What fulfils you to continue your art in the age of algorithms?

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    Timur
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      Dear James and Roger,

      First of all – I’d like to say thank you. It is incredible that despite everything you do – you also find the time and passion to share your knowledge with others via your podcast/forum, as well as to open up some of the industrie’s brightest minds through your conversations and make them share their stories and tricks with young filmmakers that grew up watching and admiring their work.

      My name is Timur, I live in Edinburgh and I’m a self-taught Travel Filmmaker who is a little lost in my creative journey.  I’ve a question for you + a request in regards to whom I’d absolutely love to hear on your podcast some day in the future.

      My Question:

      You’ve been doing this for a long time – what drives you to continue? What motivates and fulfils you?  I know you briefly covered this in your conversation with Bill Pope (I believe it was that one,  loved that episode) but I’d like to ask you to dive a little deeper into the meaning of your motivation to do art in general – whether it’s a multi-million Hollywood film or one of your beautiful still photographs. My apologies if this question is too personal, my interest is purely because I think that I’m part of a generation that lives thought a fast-paced madness where most young people are not really creating what they want, not really expressing themselves but rather chasing meaningless trends of machine driven algorithms, cooking “fast food” stories for short attention span audiences. Most make what the system tells them would work rather than creating their own, unique, path. I feel that nobody cares about art that takes time and skill to create. It’s demotivating and, as a result, I just cant see the reason Why create something.. you know?

      I’ve heard that filmmaking has changed as a result of Studios trying to measure and understand every view, every Netflix pause, every like.. studios make films that are safe and bring more cash and, as a result, we get films that are almost template based..

      I fully understand that everyone’s path is unique and I sincerely enjoyed the encouragement that you’ve shared in the conversation with Krysty Wilson Cairns, when James said -“We oftentimes find people who are starting out are asking, well, how did you do this? I’d like to do it the same way. And we’re always saying, no, do it your way”

      My question is different to that – I don’t want to follow someone else’s path, I’m struggling to find a deeper meaning to proceed with my art in general in the modern times, while, at the same moment – I truly enjoy the creative and filmmaking process (I am embarrassed to even call it that though, writing to you) and I know that I will never stop making art in some shape or form, even if it’s just for myself.

      I do want to make my own feature film one day, I just feel that nobody would care. I feel like noone would understand a film like “Y tu mama tambien” or something like “A Mysterious World” by Rodrigo Moreno if these were filmed today. I don’t think you could even do a film like that nowadays, unless the story takes place pre-mobile phones with cameras era. Apologies, this is getting too long . Since you both walked this road for so many years and, I assume, surely at some stage of your life faced the “what is this all for?” question too – I wonder what were the things that made you continue creating, especially when working for someone else and bringing  someone else’s visual ideas to life (although, I believe that through your vision – you’ve elevated the original concepts of any director to a level they didn’t even consider possible before )

      Future Guest suggestion:

      It would be incredible to have one or all of the following filmmakers on your podcast in the future:

      Wong Kar-wai

      Spike Jonze

      Sofia Coppola

      P.S My favourite quote from your previous episodes:

      Bill Pope – “I don’t give a f..k of Frodo lives or dies  after so many days shooting the film  “

      Thank You so much in advance for your time!

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