Advice on Style/Voice

This is the single most important thing a filmmaker can have in his/her arsenal. Especially where we are now.

Films with no style are sometimes not afforded even a glance, but if there’s some flair, and something special to that which you have put together, people are more likely to take notice. Don’t let your voice get muddied by anything, it should be very clear. A filmmaker’s style is his signature, and we need to sign everything we make.

Advice on Impairments

I’m colorblind. I have a red/green deficiency, and for those that don’t know, colorblindness is nothing more than getting shades of certain colors confused, in my case, reds and greens give me the most trouble, and can appear yellow, green, red, orange, purple, blue, pink, gray, whatever, depending on the original color, shade and lighting.

So as you can imagine, color grading and correction can be a bit of a chore. This won’t be an issue for me on Monsters from The Beyond! because I’ve decided that film should be in black and white (to better reflect the “B” movie-ness of it), but for future films it may be, but I’ll think of something.

Point is, don’t let any impairment get in your way, find a way around it, incorporate necessity into style. If you’re confined to a wheelchair, you’re your own dolly, and you can use low-angles to put the audience in your place. If you’re deaf, make a movie with no dialogue, instead, all the actors sign their lines, and those of us that can hear require the subtitles.

Others may see a disability as unfortunate and constricting, but you should see it as an avenue for creativity.

Advice on Film School

Now, I hate to keep referencing Robert Rodriguez, but let’s be honest, he’s a beacon to us all, and this reference comes with my spin on it. Quoted from his book, here’s his stance on film school:

“If you’re still thinking you may need to go to film school to learn some more, forget film school! Take that $20,000+ you were planning on spending on UCLA or New York University Film School and put it right back in your pocket. They can’t teach you how to tell a story in film school, and even if they did, you wouldn’t want to learn it from them anyway.” (Robert Rodriguez)

In a nutshell, Robert tells us to not spend the money on film school, save the money we were going to spend on it and make our movies with that, learn to tell our own stories in our own way, with our own voice.

And I can hear you all now “But you’re going to film school, you contradictory author you.” That’s true I am, but my tuition and that of everyone that went to my school district, is paid for by a group of anonymous benefactors, so I figured I’d go to film school anyway.

But I digress, here’s my spin, closing statement, and inspirational quote that I believe I coined:

“You can know all the technical aspects of movie-making, all the numbers, setups and rules, but if it doesn’t feel right, you’re doing it wrong.”

-Ian Stoops