Celebrated filmmaker/humorist WOODY ALLEN was not quite the exemplary student. Before he  
was bounced out of New York University after having been enrolled for a total of only two semesters,  
he had never earned more than a grade of C- in motion picture production and an F in English. He admits to having skipped half of his classes (although he did attend the film screenings regularly).  
One dean told Woody he was “not good college material” while a professor of his declared he had  
no future in film. Years later, in lieu of academic honors and a college diploma, Allen has won major critical acclaim and three Academy Awards (and many nominations) for his work.  

Inside/Out, which I shot, directed, edited, and produced in 1997, will finally get a week run at the Anthology Film Archives in NYC starting on  the 7th of October (check it out at www.cinemaparallel.com). The film  was accepted in most of the major festivals, but we still had more than  a year to wait before we could get on a screen in NYC, and have some cash for the publicity and ads, etc.  

So we are also a small distribution company! Why? Because we don't have the $20,000 advertising budgets that places like the Quad Cinema wanted to see before they will book an indie film. They argued that unless that much or more can be put on the line for New York Times and Village  
Voice reviews for a one week booking, the audience will not come. What true indies have that cash after putting their blood and guts into the film?  There are very few indie distributors that can put up that P and A as well.  

True indie films need time to build word-of-mouth because they cannot pay the high cost of media exposure to make a one week booking a box office "hit". They need to have alternative theatres that they can play in for more than a week and let the audience build.  

Rob Tregenza 

Read filmmaker Larry Fessenden's VENT! interview for an in-depth personal  
account of self-distributing a film. -Ed.

   

GETTING AHEAD IN THE FILM BUSINESS by Marc Kepler

1. Do everything yourself.
2. No deadlines.
3. Laugh often.

  

I'm glad to see VENT! alive and well. Too few forums exist wherein artists can commiserate with and learn from each other. Reading some of the messages contained here, I get a sense of shared experience that speaks to the (seemingly) never-ending quest for self-satisfying artistic expression. Speaking as an independent filmmaker whose most recent film Dream With the Fishes received worldwide distribution, I can safely say that ours is not a business for anyone who cannot handle 
rejection. It took me ten years of struggling to produce an independent feature film to which people have responded positively, and while I am not writing to bemoan my struggle, I would hope to act as personification of the notion that Persistence Works. 

I began my career doing P.A. work, then worked my way up the proverbial ladder with stints as Production Coordinator, Location Manager, Composer, Supervising Sound Editor, and Post Production Supervisor. It took me a full ten years to not only hone my skills, but find a script I felt worthy of at least two years of my life. Having found one and completed it to the point of distribution, I can definitely say that I have the bug more than ever! 

Although Dream With the Fishes (now available on home video everywhere) was a low budget film in Hollywood terms, it was more money than I've ever had to manage at one time. However, I was able to apply the concepts and real-world experience I learned in my developmental years to the project such that even with a grueling schedule (almost 60 locations in 23 days), I was able to bring the film in on time and under budget (with thanks to my fellow producer Johnny Wow of 3 Ring Circus). 

I applaud any filmmaker with the guts to go against convention, and believe wholeheartedly that anyone who has the wherewithal to produce a film deserves to have it seen. Festivals are an obvious method, but don't underestimate the power of a public screening in a local gymnasium, hotel meeting room, or local theater rented on a weekday afternoon or other "slow" time. With the proper word-of-mouth and cost-effective advertising (flyers, free newspaper P.R., etc.), one can successfully create a "buzz" for a film where none existed before. 

I'll get off the soapbox now, but please accept my congratulations and thanks for creating an environment for discussion, debate and networking for all of us who are proud to call ourselves Independent Filmmakers. 

Cheers! 
Mitchell Stein 
e-mail: fishdreamz@aol.com 
http://members.aol.com/Fishdreamz/Mitchell.html

While The Brothers McMullen was ED BURNS' debut feature, it may not have been his first. Before making his no-budget indie hit, Burns had produced the 65-minute (then cut down to 38 minutes) "short" film Brandy, which some insiders claim was actually intended to be feature-length, although Burns denies this. Since the film was never finished (however, all shooting was completed), very few people have seen it, making Brandy the lost Ed Burns movie that apparently the filmmaker prefers remain lost.

I happen to be an idiot. I made a film called Runaways that I thought might make people say, "Hmmm, interesting choice." Instead I've made a film on $30,000 of credit cards that gets people to say, "What the hell were you thinking?" 

It's a silent feature film. 

