Happy 2013!

Ah, 2013...

I think it sounds like the most futuristic year I've ever lived to see.  Much better that 1984, 1994, 1997, 2000, 2001 ---  It's like the jumping off point for the great unknown future.    The new mellenium is now a teenager and I fear it might have a bit of an attitide. 

What Should I Study if I Want to be a Film Producer?

It’s a smart question that really stems from realization that a four year degree in film is probably not going to be worth the piece of paper it’s printed on, let alone the thousands of dollars a wide-eyed fledgling filmmaker might spend.  For an artist, the cost of college is the largest of many obstacles that can crush a young filmmaker.  It’s hard to pay loans and rent, buy gas, food, and clothing on just above minimum wage.   

If you are one of these people who asked the question above, congratulations you’re already starting to think about the bottom line.   You’ve already realized you shouldn’t get college degree for self-improvement, you should study to make yourself indispensable to others.  

Majoring in Business Degree’s such as Finance, Entrepreneurship, and Marketing are good ways to go.  But it doesn’t end there.  You need to study films as well.  It’s not the degree that makes you, it’s your accomplishments.  If you want to be a producer, a degree in business will help, but getting your hands dirty by making a short with a group of friends is better.  

Build yourself a reel of films and a sizable audience and you will be in a better position than most.  Find talented student directors and offer to produce their movies.  Learn as much about film as you can in your spare time.  Read as many scripts as you can in your spare time.  With every project, aim to make the best video in the genre.  

The line between amateur and professional is surprisingly small if you take time to ensure every shot is as good as possible.   Studio’s aim to make mediocre products, you don’t have to.  You can concentrate on the story and take your time to craft it well.   

Once you’ve graduated, there are two major kinds of producers job you can try to specialize in: Line Producers, and Creative Producers.  To have a shot at becoming an A list producer you need to understand both.  

Line Producers are the people during production making the budgets, calling product vendors, haggling deals, and generally greasing the wheels while the film is rolling though production.  It’s a thankless logistical occupation akin to a doctor working triage.  It doesn’t require an understanding of story or what makes a movie great.  This job is about squeezing every dollar, getting every deal, resolving every conflict so that the final image is of the best quality, delivered on time, and on budget.   

Creative Producers may never be involved with the actual making of a movie.  Their specialty is packaging movies and talent together and then selling it to a group of investors or a studio to get the movie made.  This is really an over simplification of what they do, but the key to being good at this job is: understanding what aspects of a movie will sell the most tickets and salesmanship.  Most creative producers come from a development executive background.  They read scripts constantly and have an understanding of what makes them emotionally satisfying to an audience.   

Here is a small reading list that may help on your journey:  The Visual Story by Bruce Block, What a Producer Does by Buck Houghton, I’ll be in my trailer by John Badham & Craig Modderno, Writing Movies for Fun and Profit by Thomas Lennon & Robert B. Garant, Making Movies by Sydney Lumet 

As I've gotten older, the likelihood of my watching a film more than once has significantly diminished.   It is a rare occasion for me to watch anything more than once.   If I do it, it really is to study a film.  I break it down find it's beats, turn off the audio to try to find how the visuals are working.  Gone are the days when I sat down, let the suspension of disbelief wash over me and really enjoy a film over and over.

A list of movies that I think define my childhood.  These are the movies that I can remember watching over and over again as a child.   I also think of these films as part of a primordial influence on a generation of children born from the late seventies through the 80's and into the early 90's.

ET
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Jurassic Park
The Dark Crystal
Batman
Terminator 2
The Never Ending Story
Flight of Dragons
Star Wars
Empire Strikes Back
Return of the Jedi
Battle for Endor
Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Kahn
Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock
Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home
Star Trek 5: The Final Frontier
Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country
Superman

The Adventures of Robin Hood
Rear Window
North By North West
The Man Who Knew Too Much


Disney: Sword in the Stone, Robin Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Oliver and Company, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin.

Back then blockbusters had story and the characters felt as if they had true emotion.  Maybe this is how it starts - once you start preferring movies of a certain time period, its a slippery slop to to being that "get off my lawn" kind of guy.

