How to Make it Big in Hollywood Baby!

Last week a reader asked me what the best route is to jump-starting a career in the industry. It’s not an easy question to answer because this business is like no other. There is no clear path, no degree that promises an income, no steps that guarantee success. But there are tons of opportunities and if you’re open enough, creative enough and resilient enough you should be able to make them work for you.

I think the first step is making sure that what you’re aiming for is indeed what you want. Lots of people start in the industry thinking they want to act or direct. But frequently it’s the image of acting and directing that they’re drawn to, not the actual work of actors and directors. Many people don’t truly enjoy or aren’t suited to the nuts and bolts of those professions. There are lots of great careers within this industry and if you can focus in on what you want to do early, you’ll have that much more of a head start on everyone else. This website could be a great resource in helping make that decision.

OK. So you want to direct. You’re sure? OK. You’re sure. Well, then you have to ask yourself what kind of director you want to be. What kind of material do you most want to do. If you want to direct tv or indie film or commercials or studio pictures you will make different decisions as you build your career. And if you think you don’t need to be decisive, think again. There are way too many people in Hollywood for the available jobs so that results in a highly compartmentalized and seriously competitive industry. Commercials directors find it hard to make movies, television directors rarely direct music videos, etc. Pretty much the only people that can move effortlessly are feature directors and it can take a lifetime to get to that point. Don’t waste time thinking you’ll be one type of director so you can move later to what you really want. Go after what you really want starting now.

Once you have a clear and specific vision of what you want to do here are some ways to get started.

• Make movies! It doesn’t matter where you are or how much money you have you must make movies. Do it with a pinhole camera, do it with a 35mm camera, do it with a pencil, paper and stills camera. The only way to develop your voice and to get better is to practice. Make movies, show your movies, make more movies. I saw an amazing film at Tribeca a few years ago that was made on a cell phone. So poor filmmakers beware, that little voice is an excuse!
• Submit your good movies to film festivals. Realistically. In the beginning, the goal is to get screened so you can see your film play to strangers, it is not to get into Sundance, so focus your applications appropriately - they’re expensive. Withoutabox and Reelport are the best resources for festival applications.
• Put your work out there and get feedback. Put it on the web, have a screening, send out dvd’s. (And when getting feedback, keep your mouth shut. Just trust me on this one. I personally like to write everything down and then think about it later.)
• Use the feedback to get better. A rule of thumb I like to use is that if three totally unrelated people give me the same note - I better take a look at it because it’s there whether I can see it or not. But I also weight opinions more heavily based on who they come from. If I know and respect a person and know he has similar tastes as I do I will pay more attention to that person’s feedback than someone who I do not know.
• Network - put yourself out there, meet people, learn about the industry, join a group, start a group.
• Read the trades - Hollywood Reporter and Variety. It’s really boring shit in the beginning, but when you start putting the pieces all together and learning who’s who it begins to read more like a high school newsletter than anything. Gossip & all! Cynopsis is a great site that summaries the daily tv news.
• Go to film school. I’m becoming less convinced of this route, but ask me again in ten years and I might come back around. What you get from film school is time to make and watch movies, contacts and club membership. What you might also get is enormous student loan debt that is a real life hindrance when you graduate. And since more and more film schools are going digital why not just buy a camera and have some self-discipline? You can make the same contacts by volunteering on these student’s films. If you’ve got money film school rocks. If not, it’s a much less clear option.
• Apply to grants and programs. There’s tons of great stuff out there. Get online and do some research.
• Work your contacts. Your Aunt Buffy once dated a guy who directs Sesame Street? Call her, ask her to make the connection. Meet him, learn from him, see if you can shadow him and ask if he has anyone else he thinks you could meet. Don’t be annoying, creepy or psycho about it, but work your contacts.
• Get an internship.
• Get a job. You’ve got a local tv station? Sounds better than the DQ to me.
• Don’t worry about representation. They will find you when it’s in your interest. That’s their job. I know this sounds crazy, but trust me - even if you do get signed early they can’t really do that much for you. Wait until your hand is stronger and you’ll get a better result all around.
• Write. This option annoys me because I believe writing and directing are two different skills that should be perfected separately but Hollywood does not give a crap about what I think. The truth of the matter is that many directors get their first shots because they wrote an amazing script that they refuse to allow anyone else to direct. If someone wants your script it may be your best opportunity to direct. But you better be right, because it may also kill your project entirely.
• See movies. Get a netflix account, go to festivals, see the big budget blockbusters and the video art at the museum. Watch it all. You will learn about filmmaking, about the industry, and about your own personal tastes.
• Most importantly, have a life. If you don’t have real life experiences, your work will be shallow and vapid. Movies are about life, not about lighting, shots or actors.

