Why Doesn’t Film Have a Platform?

Notes on creative architecture

Ed Ruscha, Space, 1971

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to make films in community. There are many brilliant articles on this, especially around how to build community with integrity, reciprocity, and transparency. But I’ve also been thinking about what community means from the artist’s perspective while you’re in the midst of creating.

Is your work informing other filmmakers’ work? Are there overarching themes that all of our films are speaking to, even when they appear to be entirely different stories, set in different worlds, with different characters?

And if so, what is it that we’re collectively trying to say?

I can’t remember where I first heard this story. Maybe it was in Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act, or maybe it was in Stephen King’s On Writing. But a well-known author spoke about having an idea for a novel that she had been sitting on for years. She loved the concept, but never got around to writing it.

One day, she met up with a friend who was also a well-known author. During their conversation, her friend mentioned that she had an idea for a new book she was excited about. As she described the premise, the other author sat there in mild shock.

It was the exact same idea.

I think about this story often because it reminds me that ideas can arrive in more than one place at once. They exist in the collective unconscious, waiting for someone to act on them. And if you don’t, someone else eventually will.

Filmstack has become a catalyst for many of us to actually execute ideas we might have otherwise kept in isolation. It pushed us to be the second author in that story.

There’s also nothing wrong with creating alone. By “alone,” I mean within your own production team, without being in constant dialogue with others who are in a similar process.

But I find myself wondering: if the industry didn’t shift, if the old gatekeeping structures were still fully intact, would many of us have found our way to platforms like this at all?

I probably wouldn’t have started a Substack if I didn’t feel compelled to try something different. The industry waves, in its own way, redirected me here, and ultimately led all of us to create new ways of working.

I still marvel at the fact that Substack actually listened when we petitioned for a Film and TV category. It felt like a meaningful pivot, one that signaled Filmstack was serious about change.

My thought process is a bit of a winding road, but I keep coming back to the same question: why hasn’t there been a film-specific platform for the filmmaking community? Every few years, I return to this idea, and I have a feeling it’s one that other people are turning over too. And when I say platform, I don’t mean viewing platform, but something that encompasses everyone from varying facets of the film industry.

Recently, I came across Dark Forest OS, a new platform created by Yancey Strickler that combines community, publishing, project sharing, and opportunities within a private space. I’m still early in exploring Dark Forest OS, but it’s been genuinely interesting to see what Yancey is building. The deeper I go, the more it feels like a breath of fresh air for creatives working across different disciplines.

What struck me is that it seems designed to hold ideas while they’re still unfinished. The platform feels cool and down-to-earth, but sophisticated enough to support work in progress, not just polished outcomes.

And it made me think about how much I wish something like this existed specifically for the film community.

Back in 2020, I made a serious attempt to create a self-generated networking platform for filmmakers and producers. It was essentially a vetted industry rolodex. At the time, I was working as a line producer, and I was constantly being asked by other producers and colleagues if I knew a good sound mixer, gaffer, production coordinator, or editor.

I had accumulated countless Excel spreadsheets and contact lists over the years, all filled with talented crew. Eventually, I became frustrated by how fragmented everything was. I kept wishing there was a single place where we could find trusted production professionals in varying cities, rather than relying on personal referrals and scattered documents.

I might write an entire post about this idea because, honestly, I thought I had moved on from it. The platform became too complicated for me to run on my own, too expensive to maintain, and difficult to balance alongside a full-time job.

But after seeing what Yancey has built with Dark Forest OS, I’m realizing that my original idea was missing a few important layers. I was focused on solving a production problem, creating a better way for film industry professionals to find and hire one another. What I hadn’t considered was the value of shared ideas, creative process, and the role the community can play in helping unfinished work take shape.

I’ve been on Substack for less than a year, and I’m continually impressed by what the Filmstack community are sharing and building. Ironically, some of that success has made me wonder whether we’re beginning to need something more. Not because Substack isn’t working, but because the community has grown into something larger than a newsletter platform alone. I’ve also been in the production weeds on my project for a while now, so if something like this exists, I would love to know.

There’s a part of me that’s relieved big tech hasn’t fully capitalized on something like this idea. At the same time, it’s interesting that film remains one of the few creative industries without a central platform for its full creative ecosystem.

Filmstack has started to approximate that space, but it raises a larger question for me: what does a platform designed specifically for filmmakers actually need to look like? I genuinely want to know what the community would like to see reflected in something built solely with filmmakers in mind.

Maybe that’s why I keep returning to this idea. Not because I have an answer, but because the question feels more relevant now than it did five years ago.

And judging by what people are building here, I have a feeling I’m not the only one thinking about it.