Luckily my parents instilled in me a love of movies and I had access to a huge collection of VHS tapes all of movies that we recorded off of television.  There were four different versions of A Christmas Carroll, entire collections of mini series that were long forgotten, a large collection of Hitchcock films (some of which I wasn't allowed to watch).  For the most part the entire collection was open.   

3 things that movies do wrong

There has been a lot of chatter about what is wrong with movies today.  So I thought I would make a list.


1 - Hollywood seems to hate adults.   Most of the movies made for gigantic budgets today are for the 14-25 age range.  If you are over 30 stay the fuck at home - is basically what they are saying.  Which is not really true, there are a handful of films throughout the year that are aimed at adults.  The article above makes an interesting point about baby boomers who are the most film educated generation and would probably turn out in droves if there was a little  more variety in the theater samplings.


A theater owner argued that why would I program a movie for adult when they only spend like $2 on concessions on average.


2 -  Attention Theater Owners theater food is crap.  At 16, a tub of popcorn, a day old hot dog, milk duds and a large soda, sounds like a meal.  If you are older than 25 it sounds like you want to give yourself dysentery.  How about upping the quality of the selections?  There are a number of theaters, such as the Alamo Draft House, that already offer better food options and (gasp) alcoholic beverages at the theater.  I'm pretty sure adults like those.    


3 - The idea of Diminishing Returns - It is absolutely insane that for a premium movie ticket in los angeles is 25 dollars (3D, IMAX).  The only thing that seems to be out pacing the price increases at the movie theaters is the price of gasoline.  I think the average movie ticket price in the US is somewhere around  8 dollars, but as a California resident I haven't paid that at a regular movie theater since 1998.  In any case making raising prices on tickets is not the answer.  Eventually the price will be so high that people won't come to the theater.  People go to the movies for cheap entertainment and to get away from their home and personal troubles.  When the price of a single ticket is about what the average person spends on food for a single day, that's adding to troubles. 

Just a quick one:  UPDATE

2012 is shaping up to be a pretty good year at the movies.

I already love more movies this year than in 2011.  Here's the quick list:

The Grey
Chronicle
Cabin in the Woods
Avengers - (I know I was surprised too)

We are approaching the fifth month of the year and there are still so many exciting movies still to be released.  I am so glad to actually be enjoying movies again.  Here's a quick list of movies I'm really excited for:

The Sound of My Voice -  Awesome first act - shits the bed the res of the movie.
Prometheus
Brave
People Like Us
The Dark Knight Rises
Premium Rush
Lawless
Looper
The Master
Lincoln
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Just a quick one:

2012 is shaping up to be a pretty good year at the movies.

I already love more movies this year than in 2011.  Here's the quick list:

The Grey
Chronicle
Cabin in the Woods

We are approaching the fifth month of the year and there are still so many exciting movies still to be released.  I am so glad to actually be enjoying movies again.  Here's a quick list of movies I'm really excited for:

The Sound of My Voice
Prometheus
Brave
People Like Us
The Dark Knight Rises
Premium Rush
Lawless
Looper
The Master
Lincoln
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

SIGH

I'm moderately excited about The Avengers, GI Joe Retaliation, Expendables 2, Total Recall, My sister's sister, skyfall, life of pi, Django unchained, the Great Gatsby and a bunch of others but for these I'm not holding my breath.  It is hollywood - land of expensive mediocrity after all.

So yeah, here's to going and seeing films in a theater in 2012.

On a side tangent I really wish I had a higher viewership.  I really would like to take a pole of 13-25 year-olds to find out if Reagal Cinema's plan to allow texting in the movie theater is a good idea.

Some say - It's a movie, you paid for a ticket -  should pay attention and not distract others around you with noise or light.

Others Say - It's so constricting--- so what if I want to text my friends, talk on the phone, check my stocks,  e-mail, and look up everything I can on that hot actress up on the screen.  I do it at home, why can't I do it in the theater?

I personally think it's stupid and annoying, but this just might be my "get off my lawn" moment come way too early.

Positive Thinking Doesn't Work

One of my favorite blogs to read in my down time is LifeHack.org.  I can't tell you how many story ideas I get come from bloggers.  Questions like: "Why is this person writing this right now?" and "Why is this resonating with me right now?" can lead in some really productive directions.  

