Is film making an art or a big business?

Answer 1

Well, strange question because it is in fact both.

To some degree it depends on for whom you are talking about.

For the director, who has the artistic vision of what the movie is about, and how it should look, etc, is is typically an art. For him, the business side of things is often a real drag, something that just gets in the way of the "art", or the film. This can be true of lots of other people involved in the film, too, such as the DP, the actors, special effects, etc., etc.

For the producers, the studio execs, the UPM, and other folks with similar concerns and job descriptions, it is really more of a big business. They do not think about the film in terms of "Will it be artistically significant?" but rather "Will it be financially successful?" To this degree many of the "artistic touches" in a film can be seen by these people as unnecessary, or even detrimental to the bottom line.

So you can see that film making is not only both an art and a big business, but that in fact art and business coexist and even conflict simultaneously in the world of film.