It's 1992. Quentin Tarantino is an almost complete unknown. He's just made "Reservoir Dogs". It's going to have its premiere at Sundance. But some of the very important people there are unhappy at the film's stylized violence and crude language. Powerful Harvey Weinstein is telling Tarantino that he must edit the film to remove the (particularly violent) sequence involving the cop being held hostage. Weinstein -- who before and since has made directors and wrecked them, promoted films and buried them -- argues, bullies, cajoles, uses reason, and uses threats; he can probably end the young filmmakers career right then and there. Tarantino stands firm, and won't budge. The scene stays in. The film is a ground-breaker, a revolution. Tarantino goes on to make "Pulp Fiction" etc -- and Weinstein goes on to call his company Miramax "the house that Quentin built". Years later, QT says he has no sympathy for young directors who complain that their film's "are not their own" and that producers/distributors have forced changes on them. You have to fight, QT says, for what you believe in, and if you don't you deserve what you get.
It's 1976. An unknown bit-part actor with a funny name and $200 left in his bank account has written a terrific script. The Hollywood studios love it -- they offer him $100,000 for it. No, says the broke and out-of-work actor, not unless I get to star in the lead role as well. The studio heads roll their eyes. They offer him $250,000 for the script -- and tell him that they are going to turn it into a fantastic picture, budgeted at $10-$20 million and starring the likes of (then-hot) Ryan O'Neal. The young actor, Sylvester Stallone, stands firm and again says "no" - he won't sell the script unless he gets to star in the picture. Broke though he is, he risks throwing away a quarter of a million dollars and perhaps his one and only chance at a successful Hollywood career. The studios throw up their hands -- fine, you get your way, but the film now has a budget of a mere $1.1 million; shoot it in 25 days and good luck to you (and good riddance!). So they start shooting "Rocky", and even then Stallone has to fight the director and beg him to film a scene the director thinks unnecessary, i.e. the scene where Rocky lies in bed with Adrian the night before the fight of his life and admits that deep down he doesn't think he can beat Apollo Creed. The director reluctantly agrees to film the scene, but gives him only one take to do it in -- that's all the time (and film stock) he'll allow. So Stallone does the scene he wrote, and fought for, and as Rocky Balboa he says (what I think is the key reason the movie works): "It don't matter if I lose. It don't matter if he opens my head. The only thing I wanna do is go the distance. Nobody's ever gone the distance with Creed. And if go them 15 rounds, and that bell rings and I'm still standing, I'm gonna know -- for the first time in my life -- that I weren't just another bum from the neighbourhood". And of course, "Rocky" comes out and is a huge hit.
My point? There are no constraints! No 'client', no 'land', no 'budget'. The only constraints are the ones creative people put on themselves, and choose to put on themselves out of fear or insecurity or so-called "practical good sense".
Here endeth the lesson.
Peter