Now I imagine you too are now saying, "What an idiot. What the hell WAS he thinking?"  

Dare I say, I felt it was artistically the right choice. I had become consumed with the story and had written it several ways before I got to the core of the film. It's about a girl who leaves home. So what I did do, I stripped down to little other than that. I was seeking the quiet of the soul. 

There's no damned words. It's a silent movie. 

My hope was that people would see the images and realize the ability of a filmmaker to tell a story with only images. When a scene rings false or hollow in a movie, the first instinct is to get someone to fix the dialogue. The answer is never there in what people are saying.  It's how they say it. It's what they are doing. 

I always felt that a film, a good film, could be watched and understood and work on a silent level. Perhaps this silent level would even elicit.... dare I say it: thought. I think my film does. But what does my opinion count for? At the Florida film festival they thought it was a technical error and also, (those geniuses) a documentary. The film is a simple visual poem. 

The moral of the story is that what people mean by independent films is that they are financially independent. They can rarely be independent of guns or violence. Every boy wonder in the industry seems to break in with a "gritty no-budget" thing about violence on the streets. 

Never seen that before. Excellent.  

My advice is to do exactly that. Otherwise you are going to have a $30,000 paperweight. 

Shhhh. Turn down the volume. See how it works. 

Tim Werenko 
Eidolon Films 

What the hell WERE you thinking? A silent movie? You got something against Dynamic Digital Dolby Surround Sound?   

Actually, I genuinely admire the cajones it took for you to make a film that veered so much away from usual independent fare (i.e., gritty and violent), and I'm sorry you seem to regret your decision, an easy thing to feel when your $30,000 in debt with little prospects of making it back. (Most first-time indie filmmakers, even the ones who have made a sound film, never fully, or even partially, recoup their investment.)  

Unfortunately, your final advice is probably right on the money (i.e., boxoffice). Most audiences today, in this age of the multiplex, have little patience for "simple visual poems," no matter how well-crafted they may be. They want to hear as well as see the guns firing and the bones breaking and the bombs exploding. It's cathartic. I admit I do too, because if I'm shelling out eight dollars for a ticket, I wanna get more BANG! (and BOOM!) for my buck.  -Ed. 

FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA, the genius behind such cinema classics as The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, began his filmmaking career a little less illustriously. In 1961, as a UCLA film student, 22-year-old Coppola wrote, produced and directed a nudie short called "The Peeper" (inspired by Russ Meyer's The Immoral Mr. Teas). He combined it with a nudie western (made by others), plus some additional footage. The result was the 66-minute Tonight For Sure (original title: Wide Open Spaces). Coppola also shot new scenes for the nudie feature Playgirls and the Bellboy before going on to work for B-movie mogul Roger Corman. 

D.C. 
 
Rumor has it (or so I've read in the Arts & Entertainment section) that Hollywood is really pining for talented writers with fresh ideas... so they can be hired to pen the new Home Alone or Lethal Weapon flick.   

In the meanwhile, until your lucky numbers hit and some studio honcho greenlights (or options) your script, you might as well spend time trying to finance a film on your own. That way, if you do get to make it, it'll have a substantially better chance of displaying a modicum of originality. -Ed.  
 

  

How can budding filmmakers learn about making motion pictures if they have nothing to practice with? 

SAG, AFTRA and DGA prevent filmmakers from putting the raw footage of  scenes of their movies on a CD-ROM for kids to edit on their personal computers using programs such as Adobe Premiere. 

Robert Purser 
Technical Editor 
Digital Movie News 
www.el-dorado.ca.us/~dmnews 
dmnews@el-dorado.ca.us & homeport@el-dorado.ca.us 

Imagine, some day we may be able to see li'l Timmy's "prepubescent cut" of Lawrence of Arabia, Raging Bull and Deep Throat. -Ed.

It's a familiar story- two film school buddies partner up in the hopes of making it happen. Are we in it for the money?  No, though we wouldn't complain. Are we in it for the women? No, that way stupidity lies.  Are we in it for the fame? Come on, how many really famous writers/producers/directors are there? Why do we do it?!  

We love filmmaking. That's all there is, pure and simple. We enjoy doing it. We want to keep doing it as long as we can get away with it. We want to be paid to do it, because that's the only way to be a working filmmaker, unless you're related to the Sultan of Brunei. 

