Fast forward about twenty-five years after starting to write my very first feature screenplay … After being hired numerous times over those years to write scripts for several production companies … After having several of my own speculative scripts optioned and then developed by several production companies … After having pitched many story ideas to several production companies, some with studio deals and offices on studio lots … After having pitched said stories and having them developed by several production companies (many of these you would probably recognize) … And after having written sixteen feature screenplays at this point, and to then have none of them actually finish production … wow. Some were ready to start production, but snafus certainly out of my control prevented that from happening. So anyway, I became one of those writers who got paid some decent $$’s over the years to never see anything actually come of it. Well, other than be able to support myself and my family … which is certainly nothing. However …

 At a certain age (age discrimination?) with no real screenwriting credits, the phones quit ringing (to get hired) … and then, what’s a person to do? Yes, the repetitive lesson I learned over the years, is that for the most part, writers have no power in the film industry. Of course, I still had my day job(s) going on (at times), but I was determined to find a way though this ongoing crazy labyrinth. Or I could give up, right? Nah … not really a part of my DNA. 

So finally, yes finally, after about 20 years of this, I decided to produce my own little indie film project from one of my own screenplays. I figured to greenlight myself … somehow … some way. I had no idea at first, but I had gradually educated myself over the years as to how the industry worked. Or actually, how it worked against you. I needed to find a way to stack the odds in my favor, now that I had a head of steam headed in a whole new direction.

Over the years I had worked on several films in various production crew positions; a number of shorts and several low budget indies, as well as working for a major film studio. So I was not a neophyte to film production. But being a complete producer was a whole new gig, one I had to figure out quickly, as now I would be the guy “in charge.”

First thing I knew I had to do was find a script property. Well, guess what, I already had that. Hey, I’m a screenwriter, right? Producing 101 – find a script you want to produce. So, part of my job was already done. I certainly had plenty, but obviously it needed to be low budget, which led me to …

Next part, much harder. The greenbacks. If I was to attach any serious film person, cast or crew, or otherwise, I had to have those. So yes, I needed a finance person to find me the bucks. For sure the budget had to be under $1M, and possibly much less. Ah, I needed a budget to go along with that. I created a rough one, and searched for an executive producer to find the bucks.

 Needless to say, I found one who actually lived with me, my wife. She was not a film person,  but she had some savvy about money, so I volunteered her. Amazingly, she jumped right in, not really knowing what she was getting into. Ha, she had no idea of the quirkiness of the business, and I tried my best to educate her. Over time, we figured it all out, and decided to put in a few bucks of our own to make people know we were serious, and then went out to go and get a few more bucks. Obviously, it wasn’t as easy as all that, but we eventually got there.

Now we had to really be serious and pull together a cast and crew. Being a low budget indie, this first time out we decided to go non-union, as we needed every piece of change we could get to prep, shoot, and cut this thing. But above all, I needed to find a director right off. As the writer and producer, I needed that piece first to pull a lot of all these other things off. That turned out to take me on a lot of twists and turns, and ended in a surprising way. Until next time …

JAD

(to be continued)