Film Courage: We’ve heard you talk before about if you wait too long between films
to make another, you'll end up being too old and you won't get around to it?
Michael J. Epstein, Filmmaker, Writer, Musician, and Scientist: Yeah, I don't know if you get too
old but I think there's a momentum to it. It's so hard because you want to always have the resources
that you need to make the thing that you really want to make but ultimately I think as creators
you have to keep creating. It's painful to wait around. I can't handle waiting around and doing
nothing and hoping that something is going to transpire, the perfect situation is going to
transpire in the future where I can make the next thing. I definitely feel I have to keep moving
forward and definitely as I age it gets harder and harder to do the kinds of things especially
with indie filmmaking where you're working very long hours very hard as a direct we produce and
direct and so when we're producing and directing we we have even if the the day is 10 hours on
set it's a 18-hour day for us just to make sure we we get make sure all the food shows up that
everybody shows up on set everybody knows where to go everybody all the props are there that at
the end of the day we clean up everything that needs to be cleaned up and so on so it's a lot
for as you get older it's a lot to be able to sustain really long days for a long period of time
is it your goal to make a film every year every couple years I think every year is a great pace
for making a feature film but it is hard it's hard to keep that up so I think if I were making
a feature every two years I'd feel okay about that in the beginning of our our filmmaking we
were doing one a year pandemic had slowed us down a little bit so we have a gap kind of in there but
yeah I think every two years is probably a good Pace if you're if you're dealing with writing and
kind of planning and actually shooting and editing and all that I think if you have a two-year cycle
I think that's reasonable so if you were to stay on on track for a film a year a feature film a
year if you we looked at your calendar every month would be in some stage of filmmaking correct yeah
absolutely there's no there's no there's no breaks in that and there's overlap as well because you
might be editing one film or waiting on something in post on one film while you're writing the next
one or you might be doing pre-production on something while you're doing post-production on
something there's there's definitely it's not just that it's a longer cycle than one year kind of for
each film but it's really because they there's some overlap between them why do you love problem
solving and how does that relate to film I I wish I knew what what what kind of drove me to be
interested in problem solving but even as a small kid I was immediately drawn to computers and and
writing writing code I was writing code and basic on a Vic-20 when I was I don't know very young
and I just always found it fascinating I always found it really exciting and it it brought me
to go to school for electrical engineering which is basically pretty much all problem solving and
I think those skills ended up being really really helpful when we started doing filmmaking because
honestly filmmaking especially especially India I keep saying especially Indie about everything
but if you have the budgets you can throw money at problems and and solve them that way we typically
cannot throw money at problems so filmmaking for for us is really just a list of a list of fires
that need to be put out a list of things that we can't do the way that we originally planned
or intended and we need to find very rare rapid Solutions and I think that that kind of training
and that kind of thinking process has really helped me be very dynamic on set and be very it
makes it much easier to accomplish to make sure that we get everything we need in a day kind of
in the can even if it's not what we thought at the top of the day was exactly happening
and I've done a lot of assistant directing as well for for other filmmakers and maybe that's one of
my my skills where I have to say to them look this is what you this is what you wanted this is what
you're you're stuck on this is what you wanted now we have an hour so we can't do that so let's
find something that works and even if you don't it now even if you're saying oh this isn't what
I wanted it's not going to work let's just get it and then you can look at it later if you want to
redo it you can redo it later but let's let's get a solution that works right now and nine times out
of ten that is that's the solution that goes in the movie and sometimes it's is better than the
original plan not maybe always but but yeah it's important to be able to solve problems quickly
what do you mean by the creative part of filmmaking is just one percent yeah there's
so there's so many logistical moving parts and things that you need to deal with that
it's the creative part is great that's the part that we all that we all love and kind
of enjoy then you have to kind of buckle down and actually get the people to show up you have
to cast cast the movie you have to hire the crew you have to figure out who what what is going to
happen with all the different departments who's going to feed them how are we going
to pay for this where where is that going to happen and then even on set I. I think set is
often more mechanical than it is creative too because you're just trying to make sure that
everybody shows up stands in the right spot and does their job I often describe directing the
the way I think of directing it as basically driving a train I'm the engineer of a train
that's going off a cliff but I have to convince all the passengers that everything is going just
fine just keep doing what you're supposed to be doing everything is going just fine and hopefully
we kind of land where we're supposed to land but I don't really have control at that point
it's just sort of I brought together the pieces now I let those pieces kind of manifest I think
you've also said don't be afraid just make your movie yeah I think so many so many people I know
have been waiting and waiting and waiting to get something done they've been for 10 years waiting
to make their their feature and I think it's a strange it comes from a fear it comes from from
a fear that what they make isn't going to be good or what they make isn't going to be what they want
it to be and that's going to be true no matter no matter what no matter how good you are at
filmmaking whether if you're making a 100 million dollar movie you're making a 1 000 movie it's not
going to be what you what you want or what you set out to or what you originally envisioned
but if you don't go out and make that you're never going to have any growth you're never
going to have the opportunity to to kind of learn and keep moving forward and I sort of view it as I
I've got a million ideas I'm not I'm not sitting there with oh this is my one idea this has to be
the greatest film I ever make because I have no other ideas I've got a million ideas I can move
on to the next idea if this one doesn't work I can move on to the next idea I can make the next film
and hopefully that's better and hopefully that connects with people in a different way and by
doing that we show that we're capable of getting a project from start to finish and I think that
alone is really important to a lot of people and so when you want to make a bigger project people
are interested in hiring people who have actually shown that they can successfully move something
through all the stages of progress humility has something to do with it too because it made people
think oh well if it's not this budget amount then I I'm I'm not going to do this yeah I have to I
have to be up here and they start too high right yeah I think a lot of people they have ideas about
what the industry is or what it means to make a film I've heard this is there are a lot of
ideas that kick around that are old kind of what I think of as old ideas and so I've seen people
be don't put your name on any movie unless it's a big theatrical release you don't want you don't
want to be because you want to be a first-time director because nobody's going to hire you if
you've directed other movies and I'm this just is not true knowing lots of people who are who
have made some kind of transition that it's just not true it's just not true and maybe it was true
20 years ago or something along those lines but I think people are still have that kind of fear
they only have one shot this is their their only chance and so I don't think it's as much that they
it's not good enough for them I think it's more just that they're afraid that if they do this
it's going to undermine their ultimate success and from my perspective if you make a bad movie nobody
watches it it's not it's not you you if you're get hired 10 years from now after having made a bunch
of movies those people are not going to go watch every one of your old movies and even if they do
they understand that they want to see the progress they don't necessarily care that
your first movie isn't great they care that you've shown that you've you've gotten better that you've
learned that you're now at a stage where you can do something that's at the level that they expect
so that that's one of these sort of old industry terms don't put your name on anything that's not
sort of major theatrical yeah I've heard things that before where I have friends who who who don't
want their name on anything or they or they say I can't have my name as a director I'll work on this
project I'll even direct this project but I can't have my name on it because it'll look bad for me
when I'm trying to get hired for a Marvel movie or something that they have again they have these
lofty dreams of oh I should just jump from nothing to to that and I think for a while you would see
more of the kind of filmmakers who are who are blowing up or getting hired on those big things
had not done a lot of projects or you wouldn't it didn't look they had done a lot of projects and
maybe secretly they had but they're they weren't really publicized or their student films they kept
them kind of buried but more and more I think you're seeing a lot of independent filmmakers
built build up and make the jump ultimately to bigger projects.