Thoughts for the New Year (Part 1)

Another January. It’s been just over a year when this whole adventure that is 7SoL started.

As we sit and take in all that has happened, it gives us pause. Just how much we’ve done. How many friends it took to make those things happen.

The filming of Episode I was our first experience, and what an experience it was. To film is Austin is to fall in love with Austin. To stay in Austin for any length of time is to irrevocably loose your heart to a city.

Sure, like any form of government, we’re not free of greedy and crooked politicians, but the people that make up Austin… the people who really ARE Austin… they’re great.

With that said, we still enjoy a lack of exploitation of the film industry, unlike LA where everyone knows how to get into your budget pie.

People here still enjoy being a part of something. Being creative. Lending a hand.

Sure, we don’t have as much paid work as we’d like, but even that is changing with the push of local organizations and people getting involved.

The people who control the economy – the 12, so to speak – have changed our way of life. With friends and family and self suffering the hardships, the costs of filmmaking aren’t always repaid by it’s sales. Hollywood makes a large number of films every year that loose money, and the studios count on a single hit to pay for the others.

And with the acquisition of the studios by big corporations, even that landscape is changing. They too suffer the economy, and their creative hands are tied perhaps by the same numbers who prevent truly great movies from being made because they can’t predict how much money they’ll make.

Where does the future lie? Well, one thing is for sure. Since none of us small/independent filmmakers are likely to get a governmet bailout (after all, we don’t run in the same circles nor create as much money for the big corporations) we will continue to make films any way we can. We are the only ones who aren’t tied down by corporate boardrooms.