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Do film creators care about data?
Hi all!
I joined a startup a few months ago where we are trying to help with decision-making for producers, distributors and financiers who all are pushing to answer the question, will my project be worth it? I am a software engineer, so pretty much a total outsider to the industry.
Our approach is to help all the parties involved in filmmaking with data.
I’m keen to learn and understand the industry and would love to know if you are an investor, producer or distributor. What drives you to create a film? Is it a story, gut feeling, data or something else entirely?
If any of the above, can you share more details?
Would you pay for decent data to assess your projects before pumping in your talent and expertise?
Thanks for your time, Looking forward to chatting with you!
Arkadiusz
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2 Replies
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good question!
I’m in a new position that is asking some of the same questions. It’s a Non-profit and they have created the position of Video Producer to increase the quality and quantity of video for them.
What i’m running into now is I’m being asked to exactly quantify how much time it will take for each video they want produced. Typically when I was freelance, I would look at a project and bid according to finished time as well as what type of video and use case. Im finding myself making educated guesses on how much time to edit, acquire B-roll, conduct an interview ect… I try to say it can be relative to each project, travel times, crew costs vs time. so many variables to try to nail down.
For me the data related to each project can highly specific/situational. I’m interested in what others can add to the discussion.
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Looks like someone is seeing the magic bullet for successful filmmaking. The trouble is that so many variables determine success. Did you hire the right talent for the script? Were the locations believable for the story? Did the Director and DP approach the script and story to make the most impact? How much did music play in setting the right emotion? All of these factors are determined by sometimes hundreds of different roles and talent. So although a script looks successful on paper, the actual success won’t be known until the final film is put in front of an audience. And sometimes even the top talent can produce a loser.
So data is important, I suppose, but budget sometimes determines what you can do with that data. For example, if I cast Tom Hanks I have a pretty good chance of a successful film, but if the budget is $150k I’m not getting Tom Hanks. How is my success impacted by budget?
On the other hand, if I have $150k with all new actors but somehow the stars align and I have the next big indy film, well, that can happen too.
Not sure a spreadsheet would guarantee success, nor would anyone put their faith in simply raw data to determine if their project will be successful. And furthermore, a passionate filmmaker would not be deterred by data alone if it suggested their project would fail.
Hmmmm.
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