Don't Ask. Seriously, Don't Ask.

The most common question I am asked by student filmmakers is "how will I support myself while trying to become a filmmaker?" And I give the same answer every time: if you are worried more about paying bills than making films, you will become a bill-payer before you'll ever become a filmmaker.

Filmmakers worry about making films and somehow their bills get paid. They take day jobs as waiters or pizza deliverymen or teachers or anything at all so they can focus on making movies. Their bills get paid but, ultimately, they don't care how they get paid. Because they're too damn worried about making the next movie.

Your priorities will dictate your future to a significant degree. If you really want to be a filmmaker, you have to make it first priority. Trust me, somehow your bills will get paid.

The Grass Really is Green

If you ever have the urge to ask a filmmaker how she got her feature financed, don't.

Here's why:

1) She doesn't want to divulge a resource thereby possibly diluting it. In other words, get your hands out of her pocketbook. And who can blame her?

2) If it's her first film, chances are very, very good that the money came from family and friends or acquaintances thereof. If you're worried about financing your first project, chances are great that, if ever funded at all, it will be funded by people who know and love you and will support you because you're you.

3) If it's not her first, chances are her previous successes attracted private equity investment. The best way to get another movie financed is to have the previous project get acquired by a distributor and show a little bit of a return. Or maybe win some awards.

4) It doesn't matter to your project. At all. No two movies are financed alike (other than the family and friends route) and your project will probably be no exception.

It sucks but there is no magic equation for getting financing. So, instead of asking where she got her money, ask her who did the amazing sound editing. Because great sound editors (on a low budget) are almost as hard to find as financing.

And I bet she'll be happy to answer that question.

Chapman Hires Marketing Head

Recently my alma mater, Chapman University, announced it was launching a studio that would produce 5-10 "micro-budget" (I still hate that term) features a year. "Yay" for them and "yay" for small movies (I don't really like that term either)!

But...

They just hired a marketing head from Warner Brothers. I have no particular distaste for this person (who I don't know) or Warner Brothers (in general). I do not, however, have much confidence in this move. How has the studio system ever demonstrated a full understanding of truly independent (I like this term a little more) filmmaking and its audience?

"Paranormal Activity" you say. Sure, name the one exception. And even in that case, what the studio had to sell was genre and they do that all the time. Genre films from studio divisions have rarely relied on star power. Generally, fans of thrillers want to see thrillers, fans of horror want to see horror, etc.

But has a studio ever tried to sell something like "The Exiles"? "Putty Hill"? "Killer of Sheep"? Have they ever tried to sell something with no star power, an original concept told by a unique, perhaps even new, voice?

Hell. No.

This move tells me the micro-budgets my beloved Chapman will produce will all or mostly be genre pieces and very little envelope pushing will be afforded. It doesn't mean great movies can't or won't be made, but it does reduce the chances.

Thank You Los Angeles

Thank you to everyone who made our screening at the Downtown Independent a huge success. I would especially like to thank the great people at Film Courage who hosted the screening.

California Love

The Los Angeles premiere of south loop is Monday, May 30th at 7pm at the Downtown Independent.

Actor/Producer Juan Ramirez will be there for a probing, detailed Q&A after the screening. Make sure to ask him about taking his pants off in between takes.

And he'll be selling DVDs. Of south loop.

He's Really Not That Angry

Kelley Baker, known as the Angry Filmmaker, just put up his interview with me on the making of south loop.

Writing on a Micro-Budget Doesn’t Have to be so Hard

As I write a draft of the screenplay for my current feature Measure (based on the work of Trevor Thomas), I am reminded of something I tell my students all the time – rewriting is hard. It’s harder than the moment the idea comes to you. It’s harder than getting the first draft done. It’s harder than reading your first draft and realizing how awful it really is.

But it is in the rewriting where the movie becomes a movie.

Rewriting a micro-budget feature is additionally difficult because it is almost impossible to ignore the producer in your head constantly reminding you that he can’t afford the location you just added in the last scene. Now, the writer in your head has no problem ignoring the producer because the story is what matters most, right?

As a way to get around this particular brand of schizophrenia, I tried a new approach (well, at least new to me) on my last film south loop.

Once I knew I was going to produce and finance my own movie (along with my producing partner Juan Diego Ramirez), I made a list of everything I knew I could get for free. That included locations, actors, crewmembers, musicians, props, and so on. I also included the streets of Chicago because, as a guerrilla filmmaker, I could. I included family members that might be willing to cook for the production. I also, with some fatherly hesitation, included my children in case the story I generated needed some toddlers.

So I ended up with a long and diverse list of resources. And a quick glance over the list made me realize I could effectively set a story in the world of real estate. And by effectively I mean that I could develop a narrative and shoot it in a way that allows the audience to buy into that world. Now, if my list had been a lot shorter I might have ended up producing a movie that took place entirely in my apartment. And while there are plenty of movies that tell great stories visually primarily in one location (see Dogtooth), my list of resources took me in a different direction.

As for Measure, the previous drafts were written with these restrictions in mind so I inherited a script that already takes advantage of the resources our production has in hand. And that’s a good thing. Still, I find myself trying to strike a balance between the producer and writer in my head. While I am not adding helicopter chase scenes to the script, I am still adding scenes that require resources we don’t have currently.

For example, I have added a scene that takes place in a banquet hall. The scene is significant for establishing our protagonist in the way she deals with the politics of her job. Again, no helicopters needed. And it’s set in a banquet hall because that particular context adds to the subtext of the scene (or at least that’s the hope). So, at least in this case, the writer in my head wins because, ultimately, story really is what matters most.

But let’s say we never get access to a banquet hall. That will hardly hamstring us because the mechanics of the scene – people talking to each other and the staging of characters – can easily take place in another location. If we have to stage the scene in a restaurant or someone’s home the script will simply be rewritten to reflect that change in context. Rewriting that won’t be so hard. Well, at least not as hard as turning a helicopter chase into a conversation at a bar.