Once I gave up my fantasies about “The Producer” who reads my script, pulls out a check, and makes it all happen, I was ready to make a film. There was no dream producer and no check, just hours of hard work, rattling a cup online for small donations, hustling favors, and eventually making a "no-budget feature”. I'm proud as hell of the film not only because it was made but because it was made well. I happen to think that I aced it.

Once I let go of the fantasy, once I quit waiting for my big break, I was able to make my dreams come true and create a film that I love and believe in.

I'm now in post-production and preparing myself for distribution.

Having been released from the Production Fantasy, I’m on to the Distribution Fantasy: I get into Sundance, I'm screened some time in the beginning of the festival while industry is still there, I create a great poster and bleed more money on a publicist, I get that standing ovation (which, for the record, would be well deserved,) and as I walk out into the lobby of the theater after the screening, distributors throw bids, checks and contracts at me, so that I don't even have to think about the film's after-screening party that I hadn't organized because I can't afford it and because I don't like parties.

I go home satisfied. I send an email to my friends about the premier at the Angelika and the Lincoln Center Theater, word-of-mouth spreads instantaneously because the film is fantastic (and it is), and I get to kick back and smile at how it all went down while agents call me asking to package my next feature. Because I'm modest, I don't prepare an Oscar acceptance speech till I've made my third or fourth feature. I mean, let’s be real.

Like every other filmmaker, my fantasy distribution scenario was keeping me in a state of angst. What if after working THIS hard, and making a film THIS good, no one ever gets to see this film...? What if I don't even get IN to Sundance to begin with? The possible heartache was an unconscious block that had me move through post-production like a dying snail crawling backwards, terrified of the eventual tragic ending that all this work would lead to.

Aware, just enough, that I was slowed down by the fear of making a film that no one will ever see, I decided to do my homework. Too much went into this film for me to learn on the job; I decided in advance to do whatever I had to do to avoid distribution mistakes. I wanted ammo. The ammo when it comes to distribution (and all things production) is accurate information and a realistic picture of what it would take. By abandoning the fantasy of "being found", I was ready to pull up my sleeves and do what needs to get done.

This past weekend I attended a seminar by Jon Reiss.

Reiss' seminar began with a ten minute talk on distribution deals (you know, the kind where they attack you with bids, advances, and contracts, as you step into the lobby after that standing ovation.) Reiss’ talk was ten minute long because, as he explained, it didn't pertain to the people in the room.

It didn't pertain to us not because our films aren't worthy of it, but because of the thousands of films that get made each year, two-hundred end up in Sundance. Of these, twenty are sold to distributors. If you’re not rep’ed by one of the top six sales agents, you won’t be one of those twenty. Are there exceptions to this? Sure. There are also winning lottery tickets out there.

Would you plan your finances on the basis of hoping for a winning ticket? Not I. My film will be distributed no matter who reps or doesn’t rep it, no matter who buys, or doesn’t buy it. Just like my film got made no matter what anybody had to say about it, my film will get shown and even make a profit, no matter what any damn festival or distributor has to say about it. (The beauty of no-budget features is that profit is a realistic goal. You just have to keep your head straight about making an acceptable year’s salary and abandon the idea that your indie film will make you rich.)

When the ten-minute talk was over, Reiss turned his attention to more important matters: how does one distribute their own film? The rest of the weekend was devoted to answering that question.

I urge you to follow me on this: learn how to properly and realistically distribute the kind of film that you are making. Where to begin?

Visit Jon Reiss’ site: www.UltimateFilmGuides.com

Good stuff on the site, but it’s still a work-in-progress. If things go as he plans, and I hope (and predict) that they will, it will become an indispensible font of resources and contacts to guide and help you do your own distribution.

Until then: buy his book Think Outside the Box Office. When should you buy this book? Run don’t walk. Buy it now. Buy it before you write your screenplay.

OK, so I have a strong opinion about a book I haven’t seen yet. (Just ordered it. It’s in the mail.) But if the book is anything like his seminar, it will become your Bible.

(Buy his book on his website and not on Amazon or Barnes & Noble. For a few reasons: first, more money will go to this hard-working filmmaker and teacher rather than a faceless corporation. Second, tons of coupons, perks, book updates, etc. that you receive when you buy the book on his site. It’s an excellent way to join a community of filmmakers who have learned how to distribute their own films.)

