How To Pull A Movie Out Of Your Ass

Foreword

This book is for three types of people.

First, it is for all those folks who really want to make their first movie, but are frozen into inaction by fear or circumstances.

Second, it is for those folks who think they are too old or missed their chance.

The third set are those who think they need everything to be perfect before they can make that movie.

I belonged to all three of those groups.

Go out and stand in the sun, thaw yourself out, age is relative, nothing is ever going to be perfect. Stop whining, get that first movie made.

In the late summer of 2015, we shot a no-budget feature film, a comedy called KOPY KINGS, in Austin, TX. The production went off without a hitch, we won a pretty nice award in every film festival we got into, got the movie distributed to some 3 dozen streaming platforms, got some checks, and to this day we get emails from complete strangers telling us they love KOPY KINGS.

All of that information is 100% true and factual.

All of that information is of 0% practical use to any struggling filmmaker.

Filmmaking in general is a tough business all around, and it ain’t for the faint of heart or passing of interest. That being said, there isn’t anything about it that is not learnable by the average person, and in a short period of time. There is so much information and experience to draw from. Books such as this one, for instance, serve a good purpose: they give different points of view on the same experience that should help you to triangulate on what works for you.

Keep in mind that this is not a hard-and-fast, tried-and-true, step-by-step blueprint – some things that worked for us may not work – or even be relevant – for you. The important function of any book like this is to help you get un-stuck, and maybe figure out how to get around some thought patterns you may have that keep you from seeing the solution. It should answer some questions, allay some fears, and help you get into the mind-set of filmmaker.

Go out and read a few books; find as many as you can, talk to others who have done it – and watch a LOT of movies, good and bad. You will learn way more from a poorly made movie than an Academy Award winning one. Why? Because in a bad movie, all the mistakes are SO easy to spot. The problem with a well-made movie is that all the good shit is pretty much invisible to the average viewer.

The average viewer isn’t going to know the lens specs on which version of what camera, or the level sound was recorded at, or what method the actor used to arrive at that place in the scene, or what flags or gels or black wrap was used to get that effect and on and on. In a well-made movie, the average viewer just enjoys the ride and walks away amazed.

In a poorly made movie, everything is obvious: poor lighting, lousy sound, horrible acting and/or dialogue, janky editing etc. It is a better teacher of what NOT to do, or what to watch out for. Even if you don’t know exactly why, you will know that having good sound is important, having a great script is paramount. Any dummy can see that when it is done so poorly.

So, watch a lot of movies, see and hear what doesn’t work, lock that into your head and try not to do THAT. Same thing with the script, get your hands on as many as you can and read them - see what works. Start with scripts from movies you know, then move on to random scripts you have never seen before and try to figure out if they would work on screen.

A lot of this costs very little to no money at all to do, but it is a very important step in your filmmaking career. At first you will likely try to mimic your favorites, or at least have winks and nods to certain movies or directors, and eventually you will develop your own style that others may one day mimic – but for now – let’s concentrate on getting that first one out.

It can be very intimidating for different reasons, but it needs to be done, and the sooner you do it, the sooner you can get on with your career and actually call yourself a filmmaker.

This book is geared more toward the first-time filmmaker who does not have any money to speak of, but may have some experience in the industry - say, an actor or a crew member that has as a long-term goal of making their own movies - as opposed to someone who on a whim just decides to make a movie. In reality, this applies to both, but there will be some inherent issues in trying to make a movie with ABSOLUTE zero experience or network.

Let me make something VERY clear right now: I am in no way trying to discourage anyone from making their movie, it may sound like it, and it may be a bit much to absorb all at once, but what I am offering is a first-hand account of getting a first feature film made by someone who just waited way too long to get that first one made. Nearly everything in here has happened to me, or someone I know.

Everybody knows how to skydive, right? You put on a parachute, you go up in a plane, you jump out and you land, right? But then once they actually go to skydive, they find out there are SO MANY more steps to it than that? Well, that’s what I’m hoping to do with this book for you first-time filmmakers - fill in some of those steps so that maybe it goes a little easier for you and you cut yourself some slack.

