Nicolas Courdouan

How do you know that? (genuine interrogation) If you entrusted a producer with millions of your own money, would you not keep an eye on their expenses? Production companies are bound to stick to the budgets they parade around while asking for money all over town. Why would anybody agree to give money to a producer who has budgeted their own salary at 1,000,000 for no other reason than "because they could"? And why would anybody not ask a producer where 1 of the 10 millions they gave them have disappeared if they didn't get a receipt for it? Producers might be making the biggest bucks when a film succeeds at the box office, but until they have repaid every single cent they borrowed from their investors, the truth is they are held by the balls, just like any other young middle-class couple trying to repay their mortgage to the bank they borrowed it from.

By the way, I learned recently that a new law had been proposed, that will impose the minimum wage - which is more or less a "recommended wage" in the case of smaller budgets - for all film crews. This law was proposed by... The biggest French production companies. So it seems not all producers are trying to exploit their crews after all. The same law has been vehemently opposed by independent filmmakers, who often make films that cost less than 2,5 million Euros, which up to now exempted them from those minimum wages, and allowed them to cut their costs. And it is true that, should such a law be put in place, the only thing that will happen will be less indie films, and more big blockbusters that have enough budget to pay everybody decently.

Salary, wage... I don't know how this works in the UK, but don't think for a second that a producer is free to pay themselves 10,000 a week if the rest of the crew is earning the minimum wage. Production companies, like any other financial entity, are held accountable for their books and how they spend the money, especially when it's not theirs (do you really think any bank or TV channel CFO in their right mind would risk millions at the hands of a producer and not follow closely how that producer spends their money?). They're not some all-powerful organization who answers to no one. They're companies. If I remember correctly, the minimum wage for a producer on a feature film in France is about 4000/week. That's their fee. It certainly is more than enough to live, but wait: it is the exact same as the minimum wage of a chief editor. It gets even better: The minimum wage for a DoP is 4500/week. It is understood that no matter how much the director is earning on the project (they have a different status there,"Artiste", that does not entitle them to a minimum wage), no one should be paid above their pay grade. And that includes the producer.

How is that possible when the money a producer makes out of a film only starts flowing in after the investors have been paid back? Unless I'm being very naive here, a producer only gets a fee before the release, and can only make the big bucks if the movie is a major success, which is at best a very risky gamble unless we're talking huge blockbusters. Or are you suggesting that producers fake budgets and expenses so they can steal the investor's money rather than spend it on the film?

Should have phrased it better... You should not invest your own money in a film, and hope you won't have to use it to repay investors if the movie fails.

For the record - as if anyone cared - I only argued against Maxim's point that a producer is not necessary to make a film. I am 100% behind any project that would guarantee that filmmakers - and by that I mean "crew" in the largest possible sense of the word - earn enough money to live decent lives, own a property, get a pension plan, etc. etc. I think as with all things in life, balance is what we should strive for, and I think Maxim is a bit too extreme for my tastes. He only sees the producer as the big greedy bad wolf trying to exploit their crews to get richer, and that is simply not what most producers are. Case in point: Richard here, and all the producers I have ever worked with - note: I do mean "with", and not "for". People who care about the people who are actually handling the lights, mics and cameras. That's who most producers are. Producers are filmmakers. If they were in it for the money, they could do a lot of other things that are far less risky. It is a false assumption that producers finance films with their own money. The golden rule of producing is: you never gamble with your own money. It is a false assumption that most producers are rich. Most producers struggle to find funding plans, and have to live with the fear of failure and having to repay the real financiers out of their own pocket - which in other words would mean absolute, total, immediate bankruptcy. I sympathize with your situations and desires for a better, more secure industry for film workers. I'm pretty sure I'm in the exact same situation you both find yourselves in, and so are most people on this forum. I just think you guys are not aiming your rifles at the right guys. Once again, producers are not the problem.

As far as I'm concerned, the production manager is an extension of the producer in the exact same way a camera operator is an extension of the DoP. There cannot be a production manager without a producer they have to answer to, just like there cannot be a grip without a DoP they have to answer to. Would Maxim claim that DoPs aren't necessary on the assumption that they are not really the guys operating the cameras and lighting the sets? You could tell me that on average to low budget features, the camera is operated by the DoP most of the time, and there are no camera operators. I would retort that on those same features, most of what the production manager's role consists in is also taken care of by the producer, and there is no production manager.

