The SoCal Film Group is fascinating to watch. They’re a group of people who got together, sort of decentralized, to figure out how to make films.
On their blog, they recently posted a ‘how to get your own film group started‘ entry, which was coincidental for me. I just scheduled a meeting in the library in my town, and sent out invites to everyone I thought might be interested. I’ll let you know how it goes after Nov 7.
The benefits to a film group seem obvious to me. Pooling of resources, pooling of talent, and the chance to grow your skills. Por ejemplo, if I’m filming a zombie movie I wrote, I need actors. Some of those actors are probably working on their own project, and need me to either act, or hold a microphone, or work the camera. Maybe they need to borrow my camera. Or a prop. Whatever. With a low budget and a high desire to work on film projects, getting like-minded people in the room to cooperate and share ideas is a no-brainer.
Meanwhile, I was caught off guard a bit by one point: SoCal Film recommends against doing peer-reviews of finished work.
“With that said, one of the things that works well for us (and is probably the primary reason why we haven’t imploded yet) is that we don’t judge the quality of each other’s work. We used to have formal critique sessions, but they did more damage than good. Some of our members have drastically different ideas of what a “good” film is like, and they’re not going to change each other’s mind. But, since our group is about helping each other make a lot of different kind of movies, we all seem willing to work on *any* SCFG movie, because we know that the people making that movie will help us make our own movies in the future.“
I’m definitely interested in hearing more about film groups in different areas of the US and abroad. Feel free to share in the comments or to ralphhogaboom AT gmail.com.
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Hey Ralph, this is Steve from SoCal Film Group. Thanks for mentioning us on your blog, and best of luck with forming your own group. If there’s any way I can help, please let me know.
Our policy against peer-reviews isn’t actually a “policy” per se. SCFG is very non-bureaucratic; we only have enough rules to keep us active and productive. Any habits that we’ve developed over the years are mostly the results of a slow buildup of interpersonal feedback.
Some of our filmmakers actively solicit peer-reviews, because they find the criticism useful. But we stopped doing formal critique sessions, because several of our filmmakers either found them hurtful or weren’t interested in the reactions of the rest of the group in the first place.
We’re the only small film collective I know of in our area. Several others have started and done well for a while, and then faded away or spectacularly exploded. I think part of the difference is that they tried to create a “brand” for their films, and they tried to impose some baseline of “good” filmmaking on their members.
Those are cool goals, especially if you’re trying to form a for-profit venture. But the downside is that some potentially very dedicated members may turn out not to be interested in making the same kinds of movies as everyone else. They’ll soon find themselves squeezed out of the group, and the group will lose their help on making future films.
At SoCal, we like to say “we’re not afraid to suck.” That mindset is helpful for two reasons - first, we feel free to experiment and stretch, even if the final result turns out to suck; and secondly, if one of our members insists on making a movie that’s gonna suck, the rest of us are going to help him bring his sucky vision to the screen the best we can.
In exchange for helping that filmmaker make his or her sucky film, we know that he or she is going to show up and be helpful when we want to make our own potentially sucky films in return.
Speaking personally, there are several SoCal Film Group shorts that I think aren’t very good. Hell, I’ve been responsible for some of them. But that’s cool. Our willingness to help each other despite any individual filmmaker’s perceived lack of skill or talent or basic common sense is what has allowed us to keep going after more than 5 years and 50 short films.
Damn, I guess I like to hear myself type. My comment on your blog entry is now longer than your blog entry! I just wanted to explain why we do it the way we do, and why it seems to work well for us. Your mileage may vary.
Take care, and again, best of luck with your own group.
Steve
Thanks for the reply. I think you’ve hit on something really important:
“SCFG is very non-bureaucratic; we only have enough rules to keep us active and productive.”
It strikes me that this type of mindset - what I called decentralized above - goes hand in hand with the decentralized user generated video we talk about here. The users, or in your case members, are in charge.
That said, do you have a core group that maintains the web server & pays the hosting fees? Is this the same group that tends to organize meetings? I’d imagine there’s a more active, smaller group made out of the larger group. How does that play out for you guys?
(Hmm. Lots to talk about. Would you be willing to do an interview?)
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