I'm Rob Kendzie. My partner is Joshua Liberman. We've been around for a few years, long enough to get frustrated with the system but not long enough to become so disgusted that we pack up and leave. We both went to Cal State Fullerton's film program, and Josh finished up at Cal State Long Beach. I spent two years working in Development Hell at Paramount Studios, and got to experience firsthand the frustration of seeing the glut of material (mostly bad) that has buried Hollywood. We've met a lot of great people like us who are trying to break into this industry, and lot of grade A fools who have a stranglehold on it. 

At the moment, we're kind of in hell. A couple of years ago we made a cool little short film called "Subtle Poisons." It's a little rough around the edges, but it did win an award at the Houston Worldfest (Best Short Subject - Horror/Fantasy).  I wish I could have actually attended the festival to accept the award, but I wasn't sure that I was going to win, and I would have had to cough up several hundred dollars to attend the festival awards dinner, not to mention airfare to Houston. At any rate, the film got us nowhere. Other than being a very cool experience and a better education than any grad school, it did nothing. Despite the award, agents and producers still wouldn't touch us. 

At the same time we generated a couple of great scripts, both of which have gotten great coverage wherever we've managed to show them around town. Still, people won't touch us because we're new. We came within inches of getting a deal with a new company called Kingman Films, just before said company completely cleaned out its development staff and started over. We tried raising money to shoot one of the scripts ourselves, but were not prepared to shoot a feature film on the pocket change we were able to raise. (We haven't given up on that yet, though.) 

Since "Subtle Poisons," we've been standing on the sidelines for two years, and we're sick of it. We want to make films again, so that's what we're going to do. We don't have enough money to make a feature, but we think that we can put together some really good looking shorts. We're planning on doing 6 short films in 1998. We're building a reel. If the fates are willing, it'll lead to some kind of work, or maybe even help us raise money for that first feature. 

We need help! (the mantra of the indie filmmaker -Ed.) If anybody out there can help us get deals or freebies on camera or grip rentals, film stock, tape stock, production insurance, ANYTHING, please let me know. Meanwhile, wish us luck. And good luck to everyone else who's starving and struggling and fighting out there. Keep the faith. 

Rob Kendzie 
True Vision Productions 
356 W. California Ave #15 
Glendale, CA 91203 
Wolfsnap@aol.com 

How gung ho of you to still be plowing forward instead of retreating from the battlefield that is making a movie. Mazel tov and good luck to y'all. Not to be cynical, but it has been my general understanding that shorts are relatively irrelevant as "calling cards" for breaking into the industry. However, since it is also my general observation that there are no hard and fast "how-to-break-in" rules, building a reel might very well be an effective, economical strategy to pique potential investors' interest in an independently-made feature.   

Having some form of representation, be it a reputable agent, entertainment attorney or producer's rep, certainly helps a fledgling filmmaker get his foot in the door, if not his film into a theatre (assuming, of course, said agent, attorney or rep puts some effort into representing you). Finding someone to take you on is another matter, or rather, it's the same deal as distributors and production companies- you have to get their attention, then impress them enough to make them believe you're a viable, reliable investment. Sometimes they'll find you (via a screening of your film or a reading of your script), most other times you'll have to flush them out from their hiding places. Being a novice at all this myself, I'm not quite sure how. Maybe it's through word-of-mouth referrals, or shameless self-promotion, or bribery (that is, if you have something to bribe with). Whatever it takes, it doesn't hurt to pursue that avenue too, especially if you can stumble onto the right street. -Ed. 

One of the most frustrating tasks is just getting your screenplay onto a producer's desk.  

HINT: If you or, better yet, a friend calls up a production company as someone representing you and your screenplay, you can often get a go-ahead over the phone to send it in (and be sure to get a person's name to send it to). Mail the script along with a brief cover letter from your "agent" (with professional-looking, made-up letterhead). While most companies nowadays are unwilling to read unsolicited scripts, they also rarely check the credentials of a rep.  

I have a four-year-old son who we won't let watch TV or movies. You may say, why? Or, what the hell are you doing?  But, if you watch the world through the eyes of your child as he filters the media and functions with it as a mind-blowing stunting of his imagination, you realize how pissed most of us already are... which brings me to distribution/acquisition executives, the idiots I've been dealing with over the last few months as I attempt to find a distributor for my recently completed feature, POSTAL WORKER. And what about these asshole film festival committees?   

It's like dealing with the people in the town where the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers lived. They come out of pods, with no brains- they're part of a larger global brain that drones about liberal fascist things.  

