How Do You Feel About the Modern Film Industry?

[south mica]

I am an independent filmmaker taking entrepreneurship class, and one of my assignments is to interview people who involve themselves with film making the following questions:

1. Tell me a story about the last time you felt disappointed in a movie, show, filmmaker, or studio
2. What was hardest?
3. Why was that hard?
4. How do you solve it now?
5. Why is that inconvenient/"not awesome"?

I'm taking this here because since I live in the Midwest, it is very difficult to find at least 15 people who I can ask these specific questions. If anyone wants to help, please be my guest.

[viral python]

1. I mean, in the last five years or so, it’s felt like every 6 months there’s another disappointing instance.
   The last time was several weeks ago with the announcement of Netflix buying out WBD, which sparked a bidding war with Paramount and others. Like not that long ago all these corporations were whining that they could barely afford to pay cast and crew, and were willing to let folks lose their homes over agreeing to the last round of WGA and SAG contracts; here they all are bidding over $100 billion
   Myself and many of my colleagues have been struggling to pay bills in this industry for years, and this is the shit they pull? Unreal

2. To continue my thought from above, it’s been hard to get gigs that actually end up filming. This year alone out of all the work I did, I landed at least 4-5 big projects that either fell through, pushed filming indefinitely, or I was forced to drop for varying circumstances

3. Why is that hard? Because I had to hold dates and tell other projects no and then said projects that I was holding dates for decided to not work out so I’m left with no gig and I have to scramble to get smaller gigs that may or not even be in the industry just to pay the bills

4. How do I solve it? The “smart” answer would be to leave the industry and find something stable. My solution is to play the long game. I currently work as crew/video editor and I’m developing feature scripts in the background whilst I go on the constant merry-go-round ride of gig, scramble for new gig, gig, scramble for new gig

5. It’s inconvenient because it takes a lot of time and effort that won’t see a return on investment for a while, and at the the same time I’m already putting a lot of time and effort/energy into the paying work so it’s a constant battle between earning money and making time for what I’m really passionate about that will make money later down the line

@south mica It’s interesting that you say it’s difficult to find 15 people to answer these questions, unless you’re super rural based there’s networking meetups and a lot of film industry activity in the major cities