Why filmmaking is the perfect job

Filmmaking is the greatest job in the world to me. It’s a business and art and I am the entrepreneur and the artist. I know there will be mistakes made along the way and I’m OK with that. I’m still going to do my best to keep pushing these results further.

Why do I get out of bed every morning and why should you care? I get out of bed every morning thinking that I have much to do and very little time to finish everything. My life becomes a series of adventures that I must pick and choose which ones are the most important. I wake up as Indiana Jones and I’m on a mission to go out and make some deals to not let the bad guys win.

What is in this for me personally though? I’d have to say inner peace. As a kid I’d always felt like I needed something and that it was missing from my life. I’d spend hours watching movies and listening to music with friends, instead of doing homework. I’d do the homework the morning of on the school bus. Making movies is the biggest sense of accomplishment out there for me as of now. It’s the perfect job for me. I get to sit at a desk or on the couch surfing the internet for a while and write out stories that come from ideas I get when reading news or seeing posts by other people or by watching a movie and I see a character I like and would want to see more of on screen. When I can’t sit down and write anymore, I go out and film anything that is in my personal blog or notebook of ideas. Then when I’m done filming I get to sit at the desk or couch again with laptop on and work on editing these ideas together, adding music scores and sound effects, cutting up scenes to make sense and rewriting the story again through editing. It’s a beautiful process and it really does put me in a zen state of mind.

What’s in it for you as the audience member? Communication in community. I’m building communities of people who love or hate my work and who love or hate me. Whether it’s the former or the latter, you the audience get that real emotion that others can relate to or disagree with, causing conversations to start with other people who have the same or differing opinions. Our ability to communicate through speech and language which uses our minds to comprehend and analyze data is part of that extraordinary process of building our lives together.

I believe in myself and I have to do it again and again. I have to keep going and pursue that destiny in storytelling. The oldest artform. The current state of affairs is great for movies. There’s a nice balance of films out there, from comic book movies to indie-dramas. And I want to present variations of them that are always old-fashioned but with something new.

Am I going to be able to work my dream job forever? Possibly. I do want to make movies and work with others that believe the same things I do. Working smart not hard, but also work hard. Work that extra hour, work that extra day. Change lives for the future to be better. All by having you getting to a movie theater or at home on your iPad for an hour or two. I’m not doing this for the money. Nor the recognition, and definitely not for celebrity, though I’m certain that will come. I do this because I love my life. I've lived a great life so far. I have a way with people that is understanding and can get a smile. It's a lost art. Filmmaking I’ve had to learn through trial and error. The way I can connect with people is a skill I was born with. I want to teach and lead people who want to be the same type of leader. Not because I’m a great leader. There’s better than me wherever I go. It’s because I’m true to myself, to my art, my family, friends, and to my audience. I don’t go about making spectators, I make people a part of a community. My community, your community, our communities. You reading this right here, right now, are in that community.

Things didn’t always go as I’d assumed. I never thought I’d be working in the movies. The thought never crossed my mind. I remember seeing Home Alone, Fievel Goes West, and Robocop, and Rocky as a kid, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life growing up. I had dreams of being in a rock’n’roll band as a teenager but I think that was more to meet girls. It worked back then, but that was me having more style than substance. I’ve had a decade of leveraging the two to a delicate balance. The reason movies have become such a huge impact on my life is that I can tell stories and people will be captivated to see what happens next. There are countless stories being told out there right now and I believe my stories are different. I’m different. My upbringing was different. I want others to see what I see, to know what I know, to feel what I feel, and to act on their ideas as well.

Living in Los Angeles makes a filmmaker jaded from seeing what really is successful. Too many people around you are doing the same thing and getting multiple awards for their work, but still they struggle, whether financially or artistically. That struggle is part of us and puts us in one world. I think we can come together in our daily struggles. I want to lead people to being true to themselves and to their community and their world. Sure, I want to make a splashy Hollywood blockbuster here and there. I’m only human. But I also want to tell the story of people that are human. Possibly the story of a cyborg with artificial intelligence too.

I end this journal with the casual quote which moves me forward. It’s simple yet means so much and also can easily be observed and analyzed deeply. It’s the words that I seek from others as a colleague and as a friend. It’s the people I like to be with that say this to themselves and aloud, and it brings out ways to do things that others say are impossible:

“Why not?”


Filmmaking is the perfect job for me because I am expected to make mistakes. Not only that, but I get to learn from my mistakes.

In my journey learning my craft, I have come to understand what people love, what people hate, and what people are willing to take as acceptable. This also explains the Studio's approach to filmmaking also.

So at this point I can either start making acceptable art that is at every movie theater or I can push the limits and possibly be hated. The opposite of that though is that it will change the entire industry, be imitated like no other and bring about international recognition. Doing either of those will not make me feel happy as an artist. I am choosing to make experimental film that will possibly have mainstream success. I am not looking for fame. I am looking to touch the top of the universe by a mistake.

