We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Emre Korkmaz a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Emre thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

When I reflect on my journey, I realize that the key moments in learning the core of storytelling came from interacting with the audience. This dates back to my stage-acting years. I gained many insights during year-long rehearsals with coaches and directors, but it was when I performed in front of a live audience that I truly grasped the essence of the story we were telling. The audience’s reactions were the essential lifeline that fueled our performance. For instance, in the first act of a play, the character I portrayed—a poet from a working-class family—places a pearl necklace on his demented grandmother’s neck and then reveals casually to the family that the pearls are fake. What seemed like a harmless joke or playful gesture to me took on a deeper significance when performed before a live audience, profoundly informing my performance.

Pitching is another practice to learn directly from your audience. It is a continuous process in the industry, and whether making independent films, shorter work, or branded content, I constantly find myself convincing others—investors, clients, actors, and other professionals—of the project’s value and what the final product will look and feel like. While a pitching workshop at USC Film School was helpful, I learned the nuances of pitching through real-life experience. I refined my pitches based on reactions, paying attention to signs of boredom, distraction, or interest. The more I pitch, the better my pitch becomes.

Watching my work with an audience is also an invaluable experience. Their reactions to specific moments provide specific critical feedback, which I believe is one reason studios conduct test screenings before finalizing films. Unfortunately, independent filmmakers often miss this opportunity; even after completing a film, we have limited chances to engage with a real audience.

Today, social media and the internet offer filmmakers a way to gauge audience reactions. I recall the late master Abbas Kiarostami’s film Shirin, which consists entirely of close-ups of female viewers’ faces, including Juliette Binoche, as they watch a film based on the mythological Persian romance of Khosrow and Shirin. Similar experimental projects could easily be done using online tools today, but being present at your own work’s screening with a live audience that you don’t know is where you truly feel how your story interacts with the audience.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

As a media production professional, I remain committed to conveying emotions, feelings, messages, and information through images, sound, or both, despite the continually evolving definition of “media”. I’m particularly drawn to projects and assignments that incorporate a cross-media storytelling approach, where key elements of the same content engage audiences across multiple media channels, interacting and playing off each other in innovative, postmodern ways.

My upcoming documentary on the art of photography, set to air on PBS in 2025, will be complemented by related content shared across various social media channels. This content will not only support the documentary but also present counterarguments and alternative perspectives from other photographers working with similar materials, fostering a richer discussion. My goal is to bring together a community of photographers – from enthusiasts to mid-career professionals – to learn from and engage in meaningful conversations about the art of photography.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

I’ve always believed that everything Steve Jobs said and wrote contains valuable insights. As the inventor of our time, his products have greatly influenced our daily lives, either directly or through other products that borrowed his designs.

What fascinates me most is how Jobs integrated marketing and production into a single, inseparable process. I think that the moment he conceived a new product, he simultaneously considered how to market it. His marketing ideas informed his product development decisions.

In old Hollywood and other industries before the 1990s and 2000s, creators would develop a movie, story, or product, and then the marketing department’s job would be figuring out how to sell it. Today, the process is often reversed: marketing departments decide what they can sell, and then creators must figure out how to produce it. While this shift has led to a more market-driven approach to content creation, it has also raised concerns about the impact on creativity and artistic expression.

For me, the moment I begin thinking about content is the same moment I start considering how to market it. I believe Steve Jobs was a pioneering figure in this new ‘marketing era,’ demonstrating how marketing and product development can be integrated into a successful strategy. By understanding the target audience and their needs, marketers can help creators create content that is not only innovative but also resonates with consumers.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

I think what I always struggle to explain to those who don’t share my creative mindset is that my work isn’t the kind that can be measured solely by its technical aspects. It involves both a creative element and a purely craft-based element. I often use the metaphor of painting a wall. You can measure how well and quickly a wall can be painted. It can be divided into sections to complete each day, and you might say it will take, say, three days to paint this wall. But you can’t approach the decision of what color to paint it with the same mindset. You might decide on a color in five seconds, or it might take months to arrive at the right decision. As a person who decides the color and also paints the wall, the only way to see if my choice of color works is to paint it and see how it looks. If it’s the wrong color, I have to redo it, which is one reason why deciding on a color can be more challenging than the actual process of painting the wall.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Www.emrekorkmaz.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emrekorkmaz?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app

Image Credits

MIPCOM, IDFA, Riverside International Film Festival, Los Angeles Asian Film Festival