Tuesday, May 22, 2007

What's Wrong With Smallpond?

Good question. Right up there with, "Why'd Will leave Small Pond?"

Yeah. Why DID I decide to quit being associated with a group that I helped create? Well, a couple of reasons. First and foremost, I was tired of the message board being a sandlot where people with agendas other than filmmaking would voice their slime. Foremost among these people was Jordan (I won't use last names here; you can figure it out if you want at SPF...), who couldn't get past childish attempts at promoting flamewars. It got to the point where someone would actually (shudder) want to talk "film" on a real level, and then a number of idiots would simply degrade the conversation because of ...

... because of what, really?

A need for attention? A perceived lack of respect? An anger about this filmmaking community being "elitist"?

Dunno.

Anyway, it got old and started reading like a book club to me. Want to see a real message board nightmare? Look at the "Scripts/Screenwriting" section over at SPF. Poor writers; any time one of them tries to get any kind of discussion going, it gets shot in the ass.

Not that SPF doesn't have it's positives. Snyder does a fine job in the "Technical" section, and for that kind of info, I think it's serving its purpose: to educate and inform. But as for the rest of it...

Too many tourists.

Other reasons I'm done with Smallpond: it doesn't serve it's mission statement anymore; the screenings are in a gloomy place that can maybe hold twenty people; very few people actually network at the screenings, and it just doesn't feel like a film community anymore.

So, I'm moving on, and this blog is part of that. My "mission statement" for this blog, if you will, is to discuss and write about the Boise filmmaking community as one who has decided to be a professional filmmaker. I'll be honest - I'm sure my blog about i48 2007 will have some vitriol in it - but I'm not going to take the "low road", like so many have before on SPF. Granted, at one time I was as bad as the next person on the SPF message board, but I'm so... beyond that now. I choose not to be a tourist any more.

If you want to comment at this blog, you'll have to be given access by me. While I appreciate the open door philosophy of some blogs, I'm not going to play that game anymore - you want that, go to SPF. Here, life is moderated. Lightly moderated, but moderated none the less.

Okay. That's it. On with the show.

-Will

Real Filmmakers. No Tourists.

1 comment:

Wordjuggler said...

While I have yet to make a film, one of my questions about i48 is who are the judges and do they change from year to year. I think Aard7ark makes a good point about judging transparency.