The Blue Collar Connection

Anyone who knows me, knows I have a soft spot for the Muppets, Jim Henson still inspires, he is pure genius in my book: Perhaps you have heard, The Rainbow Connection?? Bear with me for a moment:

Why are there so many?

films about Blue Collar

And how the other 7/8th’s live. Blue Collar is relatable

Not just an illusion

and Blue Collar has nothing to hide.

? ? ? My friend Michael Cioni, who I have deep respect for and who is quite brilliant in his own right, spoke at a tech based filmmaking event recently, sharing his perspective on the, chasm or moat I believe he called it, regarding ‘Hollywood’ and the average person consuming or watching entertainment.? While I respect his thoughts and opinion, which spoke of accessible technology, I have another point of view.?

? ? ? My first observation and I think Michael agrees to a degree: technology doesn't and shouldn’t matter. Let me clarify, End result DOES matter, how you got there shouldn't!? Michael very well addresses the ridiculous mandate of deliverables and on that I agree.? It should not matter how it originated, but how does it look and sound NOW at the delivery stage!? Reality check, a film made on a 5 year old Canon Mark IV edited in proxy on a laptop using Premier, can then be graded by someone using Davinci, a free app. The real only red herring here is sound finishing. That is still the most challenging for filmmakers to accept, but the good news is the software and skills are out there. It doesn’t have to cost a mortgage for a 5.1 or even a 7.1 mix. I know because I made a short film using this technique.

THAT SAID:

? ? In My Opinion, what is missing in the ‘Hollywood’ equation and what is delivered on channels like YouTube is the BLUE COLLAR connection. (‘Hollywood’, meaning mass produced and distributed, theater releases and those at the top of the turnstile on your streamer)

?? Let us go back in time: EL MARIACHI: $20k CLERKS: $30k, Brother McMullen: $50k. (Even Reservoir Dogs was $1.5M- more about that later) All of these films were made by Blue Collar directors, who the average every day person and the director themselves can relate to. Spielberg made huge leaps with a story about an average blue collar county electrician who saw aliens. A blue collar cop moving away from the city.? If Jaws were done today, Brody would be handsome and model-like, he’d be ripped to the gills, probably seen at least once without his shirt on paddling an SUP. His wife would be a runner up to super model of the year.? His house would be 5000 Sq. Ft. and the boat they bought Michael, their son, would be a state of the art cabin cruiser complete with GPS and fish finder up to 20 leagues. Michael would also have 10 soon to be hot friends who all spoke in sexual innuendo at 10 years old.?

What we see now are films with beautiful people, who appear to be on their way to modeling school, driving really nice expensive cars, living in amazing, perfect houses and surrounded by a cast that doesn't reflect most peoples lives or circles. Upon watching modern films, the average viewer has thus been pulled out of the film experience, because, I am guessing, they feel alienated or they start to get that same uneasy feeling they get when scrolling through FB, seeing how perfect everyone’s life is and feeling sad about their own. Then the viewer loses interest and probably scrolls over to Youtube…where they see relatable people doing relatable things (all relative of course). It's not Harvard grads (no offense) and a $400k film school education (no offense again) it's average relatable stories by people who live 'normal' lives, doing extraordinary things, like seeing aliens. Overall what is currently being served up, is overeducated, over analyzed fodder from the point of view of zero real life experience and arguably a lot of therapy and a mandate that I wont touch.

My take is, if you went to Harvard, that is amazing, really, I still can’t believe they refused me. Chances are to get there, you worked really hard and your grades show it. But that is a small percentage of the population. I assume then, that the hard working well educated get their life experiences from watching films and reading books, maybe I am wrong…bear with me. To quote 'Good Will Hunting’, “You’re an orphan, right? Do you think I’d know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are because I read Oliver Twist?” Now consider what “Good Will Hunting” is…and read this carefully: A story about a Blue Collar or lower income kid, who is being drafted by Harvard. The issue is: he can’t relate, he’d prefer to be with his, you guessed it Blue Collar friends.?

So essentially filmmaking in todays market is attempting to do the same. Hey, maybe I am nuts, but I’d wager, these very accomplished folks most likely never pee’d in a parking lot, while partying in that same parking lot at 15 years old, because that was the only place to go, not because it was rebellious. I bet they never had a bonfire in the woods because that was the only place they could afford to hang out or they drove an old car with four different tires because that is all they could afford. This scenario is more relatable to most people, than what is being sold and produced in the market today. Of course these examples are metaphors..

?? Consider the top household name directors today: James Cameron, the most successful ever, was once a truck driver and to this day blends relatable blue collar characters into every film.? Spielberg, dropped out of community college and made films about Blue Collar people. Tarantino, Jackson, Eastwood, Coen Brothers, Burton, Boyle, yes I know they are all men, Kathryn Bigelow, Great Gerwig, Amy Heckerling…OK maybe you get my point?? What do they all have in common, Blue Collar characters and relatability. But not just blue collar, flawed people, and not because they have three therapists.? Flawed from the onset…or not?? No! They are not flawed, they are relatable, they resemble most people, they are messy, they have flaws, they are imperfectly perfect in every way. They are your neighbor, your best friend, your high school sweetheart, they are you, even if you were Prom Queen or King, but maybe not an Ivy League recruit. This doesn’t mean, that Harvard grads shouldn’t be making films. This is read between the lines time: after all Damien Chazelle created a relatable blue collar, private school, jazz drummer in ‘Whiplash’.

? ? ? Lastly there was some chatter about the recent film ‘Talk to Me’ being a smash hit and the bragging rights that it was made for $4M ($4.5M according to Wiki) last I checked $4.5M is still A LOT of money. Has anyone reading this ever tried to raise even $40K for a film...It's daunting. According to the inflation calculator $30k in 1995 is $60k today. So having a $4.5M budget today is still $4.4M more than the three very successful and relatable films listed above. And consider those films were shot on film. So essentially any of those films could be produced and delivered in 4k for about $50k today.?

And this is where YouTube has stepped in, but sadly, the distribution model on YouTube, doesn’t hit the scale that El Mariachi, Clerks and The Brothers McMullen were privy to. Somehow, someway it seems these smaller relatable films have been pushed out by the behemoths with marketing budgets that eclipse that of small countries. And what this equates to, as Sean Baker lamented, that these Blue Collar filmmakers are being relegated to the unemployment line or secondary careers even after making good films and relegated again to never make another. While beauty pageant, super model derivative fodder is force fed to the masses and tuned out just as quickly.? Maybe I am out of line here and maybe I have ruffled a few feathers? I have been known to do that.? But maybe, just maybe I am on to something.

What’s so amazing that keeps us stargazing

And what do we think we see

Someday we’ll find it

the Blue Collar connection

The lovers, the dreamers and me.

PS: Yes I am available for speaking engagements. ;-)