Again, you are reducing the job of producer to "gathering money". A producer is concerned with a lot more than just the financial aspect of making a film. Logistics, legal department, are all part of the production department. If there's no one serving as the head of this department and taking responsibility for those critical aspects of movie making, who will you turn to when your actor sues you for shooting scenes with him without having made him sign an authorization beforehand? Who do you turn to when your DoP doesn't show up on day 1 because he hasn't received his call sheet as planned? There has to be someone heading the production department. You don't want to call them a producer? Fine. But they're still doing a producer's job. As for the African Queen, you say that Sam Spiegel didn't make it because he only paid other people to do it. Even if this simplified stance on a producer's job was actually true, and it isn't, he therefore made the film happen. If no one had stepped up to the plate and paid other people to make the film, there would be no film. He may not have shot a single scene or recorded a single sound, but take him out of the equation, and there would be no African Queen. I'm from the European school of filmmaking. In my mind, directors are the most important people on the payroll. They get the idea for the film, write it, then get a producer to make it happen. They are therefore, in a way, the employer of the producer. WIthout the director, no producer. But it is fundamental to recognize the importance of that collaboration between the two. The director creates the film, the producer ensures that everything the director needs is there for them to create it. If there weren't any producer, the director would have to do their job, which would in turn make them the producer of the film. There's no way around it. A film is a production. For a production to happen, you need a producer.

The dictatorship of the market does exist, but only concerns the tip of the iceberg in terms of number of films. Even in the US, independently-funded films do not rely on the dictatorship of the market and yet have producers working on them. I do agree that a healthy system is one where the producer is an employee and not an employer, but I think you're painting too bleak a picture relying on clichés of the big bad boss versus their poor, abused employees. A lot of produces love cinema just as much as the key grip working on their films, and their main objective is to deliver movies that will stay in everybody's minds for decades, if not longer. Saying that the film industry does not need producers is, in effect, just like saying that it doesn't need directors. You want to cut off the head on the assumption that the body can deliver on its own. After all, every cinematographer, sound engineer and Foley artist has a vision too. Who needs a director telling them how to do their jobs to put their on vision on the screen? Why not the Foley artists's vision?

You keep referring to the French industry to prove your point, but I'm sorry, the French industry relies massively on its producers. There are no film or even TV movies made without one or several producers. The last feature I worked on had three producers, and was made for around €5,000,000, which, in France is a decent budget (it rarely goes anywhere over 20M). These three producers were lovely people, two of which had graduated from the producing course over at the FEMIS, which forms dozens of future filmmakers every year and which places a high emphasis on film as an art form. They weren't greedy financiers, they were interested in much more than money, they were filmmakers first and foremost. All they wanted was to make a film they would be proud of. I'm not saying they weren't thinking about the financial side of things, nor that they weren't worried about the film failing at the box office (which it did), but overall, on those rare occasions when they were visiting us in the editing suite, they always gave the impression they were serving us instead of us them, always making sure our working conditions were ideal so that we would only ever have to focus on editing the film. Because that is the job of a producer. Ensuring that every single crew and cast members have what they need to get the film done. That's what they are responsible for, and no matter which way you look at it, someone has to do that job. You can call them the production manager, if they are doing that, they're just producing. And may I be so bold as to suggest that when you were working in Poland, someone - who apparently couldn't bear being referred to as a "producer"- was doing that job too? If you agree that producing is required to make a film, then a producer is also required. Someone has to be at the top of the food chain and be responsible for what happens in the production department. That has nothing to do with capitalism, it's just the way humans work. If you put everybody on the same level, sooner or later, conflicts arise, personalities clash, and things end up being delayed or completely destroyed. There has to be someone at the top who will take that responsibility, and in return can tell the rest to "shut up and get back on track". And in my experience, frankly, they very rarely have to. On a side note, the French film industry is not doing that well. The films that make the most money are all Hollywood films (if you take into account the total gross of American films versus the total gross of French films). Once every year or two, there's the occasional "big B.O. sensation" that makes 30,000,000+, gets sold to the US for a remake, and that is it. The last one was "Intouchables", and that was in late 2011, two years ago. The one before that was "Bienvenue chez les Ch'ti", which was absolute garbage as far as filmmaking is concerned but had the genius to appeal to the popular masses in dire financial times, and that was in 2008. In between those rare examples, the French box office is dominated by Hollywood films, not because they are better received individually (with the exception of the "big ones like Avatar, Harry Potter, and The Avengers), but because there are so many of them they completely blot out the rest. The only reason French cinema is still afloat is that private TV channels such as Canal +, which have a ton of money and are required to finance a certain number of French productions every year as part of their contract.

