Hollywood Report: Think Strategically

At American Film Institute (AFI) this week my business partner and I spoke on a panel about representation, and I thought it would be beneficial to the FilmBlogger community to share the three major points the panel discussed:

Point 1:
Be smart. Think strategically.  If you are a director looking to launch his/her career, does it make more sense to first direct a feature or a short?  As representation, we’d rather watch a short feature than a 40-minute short.  First, it give us a much better idea of your skills, voice and creative vision as a director.  Second, there is also a lot more potential to create buzz of a great indie feature than a great short.

Also, it is much much easier for a director to get a second feature off a first feature than to get a first feature off a short.  Additionally, with a feature, even if it is really low budget, there are actually distribution possibilities, so you could even find commercial success with your first feature!

Think about the facts: BLAIR WITCH cost only $60,000 to make, ran 86 minutes, and grossed $240 million! OPEN WATER cost $130,000, ran 81 minutes, and grossed $40 million. THE PUFFY CHAIR cost $15,000, ran 85 minutes, and
launched the careers of the directors Jay and Mark Duplass.

If you are going to spend a lot of money on a short, for the same money you may be able to make an 88-minute feature and it will be much more beneficial for you career.

Point 2:
You have to love this business and want to do it more than anything in the world. This business is hard and crazy and disappointing and will break your heart a lot. Thus you have to do it because you love it and because there is nothing else in the world you want to do.

Plus this business is a 24/7 business. No matter what you are doing, you are constantly working trying to further your career. If you are a writer and haven’t made it yet — you still have to find the time to earn a living, write and still go
out at night and network. If you are an executive trying to find the next emerging writer, you somehow have to find the time to work a 12-hour day plus go out at night to network, and then wake up in the wee hours of the morning to
finish reading all the scripts you told your boss you were going to read.

In fact, what we tell potential clients is that we want people whose only goal is to work in this industry and they would be homeless bums on the street if they didn’t do this.  And we want clients who are passionate about this business and who are going to work 24/7 just like we do.

If you could be happy doing anything else in the world, my advice is to run towards that!

Point 3:
Everything is subjective. Everyone has different tastes, which is what makes entertainment so interesting, diverse and fun.  What one person might love, another person might not respond to at all — and that’s okay. In fact, I loved STEP UP 2 but couldn’t get through THERE WILL BE BLOOD. While most people would think it’s blasphemy to say this, it is simply a matter of what I respond to. By the same token, I never take on projects or people that I just don’t respond to, no matter how talented they are because I know that ultimately, I am not the right person for them.

And you should take this lesson to heart because you are going to have a lot of people pass on you or your project.  But if you have a really good piece of material, do not get discouraged — it just means that you have to find the right person who sees the same vision you do.  And if you meet someone who wants to work with you but doesn’t see you or your project the same way you do, then that person isn’t the right person for you or the project.

Never try to fit a square peg into a round hole.  No matter how much you push, this will never work.