Producer's Note 3: Five Personalities

I go to a lot of presentations during which the speaker will sum up in a series of bullet points (if only life were that simple). In this posting I’m going to offer five bullet points of my own which came out of a session I did on promo making with a group of media students in Odessa. I can say it was a great to have met them and an inspirational time

The proposition is that anyone can make a film (in my case a promo). My son whose twelve years old can make a film. It is so easy to make films these days that anyone with enough money to buy a camcorder can go ahead and make a film.

Learning how to make films – the story-boarding, the visual grammar, the lighting, the editing – all the technical skills can be learned and practiced, but even if you become brilliant at these things you still will not be able to make great films.

There are five personalities which are so important that they not only enable us to make great work, they also help make us who we are. The extraordinary thing is that I suspect we all have these personalities within us, and simply being who we are – human – is what is required to reach our creative potential.

So, instead of film-makers what do we need to call ourselves to make great films?

The Inventor
It is possible to have ideas without making films, but impossible to make a great film without an idea.

The Storyteller
It is possible to tell stories without making films, but impossible to make great films without telling stories.

The Actor
It is possible to speak the language of emotions without making films, but impossible to make great films without engaging the emotions.

The Prophet
It is possible to recognise the truth without making films, but impossible to make films without a truth we can recognise.

The Hero
It is possible to take risks without making films, but impossible to make great films without taking a risk.