Larry Bonds as the Deputy, Doug Haley as Patrick - Photo by TOMMY KHA

Check it out – we’re sort of on IMDB – as a title and two production companies. This is what it feels like in the big time… http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1535080/ (as of 10/29/09)

The lessons:

.2 – Watch out for snakes.

Here’s one from our scary barn location. I think it’s a corn snake – very large but non-venomous. There are snakes hiding in places you aren’t expecting. You need to be careful.

Will E Drummond's picture of one of the critters we kicked up on set.

1 – The middle ground sounds boring but is actually strange (this is about money).

I’ve been thinking a lot about my “indie film is dying, head for the new media hills!” notion that I’ve foisted off on undergrads. Day before yesterday, me and my editor Gabriel Noguez were talking about an article he read in either the LA or NY Times*, the thesis of which is we need the new wave of art film/cinema producers/Carlo Ponti’s to champion the new wave of “important” directors.**

Back when I used to hang out with fine artists I used to think it was funny that certain art patrons would never support/endow film, because they perceived it as commerce. This anti-commerce distinction didn’t apply to supporting painters or sculptors who sold their work, because – face it – we all know that unless you’re in the elite dozens of high-ticket art stars or you’re Thomas Kinkade – being an artist is a truly shitty way to make a living.

Independent film is, from where I stand at its periphery, also starting to look like a shitty way to make a living. Ondi Timoner is kind of famously self-distributing her doc “We Live in Public” which I have yet to see (I am guilty), but which everyone who’s seen has told me is incredible. Maybe, eventually, it will become so widely known as a shitty way to make a living that rich people will give money to filmmakers not as an investment, but as a form of patronage.

Until then, what’s a film artist to do?

If you’re Arin Crumley of Four-Eyed Monsters fame, you get mad as hell***:

Fortunately – at least anecdotally, it seems like people are still giving money to independent directors, and those films are ending up in our Netflix queues and we get around to watching them, even if a fractional share of a Netflix subscription fee can’t add up to all that much, can it? I don’t know – I’ve got two art degrees. How does this work? If I spend $20/month on Netflix, sit on 3 DVDs and watch maybe three or four – I’m guessing it’s a max $10 split to the film owner, divided by my total number of rentals? A flat rate? It takes a lot of me’s to recoup a million dollars at this rate. A million of us.

But, even if the world doesn’t guiltily endow the indie filmmaker like they do the sculptor, there is a cultural understanding of the importance of an indie film and the scrappiness that comes with making a low-budget movie.

So, what happens when you put all that aside and you do what I did? You don’t strike out to make your magnum opus… You make a genre film and you do it as a multi-episode series. You prove yourself as a filmmaker by showing how you can be scrappy and resourceful and put an artistic stamp on something not destined for the arthouse. And you don’t get the money from a small film financer or your uncle’s estate or your credit cards… You get it from MTV.

Most people would immediately answer: well, then, you’re set. “Getting money from MTV” sounds like a panacea. And, don’t get me wrong – I love getting money from MTV. MTV funded my UCLA thesis, MTV took a chance on Savage County and I make a good living working for MTV on a job that I love. But, money from MTV does not equal winning the filmmaking lottery – MTV’s got a wide range of shows at a wide range of budgets. “My Super Psycho Sweet 16” – MTV’s first horror movie – was made for $1.5 million (according to IMDB). “Savage County” was made for $250,000. I am grateful for every dime of that money, and grateful that MTV has funded my stuff twice now, even though credits-wise, I’m still in the stage of my career where I’m basically “some dude.” But this puts a filmmaker in a somewhat strange middle ground.

I would still advocate to other “some dude”-s: try to get other people to pay for your movies. Try to get them to pay for movies that you believe are commercial – not in a total whore way, but in a knowing-the-difference-between-your-single-and-your-b-side-way. Try to make their one dollar look like five dollars and hope that your movie makes them money so you can make more films. Don’t waste years waiting for the Sundance dream film. But – I would now warn that this will be a weird experience.