I don’t know everything, I am not highly skilled at everything, there is a lot I still have no idea how it works, and I rely HEAVILY on the experience and talent of those I hire as crew. You can not make a movie all by yourself, it takes a team, and your final product will be better for it. I think there is some useful info in here for you to cross-reference and be better prepared to embark on your project.

I know, it just all feels so convoluted, and a bit contradictory, and maybe a lot impossible, I mean there is SO much that depends on something else happening first - the sheer chicken-and-eggitivity of trying to raise money alone is extremely daunting. It literally feels like, at this level of the food chain, the only way to make a movie is by pulling one out of your ass.

So get wired on your favorite caffeinated drink, dust off your swearing vocabulary, and let me tell you exactly how we pulled a movie out of our asses.

* * * MY FIRST FEATURE FILM ATTEMPT * * *

In January of 2008, I started writing a script for a story about HOAs. I was working with a writing partner, which I had never done before, and quite frankly did not care much for at all. We thought we had a great story, and the project seemed to snowball as the weeks and months went by.

I was co-producing and co-directing this feature with someone I did not really know well; they had done a feature before, I had not. We collaborated on a short I rewrote for him, and co-directed that. It won some awards, got some reviews.

I will not bore you with the sordid details, but this partner and I did not work together well – we have very different ways of handling a production; and ultimately, after all the name calling and screaming died down, I blamed myself for what occurred, because I did not trust my gut enough at the beginning, nor did I listen to various sources that warned me it would indeed happen.

The short story is that we raised a bit of money, hired some real names – Erin Moran and Eddie Mecca – to play large roles, and some Texas local actors who were absolutely born to play their roles in the leads. But a lot kept getting done that was not the way things should have been done, and three days before we started filming on a 21 day schedule, I had my last really big misgiving about how things were going to work, but I brushed them aside thinking it was just jitters and inexperience.

We started filming on October First, 2008. A day or two in, maybe, we started to notice the crew members and producers looking at their Blackberries a LOT. I mean A LOT. By day 3 the calls started; it seems that about a week earlier, the end of September, shit started to get really fucking ugly on Wallstreet., like another crash ugly, Big Short ugly. People were losing a lot of money, from big big money, down to little money, like the kind of money our investors were using to fund our project.

The calls were investors telling us they had to back out because they were getting hammered by losses. We had some money in our account, so we figured we might be able to limp along and maybe find more investors, couldn’t be that bad, yeah?

By Day 7 we were stopped, by day 10 we were dead in the water, and I FINALLY put my foot down and said no, we are not shooting one more second of this project with no plan in place to pay people. And if the rest of them wanted to continue, it would be without me. And that was it.

And that Market Crash, while being our biggest coffin-nail, would not have been the only one – not by a long shot. There were SO many other things wrong with that production it wasn’t even funny. Technical issues to crew issues to egos and flat-out stupidity, even if we had been able to finish filming – we would not have a viable final product at the end. The Stock Market crash simply saved our asses in my opinion.

If you ever get a chance, find a documentary called LOST IN LA MANCHA. It started as a Making of movie, but turned into a doc about the rise and fall of Terry Gilliam’s project THE MAN WHO KILLED DON QUIXOTE. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong on that project.

And that is what our HOA project was like – from Day One when SAG shut us down for lack of paperwork, to the last day of me being outside during our last crew meeting together, on the phone with someone who could have bankrolled us who just could not take the chance due to the current state of the Stock Market. I still can’t really talk about it without flying off the handle – but again, the blame is squarely on my shoulders in my mind – I didn’t stop it when I could have.

THAT was the single best teacher for me as a filmmaker, and it greatly colored the way I behaved when KOPY KINGS was getting up and running.

* * * * * * * * *

Scene 1

To be honest, I am writing this for selfish reasons. I really like movies, just love everything about them. Well, almost everything. The one thing that really sands my crack is when we have little choice of what to watch when we are in the mood for something different.

