Interview [Written]: Roger Corman
From Huffington Post:
With credits dating back to 1954, Roger Corman has one of Hollywood’s longest running careers, and every step of the way has fearlessly pioneered ideas in filmmaking, through all of new media’s many definitions over the decades. So it’s perfect that the 5th Annual New Media Film Festival honors Corman this week with the Legend Award to be presented by director John Carpenter.
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XG: Let’s talk about what being a new media filmmaker means to you.
RC: I think of the term ‘new media’ in two ways. First with production, the move from film to digital. There are so many production advantages with shooting digitally with the savings, especially when making lower budget films. Then there are the advantages of the lighter weight cameras, which are easier to use on location, and all the computer effects give you a whole new toolbox. The other aspect of new media is in distribution, which has undergone even more sweeping changes than the production side. You have newer outlets like Netflix and Hulu, and that’s exciting, but on the flip side, we used to go out with a $100,000 film and open it in big theatres all around the country and compete with major studio films with almost comparable figures in a short period of time. All of that has disappeared.
XG: And yet you’ve survived, and thrived. So for the young filmmakers out there who say I want to be the next Roger Corman — what advice do you have?
RC: My advice for the beginners is if you can go to a film school, do it because it can really give you a great foundation and propel you. And if you can’t go to a film school, well then do it yourself. There is so much no budget filmmaking going on around the country, and most frankly is not very good (laughs) but a couple of them are. The other bit of advice is to get a job or work for free on a movie set, and observe and learn something from seeing how it all goes. You never know, but you might get promoted.
Jack Nicholson on Corman:
If you go to his IMDB page, you will see that Corman has an incredibel 409 producing credits! But he also has several writing credits including Frankenstein Unbound as well an uncredited co-writer of Little Shop of Horrors.
For the rest of the article, go here.
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