I wasn’t asked by anyone to make this pitch. I’m only thanking my lucky stars for taking Reiss’ seminar before distributing my film. Reiss saved me from botching up the distribution of my beloved film by wiping silly fantasies out of my head and prep’ing me for the work that’s ahead.

I have my ammo. I feel hopeful.

Additional resources:

I also attended Caitlin Boyle’s seminar on distribution (focused on docs, but I learned a lot. was excellent.)

And I loved Debora Zimmerman’s workshop on distribution, offered by Women Make Movies.

Both were excellent.

THIS WEEK’S ASSIGNMENT:

You mean, besides buying Reiss’ book immediately?

1) Sign up for the producing workshop I'm offering this weekend (June 12-13). Because what the heck are you waiting for? It's time to make the movie.

2) Apply for the following position if you think that we might be a match:

I’m seeking a “Producer of Marketing & Distribution” who will work directly with me to distribute my films. I won’t care if you work 4 hours or 400 hours, if the work gets done. You’ll make your own hours and work from home (or from wherever you want to work.) You will be trained directly by me, and both of us will receive consultations from Reiss himself. Money will come in the form percentages; so will depend on what we pull off.

If you want to learn all about film distribution, if you want to work with me, if you want to be credited as a producer in my feature, if your writing and organizational skills are immaculate, if you like computers and spreadsheets turn you on, and if you’re super ambitious and know that you can kick ass when it comes to marketing if you were given correct guidance, then send me a letter and resume at:

ThierProductions@gmail.com

The subject headline of your email should say: Producer of Marketing & Distributions

Why make this the subject headline of your email? Because you’ll make a good first impression by showing that you can follow directions ;)

With love and appreciation,
Ela

Every morning, you should be waking up to a 2-item to-do list. Sometimes it’s a 1-item to-do list. On a rare occasion, and this should be avoided, it may be a 3-item to-do list, but that’s getting outrageous.

What should be on your 2-item to-do list? Create this list by asking yourself the following question: “When I go to bed tonight, I’ll be satisfied with the day if I…”

Most of the endless items on our to-do lists consist of things that have nothing to do with fulfilling our dreams or moving ourselves towards the life that we want to build. Most of the clutter on our to-do lists is filled with meaningless minutia that isn't important to us. The things that are truly important get shoved off further and further down the bottom of this long, dreadful list.

Yes, some of that minutia does need to get done. Laundry needs to be washed and bills have to be paid. The 2-item to-do list is simply there to remind us what to prioritize. What if this morning you spent 10 minutes writing a poem, before you answered all the work-related emails?

The 2-item to-do list is not about shrugging responsibility. It’s about prioritizing. It's not about prioritizing what's in our schedule. It's about scheduling what we want to prioritize.

So: when you go to bed tonight, you’ll feel satisfied with your day if you’ve done what…?

List 1 or 2 items. And that’s it.

Now here are the next steps:

1) One of the two items you listed, will be the first thing that you do in the morning, before emails, before phone calls, before anything.

2) Your first item, preferably both items, will ideally be done by 11am.

3) You will do only one of those item at a time, and continue to fulfill that one task until it’s done. No multi-tasking. No turning to the second task before the first one is done. No internet, txt’ing or phone until that task is done.

If the task at hand is part of a long-term project, such as writing a novel, then your task for that day should be turned into a task you can complete in the morning, such as: “work my novel for 30 minutes” or: “write chapter 5”.

I REPEAT:

You do item 1 on your list, first thing in the morning. You do it until it’s done. You don’t interrupt it with any other task. You don’t move on to item 2, until item 1 is completed. Item 1 is done first thing in the morning. Both items are ideally done by 11am.

After 11am, you have the rest of the day to tend to the much less important “could-do” list which includes things like laundry and bills and yeah, your job.

If you create a 1 or 2 item to do list each day, you will become more productive & satisfied with your life, You will change the entire trajectory of your life. You will find yourself somewhere very different just a few weeks from now.

My 2-item to-do list for tomorrow:

1) Contact my sister to make plans to meet up

2) Check out the karate dojo near my house

THIS WEEK’S ASSIGNMENT:

Speaking of scheduling in the important stuff: at some point this week, take the time to look at a sunset.