In any case they posted an article on 4 Reasons Positive Thinking Doesn't Work (and What to do Instead).   In a related factoid, (I can't remember where I read it but)  there was a study done recently which basically confirmed this premise.  If you spend time imagining what you most desire, you will be less compelled to experience it in reality.  The research suggested that the fantasy is as good as reality in these cases.

But when reality finally rams its ugly phallus through your ears making you face the realization that the day dream is no longer attainable, you end up with shit like this:

In real life you have to work hard to attain any kind of success.  And now that only 1 our of every 2 graduates are getting decent jobs out of college it no longer just applies to the arts.  The really remarkable thing is that the harder you work for it the sweeter the success feels at the end.

Now, I like working hard --  I like picking my writing apart, figuring out why it sucks and moving forward.   I tend to be my harshest self critic.  A person with a "It'll turn out all right in the end" or "rainbows, unicorn farts, and prayer will fix it" kind of attitudes really piss me off.

"No you don't understand --  I have a draft due to that prospective manager or agent in a week and I need to get it done."  Is not a defeatist statement and it can't be fixed with positive / wishful thinking.    My first reaction to this is, "how dare you trivialize the mountain of work I have to do."

(SIGH) -- The loved ones mean well.  

And they do.

When you (and by you I'm really writing to myself here) spend too much time in critical mode, it can lead to a downward spiral of negativity through every aspect of your life.  There must always be a balance.  The positivity comes in the form of perspective.

Feelings Toward School

This was a letter I wrote to a friend of a friend who is about to graduate high school and wants to be an actress.  She is talented enough to get into AMDA, but couldn't afford to go.

So you can't afford to pay for your school.  As an actor you need to realize that this is the first in a long long line of disappointments and denials. even successful actors hear "No" or "You can't" a thousand times more than they hear "You got the part" - The hardest aspect of the job - isn't acting, it is withstanding rejection and other pitfalls.  When I first moved to LA someone told me that every "overnight success" is ten years in the making. 

Take heart there are always alternatives. 

The best part about school is that it is a relatively stress free environment that is structured to make you learn. Finding a play or film to act in is easier in an educational setting than the real world. Networking is easier. And there is Homework - Are you really going to read a biography of Bertolt Brecht on your own instead of watching TV? What if you have a paper due on said book? The point is that education sets up incentives that real life doesn't. And a degree from a good school will unlock doors and give you opportunities that will otherwise be closed to you.

And there are plenty of better places than AMDA. I would hate to break it to AMDA but studying only musical theater and dance is really limiting for someone trying to enter a contemporary entertainment industry. If you've got good grades USC, NYU, Cal Arts, UC Irvine, Southern Oregon Uni... all have good acting programs and have carry more academic weight than AMDA does. If you don't have good grades, there are community colleges that you can use to get into the better schools. 

The other alternative is not going to school - Speaking as someone about to finish a masters in screenwriting that will cost me over $100,000, sometimes the schooling can be a hinderance to success. I say will cost me because the majority of that 100 grand I borrowed (student loans). For the next 30 years, I will be paying about 800 dollars a month for this education. That is on top of rent and bills and everything else. This makes it hard to take time off do other things that could further a career in entertainment or other life goals for that matter. Despite all the great promotional material, and other things these schools say - No School (not even the best school in the world) guarantees a job or a the part of your life in a show that'll make you famous/rich/successful.

If you want to be an actor - move to LA or NYC get a job with a flexible schedule and start doing any jobs that will get you on set. (Production Assistant, Extra) you can find these online with a quick search. Volunteer at places where you will meet other actors, writers, producers, directors, and other creative folks. Buy some books (or better yet get a library card and borrow the books) on acting, improv, play scripts, tv scripts, movie scripts - read as much as you can. Take classes in improv (UCB, Second City, Groundlings) or acting (ask around - private teachers can be shady). There's nothing like practical experience. Stay away from credit cards, embrace a thrifty life style, and realize that success (whatever that word might mean to you) will take a longer than you think. 

And if you decide at some point you want to go back to school, or do something else- it will ALWAYS be an option. The time to take chances and make mistakes is when you are young. 

This is just my epic 2 cents. I wish you the best of broken legs as you decide your future.