There are many different routes to directing, none of them are a sure thing and you can’t do it all. Some things you can control and some you cannot. But like when you make a movie and every decision is about reinforcing the theme, so is building a career. Every choice every day is an opportunity to get closer.

Lastly, I think the best thing you can do is relax. Give yourself time to accomplish your career. It’s the best way to rid yourself of that horrible stench of desperation that clings to many people in La-la-land. Be patient with yourself, be realistic, work hard and don’t forget to enjoy what you’re doing. If you’re not happy it just doesn’t make sense, there any many other easier ways to suffer in this world than torturing yourself in the film industry.

Here’s the thing, it is statistically impossible that you, me or anyone else is going to make it big this year or ever so sit back, relax, plan a long career and if uber-success does come knocking, consider it a bonus.

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Extra bonus wonderfulness (added 8/22)… Coincidentally, Norman Hollyn has a great blog about a similar topic this week.   Check it out - “Go West, Young Man” - Getting Work in Editing.

Best Laid Plans…

 

Alright party people, I have no idea who’s reading this blog but I’m assuming it’s people interested in actually making movies.  With that in mind, I thought it might be fun to get into the nitty-gritty of the process a bit.  (It occurred to me that you don’t really see this stuff unless you’re involved in creating it so I hope this is helpful to some fellow filmmakers out there!)

Here’s an early draft of the schedule for my upcoming feature.  Of course anything can change but this is where we’ve started our thinking.  Basically, it’s a romantic comedy, with six main characters, in New York City, SAG low budget agreement.

You’ll notice anything that can affect the schedule at all is noted – holidays, conflicts, and the festivals we’re aiming for. Some factors that are considered are prep time, festival deadlines, time of year, weather, hours of daylight, tourist season, etc.

Of course you don’t really get to this point until a rough shooting schedule and budget has been done, so this is really the second step, but I think this larger view of the process is more useful to see than strips or day out of days for a script that I can’t really share yet.

I hope this is useful.  

(Apologies for the formatting - I couldn’t figure out how to keep the formatting of my document so it’s looking like a list.)

Rough Schedule – 1^st Draft

Sept., Oct.

Meet potential HoD’s, begin shot list & overheads

November

Hire HoD’s, complete shot list & overheads

Dec., Jan.

Dead Months - Holidays & Sundance

January

DP - 1-2 weeks only

revise shot list

January 19

Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday

February 9

Casting Director

2 months out

February 9

Storyboard Artist

2 months out (director shot list & overheads due)

TBD

Line Producer/UPM

TBD

Location Scout/Manager

February 16

President’s Day

February 23

Production Designer

5 weeks out

March 2

1st AD

4 weeks out

March 9

DP

3 weeks out

April 2 - May 6

SHOOT

5 weeks (may need 6 weeks - if so shoot 1 wk. earlier)

April 2

Editor & team

cut during shooting

May 13

Assembly Cut

1 week

May 14 - 17

Reshoots/Pick Ups

May 25

Memorial Day

May 19 - May 31

Director’s Wedding? (anywhere within 5/12 - 5/26)