Mr. Jackson 

No offense, Mr. Jackson, but you kinda scare me. Perhaps there is a point when a filmmaker becomes too disgruntled. I can only wonder if POSTAL WORKER is autobiographical, and that you're only a film festival rejection letter away from gunning down a room full of mail clerks and/or acquisition execs.  

On the bright side, a murderous rampage might help sell your film, or make a cool movie in itself. -Ed.

The Wizard of Oz: "Displays no trace of imagination, good taste or ingenuity... it's a stinkeroo." (The New Yorker, 1939) 

Star Wars: "O dull new world! It is all as exciting as last year's weather reports... all trite characters and paltry verbiage." (New York, 1977) 
 

I have had telephone calls with her, email correspondences, and letter writing campaigns with her. Each time the return message is the same: 

SORRY TOM, I HAVEN'T HAD TIME TO READ IT YET!! 

ONE YEAR! And she still hasn't read it yet! 

I've given up on her, but she still accepts my messages so I keep asking, just to see how long it will take for her to get around to reading it. 

Tom Bryant 

Your tale of frustration reminds me of the story of another screenwriter who submitted his script to a producer, at the producer's request. Months passed and the busy producer still hadn't read it. The writer kept calling him like clockwork every month. Each time he got the same response: the producer had not yet had the opportunity to read his script. Not discouraged, the writer persevered, and kept on calling. Like clockwork. Every month. One year went by... then two, then five, ten, twenty, forty, fifty years. The producer eventually handed the script over to his assistants, but they never managed to read it either. Finally, at the age of 74, the tormented writer died in his sleep, without ever knowing the producer's opinion of his work.   

...Okay, so it ain't much of a story. That never stopped a studio from picking up something before.  All rights to the above are available.   

Bearing in mind that a producer can receive hundreds, even thousands of screenplays, making it more than just a chore to read them all in a reasonable amount of time, here's a little tip for you if you choose to go another round with Ms. C: send her your script again, this time with lots of illustrations in it. Producers love pretty pictures to go along with the story. Hell, rewrite it as a goddamned comic book! That should about guarantee they'll at least thumb through it when they're on the crapper.  

Well, it's an idea anyway. -Ed.

ALAN RUDOLPH, protégé of auteur Robert Altman and later director of such giddily romantic films as Choose Me and Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, started off as an assistant director on The Brady Bunch TV series. Among the very first projects on which he had honed his filmmaking talents (under a pseudonym) was the twisted 1973 horror feature Barn of the Naked Dead. The "plot" includes kidnapped women in chains, a psycho dressed as a ringmaster with a whip, a long-haired mutant from an H-bomb test site, as well as ridiculous dialogue, terrible sound and bad editing.

Let's dissect... first my agent. Wish I had a scalpel but all I have is this keyboard so she remains one with the living for a little while longer. Almost immediately, a friend gets me a meeting with a development friend of his - I pitch him this script that I'm just finishing up and he digs it. Tells me to send it over ASAP. So  I polish it up, get it ready. The agent is still not satisfied. Finally, she tells me that they've called looking for the script a couple of times and still she won't send it. I go behind her back - send it myself. He calls me in 2 days. Loves it. Wants to send it to his bosses. "Send it!" 2 days later - another call. Everyone there grooves on it. They want me to come in. Okay. Pres. of Production sits me down, tells me this is exactly what they want to make, they want to buy my script, they want to see my director's reel, they want to start talking casting on Monday. They tell me to have the agent send it over the next day so that they have it officially. They say they'll make "the call" next week, then they say "fuck that! We'll call her tomorrow!" Now to make a long story short and more painless for me, this deal of course crashed & burned. Nixed by one of the CEO's. Okay. Shit happens. In the 2 years since - my agent has still refused to send this script out. Why??!! You tell me. 

#2.  I have another friend (we've even written a script together but I'm way past venting on that one) who is a creative exec for an actress who has a studio deal. I have a project that would be perfect for his boss. He's had the script for a YEAR and hasn't read it. (Sound familiar, Mr. Bryant? -Ed.) I think it's holding his kitchen table level but I can neither confirm nor deny that little tidbit of paranoia. 

So, I've decided to move back to NY. No deal 'til Brooklyn. Am I quitting? Shit, no! I shot 2 things my last 4 years in NYC and not a damn thing in nearly 3 here. Center of the film world? Think not. Unless you wanna make "Dirtworld II." This doesn't mean that I'm not still out here plugging for all I'm worth (which currently ain't much). I'm not running home with my tail between my legs (no rationalizing here), it's just that I'm pissed wasting 3 years in the shithole that is LA. I'll take Beirut. 

