Profit and Risk

It has been a good 8 or 10 months since I have warched Castle in the Sky. Last night I viewed this animation again and was overwhelmed yet again with what an incredible filmmaker can do when they get the chance.

I never feel this way with committee directed films where focus groups have slowly bleed all the soul out of the film stock playing it safe. So why do so many studios still cling to committee films when all of the best films have a single driving vision?

Okay, rhetorical, the biggest flops also have a single driving vision. The percentages are the percentages. In the long run committee films are safer and have a better change of making money.

Studios are in the business of making money. If they don`t make money then they aren`t studios anymore. They are film libraries up for sale to the independent after market players and other studio`s after market divisions.

That is one of the reasons that films like Snow White, Iron Giant, Toy Story, the Incredibles and all of Miyazaki`s Studio Ghibli films are so amazing. The fact that any of them got make in the first place is astounding.

That is also why so much is written about the people who take the risks and make these kinds of films. That is why the very committee/focus group directors study these films. Hoping to find the secret. Everybody wants to know how they do it. Clue, it is not by committee. You got to take risk on a personal level to make great art.