June 1

Editor’s Assembly Cut

+ 3 weeks

June 22

Director’s 1st Rough Cut

+ 5 weeks

July 4

Independence Day

July 6

Director’s 2nd Rough Cut

+ 8 weeks

July 15

Director’s Cut - delivery

+ 10 weeks (July 15)

August 19

Lock Picture

+ 15 weeks

September 7

Labor Day

November

Deliver Picture

3 months audio post

June

Toronto Deadline

June

AFI Early Deadline

July

AFI Regular Deadline

August

Sundance Early Deadline

September

Sundance Regular Deadline

September

Toronto Film Festival

November

Tribeca Early Deadline

November

AFI Film Festival

November

Berlin Deadline

December

Tribeca Regular Deadline

December

SXSW Deadline

January

Sundance Film Festival

February

Berlin Film Festival

February

LA Deadline

March

SXSW Film Festival

May

Tribeca Film Festival

May

Cannes Film Festival

June

LA Film Festival

 

Doing Battle in Hollywood

These last two weeks (sorry for missing a blog) I’ve been greenlit to direct a commercial for the Elevate Film Festival, invited to chair a new board created to benefit recipients of The Caucus Foundation Grants, got completely excited about a new actress my casting director introduced me to, lost an option on a book that I’d been in negotiations on for nearly a year, was asked to direct another short film and received a new draft of my feature with… more notes to be addressed.  Magically, all of this seems to be colliding the day I’m taking a holiday weekend.  Perfect.

Needless to say I have not had a second to breathe.  It’s now 5:56am and if I want to leave town today by 11am as planned I have to read the script and give useful notes, respond to ideas about the new short film and write this blog.  Eek!

Of all the great things happening now, the one I think worth detailing is the book option that just fell apart.  Honestly, it was pretty heartbreaking.  After a year of negotiations on an obscure book I absolutely love and of raising more and more money to accommodate the writer’s ever-increasing last-minute requests, we finally realized they had no intention of signing.  We “closed” many times but “signing” eluded us.  Ultimately we had to walk away.  Now we’ve got $20k sitting around burning a hole in our pockets and I wish more than anything that it were sending that writer’s kids to school so my partners and I could be putting the story on the screen.

It was a strange situation from the start.  We inherited the project from two other producers who decided the material was too indie for them.  The story is small and the tone is dark and the other producers knew they would never make their money back if they made it as big as they’re accustomed to and they didn’t have the taste for indie filmmaking.  So they introduced my producer to the writer’s representation and we started anew.  Only it wasn’t really starting anew because once a writer gets the idea that two people might be interested in their material they always think surely other people will be interested.

Our lawyer warned us he was having trouble early on – the other lawyer was asking for things that were completely off the wall and when she didn’t want to deal with our lawyer she would call one of us directly to try to divide an conquer - but we loved the material and just couldn’t believe they would negotiate with us as long as they did if they didn’t want to take our money.  In the end, they didn’t. 

We have no idea what they wanted.  Attention?  The experience of power felt by wasting other people’s time?  Who knows.  We know no one else was after the material – it’s not the easiest to adapt - and the writer has never been produced.  Maybe this is why.

For a while we thought the lawyer was misrepresenting her client but in the end they seemed to be on the same page.  We still suspect there was a bit of the lawyer posturing in front of her client and then getting herself in a corner she couldn’t back out of so let the deal die to save face.  But I really hope that’s not it – that’s just incredibly lame and grossly cavalier.  I don’t think we’ll ever know what really happened. 

But the upside is that after all of that struggle we (myself and three producers – one of whom I’ve never worked with before) know that we love working with one another.  Our communication was great, our styles were similar, our work ethics matched well.  And since it’s actually the people that make filmmaking difficult, not the work itself, this is a huge bonus.  We know we want to work together again and now we have some hard-raised money to spend - we’ve just got to find the right material.  So all in all, not a bad result.

On that note, I’ve got a script to read and am then off to Palm Springs for the weekend to nurse my battle wounds and will be eager to start the hunting process all over again when I return next week!