Featured in AFTRS LUMINA - Australian Journal of Screen Arts and Business issue 2 - Pearlman's article certainly has something to say and reminds us of our purpose when it comes to making films.
The fist thing that comes to mind....I hear you!! The Australian film industry has too often used the justification "tell our own stories" to gather funding from Government bodies. If this is the criteria the Government accepts for funding Aussie films then we have a problem. We are dealing more and more with an international audience and 'our own stories' aren't popular in our own country let alone on the international stage. We are just not competing effectively and with the incredible talent we harbour in this country you can't help ask where did it all go wrong??? Why don't we think of our audience first? What do they want? How do we deliver this?
Business models often have a customer focussed approach. There is a correlation between happy customers and large profit margins. Simple right?! Using these business models on the Australian Film Industry becomes difficult because there are so many variables involved in the creative arts. It becomes even more difficult using traditional marketing concepts to market films. More about marketing later! This doesn't mean that we can not develop our own business model. This proposed business model will be specific to our industry so we can start treating the creative arts with a business twist.
One aspect of this new proposed business model is to consider Pearlman's argument. Don't "tell our stories" make our myths. This is a variable we can control. Pearlman states that there are three main distinctions between "telling our stories" and making our myths: scale, dynamics and ownership.
Scale: The cinematics of the feature film experience need to be given stronger consideration if they are to survive the digital revolution. We need to make the cinema a 'sensual...transformative experience' composing 'this art of movement on the scale of symphonies'. Pearlman likens the traits of Greek gods to our protagonist's feelings. These traits are large in scale and Pearlman argues that this essence of myth needs to be established in our protagonist. It's a sort of 'beyond naturalism' state where the human qualities are recognisable but perhaps not something you might 'really experience'. This means that we are not only challenging strengths and searching for truths in our 'immediate circle' but we are discovering what it means to be human. This doesn't have to be dark and depressing by the way!! A couple of tapping penguins taught us about being different and standing up for ourselves in a beautiful musical rendition. It can be done!
Something Pearlman points out, which I admit I had not considered, is that our movies shouldn't just be happier, but sadder also. My main argument has sided with the fact that our movies are too depressing and we need to make them happier. I agreed with film critic Gary Maddox. However Pearlman is right in saying that our films need to be sadder, they also need to be 'scarier, angrier, wittier, more satiric, brave, biting and altogether BIGGER' - 'A disaster movie is not a happy movie, but it is still a popular movie. Why? Scale.' Genre films deal with inner human struggle but on a 'scale that resonates across the broader culture' - the global audience.
Myth is also created through dynamics and dramatic questions. Pearlman argues that the dynamics of story and dynamics of image and sound are not paid enough attention when it comes to composing a film. The audience goes to the cinema ultimately to watch moving images and to supersede regular physical experience. 'Story dynamics are the rise and fall of movement and energy in the story events' Will someone do something and what is at stake. Make the audience care.
Pearlman holds a strong case to resurrect the terms genre, emotion and entertainment as viable films to fund. In order to make the film industry academically sound, these types of films were virtually stripped of any credibility and banned from the "study list". In order for our industry to claim "success" we need to 'resurrect the debate about purpose and offer a challenge to assumptions about genre, emotion and entertainment'.
Pearlman's ideas culminate in her argument about ownership. Here she suggests the owner of 'our stories' needs to be confronted. 'Our stories' implies the ownership lies with the people who fund the films and the filmmakers where as 'our myths' is 'owned by everyone it speaks to' - essentially humans rather than cultures or societies.
To finish Pearlman hopes scale and dynamics will not be interpreted as 'Americanism' because we do not do Hollywood very well. And we don't want to either! If our stories 'can be owned by so many, at any time, in any country and in all of the cultures and ethnicities that make up this country, it is mythic...they must have scale, dynamics and ownership by more than just their makers'
Dr Karen Pearlman (2010) "Make Our Myths" Lumina. Australian Film and Television School. Sydney. 2
The fist thing that comes to mind....I hear you!! The Australian film industry has too often used the justification "tell our own stories" to gather funding from Government bodies. If this is the criteria the Government accepts for funding Aussie films then we have a problem. We are dealing more and more with an international audience and 'our own stories' aren't popular in our own country let alone on the international stage. We are just not competing effectively and with the incredible talent we harbour in this country you can't help ask where did it all go wrong??? Why don't we think of our audience first? What do they want? How do we deliver this?
Business models often have a customer focussed approach. There is a correlation between happy customers and large profit margins. Simple right?! Using these business models on the Australian Film Industry becomes difficult because there are so many variables involved in the creative arts. It becomes even more difficult using traditional marketing concepts to market films. More about marketing later! This doesn't mean that we can not develop our own business model. This proposed business model will be specific to our industry so we can start treating the creative arts with a business twist.
One aspect of this new proposed business model is to consider Pearlman's argument. Don't "tell our stories" make our myths. This is a variable we can control. Pearlman states that there are three main distinctions between "telling our stories" and making our myths: scale, dynamics and ownership.
Scale: The cinematics of the feature film experience need to be given stronger consideration if they are to survive the digital revolution. We need to make the cinema a 'sensual...transformative experience' composing 'this art of movement on the scale of symphonies'. Pearlman likens the traits of Greek gods to our protagonist's feelings. These traits are large in scale and Pearlman argues that this essence of myth needs to be established in our protagonist. It's a sort of 'beyond naturalism' state where the human qualities are recognisable but perhaps not something you might 'really experience'. This means that we are not only challenging strengths and searching for truths in our 'immediate circle' but we are discovering what it means to be human. This doesn't have to be dark and depressing by the way!! A couple of tapping penguins taught us about being different and standing up for ourselves in a beautiful musical rendition. It can be done!
Something Pearlman points out, which I admit I had not considered, is that our movies shouldn't just be happier, but sadder also. My main argument has sided with the fact that our movies are too depressing and we need to make them happier. I agreed with film critic Gary Maddox. However Pearlman is right in saying that our films need to be sadder, they also need to be 'scarier, angrier, wittier, more satiric, brave, biting and altogether BIGGER' - 'A disaster movie is not a happy movie, but it is still a popular movie. Why? Scale.' Genre films deal with inner human struggle but on a 'scale that resonates across the broader culture' - the global audience.
Myth is also created through dynamics and dramatic questions. Pearlman argues that the dynamics of story and dynamics of image and sound are not paid enough attention when it comes to composing a film. The audience goes to the cinema ultimately to watch moving images and to supersede regular physical experience. 'Story dynamics are the rise and fall of movement and energy in the story events' Will someone do something and what is at stake. Make the audience care.
Pearlman holds a strong case to resurrect the terms genre, emotion and entertainment as viable films to fund. In order to make the film industry academically sound, these types of films were virtually stripped of any credibility and banned from the "study list". In order for our industry to claim "success" we need to 'resurrect the debate about purpose and offer a challenge to assumptions about genre, emotion and entertainment'.
Pearlman's ideas culminate in her argument about ownership. Here she suggests the owner of 'our stories' needs to be confronted. 'Our stories' implies the ownership lies with the people who fund the films and the filmmakers where as 'our myths' is 'owned by everyone it speaks to' - essentially humans rather than cultures or societies.
To finish Pearlman hopes scale and dynamics will not be interpreted as 'Americanism' because we do not do Hollywood very well. And we don't want to either! If our stories 'can be owned by so many, at any time, in any country and in all of the cultures and ethnicities that make up this country, it is mythic...they must have scale, dynamics and ownership by more than just their makers'
Dr Karen Pearlman (2010) "Make Our Myths" Lumina. Australian Film and Television School. Sydney. 2