How long is the cut you're trying to import into AE? IS it a commercial? Music video? Short film? Feature? Is it an amateur venture? A semi-professional one? A full-on professional one? Your best bet, if your drives can afford it, is to export the file as a Targa sequence, without any compression whatsoever. You'll end up with several Gbs of data, sure, but in a few seconds your export will be done, and you can then import the whole thing as a sequence into AE, add your effects and colour correction, then export it as a Targa - again- and import it into Avid for the final export. If you use this format, all the exports and imports will be done in less than a minute (unless you're dealing with a short that's longer than 15 minutes, or a feature of course) both from Avid into AE and vice-versa. You'd better make sure your cut is final before you first export it though.

Let me also say that I am absolutely conscious about the fact that my résumé here is not impressive and that I have so very much to learn. I did not unravel the whole list to show off (which would be pointless, since it's not much) but only because you asked. I wish this whole thread didn't have to come down to a pissing contest.

See the way you -again- mentioned Hollywood films as examples of films where directors didn't really matter? I also stopped reading after the third line. 24-year-old? Does my profile say so? I'm actually 16. Just kidding. I directed, shot and edited three music videos, which you will easily find using my name on Google or something. I wrote half a dozen short films, two features, two graphic novels. I'm also primarily an editor and trained as a videographer. I've shot/edited short films and video captures of several theater plays + a documentary about Spanish cinema (with a major focus on Carlos Saura) and a good half dozen promotional films for various companies and was an assistant-editor on commercials,TV-movies and one major feature (major in my country of origin anyway, which is France). But hey, I'm glad you did all the "5hit" that you did. Good for you. Yet again, you misunderstand my whole point. Of course the crew is here to have a creative input, no director - except for douches - would remain oblivious to their comments and suggestions. My point was only that outside of Hollywood, films get made only because a director wrote them, and certainly not because a screenwriter had an idea for a film he couldn't be bothered to direct himself and sold his script to a studio who then hired a director to do it in his stead. Good luck with countering that one. It's just the way it happens. Needless to say, I absolutely agree with everything you said about directors needing their crew and being ready to walk into Hell with them blah blah blah.

Now that sentence actually makes sense. I'm going to try it your way to see if my point gets across more easily... Maybe YOU should just take a step BACK and look at what happens OUTSIDE of mainstream Hollywood to realize the fact that absolutely everywhere ELSE (even in the LA independent scene), the director is the ONE MAJOR CREATIVE FORCE driving a film project, from its writing to its final cut... First of all, mainstream Hollywood is about the only place (OK, it's not a "place") on Earth where DIRECTOR is not automatically synonymous with SCREENWRITER. That's right, everywhere else in the world, directors WRITE their OWN films. If they can't write because they're no good with words, they get somebody else to lay it on paper FOR THEM, but all the story, all the ideas and the whole structure come from them in the first place. Anything that ends up in the film was DESIGNED and CONCEIVED by its director. The crew sure helps a lot towards that goal, BUT have ALL (cinematographer, editor, sound designer...) been selected by the director specifically because they felt they were the right guys (and girls) to put THEIR vision on the screen. And this is why at award ceremonies, the director is the person walking up the steps to get the trophy, NOT the screenwriter. If a film depended on its screenplay only to be good, or if "great screenplay" automatically equaled "great film", then NO ONE would CARE who the directors are or do on a film set. Screenwriters would be the only persons of interest. How many people in your entourage that have no professional relation to the film business can name TEN screenwriters? How many of them can name ten directors? There, you have it. OK, enough with the caps. You bet I'm taking myself seriously. You're apparently a "writer-director", so you should know that as well as I do. Every director who writes their own films must feel like they have something that's important enough and holds enough value that they have to share it with the rest of the world, no matter how many others have already told the same story before... How can you not take yourself seriously? Why would you write a story that you feel will have no impact on anyone? Or is that not "taking oneself seriously" according to you? What business do you have being a director if you really think a monkey could do your job (by the way, I think that joke actually comes from Tropic Thunder, and Argo just reused it)? Maybe we should just call it quits and admit that we've each been formatted by different forms of cinema. In my world, films are made by directors, because there are no scripts waiting around to be picked by the first guy who shows interest in the project. Directors imagine and write their own films, select the people who will work on and off the set, and call every single shot + always have final cut. It's all part of the deal. And the producer is there to find a way to get the money. So it doesn't get any better than this. If the director isn't there, no one else will make the film happen.

