Entrepreneurial Filmmaking

E-Filmmaking (or Entreprenurial Filmmaking) is a blog that was launched Jult 4, 2011 and can be found at efilmmaking.wordpress.com or e-filmmaking.com. Here is the first post:

“Never in the history of the movie business has there been a better time for the Independents to be entrepreneurial.”
Graham Taylor
Los Angeles Film Festival keynote speech
June 2011

“Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship.”
Benjamin Franklin, Entrepreneur
(And one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence)

This blog, E-Filmmaking, stands for Entrepreneurial Filmmaking. Something that has been a part of filmmaking since its inception when inventor Thomas A. Edison and his assistant William Kennedy Laurie Dickson began working on the first motion picture camera.  Edison wrote in 1888, “I am experimenting upon an instrument which does for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear, which is the recording and reproduction of things in motion .”

Edison’s kinetograph was a success. And through the years the battle has raged on as businessmen and filmmakers have tried to find that gentle balance between art and commerce. Fortunes and been won and lost and many a great movie has emerged over the decades.

Over 100 years after the invention of the motion picture camera the entrepreneurial filmmaking spirit is alive and well as this blog launches on July 4, 2011. (Even if the concept of “film” itself is being redefined.)

American filmmaker Edward Burns earlier this year premiered his film Newlyweds the closing night of the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival. Burns and his film represent entrepreneurial filmmaking. The indie film was shot with a small digital camera in 12 days for $9,000. Burns used social networking as part of the creative and marketing process and is his own film distributor using VOD, iTunes, and selling DVDs on his website.

If you want to put a face to entrepreneurial filmmaking than the actor/writer/producer/director Burns is a good start. After all in the past year, he’s made two feature films for a total of $34,000. “I decided not to mourn the death of the theatrical release and embrace the new digital platforms. I really think this might be the future of indie film distribution,” Burns told Forbes magazine. (You can follow Burns on Twitter @edward_burns.)

“I never thought I’d say this, but Ed Burns is a genius.”
Kevin Smith

But I also take a broader view of entrepreneurial filmmakers as I watch photographers becoming filmmakers with the advent HDSLR cameras, and have witnessed an explosion of creativity mixed with entrepreneurial zeal in fields as diverse as wedding storytellers and internet producers around the world.

So on a weekly basis this blog will explore global trends in e-filmmaking and serve as a compliment to the daily posts on Screenwriting from Iowa…And Other Unusual Places.

“The balance of power between Studios, Indies and Consumers is changing.  Whether you are a filmmaker, producer, financier, distributer, or executive, now is the time to embrace the change. We are after all in the middle of a revolution.”
Graham Taylor, WME
“Money Talks & Art Matters”
June 2011

So here we are 235 years after the formal signing of the Declaration of Independence for the United States celebrating part of the fruits of that freedom,  entrepreneurial filmmaking…or e-filmmaking as we call it here (because “entrepreneurial filmmaking” is a mouthful and you need spellchecker for entrepreneurial).

Articles coming up this month will be “What is Entrepreneurial Filmmaking?,” “Rapid Prototyping,” and ”How to Make a Million Dollars (in Production).”

And lastly you’ll be able to use e-filmmaking.com (link not live yet) and the Twitter address is @E_Filmmaking

Related posts:
Filmmaking Quote #15 (Edward Burns) 

“It’s a good time to be a Filmmaker.” (Burns)

“Don’t try and compete with Hollywood.”—Ed Burns

The 10 FIlm Commandments of Edward Burns

©2011 Scott W. Smith