Spielberg doesn't have an infinite number of nephews; you won't always be going against them.
Spielberg doesn't have an infinite number of nephews; you won't always be going against them.
Quoting Sycophant (view post)
But that's my point...you look at all the small projects that actually end up being seen, and there's someone in there that is related to someone like Coppola or Spielberg or something.
There doesn't seem to be any such thing as a movie which is genuinely star-free.
The movie that's coming to mind at the moment is Narc - I remember many reviews touting it as one of the great, genuinely independent crime films to come out in many years.
Yet you read up on the movie, and Joe Carnahan knew a guy who knew Tom Cruise, and Cruise ended up funding the movie.
And funding a movie by yourself when you have no other skills to get a job outside of minimum wage is pretty much hopeless. All of my education has been towards media-related careers.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
Don't let someone like that discourage you. I did that once. A college professor (a great guy who helped my writing a lot and got one of my short stories published) discouraged me once by telling me that it would be near impossible to get a book published because I'm a middle class white male, meaning I'm not a marketable author. He was saying this in the hopes of showing me that I should write because I love it, not because I want to make a career out of it, but he went about it the wrong way and ended up turning me off of writing for a while.
This guy sounds bitter, and bitter people like to tell you why you can't or shouldn't do something. Shrug it off. If people only got jobs in Hollywood because they were someone's nephew or daughter or something, the films/shows would be a lot worse than they already are.
But it seems like they really do only get jobs in film because of who they're related to.
Can you name one filmmaker who had absolutely no connection to anyone, anywhere in the industry and actually (even somewhat) made it?
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
I don't know their backgrounds enough to say either way, but I'd be willing to bet my next paycheck that there are quite a few who have worked their ass off to make it, and established connections along the way. Especially so with the rise in independent film.
I guess I am being overly cynical...but it seems like even independent films are never truly independent.
Like my example of Narc. I realize it's just one film, but it's representative of a lot of the independent films out there.
Even Kevin Smith...the guy was friends with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck since childhood.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
That probably didn't help him much when he was financing Clerks with money he didn't have.
(I wouldn't recommend doing that, by the way.)
You know how Carnahan knew a guy who knew Tom Cruise? He made a film called Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane out of his own pocket, it was a sleeper hit at Sundance, and he made a lot of friends there.
Uh, it was Smith who helped them become famous, not the other way around.
Movie Theater Diary
Yes, I've heard the whole credit card story, but I can't help thinking his connections at least helped a bit in getting the movie out there and being as successful as it was.
I mean, it's not really all that good. It's fun and funny and everything, but there are much, much better first-time indie films out there.
Indeed...pretty much a 99% probability that the film won't do anything, and you'll be left with thousands upon thousands of dollars in credit card debts.
I guess what it boils down to is my own lack of confidence in my skills as a writer.
I can't look at my work and say "you know, I'm better than 99% of the other people out there trying to get these gigs".
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
But he probably got that into Sundance because of some connections he had.
My point is, it seems any of these cases, when you look deep enough, the person has some hidden connection. Their uncle's best friend's housekeeper once worked for Ron Howard, so they got in that way.
I literally have nothing...it's like my career is doomed before it's even started.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
There's a book called "My First Movie" where directors talk about how they got their first movie made and got into the industry. Kevin Smith is in it and he revealed every step. It had nothing to do with Matt and Ben.
Clerks got discovered because of one movie critic and Smith's perseverance. What happened was he showed the film on local film festivals and less than 10 people went to see it, but one of them was a newspaper critic who loved it and wrote about it, generating word of mouth buzz. From that, Smith got the means to show the film in more festivals, and eventually, Harvey Weinstein somehow got into one of the screenings.
Movie Theater Diary
I've always heard that on average an artist needs to invest about 10 years of hard, solid work into their craft before they can seriously try to make a living out of it.
Writing/directing/acting/anything remotely artsy is not an after-college job. It's a investing-your-time, building-as-many-connections-as-possible, plating-your-seeds, risking-it-fucking-all proposition.
Also, it should be noted that you ACQUIRE connections. Not all people are born or thrown into the good graces of someone with power.
