Film Courage: James, what would you say to that person who just can’t get that first
project off of the ground?
James Kicklighter, Filmmaker: Well no one’s asking for your film.
Let’s start there.
No one cares about you.
No one wants to hear your film.
No one wants to hear your story because they don’t know you exist.
I don’t mean that in a harsh way but they don’t care about your film.
And so if you want your first film to be made unless you are independently wealthy which
I was not independently wealthy being a child of teachers.
I had to figure out how to do it.
I had to figure out how to put money together.
My first film was a short film called THE CAR WASH with a dear friend of mine named
Edith Ivey who is still with us.
She is almost 91 now.
And she agreed to be in my film because she liked my script and I figured out how to finance
it by making high-school graduation DVDs with a camcorder having a basic package for $20.00
where you would get just your get college graduation on a DVD.
But for $30.00 you could get an upgraded package with the exclusive behind-the-scenes photo
gallery before graduation and your name printed on a disc.
80 percent of the people bought the deluxe edition even though there’s not really a
big difference between the two.
But then I was able to use that money to channel it into making my first film.
I was able to fly Edith to Savannah (to Statesboro).
I was able to pay for a hotel, do catering, all of these things.
I was still in college and I didn’t have money but I made enough money to pay her SAG
student fee.
I made enough money to do all of those other things.
And it was because I looked at things entrepreneurially and I said well how can I do this one thing
to do this other thing.
Because nobody cared about my film and nobody cared about me.
It’s like I’ve never made anything, who cares?
You are in college, whatever.
I made it happen for myself.
Because I made that choice and because I cast the right actor, because I took it to film
festivals, because I went to those film festivals (all on my own dime) not because I’m independently
wealthy.
Again, I was able to get to a point where now people give me checks to make films and
it was because I took that initiative.
So it’s not that you can’y make your film.
It’s that you are choosing not to make it because you are choosing not to take that
leap.
There is no guarantee when you take that leap that you will have that wonderful series of
events happen (none).
I was just lucky that people liked the film that I made.
And so the best thing you can do is write the best damn script you can make, get the
best feedback from people you know, from people who happen to work in the industry.
If there’s an online script service that can review your script, whatever it is.
Take the notes, take the feedback, don’t reject it, embrace those things because you
probably don’t know what you’re doing yet because you haven’t done it.
And then make it the best film you can make.
Then take it to festivals, put it on the internet, do whatever you have to do and then do it
again.
And it’s going to still take you awhile before people give you a check to make a film
unless you suddenly get 20 million hits on your film on Youtube or if it wins the Jury
Prize at Sundance right?
It’s very unlikely that you are suddenly going to start getting checks and so you have
to keep doing what I did which is do something else, use that money to make something and
over time and over time I start shifting from having to spend my own money to spending other
people’s.
But with that comes and entirely different set of challenges…entirely.
Film Courage: You keep saying lucky…can I just interject here?
But you also sound very organized and very disciplined.
James: Well you have to be and but that’s not a skill you are born with I don’t think.
That’s a skill that you learn.
But I do sincerely believe that there is an element of luck.
You are probably tired of hearing me say that word.
There is an element of luck.
But of course there also is (and that is the first thing) preparation, discipline, and
hopefully some talent too because you’ve got to figure out how to get to that point
where you want to be and if you are not prepared or organized ready, when the day comes and
you are making two features at the same time, you are not going to be ready to do it because
you don’t know how to get there.
You don’t know how to structure and discipline and deliver because it’s very different
when you go from a point where well this is $1,000 I raised of my money to make a short
to now I’m spending hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars of someone
else’s money that has to be made back because it’s a business and it’s not personal
anymore.
That’s that transition.
So if you can’t make that transition of discipline, no one else will ever give you
another multi-million dollar check to make a film ever again in your life, won’t happen.