Anarchist film production

[jake williams]

This isn't a joke.

I'm wondering if anyone has consciously (or even unconsciously) set out to use an anti-hierarchical model of film production. The conventional notions of things like "director" and "producer" are I think things a lot of anarchists would object to. Has anyone decided to collectively produce a movie?

[Cult of Reason]

The conventional notions of things like "director" and "producer" are I think things a lot of anarchists would object to.

There is something wrong with division of labour?

Or is there something about those roles I do not know about?

[Dóchas]

would it be a problem if someone took a leading role in the movie if all participating in the movie were there willingly? because i doubt anyone would help out in an anrchist movie unwillingly...just a thought

[bcbm]

I've produced films collectively.

[jake williams]

There isn't necessarily anything "wrong" with a division of labour into managers and workers following direction, but I've heard anarchist objections to a lot of apparently more minor things and I thought this would be interesting.


I've produced films collectively.
Elaborate.

[bcbm]

Well what do you want to know?

[FreeFocus]

I don't know any examples of collective film production, sorry. But there's nothing inherently bad with directors, just perhaps the current conception of them. If actors all organized and hired or elected a director, what would be the problem?

[Killfacer]

I made a series of gritty youth dramas with my mates years ago. They were shit although they had more hits on you tube than orignally expected.

I assume your talking about proper films though..

[jake williams]

FF: There's nothing bad with directors per se, and perhaps inasmuch as I suggested or implied there was I haven't been getting my point across. I do think however that there is a significant extent to which present filmmaking for the most part has the director acting within an illegitimate power context, especially if you look at the whole bit with producers and executive producers and funders and so on.

But I also think there's a layer at which The Director is inherently egotistical, and I've heard some theorists take issue with less. Also, it would just be an interesting exercise, both anthropologically and artistically, to see how different modes of social organization affect film production.


Well what do you want to know?
Explain the process, how it worked, anything interesting that came out of it, if you thought it affected the product, etc. That sort of thing.

[bcbm]

Explain the process, how it worked, anything interesting that came out of it, if you thought it affected the product, etc. That sort of thing.

Well, we basically just brainstormed some ideas and a rough plot for the film, then one person opted to write the script and the rest of us looked over it once it was complete and decided to keep it or change things, etc. For filming, we just rotated duties based on who was in or out of the scene and what people were most experienced, ie those with no filming experience would generally not do it (unless they wanted to learn). Same with editing. Basically we just talked a lot as we worked on the project and decided everything as a group, but were able to establish more specific roles when needed.

[Hit The North]

I don't know any examples of collective film production, sorry.

Nearly all movies are a collective production. The idea that credit for a film which employs thousands of skilled people can be claimed by a single individual just reflects, in ideological form, the bourgeois property relations in which they are made.

[x359594]

Nearly all movies are a collective production. The idea that credit for a film which employs thousands of skilled people can be claimed by a single individual just reflects, in ideological form, the bourgeois property relations in which they are made.

That's true of the commercial cinema, but avant-garde film often is the work of a single individual. For example, the late Stan Brakhage photographed, developed, printed and edited his movies himself. He worked in 16mm, Super 8mm and 8mm. The same is true of Maya Deren, Kenneth Anger, Marie Mencken, Gregory Markopolous, Sue Friedrich, etc.