On my way back to the US after having spent a year in Merida, Mexico making movies, a sitcom pilot and all in all, having a blast. I start the long drive back at the end of this month. My rat terrier will be the trooper she always is and suffer sitting in my lap the entire drive because the car will be packed. She's the best dog in the world. I've been writng screenplays lately, so I'm looking forward to doing this blog to see if I can still write prose. (check out my two short story collections What Does Normal Look Like? & Shades of Blue) Practice Practice Practice. I'm going to be living in the Houston area and filming shorts for awhile until I begin production on my next feature film. All the while seeking distribution for the hilarious feature film I'm bringing back with me. I know there are a ton of aspiring filmmakers out there. I want to hear from you, what you're doing, how you're going about making your dream happen. Making movies is extremely difficult. Especially when you have no money. But it can be done. You might have to go to Mexico to make it happen...or your backyard or your driveway. It depends how badly you want it. I made this movie with a miniscule budget. It's in Spanish, because that's what I had to do. You make do with what you've got. Then you make it look like you had A LOT. Movie making is about being flexible. Being alert. Be aware of what you have: your enormous talent, your drive, your self discipline and your consistent good mood. One great thing about making movies is that you can always find great actors who'll want to be in your project. You might have to be the entire crew at first, which is tough, but what a marvelous set of skills you'll acquire if you don't have a nervous breakdown.

At least 90 pages. Even if you're making a movie with a nonexistent budget, you still need the script to be at least 90 pages. Shorts are good for developing technical skills, and for practice in a relaxed atmosphere, but what will you do with it? You can't make any money with it. Maybe it'll get you noticed. And when you get noticed, do you have a feature length script ready to roll for the next project? And isn't that what you really and truly want to do--make feature films? Of course it is! Get the script ready. Try to give yourself every edge you can. Be as prepared as you can be and then be prepared to change everything. And don't sigh disconsolately when you have to change something. You're making a movie! What fun! What a dream come true! Don't ever pooch your mouth out. Ever. If you don't know what the professional format is for writing a script, you can easily find a sample on the internet. At the time I wrote Neighborphobia I had an empty house at my disposal. Anything you can get for free, use it. You'll be surprised at what you can get for free. What do you have in your closet? Your garage? Storage? Now, write. You don't need a team to write. Or your friend. Or anyone's opinion. Write the thing. It's your cool idea anyhow. If you need someone to tell you how cool your idea is before you start, well, movie making is simply not for you. But you'll do well in the mental health field. Particularly working with mentally disabled and/or criminally insane individuals. These environments will inspire you and stress you out to no end, thereby forcing you to eventually return to your original dream of movie making with a new set of b****. CUT TO LATER (or MUCH LATER - your call): You have the script ready. The script you wrote using all the free props and locations you could possibly think of/imagine/finagle. Now all you need are actors. I'm assuming you had the camera, audio equipment and the editing system before you wrote your great screenplay, or that you acquired them while you were writing your great screenplay. I hope you do because I don't have any advice about this. Equipment is ridiculously expensive, fragile and mandatory. If you're twelve years old, start saving now to buy the stuff by the time you're twenty-one. If you're twenty-one or forty-four or fifty-six or seventy-two, get with it. There's no other way to put it. Filmmaking is not for lollygaggers.

The only thing I knew how to do when I started making movies was write the script. I didn't know how use a camera or edit. You know I had no budget. But I had to have the equipment because I couldn't afford the crew. I wanted to make more than one movie. And I knew I wanted to do it for the rest of my life. Since writing is the easiest and most joyful act I know, and since these movie ideas keep coming to me, and since I'm poor but possess herculean self discipline, I knew investing in the equipment would be wise and wonderful. I researched it on the internet. Which was a joke because I didn't understand what I was reading. I started asking around. Some people were nice and helpful, others were arrogant jerks. But I was determined to learn how to do this. Unreasonably determined. Therefore I got it done. I found someone who worked for a small production company and asked him to suggest various cameras to me. I chose the one I could afford. A Panasonic AGHVX200. This has been a great camera. I made four movies with it. For the first two I didn't know how to focus or white balance. And I couldn't understand the instruction manual because I'd never owned any kind of camera in my entire life. A little over year ago, I knew absolutely nothing about the technical aspects of making movies. I found a nice guy who showed me how to white balance and focus. He also taught me how to edit. I have a MacBook Pro w/Final Cut Pro. He gave me six or seven lessons. That's all I could afford. However, considering I was always in a good mood and unreasonably determined to make feature films (which he admired & respected), we've become thick professional cronies. He fixed a lot of stuff on my third movie that the guy here in Mexico basically messed up and refused to fix. What a travail that film was. My guy/thick professional crony color corrected my fourth, and first legitimate movie, Vecinofobia (Neighborphobia). I don't really know how to color correct. I've tried to do it. I think you have to have an eye for it, or a special talent. I don't think I have this ability. I don't know how to make crabmeat au gratin either. But guess what? I know someone who is brilliant with color correction, and also someone who can make the fire out of crabmeat au gratin. Movie making is a humbling experience. You quickly learn the limits of some of your abilities and the apparent limitlessness of others. The trick is to learn it, admit it, move on with it. I wouldn't advise trying over and over to master something you really aren't good at. Why waste your time when there are immensely talented people out there who're going to be better at it on their worst day than you'll ever be on your best day? It's just going to slow you down. Admit it, get over it, find the people who not only can do it, but absolutely love to do it. That's one of the awesome things about movie making. All the incredibly talented people you're going to meet. You'll also meet a lot of liars who'll look you straight in the eyes and promise they can do something they have no idea how to do. Be careful. My third movie, ah...!!! If you have no budget, I mean zero budget where you need every single individual associated with your movie to do it on a credit only basis, don't fret, you'll find people who'll edit it for you for free and do artwork if you need it. Go to the colleges in your community and the local TV stations. Don't give up when the going gets rough because it's all rough going in movie making. You've got to have the camera and the script. If you can swing it, you would also do well to get a wireless mike system. And a boom. But then you need a crew member to wield it. Truthfully, you need to edit your stuff in the beginning. It'll help you learn so much and so quickly about the sublime and laborious process of making movies. Making a movie is a huge endeavor. Not an impossible one. Just do one thing at a time until it gets done. If you keep at it, before long, you'll discover you can actually do ten things at a time. Build that skill set!!

You can get a lot of stuff at Home Depot (lights, tape, etc..). If someone tells you or mentions to you a certain piece of equipment and you have no idea what it is, don't go advertising your ignorance. Just nod, keep your mouth shut and go home or to the library or to your friend's house and look on YouTube. I guarantee there'll be a video on there showing you how to do it or build it in the cheapest way possible. Keeping your mouth shut is a great thing to do on the movie set as well. Much speaking kills much time. Believe it or not, even if you tell people that this is your first production, for some mysterious reason they assume you know way more than they do. So they're going to listen to you and do what you ask them to do. There's no need for you to constantly remind yourself and others that you barely know what you're doing when you're right in the middle of learning how to do it, and by golly, actually doing it. You don't have to lie if somebody point blank asks if you know how to do something. Tell them the truth. But I'd be surprised if anyone ever asks. You're the one standing there with the camera, and they're acting out YOUR script. Roll on, roll on.