FilmBiz 101

Good DAY KIDS and welcome to FILM BIZ 101.!

You’re going to learn everything I needed to know to be an aspiring Independent filmmaker of features, shorts, animation, documentaries, commercials and most of all…music videos.

So I assume you want to be a filmmaker?
(Say to yourself or just yell out loud right now: 'YES!!')
First of all, you ARE a filmmaker, as my buddy Robert Rodriguez claims everyone to be. You are one the moment you think of being one. Don't dream about being a filmmaker, you are a filmmaker. Make yourself a business card that says you're a filmmaker, pass them out to your friends and you are a filmmaker. Think like one!

Let's Begin

What you need to learn is that being creative is not enough. You have to become technical and a great listener. Technical people can never be creative and that’s because creative people are born creative. It’s something they'll never get. You can't buy it, find it, study it - you're born with it. Too many creative people don't want to learn how to be technical. That’s why they depend a lot on technical people. Becoming technical is easy as learning your ABC’s. And if you are creative and technical, you're unstoppable.

Experience – To start…you have experience already because you watch films. So you start by paying your dues. How? Not by paying fees, by using the internet and visiting mandy.com or craigslist.com and search for jobs that don’t pay and offer you to get your hands dirty in action in exchange for a credit, food, transportation and a tape. When you’re doing it…mingle and scar the producer or director that hired you by making them remember the things you did on the production. Kiss ass creatively and they will call you on the next gig. Then you bargain on getting paid and you gained your experience.

Screenplay -
Everyone writes the same way. But everyone speaks different. Write the way you speak. That makes you unique. That’s makes you…creative. The way you can tell someone a story, record your words on tape telling it and then play it back and write it! You got yourself a story or more like the industry would say, a TREATMENT.

How do I write a script then?
Go online or go to Barnes and Nobles and look for books on SCREENPLAYS or templates. If you go online you can make and readjust one without shifting the formats and place your words from your treatment on there. If you read a book at Barnes and Nobles expect to be there a bit. Get comfortable and have your treatment with you and make notes. If you don’t have money to purchase a program like FINAL DRAFT or SCREENWRITER 2000 go to Google search and type in Free Screenwriting software. And you will find trails or free downloads that serve as templates for you to use. But if you don’t have the internet…then bum off someone’s computer or hit the library an access it for free.

How do you make a movie with no budget?
Everything around you is usable for the making of a movie. When you write your script make sure that everything you write or create are THINGS or PERSONS you know you can get or already have so that you don’t have to pay for it. Take stock in what you have. Your mother owns a gas station - make a movie about a gas station. Do you have a cat? Make a movie about your cat. Your father works in a go-go joint, make a movie about your father getting home in the morning after working his shift at the go-go joint.

How do you map out a movie?
Make a blank screen for yourself and watch your movie. Close your eyes and stare at this. Imagine a screen, imagine your movie and hear them all eating away on popcorn. Shot for shot, cut for cut. Sit there, close your eyes and get rid of everybody, get rid of all your thoughts in your head except your movie and watch your movie. Is it too slow? Is it too fast? Is it funny? Does it make sense? Watch it and then write down what you see. Write down the shots that you see. And then add a little music to it and dance with it.

Where do I get the actors?
Get your friends, family gods, cats and everyone you can think of. Put them in your script. Put them in your movie. But for your important roles you can place ads for free on shootingpeople.com or if you are looking for hotties go to onemodelplace.com for your music videos or commercials. These places allow you to interact directly with them and see their pictures online and they can get back to you at no cost. What you want to pay them in SERVICES is completely up to you. BUT DO NOT and I REPEAT DO NOT…STAR IN YOUR OWN MOVIE!!!