And feel free to share your personal 2-item to-do list in the comments below :)

*I think I learned this tidbit from "7 Habits of Highly Effective People". I can't remember, but I'm pretty sure that's where this one came from...? My take on the various live-good-life books is to A) Respect democracy. If everyone is reading it, check it out. B) You never have to accept these books uncritically. Read the popular ones, taking from it what makes sense to you and leaving the rest in peace.

Dear gentle fighter,

 

I'm writing to remind you that the real fight is not out here. It’s in your mind. It’s the fight for perspective. It’s the fight to know what’s true about you and about other people. It’s the fight to reject all the noise and lies that got put in your head a long time ago, telling you that you are small, powerless, insignificant. It’s the fight to know that you are good, that you have always done the very best you could, that you deserve no reproach, that you are worth a fight. It’s the fight to know that you were made in the image of God. Just by virtue of being a human being, you are the most complex and interesting thing in the known universe. You are simply as good as it gets.

 

You are always free to choose what you think about yourself. Nobody can take this freedom away from you. You always have the power to think what you want. This is the greatest power of all.

 

In my mind, I often envision two large, rabid dogs. Any time a thought floats through my mind that is in any way judgmental or unkind towards me, I unleash these crazed dogs and they shred it to its death. There is no reasoning with these dogs. If I command them to go, they storm off, rabid, crazed, foaming at the mouth; they pounce, they rip, they kill. They don’t reason. That’s what I do to the noise in my own head. I don’t have debates with it. I kill.

 

This is your fight CP. Your fight is to know that you are good, that you are significant, that you have people, that you are big, that you are pure, that you deserve to be treated well, that despite the occasional mistakes that get made in your direction, people do love you and stick by you, that you already have everything you need. It's the fight to remember that I've always been pleased with you, and that I'll always care about you.

 

And here’s the most wondrous thing about this fight: once you decide to take it on, you can’t lose it. You can get knocked down temporarily, you can lose an occasional battle, the noise of a stinky past can sideswipe you every once in a while. But in the long haul: once you decide to wage this war, the war for perspective, you’ve already won. Winning comes from the very decision to have this fight. Your mind, your freedom and power to choose your perspective, is bigger than the lies that rattle in your head and put you down. All it takes is one single decision that you are worth fighting for. From there on, each time the noisy past confuses you and makes you forget this decision, you need to re-decide and re-decide, time and again.

 

Over time you will get better at making this decision. With practice, the decision to hold a perspective will last longer and become more effective. The fight for perspective is a muscle. The more you work it out, the stronger it becomes. It’s a practice.  Make it your practice and surround yourself with reminders. The quilt. “Little Friends”. Sledding. Surround yourself with reminders everywhere in your life: in your backpack, on your website, in your facebook postings. Print out and hang this very letter by that chin-up bar that you have mounted on your bathroom door.

 

I hope you can temporarily borrow my perspective about you and use it as ammunition. I've borrowed your perspective about me to help me remember who I really am. I challenge you to like and honor yourself as much as you like and honor me. And for now, let me be the rabid dogs that would tear to shreds any punishing, belittling, or invalidating thought about you. If it helps, any time you have an unkind thought in your mind, you can picture me shredding it to death. Because I would. In a heartbeat. I would be entirely unreasonable about it. My perspective about you is that you are pure goodness, that you deserve to be treated with caring and tenderness, that you never deserved anything bad that ever happened to you, that your struggles as a human are trivial in comparison to how alive and magnificent you are. I think you're as good as it gets, and nobody can change my mind about you. Not even you. Borrow my perspective about you for a while if you need to. But ultimately, you don’t need that either. You have complete power to decide what you think about yourself.

 

The decision to adopt a new perspective about yourself will change your life. It will also change the lives of those around you because it’s contagious.

 

This is your fight.

If it helps, let me translate this letter into a language that you can understand:

Do this for me.

I want to see you win.

No matter the context or story, if the actor can feel, the audience will too.

How do you help an actor feel?

I find that regardless of the context of the particular story, there is usually one key that unlocks the actor’s heart: one key that will make their feelings accessible to them. Once you earn their trust and are given that key, they will be able to access any and all emotions. Find one true feeling, and the rest will come like dominos.

An actor, like all people, has a wide library of many emotions, but you need the key to be allowed into their library.

