The Rules

Well, I'm back. The holiday was very relaxing, and the Big Mountain Short Film Festival was excellent. No, my film Waterproof didn't win anything - didn't really deserve to either, so that's alright. It was (admittedly in my opinion) towards the top of its budget bracket though, so I was fairly pleased about that. The main thing was that I learned a lot and met some really talented and helpful people. There were many things that I heard over the weekend which will stay with me for some time, but perhaps the point that impacted me the most was this: It doesn't matter if you break the rules. I'm not a wildly original thinker by nature, and generally tend to do things the way that they've been done before. And there are accepted reasons why a practice has passed into common usage - normally because it works. But it doesn't have to be the only way to do it. Ultimately there's no point trying to look professional while you're working to achieve a goal; the important thing is that your end product, the only part an audience ever sees, looks classy. If tracks are going to blow your budget then drag the camera across a table on top of a jumper. Or use a wheelchair. If you really can't afford a crane, use a ladder. It looks absurdly cheesy when you're doing it but who cares? If you can't tell (or near enough) from what ends up on screen then it doesn't matter one bit. Many of us (myself certainly included) get so bound up in doing things the "correct" way that we don't pause to ponder whether there are viable alternatives. Rules are not as important as they make themselves out to be. Laws should not be messed with as they cannot be broken; they can however break you. But Rules? Rules are like the Pirates Code: "More actual guidelines"