Nothing goes your way so deal with it.

You know when you have something in mind when you try to make something artistic but it doesn't turn out at all like you want? That is the stress of being a film director. I write and I direct. Actors are great, they are there and do what is needed. But every other aspect of production falters.

I ended up being the last person to show up on set because of a snafu that happened mid-morning. The lady who is sponsoring the film didn't show up on time to get my order in. We needed sandwiches for the set and I submitted a proposal to her with a copy of the script, and storyboards. She was delighted to be a part of something and we agreed to meet at 11 AM. I wake up at the crack of dawn and get ready and am super prepared for the day ahead. I go there expecting her to be starting on it, but she is nowhere in sight. I ask and the guy at the front says that she should be in any minute. So I told him what was going on and if he could start the order for me. She shows up at 11:30. But to make it up she gave us a few bags of chips for our lunch to go with the sandwiches she donated for the cast and crew.  Saying that, I didn't leave to go to the set until noon. I was hoping to finish by 12:30 and then we could eat lunch...Nothing happens how you want it I guess.

I get there and there is a dump truck in front of my first location. Fine, I can deal with that. So we made our way to the next location and everything turned out OK. It was just odd that this was my project and I'm late. I'm super thankful that everyone there was understanding and no one complained.

I checked out the daily and it looks good. I got a lot of work ahead of me to edit this it into something manageable. Luckily, I'm officially a sponsored filmmaker. Now I can show people this and get more sponsors and more funding now.

Movies were my father.

My father didn't spend a lot of time with me growing up. He was never there for football games or anything. We'd go camping every summer, but I don't think me and him ever connected. I remember he didn't show up to my sister's high school graduation. That killed her. It was the happiest day and the saddest day for her. I'm not sure why our father was not close to us. And so it became movies that I grew up with and taught me about life.

Because of them I know how to fight. I watched tons of movies like Rocky, any kung-fu flick, action movies that taught me to live dangerously. Of course I've grown up now and don't need that thrill as much but any fighting done as a schoolkid was self taught.

I also learned how to talk to girls, and how to dance. Movies have traditionally been Boy meets Girl. That is where I learned about girls. By watching them and trying to understand them. Am I close to knowing what I want to know? No. But I'm closer to understanding what it means to be close to someone and letting them into my life as well.

I think movies have taught me what I want to be when I become a father. I want to be the caring dad, the understanding dad. The dad that plays baseball with his son. The dad that is there in every pivotal point in his son or daughter's life.  I owe the movies and am grateful to have known them.
 
My father never taught me any of these things. Movies were my father growing up.

Books on acting and directing

I'm not interested in how to write to how to lead actors. I'm interested in lives of writers or directors or actors. That is much more interesting. I started out reading books on acting. Method acting, Stanislavski's teachings. I read one book by David Mamet that changed my views. True and False. The learning I got from that book told what acting is without another need to learn more: Acting is about the self and there is only so much to read about finding your own style.  I never read another book on acting theory again after that. I now read on the lives of actors more than their style.

I moved to reading books on  producing movies. That led me to read books on Producers like Lawrence Turman and Robert Evans. Reading those books taught me what I needed to know more than a book on producing movies. It taught me what goes on in the life of a Producer.

That lead me to read books on Directors and directing. I read every book I could possibly buy and borrow. I read books on Orson Welles, David Lean, David Lynch- my heroes. Epic moviemaking.
 
This explains a lot about my style. I'm go with the flow. I realize there are things I won't be able to change. The picture in my head is not the picture people will see. They will see 0.0001% of what I see. That is my art to try to get people to think for themselves and feel a movie. We all see movies. What the emotion that I am trying to show is far more valuable than visually entertaining stories with only small plot.

I don't try to think about what people will say or who will like it or who will not. Van Gogh barely survived making his art, and only some people felt his genius. So there is only that. Make good art. Forget what someone tells you to do things a certain way. You will learn for yourself and become a better artist for it.

Burbank is hated by Los Angeles like New Jersey is hated by New York

People hate when other people want to move to Burbank instead of Los Angeles. It reminds me of how much a New Yorker hates New Jersey. Which is why New Jersey people kick serious ass when they hear about it. Based on pop culture and any TV shows depicting people from New Jersey, would you pick a fight with them? HELL NO. At least not old school Jerseyan's. (Jerseyite's?)

Burbank is different though. It's not Los Angeles, but it is very close. I'm sure a lot of people situated in deep L.A. don't want to hear that, but from an outsider-now-insider I am confident about it. Burbank is suburban. It is not ghetto. It has cleaner air than Los Angeles (until you get to the coast).

So Jersey is hated because it is supposedly worse, but Burbank is hated because it is supposedly better. Go figure. I love both areas. It is nice to get away from Los Angeles every once in a while and only going 10 minutes north is a great escape. Check out Burbank if you can. Their downtown scene is lively and plenty to do.