Also maybe of interest to you is the definition of Cinema: Although I think they are wrong to use "or" here. It should be "and".

Which makes me want to add this: I believe that aside from the primal "did I like this film or not?" everybody asks themselves while/after watching a film, the only truly important aspect that makes or breaks a film is its director's intention(s). OK... Maybe this is another step taken towards the deconstruction process. There are numerous intentions a director can have when signing on a project. Their primary ambition might be to entertain. Make the audiences laugh, cry, or take them on an emotional roller coaster, from one extreme to the next. Maybe they want to scare them to death. Or their intentions might be to talk about the horrors of war, or praise war as a necessary evil. Talk about the life of a person they admire. The list is endless. The point being that plot is only an instrument that serves these ambitions. It is not the primal element giving birth to the film, it is just another of its ingredients. No matter how great the plot is, no matter how great the cinematography, etc. are, if the director's ambitions are irrelevant, abject, missing the point or missing their mark, the movie will be a failure. This will make or break the film. If you're trying to entertain and your audience is bored, you've failed. If you tried to make them laugh, and they walk out stern-faced, you've failed. If you're trying to display the beauty of the natural world, and end up praising urban architecture, you've failed. This is truly what makes or breaks a film. If the audience understands the point of your film, and if they see an earnest desire from you to give them something, they will praise it as a successful enterprise, regardless of whether there is a plot or not. If they don't understand it, or if your point is lost on them, the movie fails. This is not what I am saying though. All I'm saying is that the work you put out has to be meaningful to you. If it's meaningful to you, chances are it will be to somebody else, but you can only hope that it will. We can then delve into what constitutes art or not. Here's what the Oxford dictionary think art is: How does cinema not apply? Nick

Hi Sean. I believe I have done exactly that. Only God Forgives did not work for me because I took it as an overlong attempt from Refn to say something it would have taken 5 minutes to say. I thought the film was empty, because its simple plot was not elevated in any way by its cinematography or editing. I could not care less about the protagonist nor the antagonist - the only remotely interesting character being the mother - and I had nothing else to hold onto as I watched. At the end of the day, I was bored, and hoping for a quick death halfway through the film. All these arguments you will find in my previous posts. I don't know what more I can say. The film's biggest flaw was that I did not even hate it. I was indifferent to it. What you say is true though, and many people find my favourite movies (Blade Runner and The Mirror) extremely boring and a waste of screen space. Such is the nature of cinema. And I'm not here to try and convince you that you should find OGF to be a bad film. It is my opinion and nothing more. Somehow I even hope that you can convince me that I missed the point and that I should give it another try. You have failed so far.

NO ONE with any brains goes out to make a great movie. -> I sure hope that this is not what you thought I meant, because you are absolutely right. But I believe one makes a film because this film is going to be important, to mean something for them. And once it's out there, they can only hope that audiences will find it as important and meaningful as they did.

