So. First, I have no problem with entering video art competitions and will continue to do so because I have direct connections with and inhabit that neighborhood. However, in regard to the filmmaker neighborhood: when I see how many Lucys have been downloaded on Amazon and I consider the fact that 4 of the viewers went to the trouble to give it a star and write their opinion in a public online venue, I wonder why I should go to the expense and trouble of entering film competitions? In my first art career as a sculptor, I learned that getting your work out there is part of your job. I am getting my own work out to the people. I feel that I am doing my job whether I enter film competitions or not. Mikes and my movie, running out, was selected by the Pineapple Underground Film Festival and shown in Shanghai in July with 60 other shorts. I will give PUFF a little more slack than other festivals, but they still have not published the names of all those shorts and they have not sent me a confirmation that our movie did not make it to the final 25 shorts being screened this month. In my opinion, when venues do not pay basic courtesy to independent artists, not even artists they have selected, they create an us vs. them situation - Artist vs. Venue. I am troubled by this. And after a young man joined Vimeo last week apparently for the sole purpose of liking Lucy Finds A Potato, why should I enter film festivals? I am not quite a populist, on the one hand. But on the other, I also learned as a sculptor that your audience may not be who you expect, and so I am definitely not exclusivist, either, because experience has taught me that is fatuous and ridiculous. Not only am I getting my work out there, but I am finding my audience and my audience is finding me back. Simply, it means more to me that 4 people have given Lucy a one-star rating, which they could not have done without signing in, filling out forms, and buying the movie, than having a movie screened once in Shanghai without any recognition by the venue on its website. Seriously.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Dec 2014 21:08:05 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015