Film Courage: How many years did you work on just short films? Peter Dukes, Filmmaker: I did short films in college
of course so that was going back to well I'll put it this way I've been making
short films since I was a kid with the old block camcorder that had to be
plugged into the walls but if we're talking about real films with crews you
know professional or at least semi-professional I think my first was
in 99 or 2000 I took about a four year break once I moved to Los Angeles didn't
know anybody didn't have any money so I needed to put some pieces together and
once I did that that probably was 2005 and I think my last short film to date
at least would have been a fun little crime action film called sweet madness
which I believe was 2015 so good solid ten years of just non-student and we're
not talking student films or kid films like me going out there pulling in
investors and producers pulling the true together and just getting it done
there's probably good solid ten eleven years so that four years that you came
here and you weren't making films what was that light because you you'd planned
making films since you were a kid go to film school in a really cool town
and and then you come here and essentially you probably feel like oh
wow now I'm gonna be living what I set out to do well reality hits as much as I
love the film school again it didn't prepare you to go into this industry not
Los Angeles I came out in a sense cold turkey I'd been taught how to load
some mags and I wrote like a short film script of my senior film class but I
didn't know how to pull the crew together I didn't know how to produce I
didn't know about permits I didn't know anything about any of it I knew I had to
learn it though I also didn't have any money I had to get a job pretty soon you
find yourself working a job or two and then I tried I was doing that I got some
internships on the side to try to meet people figure out how the business work
I eventually got a job at a literary agency representing writers and
directors and so on and so forth to learn that side of the business I
started to put together my long term plan at that point I wanted to know who
was who in the town I wanted to know how contracts worked what was fair what
wasn't fair I wanted to learn how these people got representation what it took
and it just took time to get these things in place and while I was doing
these jobs I had access to no gear I didn't have money to pay for gear I
didn't know people to ask they'd come in volunteer
I had no press no brand to sell myself to get people to want to work with me
for nothing so it took a number of years to get to a place I was like okay I am
as close as I'm going to be I mean I couldn't wait another 10 years but I'm
as close as I'm going to be to having the ability to do my first post-college
film and that was around 2005 I just eventually just pulled the trigger I so
I'm doing it I'll figure out the rest at some point you just got to go with it
I'm and so I did I made that film for about seven or eight thousand dollars
that was the last film I shot on actual film after that everything went digital
and it saved me a tremendous amount of money but yeah I that's something that
that film students and everything canon should be aware of in terms of of me I
just didn't know any better I went to a film school that taught me some amazing
things about the history of film and I'm so glad I learned it but I came out here
like a baby I didn't know anybody didn't know anything and had to learn
everything on my own from the ground up which has proved beneficial to me in the
long run but at first it was challenging you just had to find your way and just
go with it you know with film and you could read a
million books but there's no simple a twosie about how to make it or how to be
a producer or director a writer so I kind of did it the only way I knew how I
learned how on set and whatever mistakes I made I learned from them and didn't do
them again but it it's and everyone's got their own
road that was mine so yeah I had that little four year pause and once that
pause ended I've been pumping out films ever since were you working at the
literary agency the entire for you know what ended up I will know I worked
at the literary agency for about a year and a half I interned at Paramount I
interned for some other producers in town I worked at why don't you remember
the name of I worked at the mall I worked at restaurants I just worked you
got to make your money oh but that taught me early on one of the most
important lessons which for me I always knew what I wanted to do there was no
doubt about it and I was prepared for it to be an uphill battle for the rest of
my life and it has been I mean being a filmmaker is hard in all the best ways
to me I think everything you really love and care about it's hard you know it
takes a lot of effort and filmmaking certainly requires a lot of effort but
as I've been out here in Los Angeles steadily working away and putting my
pieces in place and kind of figuring out okay where is this gonna lead me in five
years versus ten years like where do I want to go and how am I gonna get there
it took a while for me to figure out exactly what I needed to do but
throughout that journey I saw a lot of people come out wanting to do the same
they wouldn't make it very long and one of the most common traits I saw and the
people who didn't make it very long were those who I don't think fully
appreciated how hard filmmaking is I think they loved film I don't think they
loved filmmaking and it's an important difference I think
that if you come out to this town with stars in your eyes and some of these
things I've written about before which you might have read some of my articles
but I think if you come out to LA to be a filmmaker and kind of the preeminent
thought you have is fame and fortune I think that's a fine motivation to have
but if it's your primary motivation I think it's going to be disappointing for
you because the odds are of you making it big are slim to none I think for me
and for most others if you can sit there and tell yourself that I will I I would
do this for free the rest of my life working side jobs never gonna make a lot
of money I'm not gonna have a big house in Beverly Hills I'm not gonna you know
mingle with the Stars if you can tell yourself that
I would be happy just making stories small films that maybe will go to some
festivals but that's about it and you're okay with that as let's say a
worst case scenario that's all you're ever gonna do and you're okay with that
I think you're on your way that's a very good place to start if you do achieve
more and you aspire for more I think that's perfectly fine but to me that's
always been icing on the cake it'll be a bonus but I think it's your core you
really need to love the process because it's it's a challenging one and it's not
for everybody did you see anything that was eye-opening by working with these
writers at the literary agency I mean I don't know how close she actually got to
the writers maybe you didn't get that close to them but just in terms of
seeing the ones that because I know there's writers that are frustrated with
the you know whether they're novelist or whatever and it's not what they thought
and they have well sure editors can totally controlling their book and it's
not you know so there's a lot of similarities I learned a lot of things
working at the agency I think in terms of your question the most important
thing I took out of it from a strictly writing and directing standpoint is that
the fight never ends because it is very very hard to get representation from a
manager standpoint but certainly from an agency standpoint you pretty much have
to be a moneymaker to get attention from an agency
sometimes they'll take on someone who want a big festival because they believe
in them and they see them as a good investment about what would happen often
is if an agent has say 30 clients and these are all people who made it they're
talented people they've broken through from that ocean of people even then you
know maybe the top five clients get time with the agents and one else gets
ignored for weeks at a time because they're not the big money they're not
making the big a-list movies with the hot new director or the established
director they you know made something that won a big festival Telluride or
whatever it may be or they're a journey man who's made some movies that have
been successful here and there but anyways they're people who've made
movies many of which have been released theatrically they've they've made it
they're still fighting it's gonna be Rapp unless your Spielberg on his upper
echelon people it's always gonna be a scrap and I that was something I learned
early on I said oh so these guys they made I mean they fought the fight and
they emerged from five hundred thousand other aspiring filmmakers and they made
it and they're still like I need a job like get me into a room let me pitch
someone pitch my script and whatever it is so that was interesting to me and I
think both enlightening and I I think advantageous because again I was already
kind of prepared but it prepared me even more so to be okay with it to be okay
to never reach a point where I go okay boy projects are being thrown on my lap
left to right is great that even after after and Here I am with escape room
came out theatrically world wide opened up number one in the UK so it did pretty
good it was a small movie but did pretty good I didn't have agencies colony no
management companies called me know entertain attorneys called me I'm still
securing my own deals and I'm getting more and more and better and better
deals but it's not like it opened the floodgates so there's never like a door
you open where it just it's easy from here on out and I think a lot of people
would be surprised to hear that especially filmmakers
you