FILMMAKER SUCCESS BLOGS
What is Excellence?
What is Excellence?
When I heard that my client, Nani Sahra Walker had won a 2024 Oscar for Best Documentary Short, I was over the moon! When I saw the film in which she was Co-Executive Producer, I was blown away. I cried 3 times during the film, and it’s only a short!
Some of my clients have really achieved some massive wins: A few years ago, I had a client, Mark Vashro, who produced the Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning Short: Thunder Road. It’s a piece of comic genius.
One of my clients submitted a script to the top screenplay competition in the world: the Nicholls Fellowship. Even though it was his first draft, he placed as a Quarter Finalist in the competition. (Interestingly this was a genre script: a horror film.)
Another of my clients won the Bluecat Screenplay Competition.
Each of these successes is HUGE! So I ask the question: what is excellence? What separated these films from the majority of work that was submitted? Over 8000 short films are submitted to Sundance every year. How does a film get to be the one picked as the best of all of those?
I learned as a professor of English teaching at Universities that Excellence is difficult to quantify. There’s a difference between a B paper and an A paper that can easily be delineated. But what about an A+ paper? Or even an A++ paper? That kind of writing jumps out at you, but “jumps out at you” is not really an English Professor’s manner of speech. LOL!
Often, I like to recommend that you watch a film that has been deemed excellent by the community, to learn what it is about that storytelling that puts it into that rarified space of indefinable excellence?
Watching “The Last Repair Shop” has me asking questions such as: what is it about these characters that is so moving in their stories? What is the relationship between the overall story of the Repair Shop, the people who work in it, and the students they serve? What role does music play in the storytelling?
Here’s my challenge for you today: Watch both these films and ask yourself what is so unique about them? The answers may surprise you. You may realize your work is closer to excellence that you thought. Or you may find that you need to go back to your work and re-calibrate. Either way, you will see two beautiful films. And you may learn something new about your own work in the process.
I'm Joanne Butcher
Film Business Coach and Consultant
"Are you ready to take a leap of faith and make the film you've been dreaming of making?
Have you given any thought to how to make your films financially viable? Profitable?
Is it time to finally tell the story you were always meant to tell?
Make Movies. Make Money. Make the World a Better Place.
Filmmakers are the most creative people in the world. Whether you write, produce, direct, act, compose scores, storyboard (the list goes on!), I truly believe that you have a unique story to tell and that that story can change the world.
Where I most often see independent filmmakers (second and third feature filmmakers
not excluded) struggle, though, is in turning that creativity into a well-made, successful, and financially viable film.
And that's where I come in.
With my experience in marketing, fundraising, and producing, I have guided clients through writing Nicholl's award-winning scripts, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars, producing the films they've always dreamed of, and transforming their overall thought processes around creating.
My clients currently have 13 films in distribution, with 5 more on the way later this year. Others have nationwide programming on PBS, and many are working on internationally produced documentary and narrative feature films.
The struggle is OVER, after reading this book the path to funding your first Block Buster will be CLEAR!
Make Movies. Make Money. Make the World a Better Place.
Filmmakers are the most creative people in the world. Whether you write, produce, direct, act, compose scores, storyboard (the list goes on!), I truly believe that you have a unique story to tell and that that story can change the world.
Where I most often see independent filmmakers (second and third feature filmmakers
not excluded) struggle, though, is in turning that creativity into a well-made, successful, and financially viable film.
And that's where I come in.
With my experience in marketing, fundraising, and producing, I have guided clients through writing Nicholl's award-winning scripts, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars, producing the films they've always dreamed of, and transforming their overall thought processes around creating.
My clients currently have 13 films in distribution, with 5 more on the way later this year. Others have nationwide programming on PBS, and many are working on internationally produced documentary and narrative feature films.
My B.U.L.L.E.T.P.R.O.O.F coaching program helps you HEAL from a lifetime of NARCISISTIC ABUSE.
The struggle is OVER, after reading this book the path to
funding your first Block Buster will be CLEAR!
Do you want the secret to getting you film funded?
Inside this book I will reveal the answers to all your questions, the secrets to getting your film funded & distributed globally. After reading this book you will have the knowledge and tools the raise the money you need to make a film that sets the world on fire! This is my 'Film Box Office S.U.C.C.E.S.S Formula' Click the button below to start your journey to film funding success...
Do you want the secret to getting you film funded?
Inside this book I will reveal the answers to all your questions, the secrets to getting your film funded & distributed globally. After reading this book you will have the knowledge and tools the raise the money you need to make a film that sets the world on fire! This is my 'Film Box Office S.U.C.C.E.S.S Formula' Click the button below to start your journey to film funding success...
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