Yes I could say that it has. It's certainly made me more discerning and because I've seen such diverse work over the years, it's enabled me to develop an aesthetic and trust my own taste as to what I think is worth sharing with others - and what's not, meaning it's a completely subjective exercise. In terms of actual filmmaking, I would have to say I've made the same mistakes and taken the same missteps as anyone might do in attempting to transform something from my mind, to the page, to the screen. All I know is that the level of difficulty is very high, sometimes seemingly nigh impossible.
Who wants to watch short, independent, and/or experimental filmmakers anyway? And where can you watch them?
Those that crave, seek out and appreciate this kind of work can find it quite easily. Most of these makers self-produce and therefore have their own extensive websites. In this time of the corona pandemic, many makers are releasing select works for free or opening up their Vimeo pages or posting on YouTube. There is an extensive Filmography section guide for every maker in Lucid Dreaming at OR Books. Contacting the maker in many cases is very possible for they are the sole owners of their works and happy to be invited to share it.
Finally, is there anything more you want to add about Lucid Dreaming, and can you elaborate on the concept and how it applies to your filmmakers?
In the introduction to his fifth volume of A Critical Cinema: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers from 2006, Scott MacDonald talks about the fact that in previous volumes, he'd approached his conversations with filmmakers with a strictly critical function in mind, an "evolving critique of conventional media and the audience that has developed for it". He had also approached this kind of discourse in relation to its educational or pedagogical function, specifically for teachers and students of cinema studies, as well as a varied history of critical cinema as a valuable aesthetic tradition.
MacDonald goes on to say: "In none of the previous general introductions, however, do I focus on what I have come to believe is a crucial element in virtually all the films and videos I discuss with filmmakers: their attempt to mechanically/chemically/electronically incarnate the spiritual," that there is, in fact, a dearth of attention paid to what he calls the "mysterious dimension of experience beyond the material, or incarnated within the material, that is exhausted by neither the senses nor the intellect and is generally perceived as the foundation for moral reflection and action." I wholeheartedly agree.
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