May
12
2008
Remember The Customer (The Power of Fans 3)
So this is the flip side of my previous rants, where I must admit something: while I stand on my instincts as a filmmaker, I am dead if I stop listening to my audience. If I think a screenplay of mine is clear on a story point, and then a reader tells me they didn’t get it at all, whose fault is that? The reader? Nope. It’s up to me to rewrite that script until my reader fully understands the story. I can get frustrated that nobody caught the first version — my version — but the common man is the guy who is buying (or not buying) the tickets. My art is not only what I intend it to be. Ultimately, my art is also what my audience perceives it to be.
I have every intention of driving a project with the fuel of my personal vision, but I am not above tailoring that vision to be better received. Nobody wants a smaller audience for their films. Nobody. I don’t care how much of an indie autuer they claim to be, if they say they don’t care about getting a larger audience, they’re lying. Film is a popular medium. And as a filmmaker, my work will only thrive as my audience grows.
Filmmaking is a constant learning process. And the best way an artist can learn is to swallow his or her pride and fully absorb the audience’s honest reactions, good and bad. But it ain’t easy.