I believe that in general, but not as a rule, movies should be more than the plot they offer. i think plot, like cinematography, is no more than a tool that filmmakers can - but do not have to - use to achieve whatever their goal is. Again, I'm not saying that films should serve a higher existential purpose nor should they aspire to reveal the truth of existence. There's nothing more annoying than a pompous film. There are far more modest goals, which I think are essential to a filmmaker's motivations to get on board a two to three-year project -in most cases- For example, a filmmaker may want to study a certain aspect of life or an emotion. I don't mean "study" as in offering us a thesis in film form, although they are certainly allowed to do that if they so please, but maybe try to use images and sounds to recreate this emotion and manipulate their audience into feeling it. One of the latest examples coming to mind is Von Trier's Melancholia. Or a filmmaker may just want to adapt a story they love, or even get a quick paycheck. Why not? I too wouldn't mind directing a high-adrenaline summer blockbuster some day. Maybe. I can see the appeal. But James, what I mean is that this is just one example of what cinema can do, and there is a bigger world out there. You can choose the one that suits you and pretend the rest is not real, but it is. And Tarkovsky has made The Mirror. This is the world we live in. None is better than the other. Certainly, one is louder and more ominous than the other. My fear is that cinema as a whole becomes nothing more than a plot, when the plot should only be a tool serving a greater purpose (even if that greater purpose is nothing more than entertaining the masses). There is a reason why the simplest expression of cinema is moving images. Moving images are all you need to make a film, regardless of how shallow or deep, how explicit or arcane its plot is (David Lynch, I salute you). Plot is a drop in an ocean of tools. Take it away, you still have an ocean. Isolate it and put it on a pedestal, and you'll have a drop. If you're hellbent on telling a story and nothing more, ask yourself this: Why a film? It's an expensive and exhausting process. Why not grab a pen and write that story instead? Why not make a song about it? Why not draw a graphic novel? Why would you choose film, if it does not mean anything more than the story it tells? What will set your film apart from a book telling the same story? From a song telling the same story? From a movie telling the same story but made by somebody else? The answer: Everything BUT the story. The "how". The subtext. The essence. The "style". Your story has been told a thousand times before. The only thing that matters is how you're going to make it more than a plot. And the only thing that can help you is your ability to express it with the array of tools at your disposal, which I call "style".

Hello again James. Had a Guinness too. Feels great. I'm in the mood for a calm, relaxed discussion without too many all-caps words. Story = plot for me too. Whenever I wrote "story" in this thread, I meant "plot". Here is my problem with the supremacy of plot (note that I did not write "importance of plot", since I deem plot extremely important - as far as narrative cinema is concerned anyway - I wrote the "supremacy of plot"): plot has weakened filmmaking. Because plot is a series of actions and events that are exactly the same whether they are written on a piece of paper or shot and edited into a film. Plot is everywhere, and it is always the same thing. A plot is a story. My problem as far as we are all concerned here is this: if plot is ultimately the one thing that really matters to make a film great, then the main point of reference to judge or appraise the quality of a film becomes the plot. Which means that watching a film is exactly the same as reading a book without paying attention to the choice of words: all we become interested in is "what happens next?" and "is that satisfying?". Humans crave stories and I'm fine with that. I do love stories as much as the next guy and I'm not here trying to establish one form of cinema as superior over another. The only thing I'm trying to get you to admit is that there are other forms of cinema out there, that do not rely on plot or do not even need a plot, and are yet just as valid as a form of filmmaking as narrative cinema is. Certainly, these other forms of cinema do not make as much money as commercial narrative films, and in return do not get as much exposure as them, but they are still cinema. Because ultimately the definition of what a film is has nothing to do with whether it has a story or not - it's all about moving pictures on a screen, and nothing more. Can we at least agree on that? That would make my day. So my point is that a film does not need a story to be a film. It would appear that a film needs a story to make millions at the box office though, there's no denying that. But I am not here to diss narrative films or spit at commercial cinema. They are great and I need them as much as you do. Our main disagreement is seeing cinema as an art vs. a craft. You see it as the latter, and that is only true of big blockbusters, Film has always been an art form, and is defined as such in every single dictionary I've ever read. Maybe you don't see it as an art, and well, fine. Whatever floats your boat. I however believe in cinema as an art form. That doesn't mean that I believe a film can change the world, but it can definitely change a person's view on life and leave an indelible print on history - as many movies have in the past - And to that end, movies do not need to rely on plot. To move someone, you don't need a plot. You can just show them a few images edited together with or without sound/music. I'm in a bit of a hurry, but I'll catch up with the rest of your posts + Sean's and Gregg's and come back for more.