A great actor knows the way in, has ownership of this key and go there regardless of what a director will do (and sometimes despite what the director will do). However, if you can get a hold of this key, even the most experienced actor will breath a sigh of relief for having a partner on set with them – for not having to go it alone.

Actor Jeremy Renner in the Hurt Locker talks to his baby son, envying him for his ability to love everything. You love less and less things as you get older, Renner explains. When you get to be my age, he continues, you love only one or two things (paraphrased).

Your actor is most likely at that age: scabs and scabs have built up, covering our truly loving nature, and we end up only being able to really feel the love for those one or two things.

If you find just one thing, that your actor truly loves, you will find the key to his or her every performance. This one thing is usually a relationship.

The key to an actor’s heart, the key to everyone’s heart, (for you writers out there: the key to your character’s heart), is any spot at all where they can tell that they care.

A good question to ask your actor is: “Who is your biggest ally in the world?” Or you can ask them whom they most care about. Which direction the caring goes doesn’t so much matter. They can be the lover or the beloved. We’re simply aiming for the one relationship in their life about which they are able to feel something.

I had one actor who thought about her mom in order to open up. Another actor loved her grandmother who had always been an ally to her. I made sure to have her grandmother’s picture with me on set. I handed her the picture during those scenes in which I needed her to feel most intensely. Another actor was thinking about a lover she had just broken up with. When she played out a scene with her fictitious mother, a scene that had nothing to do with romance, feeling her love propelled her into one of the most real and compelling performances I had ever seen.

You want your actor to be able to feel – anything. Even if they are playing an “unfeeling character”. Why? Because a true-to-life unfeeling character wants to be able to feel. An “unfeeling character” is hiding the fact that they really actually care. They may even hide if from themselves, but it’s in there.  If your actor feels nothing while playing someone who doesn’t care, you’ll get a melodramatic and clichéd performances. What you see is what you get.

But if your unfeeling character is played by someone who feels, the character will come off as complex and conflicted.  They will do and say all the unfeeling things that the script prescribes, but their eyes and body language will communicate at least a hint of anguish or self-doubt. The lack of caring will come off as a veil on top of something human that is happening in hiding. The audience will be involved and wait to see if that layer will ever get shed.

THIS WEEK’S ASSIGNMENT:

Excavate for the key to your own heart. Who moves you? Who would you jump off a bridge to save? Who is your biggest ally in the world?

Ready to get brave...? Now make your love public :)

Post a comment below naming someone you love, and recount a favorite moment/memory that you share with them.

the picture above: me and my big brother, Oren. 1974 :)

Writers often attend writing classes not to learn anything but because we hope that “deadlines” and “structure” will keep us writing.

I think that what we mean when we say that we need structure is human connection. We need the company of other writers.

Nobody needs a class to have structure or a deadline. You can decide to structure your writing life any time you wish: you can decide that every morning, at 7am, you’ll write for thirty minutes before you go to work. That’s structure. You can decide that you must finish a script by the Sundance lab deadline. But these structures and deadlines hardly ever work, and they certainly don’t work in terms of sustaining your efforts over time. My deadline for posting this tip was Friday. It's now Tuesday. So what!

This thing we call “structure” when we attend a class is really a euphemism for “friends”. We need people. We need allies. We need other brains who know what we’re writing about, and how it’s going, what we’re trying to figure out, or to just be there with us while we write. The reason I wrote this tip after missing the Friday deadline is not my feeling bad about missing a deadline. I managed to write this tip (by Wednesday) because I know that my friend Ekwa reads my tips every time I write one, and I have her in mind and write for her when I write something.

If you had a real ally who honestly cared about your work, who encouraged you, who didn’t criticize you in the guise of giving “useful feedback”, who got excited any time you made progress, who didn’t lose their patience with you – if you had an ally like that who simply sat with you while you wrote, you wouldn’t need any structure. You would take them up on the company any chance you got, scheduled or not, structured or not, deadline or no deadline, and you would make tremendous progress.

We can choose to be that for each other. We can each find a writer or a group of writers, set up some guidelines that will protect us from invalidation and remind us to encourage each other, and we can flourish by being that for one another. (I’ll write about how to set up a healthy writing group at some point.)

What makes writing so damn difficult is the isolation around it. If “structure” is what we need because we’re too embarrassed to say that we need friends, then heck, let’s call it that. (We’re all too embarrassed to say that we need friends.)

