The Do-It-Yourself Ethos of Hollywood

It’s a crazy time in Hollywood:  You could be the head of a studio one day and out of a job the next.  In fact, a lot of my friends are scared about their jobs (because if your boss gets canned, most likely you are soon to follow).

And on top of this, studios are making less and less movies, and if they do make movies it is usually a sequel, prequel, or some sort of re-do.

So how do you break in?
Now is a great time to embrace the DIY model.  In fact, right now there is a great success story in theaters of filmmakers who did not wait for a studio to greenlight their movie but went out and did it themselves — and it resulted in a huge success for them!

The film PARANORMAL ACTIVITY was made for $11,000, and it was picked up by Paramount for a very limited release.  However, the film generated such great response and word of mouth that it quickly expanded to a wide release and is doing incredibly well.

Another example can be found in the two webisodes that David and Ian Purchase made for a total of $500. (See the link http://tinyurl.com/ykfpfbp)

These webisodes were filmed guerrilla style with no crew; they were made as a spec “advertainment” for the filmmakers’ demo reel. The webisodes garnered 1.5 million hits in three days and launched the brothers’ careers.  Now they are working on a feature film with a major producer.

This is clear proof that you don’t need a lot of money to go out and make something.  You can do it yourself.

That being said, make sure that you can make the movie you want to make for the budget that you have. In other words, know your limitations, know what works on a low budget and what doesn’t.

There is nothing worse than watching a a bad movie that just looks cheap and is done poorly.  And there is nothing better than watching a great movie and then going back and realizing how little it was actually made for.

Take destiny into your own hands and follow the DIY ethos of Hollywood!