word=spelt

Like I said, looking forward to seeing Pure, and please keep making climbing films because you're very good at it.

Movecrafter said...

Yeah, sorry.

I guess generally I do my own thing (youtube search for 'out there-bouldering in Oman') and when I do have something that gets attention I usually behave very anti-socially.

Your suggestions were merited, but being a solo filmmaker is a bit of an emotional rollercoaster sometimes.

Diggity said...

Eff it all! You win PBRz. Thanks for being budz.

chuffer said...

F the world ... do your thing and live your life the best you can and in ways that challenge and inspire you.

very little in life, other than this, really matters.