Hard Lessons
My Story
– Hasn’t been told, perhaps it will.
I am not gonna try and tell my life story here. That’s not what this website’s about. In fact, I have surrendered to a team of independent filmmakers who approached me to make a documentary feature about my work and life story. They are well into the 4th or 5th year now, on shooting their film titled, The Curse of Kane, where I suppose the protagonist is yours truly.
Given the past experiences I’ve had of letting people in on my work process, it’s now rather daunting to have a camera lens pointed at you in the most vulnerable of settings. You simply do not know how others are going to portray you. But to be frank, I am at the point where I try to not care about perceptions.
I have one mission, and that is what all my work is about. I have given my life to the pursuit of an uncompromised cinematic vision. I’ve been on this journey for more than while now, and it has never changed. However, it has expanded. Quite a bit.
You see, I can’t escape the images that have been playing in my mind. And in my second decade working through a nonsensical path to bring these images to the screen — I have discovered large voids and faults within the entertainment industry. If you spend enough time in this business, they become obvious to anyone.
I’ll try to explain, briefly.
At the onset of my career, I was told that; entertainment is a precarious world where art and finance battle.
— Very true! At one extreme end of the entertainment spectrum, you have decision-making by major studio executives who sacrifice any notion of artistry – in the name of predictable commercialism. Resulting in senseless entertainment, that become showcased globally.
At the other end, you have filmmakers so dedicated, that their work get made without dealing with the commercial aspects. Such works of art mostly struggle to be seen by anyone else than friends and family.
The exception, happens when intellectual property and talented people are able to navigate the minefield of the business — then we get timeless movies to cherish and talk about 30 years on. Such as Rainman, Forrest Gump, Dances with Wolves and Rocky.
These works of art, endured, often a decade or more, and got made without (noticeable) compromises. As a result, they were widely embraced by audiences globally, and they made exceptional profits for its studios who took the risk on something unknown — without having the relevant comparable titles and demographics to advocate green-light.
Am I aspiring to deliver such results? — Yes, I am.
Of course, you need money and influence for such an aspiration. Neither of which I had at the onset of my vision. But after my first decade of dedication, I had, with my team, made notable progress in both respects. My first company, based on Intellectual Property to a planned film franchise with myself in the lead role, grew from a start-up to a $100m publicly traded company backed by a rapidly expanding shareholder base, and powers-at-be, in and outside, Hollywood.
Totally unprepared for what comes with such as dynamic, I experienced an unimagined loss in just a few months, after what had taken nearly immeasurable vigor, equity and efforts to build by those involved.
These were hard lessons. All of which came back in a question — as to whether or not, continue…
I watched, as the industry I had come to know, continue on a spiralling path in desperate need of innovation. I think we can agree that quality of entertainment offerings have not exactly improved in recent years —and we are no longer in the golden age of Hollywood.
It has to begin with the artist. The artist has to feel, and be, completely protected and supported by those business men and women who wish to commercialise the creative works of talented artists. This, is the first job of a studio.
You have to believe in unknown and new talent, to find the filmmakers of the next 100-years. Instead of costly layers upon people trying to associate themselves in the hopes of repeating exploits of existing artists. Audiences are smarter than that. They want story. Risk. Inspiration. Dreams. Something they’ve never seen or felt before! Then you will have a new generation of stars, and movies worth remembering.
So, I’m launching a fully integrated studio from the ground up. For it to be effective, it has to become a Major. It is better suited with a base of operation in Europe, than in Los Angeles, which has become neither cost, nor creatively efficient in my opinion. Kamara plans to provide significant innovation in entertainment — and to become the first choice for passionate talent and filmmakers globally.
