Film Courage: Let's say we brought you in to address a room of 20 students and
they're about to make their first feature. They've already made a few
short films. What are you telling them? What's your advice to them? Ben Medina, Writer/Director/Photographer ECCO movie: Have they
written their scripts let's say half of them half half of them have okay I'll
answer half of your question first okay and then I'll ask you another question
for the half that haven't written them yet I would say write what you can shoot
and shoot what you can cut and cut what you can finish because from my
experience I started writing ideas and then scripts that were weren't in the
realm of possibility of making or producing so I didn't waste time my
approach was to write material that I wanted to see and then I wanted to make
and that's that's great if you're writing scripts on spec but not if
you're gonna write a script to make film write what you can shoot and so if you
can shoot it then you better be able to cut it so don't don't try to shoot an
action movie if you can't cut an action movie because the last part will be true
which is you won't finish it the only reason I have a career is cuz I finish
the film first and then I became more and more and more ambitious finishing
things along the way and I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and he
said 70% of all features are not finished and so I think it's very hard
when you tell a film student or a fan of film that hey man you know your kung fu
action movie is not gonna happen right now you should do a bank heist movie
that ends in a diner and don't show the heist or something like that so it's a
matter of shoe or right which you can shoot and then
finish it and make sure it's done and then it will be a tool will be a go be a
calling card for you to move forward but nobody cares about your career if you
can't finish anything second question or the second half of
the group I would say if their scripts are done are they financed do they have
capital do they have investors is the process there in pre-production or is
the process there in financing okay let's suppose most of them will be
either getting money from family and friends or putting on a credit card or
they're going to some will try their attempt at crowdfunding it doesn't mean
they will be truthful yeah if they're at a stage where that are going to get film
financing I would sit down and have a conversation with yourself or with your
team depending on how you how you're working if you're working with a team of
producers and you guys are all a unit I'm gonna talk about it together if
you're not if you're just some rogue dude or a gal and you're just gonna do
this shit like Robert Rodriguez then just have this conversation with
yourself and that is what are you gonna do with the film it has to have a
purpose it has to have an audience so you have to think okay I'm gonna make
this film and I'm gonna submit it to Sundance or I'm gonna make this film and
I must submit it to a horror film festival or I'm gonna make this film and
I'm gonna use it to go get an advertising commercial director job has
to have a purpose because before you can figure out how much an investment in
this project is worth it has to have a value and the value has to be its goal
right so its goal is to I want it to festival and who knows what will happen
okay great well when you talk to people about helping you that's your vision
your vision isn't I'm gonna tell you about two people in a canoe in this
horror movie it's like no no they want to hear about what you're going to do
with it when it's done they don't care about they don't really care
about how you're gonna make it they really don't because they're not you
also if you know what you're gonna do with it then you can justify something
like putting it on your credit card which I would not advise to anyone I
know someone who did that years ago she went into sixty thousand dollars of debt
credit card wise the movie went nowhere she was paying that off for ten years
and she didn't have a goal with the film which is one of her challenges and also
it just sort of it it became a pet project a vanity project instead of a
project she could really stand behind if you're using someone else's money
there's also a sense of duty to finish so if you are asking for family and
friends and stuff like that to help you if they do give you the money there's a
sense of debt which is good to them crowdfunding I don't know anything about
that I don't know I have no idea how that really works my guess is the only
way you get crowdfunding is if you have a flash teaser or flash trailer or
something that can tell a stranger that their money should be in your pocket I
know people have done it before I've seen some teasers for it you know
success is probably all over the map about it but but yeah I would I would
definitely say the first thing is to figure out what they're gonna do with
the film so that it legitimizes the investment and doesn't become a vanity
project and then the last thing I would say to a
group full of filmmakers who's about to start is communication is it can be
really hard if it's your art it can be really hard if it's your work but if
you're working with the right people they are all gonna make your vision a
reality don't be a fucking diva we've all met
those people we've all met the people who either went to USC film school or
they went to a filmmaking class on a weekend and they are
Eva no one wants to work for you if you're a diva zero people want to work
for you and even less people want to work for you day two so you have to
figure out hey I'm a pre-production hey I got some money hey I got a really good
insurance and I have really good people really good people and those are the
people that work SuperDuper hard I know people who are very successful who still
work on no many projects all the time if they like the people and chances are
that everyone I'm talking to is in that boat so I would spend time getting to
know the people who were on your crew really well you know I wouldn't put
director on your fucking chair people put director on their chair and it's
like that's so stupid years ago years ago a woman I was dating
her mother bought me a director's chair and she was very wealthy person and she
had an embroidered said director and I had my name on it and I put it in
storage and now it's gone I never ever took it on a set ever because one you're
a good director you're not sitting in that chair ever and to nobody cares the
last thing I would tell people who want to have a long future in the business is
find out what the people at your camera house and your grip and electric house
and your truck rental house and maybe the people who do film permits find out
what they like to drink and buy it I don't know how many bottles of scotch or
champagne or cubes of beer I've bought for people who never forgot that hey
this is the guy who's always grateful for my help
right and that's what matters you know especially if you're underfunded is that
you really care about all the people around you and all the people that get
to decide if you get to make your film so
yeah and the one last curveball would be somebody who wants to make a feature
they don't have any plans to do anything with it they just want the experience so
and it's not really a vanity project in that they're not totally casting
themselves they just want to know what it's like from start to finish to make a
film and what's the question exactly the question is what what are their set of
parameters how are they doing it differently hmm or is it all the same it
doesn't really matter I think that I have met no one in my life who's wealthy
enough to make a movie by themselves for fun and have no goal the only person I
can think of in history is like Howard Hughes and so I I don't think I would be
able to give any advice to a person who had a trust fund and thought it would be
fun to make a film because even if they have a lot of money and time and they're
creative and even if they're super nice they're still going to be engaging with
a lot of other people on their crew they're going to be renting things in
order to make this experience possible and all of the all of the parameters
around respect and all the parameters around gratitude apply to them anyway
the only caution I would give someone who's doing it for fun is is probably
easy for you to waste other people's time and I learned I think it was the
first couple of weeks I was in LA I learned how long it took to get from one
place to another right and I was late to a couple meetings
I wasted a couple of people's time and they made it super clear to never do
that again so I hope that this rich fictional phantom person who's making a
movie for fun pays people a lot of money and doesn't waste their time
you