The Passion of the Creator

The drive to create is the primary function of a healthy ego. I'm not referring to the pathological ego that distorts personalities, but the creative force that is so important that it is the name given to the god of the Judeo-Christian-Muslim beliefs as the creator of all existence. Our personal egos can drive us to write, paint, sculpt, build houses, form organizations, run for office, seek job promotion, build a family, invent, and above all make movies. This creative drive we call passion.

Investors, rightly so, want to know that the film makers are passionate about the project, that they are competent to make it, and have a clear plan of returning a profit to the investors. Again and again we hear homage paid to the role of passion as the primary and essential ingredient in an indie film project to get it noticed, funded and produced. Then a very odd thing happens when the discussion turns to what the investors are looking for before they fund a project. That discussion inevitably turns to handing the job of director to someone other than the film's creator.

Here's the problem. Far more often than not, indie's are the brain child of writer/directors, the film makers who only write their screenplays as the first step in making their film. There is no one in the entire world more passionate about getting the movie made, made well, and successful than the writer/director, indeed, it it is the creation and drive of that person who has gotten every one interested in the first place. Can it make common sense to tout the absolute importance of passion but then pluck out the one person who's passion is the primal cause? Let's rip the heart out of the project and see if we can make a film with what's left. No wonder the sad state of indie film making!

An example of ripping the heart out of a production: I used to love to read Marvel Comics series "Dr. Strange" , and was thrilled that it was going to be turned into a TV movie. I could not have been more disappointed. By chance, I met one of the artists who contributed to those comic books, and he described his role as "consultant" to the film project. One by one, every feature of Dr. Strange that made him interesting was taken out by the director Philip DeGuere who had been assigned to the production by Universal and CBS. The result was disastrous to say the least.

Of course competency is vital. But, the competency of the director should not be tied to a string a mediocre movies of moderate success. The writer/director has already proven creative competency or the producers wouldn't be interested in making the movie in the first place. No director performs in isolation. Regardless of experience, any director needs to be surrounded by producers, production personnel, cast and crew who each bring their talent and experience to the project, and see to it that the director's vision, as first committed to paper, gets realized to its best.

Historically, the "first time director" who actually got a film out there in the theaters has nearly always turned a profit on it, especially the writer/director, which is something you can prove to yourself with a little investigation on line withIMDB or Boxoffice Mojo. I spoke once with Danny Boyle, the director of "28 Days Later", "Trainspotting" and so on, and he contended that a director's first film is often his best and it goes down hill from there.

Maybe the quality and commercial success of indie films would explode, if we started recognizing that a film project brought into being by the passion of a writer/director should be made ONLY by the its creator with all the support necessary for that creator to succeed. Put your money with the fountain head from whom the passion springs.