In my writing classes, I send people on “writing dates” with each other outside of class. Two writers meet somewhere to work together. This isn’t about collaborating; it’s about having company while you write. It’s amazing how much concentration and impetus you can get just from sitting down across from another person who is writing as well.

It doesn’t always work. You might still doodle and check your emails. But if you keep meeting over time, things will shift. You’ll begin to write again.

THIS WEEK'S ASSIGNMENT:

Call someone up, tell them that you’re working on a writing project (make one up if you aren’t really), and suggest that you set up a writing date. Meet at a Starbucks or a fancy hotel lobby (hotel lobbies are well lit, quiet, have no music playing, have couches, tables, outlets, and you don’t have to buy anything to sit there). Write together, each working on your own project, for an hour. See if you can set up another one. Now that you have some connection, you can introduce some structure to it: decide to meet every Monday evening or something like that.

If you have no idea what to write or how to even begin, read my article called “Writing exercises to help you write badly”. You may also want to read the article titled "How to Give and Receive Useful Feedback". This article will set you on a good path towards becoming a good ally to someone and training them to be a good ally to you.

Oh yes: and make sure you have no access to the internet while you write. If you need internet to “research”, do you research another time, and use your writing date to actually do the writing. Internet distractions are the death of writing dates.

Feel free, in the “comments” section below, to publicize your search for a writing date. See if there are any takers!

ON-GOING ASSIGNMENT:

I’m in search of a title!

I'm looking for a snazzier, catchier, more accurate title for these weekly tid-bits. I didn’t like “weekly tips” (they’re more than tips…?) and I don’t like “weekly lessons” (they’re not quite lessons…?) Plus, I don’t like the word “tips”, or the word “lesson”, or the word “weekly” for that matter.

And so: I'm putting the word out! If you have an idea, would you post it in the comments below? Or write me your idea? Shoot out to me any idea: the good, the bad, the ugly. A "bad idea" might spur another idea and lead me to the perfect title for this page!

I'm also very interested in hearing any other feedback or ideas regarding these weekly "messages". What type of tips would you want? Should it be a Q&A /advice-column type of thing? A space for folks to write specific questions? Or any particular topic/s you'd want me to write about?

Thanks for letting me know!

Love scenes are often the ones that fall. The lines feel hokey. The writer is lost at sea. She knows that the scene isn’t working but there’s no getting around it… the story calls for it. This is where the two characters must bond…

So what do we do? How do we create love scenes that actually work?

A few tips:

TIP #1:  Add conflict. The conflict can be entirely external to what is happening between your two love-birds. They could be happily making out but ouch! One of them has a toothache. Or ate something bad.  Or the phone keeps ringing. Or one of them has a deadline at work; file must be sent in by 2am. It’s 1:45am and we’ve only just begun… Any bit of external conflict can spruce up a love scene.

TIP #2:  Add conflict. There can be tremendous conflict between two people who totally love each other. In fact, the more they love, the bigger the conflict.  Conflict doesn’t mean “bad things happen”. Bad things can happen without there being any conflict. Like: my computer just crashed. Except I’m on the beach having a blast playing Frisbee. Who cares if my computer crashed.

Conflict means that someone wants something, but an obstacle is in the way of them getting it. If I have to turn in a report by midnight or I lose my job, the computer crash is definitely conflict.

How does this apply to our love birds? Give each lover a goal: something they want to achieve. Make it very concrete and measurable. No vague, immeasurable goals like: “I want him to approve of me”. Blugh. Give them each a measurable goal: meeting it is a yes or no answer. For example: “I want him to touch my hair”, or “I want him to ask me how I’m feeling”, “I want him to suggest that we get married.” These are measurable goals. Whether or not they are met is a yes or no question.

If each person in a love scene has a goal like, no matter how “lovey” the scene is, it will be filled with conflict and therefore: with entertainment. (More on that in your assignment below.)

TIP #3:  Add conflict. A third way to spruce up a soapy, campy love scene is to add conflict. That’s right. I said it again: conflict. Consider adding internal conflict. Not something environmental like a toothache, not something inter-personal like the other person’s cluelessness about what you want, but internal conflict: stuff inside the character’s brain that makes them reticent: feeling shy, insecure, worried about coming across as sleezy. Oh, the list goes on with all the noise that plagues our mind as we try and get close to another human being.