When you start spending (FILL IN THE NAME OF BIG COMPANY)’s money – when it’s not millions… You start walking a strange line where it’s not really your film (like, you don’t own it) – but it’s completely your film (like this is your first shot at something longer than 20 minutes.) So, when you look at that one, sad, limp, soggy Ritz cracker with three-day-old hummus on it, you think: this totally sucks, but I’m making my first movie! But, when any member of the crew looks at that same cracker, they think: call (BIG COMPANY) and have them send more hummus money, motherfucker! But here’s what they don’t know: (BIG COMPANY) isn’t going to give you more money. You’re some dude. You’re not even going to call (BIG COMPANY) about the hummus situation, because you don’t want them to shut you down.

All this gets even weirder, because if you’re not a sociopath you care about both the cast/crew and the company that’s giving you the money. The company that’s giving you the money will get the blame for things you screw up (on Savage County, there were a couple instances where people got mad at the shapeless entity “MTV” for mistakes made far outside the walls of MTV – by me). This feels like you’re letting down the company, and is not fun, even if it’s all minor fog-of-war stuff.

On the cast/crew side, you become acutely aware of any of the abuses you’re piling on. I’ve never done a self-financed first feature, but I imagine that even I – indisputably the nicest guy on earth – would have a hard time not developing a Herzog syndrome. On every short film I’ve made – it’s been my baby, creatively, and at least mostly my money. When EVERYTHING’s on the line, you start feeling (probably wrongly) some sense of entitlement.

When you’re making a baby for the man – it’s a lot clearer that while people may be working for the money, they’re pouring their heart/soul/creativity into the work for you. All that effort is one big, fat present to you and your career as a filmmaker. Nobody’s getting points or BS promises of deferred salary… They’re getting a little bit of money and they’re giving you, not (BIG COMPANY), a gift. That’s probably a good thing, but it’s a middle ground that’s new to everybody. All the muddiness of the art vs/ commerce part of indie film financing comes in play, but it’s further muddied by the fact that (BIG COMPANY) is writing the checks.

How different is this, really? If your rich uncle is going to pay for your first film, there are probably similar economics at play – he may have millions, but if he’s agreed to give you thousands, that’s probably all you’re going to get. I’d bet that everybody, you and the crew, would look at that and view the cracker situation, or the lack-of-bugspray situation, or the length-of-days situation differently.

And, of course, there’s the more obvious issue of he-who-pays-the-piper-calls-the-tune. I think if I had told an undergrad class that had me in it that they should get corporate money for their first films – undergrad me would skeptically assume that corporate money would come with all kinds of corporate creative control. Maybe some places it would. Certainly if we spent more than what we did, I think the company would be more curious about what we were going to spend it on. But, creative control hasn’t been much of an issue. It’s a little schizophrenic trying to make a horror webseries/movie scary and MTV-appropriate****, but any censorship that happened was self-censorship. Even “self-censorship” is too strong a word – it was tailoring the project for its intended audience. Which we all do.

I’m realizing that all my epiphanies in this regard are because of a set of assumptions about how I thought my career would start: in a world of indie-ness and self-financing. These wouldn’t be epiphanies to anyone who wanted to start the studio route. They would probably say (and be right) – dude, you should have made something with a bigger budget – and you wouldn’t be crying about hummus money. It’s true. But, one of the successes of Savage County is that we made a little indie genre project in the world of a big media company. That’s different from making a studio movie/webseries/broadway show. Not quite indie, definitely not big budget, but a middle ground that I think will probably become more common.

Melissa Carnell as Dorothy Kramer - photo by TOMMY KHA

2 – The answer to the first asking of the question “Is this enough blood?” is always “No.”
This took me longer than it should have. There is not enough blood. You need more blood. Try this: “More… More… More… Stop, let me look. More. More. I don’t know if that’s enough, but let’s shoot.”

3 – This is fun.
This is what you’ve been trying to do for ten years. Even when things go wrong. Even when the notes you’re getting make you want to throw out your hard drives and run off to Mexico. I’ve reached my wit’s end a dozen times during this process (and we’re not done yet), but ultimately – this is a dream job. I got to come up with an idea, bring together a bunch of incredibly creative and talented people, and make a fucking movie (for the internet!) It’s awesome. Even when it seems like the opposite of awesome, it’s awesome.

* – Link coming – the LA Times got a great redesign but their sitewide search is teh sux.

**** – more on this in a future lesson – #9 “It’s a little schizophrenic trying to make a horror webseries/movie scary and MTV-appropriate”