Way back in the olden days, when beta tapes ruled and laserdiscs were the size of vinyl albums, I fell in love with movies. I think my love affair with celluloid started much earlier, because I have a memory, a faint, horrifying memory that scarred me for life.

In the 70's, I was raised by a single mother. A poor single mother, who didn't use television as a babysitter, but did use movies as a reward. This well meaning, but way too young mother of mine actually listened to her children. My brother was two years younger than I, and you should never listen to children, especially when they recommend a movie.

I can't tell you how man renditions of Cinderella I've seen, or how many showings of the latest Disney release gets played over and over and over and over again in my house. If I listened to my children, I would request rendition just to get some peace and quiet! That's not true, my kid's have great taste. They love movies too.

But back to my mother. Perhaps she believed in me, as I believe in my kids, and so when we recommended a flick in 1977, LEGEND OF BIGFOOT or something like that, she took us. We went to a theater in downtown Pine Bluff, AR, which was a very rural town back in 1977, with just three theaters, one downtown, and two on the outskirts of town in a suburb. This movie, which I have seen since, is a pseudo-documentary horror flick that has one redeeming feature. It scared the HELL out of my seven year old mind, and my 5 year old brother's!

In one scene, this guy is sitting on the couch, hears something on the porch, looks through the window, and . . . nothing. He turns back to watch television, CRASH, a giant hairy arm smashed through the glass and drags him outside where his screams end in a crunch.

Did I mention this wasn't a kid's movie? We left 1/2 way through, tears streaming down our young impressionable faces, my mother terrified to walk through the dark to her car. Not a good choice.

Or was it. Sure, we all shared a bed for a week, just to be safe, because BIGFOOT is probably just a legend, and I have never slept through the night in a tent in the woods while camping. But still, it made something in my stomach stir- especially once I knew what a movie was, and that it wasn't real.

Except for STAR WARS. Everyone knows that's a documentary.

FAST FORWARD to twenty years later. In the intervening years, I didn't know it, but I educated myself by watching thousands of movies. Every Friday and Saturday night involved a trip to the video store and the rental of at least 5 movies for the weekend. You go through inventory pretty fast, and you hit all the highs and lows the shelves have to offer. Name a movie from the 80's. Chances are, if it's American and released on videotape, I've seen it. Maybe even twice.

In 1995, I watched a stupid little movie called CLERKS, by this guy Kevin Smith, who got a bunch of his buddies together and made a movie. I had been writing short stories, and plays, and working on a couple of novels for a few years, but in 1995, I made two decisions that would forever change my life. I set a goal to finish one science fiction novel, and shoot one feature film.

My brother turned his BIGFOOT encounter, and all of the trauma it entailed into a very decent acting career, doing summer stock and studying it at University. I called him up and said, "Hey, I want to make a movie." And he said, "I'm in."

I worked hard and diligently and cranked out a sci-fi novel, 60,000 words and was pleased. Then, without knowing a thing, I wrote a script. I went on-line, which you take for granted now, but in 1995, was quite a thing, and I still get a little tingle when I hear that dial up sound. I found a forum from the guy who wrote QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER and read in on a couple of hundred entries by people who had great ideas for movies, and stories who wanted to share their ideas and he could write them, and they would split the proceeds! Needless to say, I didn't tell him my great idea. I just wrote it down, and tried to find out if I was doing it in the right format.

I had access to some actors (my brother and his friends), I had access to an old town in Louisiana (I would shoot in my hometown next time) and I had an idea. I wrote BERSERKER, about two friends, one a drug addict, who steal a bag full of money from his dealer, and get hunted all night. I peppered it with one liners, and tried to add twists. It was awful, because I had no idea about cameras, or lighting or anything else.

Then I made another mistake. I called a production company in Arkansas, and said "I wrote a script, and can I talk to you about how to make it?" They told me to come by, and they took the script, and without reading it said, "We're in." They were just starting out and were hungry for experience.

I saved up a couple of thousand dollars and opened some credit cards, and bought film, and bam, we shot in 16mm black and white for 6 days in Louisiana and Arkansas.

In the middle of the second night, the DP, Dan Waymack of Waymack and Crew pulled me aside and said, "When I worked on some A&E stuff, the director had a shot list. Why don't you make one of those?"

And his assistant Chris Crawford, had graduated from USC Film School, so he would pull me aside to give advice. They handled almost all of the technical aspects of the film, while I corralled the actors.

We were about 60% through the shoot, and back in Little Rock, and I couldn't get the actors to come up to finish the film, and Waymack had paying gigs lined up so he couldn't finish the project.

I bought a small used 16mm Arri and went back to shoot the rest with my brother, but all of the actors had changed their hair, or gained weight. It was dumb and stupid, but this was the second best film set I ever worked on. I knew nothing, no one told me I couldn't do it, and since we were all just starting out, it was fun.

Did I waste money? Sure. But I got a great education out of it, and that motivated me to buy some books on writing films. Which led me to buy books on making films. And then distributing films. All the while, I kept watching movies, how they're made, the characters, or lack thereof. And I volunteered to work on local projects at any level.

Which made my next project working with Scott Sudbury a real pleasure. He had a script, he had some money, and he had passion, but he had no idea on the technical aspects of film. I didn't have much more, but I came in and acted a producer to his director, and since he was the lead actor in his project, I stepped into the asst director's shoes. I learned about organizing, and shot lists, and shooting to edit.

I could list everything that went wrong on those first two shoots, but instead I'll just say that it's a lot like failing upward. You try something, it works, or it doesn't. You try again.

Would I change a few things? Absolutely, so here it is, for anyone who wants to make any kind of movie, you can do it.

Get a cheap camera. Doesn't matter what kind, so long as it takes moving pictures.

Write a great story. Make it funny. Doesn't matter if it's formatted, or proper. Just think about what you want to say, what you want to do. If you want to be scary, then be scary. Sexy? Be damn sexy. Be stupid? You get the idea.

Write down 30 scenes. One minute to set up, one minute to play out, one minute to wrap up. Make a shot list for each scene. Get two camera angles for each shot. Get B-roll stuff at every site you shoot. Flowers. The sky. Trash on the side of the road.

Shoot cheap the first time. Make your budget $100 and stretch it as far as you can. You need the practice. Be inventive. Be creative. Be stupid. Don't get dead.

Cut it on your home computer using a simple software program. If you know graphics, add them. If you don't, then ignore them. Or find someone who does.

Add sound. Local bands. Get a keyboard program and do it yourself. Editing makes your film.

Are you done? Sure, except for marketing and distribution, which leads me right back to my first movie.

I didn't think about my audience when I made BERSERKER. It could have ended up being an interesting little action film, with better actors who didn't look like kids. In retrospect, I should have made a haunted house movie about some kids who visit over the weekend. Better planning would have saved me. Spend time planning.

Same thing with GROUPIES. We made a short, that was supposed to be funny (but wasn't) and spent as much on the short as we could have on a full length horror movie.

So don't make a short. Make a 90 minute film. (or 84 minutes, which is pretty close to the minimum for a feature). Shoot digital and cheap. Don't worry about three chip cameras, just use what you have. Think about who you're making it for, and how you can sell it, or who you want to see it.

I was making a film to get an agent. I should have made a film to sell to direct to video (a la El MARIACHI ). And one last bit of info-advice. Keep the film age appropriate, i.e., don't market to kids if you don't have a kid's movie, or market to adults with a kid's movie. You don't want to scare the crap out of them, and turn them into future maniacal moviemakers!

Oh yeah, and never ever listen when someone tells you that you can't- what they are saying is, they don't know how. You can. And you should. No matter what.