I got no money for Equipment.
You don't want anything too fancy, remember this is your first movie - you're not Robert Rodriguez yet. I used this German dude named Flynt. He owned all his gear and I told him…dude…check I out, I got a budget and its this much, I’ll feed you rice and beans which includes diapers and you’ll have a kick ass Latino feature film on your reel. He did it. The guy came in for my feature film, “Red Passport” with an Arri35bl, cinemascope lenses, lights, a truck, a crane, tracks, a crew, sound and memoirs of his wife and kids in Berlin . It was on. But if you had let say $2000 you can rent a 16mm camera, lenses, and a tripod. Or you can get a lot more if you pay someone who owns EVERYTHING DIGITALLY from camera to editing. Now don’t spend the $2000, get some monkey to pay it. MAKE SURE YOUR MONKEY IS NOT A CRIMINAL BECAUSE IF HE’S DOING ILLEGAL ACTIVITES HE WILL FREEZE UP YOUR PRODUCTION AND YOU WILL BE STUCK. Ask my best friend, Val Lik Director of the film. I’m not kidding. But someone legit will be smart enough to write off the expense. How do you find the crew? Put a posting ad up for free at www.mandy.com. You’ll get an entire entourage for free!

TIP: If you want to do it on your own and you have a camera, a DV camera then you can go to a pharmacy or speak to your grandmother and borrow a wheelchair. That is the poor man’s smoothest Steadicam without tracks you can have. You need a tripod but don’t have one, use your hands or sit the camera on something steady. You need lights and a stand. Go to Home Depot, buy one of those industrial lights. Get a ceramic pot and place to bricks and a pole of a mop in it. Get c-clamps and clap the lights on. Go to a hardware store or a lighting store and buy GAFFERS TAPE. That shit will hold anything. Don’t over light. You can color correct that in editing.

With sound try to avoid shooting in areas where there is a lot of noise…airplanes, trains, buses, commotion…best places are where you can control your crowd and location. That way you can use one boom mike, like I did in Red Passport. And that was all I used throughout the entire making of the film!

Postproduction/Editing.
When you've finished shooting your movie what do you do? You find someone with a computer and a video editing program and bam! Video editing systems, computer editing systems, anything like that, its immediate, its easy, its cheap. Do not cut on film. Film is your enemy. You may be shooting on film but don't cut on film. If you shoot on film, transfer that bitch to video. If any of you want to cut on film get out of my website RIGHT NOW!!!!. Go spend $100,000 on a real film and do that.

I’m not going to spend time explaining why. If you want to know why, then enroll in film school.

FINISHED??
So you've made your movie, you've cut it, you've got it out.. What do you do? The first thing you want to do is get it into a film festival…without getting an agent - right away. But if you get lucky and get an agent just by showing them your movie then grab them and let them represent you. Hollywood is full of sharks, and you can use a shark to work for you. These guys go and get you what Hollywood offers. The best deals. But in the case you don’t get a shark then you become a fish.

Swim with people at the festivals and promote the crap out of your work. On the web, newspapers and all the media attention there is. At the festivals you will meet distributors that will want to buy your film. How to do you make a deal with them? For a listing of the festivals go online and find it in search and you should get about a million festivals around the world.

Big TIP! Believe it or not…the small festivals are bigger than you may think. If you don’t get into Cannes , or Sundance you will be able to show it at another 998,999 film festivals that exist around the world. Red Passport was not accepted at Sundance but it went and won awards at more than 35 festivals around the world…and I got to travel to more than 15 countries in one year…at the festivals expense! So do not get discouraged if you get a rejection letter from Sundance, Cannes or Toronto . There is plenty of life after them…and real parties too!

So what I have taught you here or learned no one else has. It’s cheap to make a movie. And the crazy FACT is that no one in Hollywood knows how to make one.

Like Robert Rodriguez once quoted to a bunch of students in a desert, “You guys can make them cheap, you guys can make them better, don't get swallowed in the system, take advantage of your position”. And that’s a FACT jack!

Today I make movies and music videos that are still low budget but they look like big budget movies. The money adds up and you’ll always be busy.

Here are some sites I use when I’m producing/directing my projects:
OneModelPlace.com
ShootingPeople.com
Mandy.com
FujiFilm - stock and products
FilmMakerMagazine
CraigsList.com
MagnoSoundAndVideo
B&H Photo and Video
Expedia.com
and FilmFestivals.com