What A Film Should Be Like: According to Francis Ford Coppola

Photo: Movieretrospect.blogspot.com

Today I decided that I'm gonna create a series of post dedicated to What a film should be like. I love what I did in my last post about Stanley Kubrick so much that I wanna continue it and turn it into a series, choosing quotes from famous directors and explaining how that quote relates to what I'm doing for my film. This week I found a great quote from director Francis Ford Coppola:

" You have to really be courageous about your instincts and your ideas. Otherwise you'll just knuckle under, and things that might have been memorable will be lost."

One of the things I'm learning about in creating my film is trusting my own instincts and ideas. While I've gotten advice from a lot of people who have more experience in making documentary films than I have, I feel that since this is my first film I have to have more faith in my instincts and in my ideas. That's the problem I've had not just as a filmmaker but as a person.

I sometimes don't trust my instincts the way I should and most times I feel that most of my ideas are garbage but the work that I've done during my years at DePaul and coming up with the idea to create a film based on my experience of being in a wheelchair, I should trust my decisions making a lot more. There have been some instances during the shooting of my film where I've missed out on footage that I thought would be memorable for film because I didn't think it would work for my film and that's one of my early regrets.

For this film I really want to give people a memorable viewing experience and trust myself and I have to be more courageous about my instincts.

Justin

What A Film Should Be Like: According to Stanley Kubrick

Courtesy: Edgemar Center for the Arts

Well a few days ago I was on tumblr and I ran across this interesting quote from director Stanley Kubrick explaining what a film should be like:

"A film is - or should be - more like music than fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later."

In all honesty I didn't really pay attention to the quote but then I started thinking about it and realized that he's absolutely right about film being more like music than fiction.

While working on my film I was spending too much time thinking about what the theme was gonna be, how I was gonna present myself in the film and while that's important those things will only come as I continue working on the film all of those pieces the theme, what's behind the emotion, and the meaning will all come together once the film is done.

As a director this is an important lesson that I've learned and I will never forget this lesson

Justin

Heartache & Pain

As I continue to work on my film I've been dealing with a dilemma that's very difficult to talk about to anyone. I know for this film I'm opening myself up to the entire world but there are some things that I'm not ready for the world to know because in all honesty I don't know how to deal with these issues myself so how can I open myself up to other people when I don't know how to handle these personal issues in my life.

I mean I'm lonely as hell not just because I'm working on the film by myself at this particular time but I'm lonely because I don't have anyone I can talk to about these personal issues. I know I have people in my life who support me and this film but I don't feel like I have anyone who I could talk to and understand what I'm going through right now. There is so much heartache and pain that I'm going through right now it just hard to keep a smile on my face and pretend like nothing's wrong.

I've devoted myself to this film and my future projects but it's difficult for me right now to deal with my personal issues and I really don't want it affect my film.

My Apologies

Hey everyone sorry for not posting last Friday. I had to recover from an accident I had and I couldn't post anything on my blog. I just wanted to let you all know that sometime soon I'll be putting together a kickstarter page to start funding the film. I will go more in detail about that in my next post. Once again I'm sorry for not posting last week after I promised I would post weekly.

Justin