As for movies never being able to make it without a plot-centric approach (since "plot" is what I have consistently referred to as "story" in my posts since I first created this thread), I encourage you to watch the following and broaden your horizon a little bit: - The Mirror and Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky - La Vie Nouvelle, by Philippe Grandrieux - An Andalusian Dog, by Luis Bunuel - Waking Life and Generation X, by Richard Linklater - Lost In Translation, by Sofia Coppola - the Three Colours trilogy, by Krzystof Kieslowski - Everything Stan Brakhage has ever made - Begotten, by E. Elias Merhige - Koyaanisqatsi, and the whole Qatsi trilogy while you're at it, by Godfrey Reggio - Baraka and its follow-up Samsara, by Ron Frickle - The Thin Red Line, by Terrence Mallick (also: The New World and The Tree of Life come to mind) - Clerks, by Kevin Smith That's off the top of my head. You're welcome.

Mmh-mm... So err...what exactly was your point again? Or did you just choose to unearth this old debate without reading what the newer discussion between Sean and I was about? The whole point of my messages was that Only God Forgives had a story and sucked anyway. I really don't know why you came up with that whole "style without story" argument again. We're passed that. You don't call story what I call story. Now let's move on. And please, stop it with the all-caps words already. It doesn't make your point any clearer at all. Quite the opposite in fact.

Wow, this is getting funny. All I read in your posts is your opinion. All I read in mine is my opinion. What else did you expect? What else can you expect from a conversation about whether somebody liked a film or not? Where are your meaningful examples? Phallic Venetian masks? I should hail this film as a good one because its director used phallic imagery throughout the film? Come on... Do you really think that your super argument "The fact that a solid story is present" cannot be countered by an equally subjective opinion of the contrary? You haven't given any fact backing up your side of the argument. The difference is that I don't expect you to. All I'm interested in is your personal opinion, and how it conflicts with mine. I already know you won't be able to find any hard evidence for or against the opinions you try to pass as facts. We're essentially saying "I fthought it was a boring film that had nothing to offer" vs. "It was a good film that had a lot to offer."Try and and show me the evidence that I didn't get bored watching it. You probably have a lot of spare time on your hands. Good for you. Here's a fact : Only God Forgives failed to keep me interested, entertained, or appreciative of its director's intentions. I can therefore only describe it as a big nothing. It sure could have worked as a 10-minute short film though, I'll give you that. I just never understood, throughout its 90-minute running time, what exactly made this project meaningful or worthy of being a film at all.

Wrong. You misunderstand my point. Only God Forgives not only had a poorly developed story, it had a poor repetitive style that failed on all counts. It wasn't original, it wasn't beautiful, it wasn't entertaining. And that is the only reason why the film is a failure. If you re-read my posts from this thread - if you can be bothered - you will see that I don't care about compelling dialogues, intricate plot points, or "complicated" screenplays. What I care about the most is style. Mainly cinematography. And yes, cinematography conveys story (although I vehemently argue against it serving the script - I mean story as in thematic thread). But there was nothing in Only God Forgives that made me feel or think anything. Which are the only requisites for any film as far as I'm concerned. If I don't feel or think anything about it, the movie fails. Whether it is the simplest revenge story or a groundbreaking attempt at destroying all the rules of filmmaking, if I don't feel or if the movie doesn't make me think, it fails. You just described everything that was wrong with Only God Forgives. It was pretentious and boring. The two most fatal flaws a film can have. The director was so in love with the aesthetics of his shots that he completely forgot to stop and ask himself whether they were worth making a film about or not. They really were not. He said so himself when he described the idea that turned into Only God Forgives. Cool story, right? If you want to make a film that relies exclusively on its style, or about people clenching their fists, then you'd better make sure your style will be the be-all end-all of styles and will keep people in awe for an hour and a half. I thought Only God Forgives was more an attempt at artistic masturbation than a film at all.

I want to add that I don't mean to be harsh on Refn, who like I said before is - to me - the most interesting filmmaker of these last few years. I just believe that Only God Forgives is the work of a filmmaker who fell in love with his style so much that he tried to make a film that relied on it exclusively, using a story that was anything but as an excuse to just go out there and shoot stuff. And everything would have worked out just fine, had this style sufficed to convey something more. But I think it didn't.