Ask Carmen - my wife – ask her how many times we’ll be fifteen minutes into a movie, and I start up with my eye-rolling bullshit, followed quickly by 50,000 filmmakers out of work and THIS turd gets made?

See, most of the new, exciting, original voices tend to come from brand new creatives. In general. According to me. The established filmmakers have already figured out how it all works, they settle into a very comfortable rut, and they have the wherewithal to crank out as much as they can as quickly as they can. And, a lot of times, that leads to not being as creative as they may have been in the past.

So, when we want to watch something new and different, we turn to indie films, whether domestic or foreign. A lot of times, you can find a really cool little gem done for very little money, and is likely a tad rough around the edges - but that is seriously part of the charm.

The problem is that there are not enough first-time filmmakers out there that get their projects in front of eyeballs, for a bunch of different reasons. I can’t really help much with a lot of those reasons – such as distribution, marketing, financing, etc., but I think I can help a bit – I hope I can help a bit.

This book was written in hope of imparting practical information on making your first movie, perhaps helping you to set up some realistic expectations, and supporting you in your journey.

Some of the major roadblocks to filmmakers getting that first film made are:

1. Money.

2. Lack of money.

3. Not enough Money.

4. Too little money. And

5. Not making their movie out of sheer, whole-body-paralyzing, irrational, all-encompassing, abject fear.

The first four? Eesh, we will talk about that later. That fifth one? DAMN. That’s the big one. It has SO many moving parts. So many big, hairy, six-inch-fanged demons behind it. So many excuses. So many reasons. So many Ifs and Buts and Can’ts and WHAAAAAAAAs. So you decided to be a filmmaker. Congratulations. You are completely, utterly, absolutely FUCKED.

But you know what the great thing is about being completely, utterly, absolutely fucked? It sets you free, man. If you are already completely, utterly, absolutely fucked… what do you have to lose?

Scene 1 Apple

Filmmaking in General

In general, movies get made something like this:

A script gets written

The project gets packaged

Some money is raised

Assets are collected – actors, crew, locations etc.

More money is raised

The movie gets made

The movie gets edited and post work done

The movie hits festivals

The movie gets distribution

The movie gets watched and adored by millions

Money rolls in hand over fist

These are very broad strokes for simplification, but there is a general flow to how the movie gets made when a fairly experienced person gets to making movies. Sometimes it moves slowly, sometimes there are some steps that get nudged and massaged around, other times it just attaches to a rocket, all for various reasons. Both studio and independent films alike are done like this, and there is a reason for it.

The No-Budget Indie Film (NBIF) uses the same broad strokes as above. The only difference is the steps are made of broken glass, and they are on fire, and they are tied to squirrels that are tweaked on crack and blind in one eye. The steps are there, they just don’t quite occur in that order, or with the same amount of oomph, or sometimes they don’t or can’t show up at all.

Independent film merely means it was not done by a major studio, but even an independent film can have a huge budget.

The term No Budget is kinda relative; in general it just means you had no great amount of money to speak of for what the production is. So as you can imagine, ONLY 1 million to make a movie with a name actor like, say, Jason Momoa would be considered no budget, because Jesus, Momoa probably eats a million bucks in sushi alone. But a million to make an indie film with a bunch of no name actors in one location with a cast and crew of twelve is a pretty big budget.

In reality, you can not really make a movie for absolutely zero dollars; well, you probably could, but man, that would be something. You would have to get absolutely everything donated, including the gas for transportation, and all the food and props and batteries, etc. In short, there is actually a lot that needs paying for, so there is usually some cost generated by any production.

What I will be talking about is the less-than-$100k range No Budget movie. NBIFs are a very common breed, and damn near every single filmmaker, actor or crew member out there has made one or worked on one – likely more – before they got to where they are now. If you are into film, you have undoubtedly read about the el Mariachises and Blair Witches and Followingses that have gotten made on under 10k budgets; but for every film that was made for peanuts and did well at the box office, there are 100 more that just plain looked like a $5k movie and SUCKED, never saw the light of a screen, and are unwatchable from Minute One.

