It’s been a while that I don’t post here, but a lot of things happened, and one of them was my graduation. I wasn’t expecting that I was would have this in person considering that the covid situation in Brazil still not good. But with all the necessary care it happened and it was amazing. I even was the graduation speaker and I have the pleasure of make a reference of Gween Stacy’s graduation speech (so cinematic!).
But after four years and a half studying cinema I can say that my perception changed a lot and the things isn’t easy like I thought at the beginning of the course.
1- Cinema requires a lot of money, and that’s obvious. But in a lot of times it pays itself when you have a good structure for cultural things like have places for exhibitions, disclosure, and the most important: people to watch. But here in Brazil, besides the amazing cultural things that we have, there’s a big problem with the national cinema (there I can explain more in another time), and because of this without government and people incentives you can’t make a movie (only if you work in a big tv Chanel).
2- Production isn’t a heaven. It’s not new to know that works with people sucks sometimes. But being in a set for hours even for a short film can be very exhaustive. Cinema is team work. You must trust in others work, even when you don’t want to, because it’s impossible make a movie alone. You need to be comprehensive and patient. And you have to know that things will not happens like you expect. You need to be prepared for unforeseen circumstances always.
3- Every country there’s a different narrative and identity. We can’t compare a Brazilian movie to an North American movie. Or a French movie from a Indian movie. There are a several sociological facts that changes the way of each country tells a story. And it isn’t just about the content of the movie, but how it shows you. We are very subject to do North American narratives because we are very used to watch Hollywood movies. And it’s not bad, but you need to be careful for not lose the essence of your own nationality.
4- There isn’t bad movies. There’s movies that you don’t like and that’s fine. But every production wants to tell you something and it dialogues with what I said before. There’s different narratives and socioeconomic things that impacts a lot in a movie. Don’t worry, you can still think that a movie is bad, but remember that a lot of people worked a lot to entertain you (even The Room from Tommy Wiseau).
5- Books adaptation aren’t to be loyal to the original story. Write a book and write a script is a totally different thing and the directors and screenwriters is showing their own point of view about the book. I wrote a post about it that you can read
here. (@alineax/what-we-need-to-know-and-understand-about-adaptations)
There’s a lot of things that I can share with you about my experiences. And those things aren’t rules, but it’s a interesting reflection and a incentive to embrace your national cinema, directors and people of production. Because I still think that cinema is for dreamers, people that works a lot to make us have a good experiences in our free time.
I hope you like it!