B.M. 

While I doubt Beirut currently has much of a thriving film industry, maybe someone with a vibrant entrepreneurial spirit like yourself can set up camp and crew there and have virtually free run of the place. You too can be a movie mogul!  

While I myself, also a native NY-orker, have not tried my luck in L.A., I know a few aspiring film folk from the Big Apple who had packed their bags and given the City of Angels a go. Most have returned, commenting there wasn't much to go to. Yea, the opportunities seem more fruitful here, especially with independent filmmaking now booming on the east coast. A couple of acquaintances of mine have nabbed low-level jobs at major Hollywood studios, but the benefits of such employment are suspect for someone who wants to write and/or direct for a career.  

It seems the NY Metro area is where it's at for the just-out-of-the-gate moviemaker. That is to say, you'll find more indie-friendly resources here that can assist you in producing your low/no-budget film, including more struggling souls willing to toil for little or no money, better deals on equipment (particularly during off-season months, a.k.a. winter) and, as far as I'm concerned, a much broader variety of locales.    

I know there'll probably be a bunch of you L.A. denizens who'll want to espouse the advantages of your town ("Sure it's hot, but it's dry heat."), but I'll presume you are actually earning a decent living out there. -Ed. 

Controversy monger and hyperkinetic filmmaker OLIVER STONE began his auspicious career in the industry working for schlockmeisters Troma Entertainment (The Toxic Avenger, Surf Nazis Must Die, Class of Nuke 'Em High), first as an actor in the G-rated(!) The Battle of Love's Return (1971), and then as associate producer a year later on the initially X-rated erotic thriller Sugar Cookies.

Well, I'm here to say to anyone who is trying to make a living, a career, a hobby or a life out of filmmaking and television production the opportunities are endless.  I moved to New York City after graduating with a sociology degree and decided to take a film/video production course at NYU.  I had had some video experience before I choose to take the classes, mostly camera and sound work, but I felt the course was a good way to ease into the big city life.  After the course was finished I ended up working on an independent film called "Young Teamsters,"  by Andrew Clarke.  I worked like a dog every day for 2 grueling weeks on this film.  I carried the crew's equipment up a set of New York apartment stairs that had me wondering why and how I got myself into such a shitty job.  I was working for free and I somehow convinced myself that this was what I had to do to and what I wanted to do to make it in the film business.   

I had heard the stories of film school grads who get these great jobs with Miramax and other New York production companies, but I knew I didn't have the resume or the connections to even get my resume on their desks.  So I worked for free.  I learned the equipment used on a 35mm film, as well as how to act on a set.  I drove trucks, vans, and every other kind of vehicle on this film and all the while  I had to tell myself that this was what was filmmaking.   

It turned out the experience was great and since then I have worked in NYC as a freelancer for 4 years.  It was work on this film that has lead to me working every day since.  Yes, there were days I didn't work and wondered when I was ever going to work again, but all the jobs I have worked on have seemed to come from this early experience.  There were some ups and there were many lows, but it was what made the last three years so exciting.  I have worked on everything from music videos to promotional videos to feature to commercials to shorts.  I have walked away from every production with something new, whether it was a new connection for jobs or the knowledge of some new piece of equipment.  

The thing I have learned from working in film is that most of the time people aren't going to tell you information or give news about jobs, you need to somehow learn it on you own.  

Brian 

See, VENT! isn't all bitching and moaning. We'll publish an encouraging piece once in a while, 'cause goshdarnit we all need a pick-me-up now and then in this business. (Some needing to be picked up more than others.)   

I never had much patience to work from the bottom up, which explains what prompted me to just take the plunge into making my own feature film. When I was in college, I did volunteer gratis as a P.A./grip on a few low-budget indies, and I do recommend some hands-on, on-the-set experience for invaluable insight into a film production. Then go and do it yourself.       

All the hard work, persistence and anxiety does pay off sometimes.   

And sometimes it doesn't.   

Filmmaking and risktaking go hand-in-hand. To tilt the odds more in your favor, you must be practical as well as committed. Learn as much as you can before you go into production. Be prepared in all aspects of making your film, including being prepared for the worst. It'll make every accomplishment more triumphant, and put every setback in perspective. This biz is a crap shoot. Just have fun while you're doing it, pocket your winnings and accept your losses. Then move on..... to your next movie. Nobody says you have to be sensible about all this. -Ed.