More often you will hear about the Girl Walks Home Alone At Nightses, and Paranormal Activitieses and Napolean Dynamiteses – movies made in the double- or triple-digit thousands that made millions in return. Now, there are an equal number of those double- to triple-digit thousands movies that sucked or languished, because that is just the way statistics work. But that is the type of no budget we are talking about here.

NBIFs can be fun and exciting, which they usually are at first, but they can also be so totally soul-crushing that they act as a preemptive strike against the career choice. So, if you are serious about it, keep reading, and make this your battle cry: REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS.

I am hoping to give some insight and info to help you understand and get on with it, because that first feature (or even short) can paralyze the first-timer. You don’t really know what you are doing because you have never done it before? Well, every single person that has ever lived at one time or another did something for the very first time. AND, it has always been my opinion that you learn not one god damned thing from doing everything right the first time around. Take a deep breath and get your ass in gear, man.

So, if you are like me in any way, shape or form, I hope this book helps you in some small way. Do I know everything? Are you kidding me? NO. Am I extremely successful? NO. Am I going to tell you everything is going to be okay, just reach for the stars and WISH a BIG WISH and all your dreams will come true? YEAHno. THAT would be nothing short of irresponsible.

What I will tell you in the pages of this bloated pamphlet, is that it isn’t impossible, but it will be difficult. Can I promise you that if you work really hard one day every one of you will be a major Film Force to be reckoned with? Nuh-uh… but some of you might. Evabody starts somewhere. You ain’t gonna love it all the time, in fact you will fucking hate it a lot of times, but when the dust clears, you will more than likely enjoy what you did, and maybe keep doing it.

So grow a thick skin, keep an open mind, and try to find that One Thing in this book that motivates you.

Scene 1 Biography

Some Backstory on Me

You hear a lot about how – in almost any industry – it takes money to make money, and kids lucky enough to have mommy and daddy buy them a life get ahead a lot faster than everyone else. Yes. Very sad. Anyway… that’s life, man. If you had connections and money you’d zip ahead just as likely – but the point is: not every single person that has money and connections has talent or ability, nor do they stay up there once they get there. The industry is rife with folks that had the money to step ahead in line that are now just footnotes and sad stories.

Talent and ability and money (and hard work too, as a matter of fact) are not necessarily the only things that get you anywhere, but they do factor-in in a big way in keeping you there once you arrive. GETTING somewhere has a lot of moving parts, some of the biggest being timing and luck of the draw. So don’t worry too much right now about where you came from and where you are at the moment, yes it makes you who you are, but it is not the definitive factor in getting you to where you want to be.

I love EVERYTHING about this industry, even the stuff I hate. As a whole, at my age, it still just fascinates the crap out of me, and I wouldn’t want to work in anything else. I have some formal education in the biz (which is just a bit outdated in today’s game), am largely self-taught, do not come from money, and have never made a great deal of money doing it. I came to the filmmaking party late, and I have very few major connections – and yet I still love it.

I was 50 before I finally made my first movie – to put a finer point on it, I was 50 before my first feature got completed (finished filming two months before my 51st birthday). I had made some shorts, and actually was working on a feature seven years earlier, but it crashed and burned. That C & B was the best thing that ever happened to me, as it turned out, because it made my next movie REALLY easy to handle.

I grew up in a tiny little hamlet in Upstate New York. Hamlet means a freakin’ spot out in the BFE with not many people – 500, according to the official road sign. My father was a forest ranger and my mother was a nurse. 75% of what I wore had been worn by my two older brothers first. We had large gardens and raised chickens, turkeys and pigs on our chunk of land in the northern Adirondacks. Our entire Fall was a steady diet of chopping and stacking firewood, canning veggies and fruits, and processing meat for the winter, which in that part of the country lasted about 16 months.

Not very urban. We got three local-ish TV channels and maybe two more from Canada, all of which could be accessed by having someone climb on the roof and turn the antenna by hand, mostly during a lightning storm. And that someone was usually me.

Our neighbor across the street, whose family built