Hollywood: A commerical commodity?

Well here i go.

During the film documentary that Leanne showed us last friday, our aim was to talk about whether or not we think Hollywood is a Commercial Commodity.
During the documentary, a number of different directors and producers where shown and were talking about thier views. The first director shown was Oliver Stone, who was talking about how competetive it can be. He also said that if being a director was not competitive, it would not be called showbusiness. One thing that really stuck in my mind was when he said its "All about the quality of the pitch" which i think is a very good point, because if someone has a brilliant idea, and if they tell it to the managing director poorly, the idea will sound bad and most probably will not get the "Green Light". Another thing Stone was saying about pitches was that not many pitches make it when they are shown to the directors and that a good picth should be done 'sitting around a campfire' which i think that Stone is saying that to successfully deliver a good pitch, try and make freinds with the director, and explain your idea in a way that you feel most comfortable.

Another director, named Bill Mechanic was also frequently interviewed during the documentary. He was talking about what would happen if the script shown was not good enough for the film itself and he said "Great script-Great characters." Which played on my mind because some of the films i have seen have not got great characters-or actors portraying them...which makes me think how well the pitch or how good the script was. One memorable quote from Mr Mechanic was "Every decsision you make you could get fired for" really had an impact on me because i had never actually realised- or even thought about for that matter how risky being a film-maker could be, as one simple mistake could lose you your job and salary.

"Failure keeps you humble" was another of my favourite quotes from Mechanic, because he is stating that if a pitch doesnt make it through, its not the end of the world and it shows the directors that there is room for improvement and could even start a new script from a spinn off idea. Director Joe Silver said that negative feedback from a audeince's reviews could mean that the crew must get back together and make whole new scenes, which could cost them more than their budget can handle, or could be very inconvient for the actors themselves. Also, another thing said by Silver, "Promotion images make or break" which means apart from the pitching and the scripts...the posters advertising the film need to be good and eye catcing- otherwise no one will see the poster and want to see it, which would ruin the production teams hard work.