And never, ever get into the entertainment industry for money.
But, Meg, you can't let this stuff get a hold of you. If it's what you want to do, it's what you want to do and you can be taking steps toward it. You might be forty by the time anyone even thinks about putting your film in a film festival that's run out of a community library in Tennessee. And that's okay.
I had a couple college professors who told an entire room of college freshmen, eager to get their film degrees and become Spielbergs that not a single one of us would ever make a living ever. I suppose it's supposed to weed out those without the heart for it, but I think it's a sloppy tactic. No one should be filling you up with hot air assuring you that you can make it in one of the toughest industries in the world to crack. But hard work, perseverance, and talent can get you there.
Don't forget. There's also dumb fucking luck.
Diablo Cody is someone out of Illinois who was working in a copywriting agency, stripping on the side. She posted blogs about her experiences, and an agent came across it and told her to write a memoir about it. Then she was asked if she could make a script out of it, but they asked her to write another script before. Juno was that script.
Now Spielberg is asking her to write pilots.
What about Robert Rodriguez? Didn't he fund "El Mariachi" with medical guinea pig money?
"Modern weapons can defend freedom, civilization, and life only by annihilating them. Security in military language means the ability to do away with the Earth."
-Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society
He did, indeed! Also, Richard Wong and H.P. Mendoza's recent should've-been-a-big-hit (that will ensure future work for both of them I'm sure--Wong's already apparently working with Wayne Wang on something) Colma: The Musical was made for nearly nothing but good graces and sweat, and there's nary a big name attached to it, even tangentially.
Yep. And by making films in less expensive countries, outside of the studio system, you can save a lot of money.
RR also used a wheelchair for his "steadycam" shots, and he had only a few high-powered light bulbs for the lighting.
So, in short, what you need is a camera, film, ideas and time.
"Modern weapons can defend freedom, civilization, and life only by annihilating them. Security in military language means the ability to do away with the Earth."
-Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society
Magnificently, today you can use video instead of film, but yes.Oh, and people. Film's a collaborative medium and you need other talented and/or dedicated people to make anything work.
Not that those themselves aren't precious commodities, difficult to organize. But it's doable. I'm currently trying to finish the script for what will hopefully be my feature debut, which I figure if I can get most people to donate their time, I can make for very, very little money. At the same time, a friend and I are trying to sell something that would cost at least a million to shoot, though I figure it will be years--if ever--before we ever get to make that script.
No. All you need to make a movie is a gun and a beautiful woman.
Movie Theater Diary
People? Not necessarily. You could do a landscape film. Or a self-portrait, a la Cindy Sherman. Or an avant-garde art film by yourself.Magnificently, today you can use video instead of film, but yes.
Not that those themselves aren't precious commodities, difficult to organize. But it's doable. I'm currently trying to finish the script for what will hopefully be my feature debut, which I figure if I can get most people to donate their time, I can make for very, very little money. At the same time, a friend and I are trying to sell something that would cost at least a million to shoot, though I figure it will be years--if ever--before we ever get to make that script.
"Modern weapons can defend freedom, civilization, and life only by annihilating them. Security in military language means the ability to do away with the Earth."
-Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society
Finally finished the first act of my script.
Clocked in at 21 pages, though considering the screen time which will be taken for some of the action, I imagine it's closer to 25 minutes worth of material.
I'm trying to re-read my work as little as possible, aside from proofreading for spelling, grammatical and structural errors.
I am way too critical of my own work, and I just know that if I were to read it in 2 days' time, I would hate it and scrap it all, and this would happen every 2 days for the rest of eternity.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
I just finished the first draft of my incest screenplay. It's really short, though -- 85 pages. I don't think it needs to be very long, but that's probably too short. Some characters do need to be filled out a little.
Incest screenplay? Don't use that as your pitch.
Dude, keep it going. Just work through it.
Don't worry about connections. If you get started in the business on any level, connections come pretty fast. Do a good job, ask for more work, and people will help you. I haven't even been here a year, and I'm already a reader.
So in a way, you've already got one connection.
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