Add conflict. Add conflict. Add conflict. The greater the love, the greater the conflict.

And remember: people don’t bond by blabbing away and talking about their lives. People bond through action. Let’s see the two love-birds do something together (that adds opportunity for conflict!) rather than sit across the table and discuss their childhood.

Ready for your weekly assignment?

THIS WEEK'S ASSIGNMENT

In the spirit of this holiday that’s designed to make single people feel horrible about themselves:  write a romantic scene. For the purposes of this assignment: it’s a hetero couple. A guy. A gal.

Pick two characters. Could be two characters from a project you’re working on, or you can base two characters on two people you know from your life. They’ll become fictional as soon as you start writing them. The real-life people are just there to inspire and launch you off

Now let’s write that bonding scene. Pick and choose any or all of the following sources of conflict:

1) External conflict: the slumlord hasn’t fixed the heat. Whichever apartment they’re hanging out in is freezing cold. (the other apartment is far and snow makes it impossible to drive.) As you write the scene, remember that your characters are freeeeeezing!

2) Inside the guy’s head: he’s aware that he has a reputation as a “womanizer”, and that this woman may be leery of him for this reason. Therefore, to win her trust, he makes it a policy not to initiate any physical contact. He will not touch her unless she touches him first. His goal: to get her to initiate physical contact so he can be assured that she trusts him.

3) Inside her head: The woman is not sure if he’s attracted to her. On top of that, she’s self-conscious about a horrible hair-cut she got that day. She decides that she won’t make a fool of herself by initiating something. Only if he initiates contact, she’ll know that he’s attracted to her and take it from there. Her goal: your guessed it. Her goal is to get him to initiate contact so that she can be assured that he's attracted to her.

OK! Let’s get to work.

Remember that what is in their head never needs to be said, spoken, uttered, or even hinted at. People don’t share their thoughts.

Write this as an improvised scene and let’s see how these two live-birds duke it out, in the cold, on Valentine’s Day.

Happy writing!

Want to be a better writer, a more prolific writer, and actually enjoy writing rather than tackle it like it’s homework?

Take my screenwriting workshop! Next one is weekend of February 28-29.

I'm a big believer in developing technique and becoming super skilled at whatever craft you want to get good at.

In any given craft: writing, directing, photography, painting, there is so much to learn.

The key to flourishing, however, is to learn as much as possible, and then forget all about it when you are actually creating, when you are engaged in your craft.

I just taught my camera workshop this weekend and went through key concepts to strategic camera work as well as a library of tools for planning shots and compositions. Participants spread out throughout the day to exercise the variety of techniques.

What I told, them, however, is that once they're on set and looking at the monitor, they need to abandon being heady about it. Once you're on set, you forget everything you've learned and you immerse yourself in an intuitive and emotional experience. You look at the monitor and search for an emotional response to what you're looking at. If the shot moves you, it's working. If it doesn't move you, if it reflects this or that technique, it won't move your audience either.

I tell my writing students the same thing: know the craft better than anyone else in the world. But when you sit down to write, you put all that learning away. When you write, you're in your characters' shoes. Your character isn't thinking about outlines or archetypes or page numbers. Your character is jealous, or heartbroken, or excited or hopeful or angry. Once you sit down to write, forget the outline, forget structure, forget the craft.

Writing is an emotional experience. If you're having feelings as you write, your reader will as well. If you let your hair down and write what excites you, you'll inevitably write something fresh and original and unique and universal. If you're thinking structure, you'll be hitting one false note after another and end up with contrived dialogue and a paint-by-number screenplay.

I have a 24x30 drawing hanging on my wall that I made with a pack of crayons. There was no craft involved in covering this large piece of newsprint with color. It was entirely an intuitive and enjoyable experience. This drawing reminds me of how I want to work no matter what the medium is.

Every film is a piece of newsprint and a box of crayons. If I'm having fun, I know I'm on the right track.

THIS WEEK'S ASSIGNMENT:

That's right. You'll need a piece of paper (could be a post-it note, or whatever), and you'll need a writing instrument. A box of crayons would be awesome (can get them at Duane Reade), but if you want to do this right now, just grab a post-it and a pen off your desk and get to work.

Close your eyes and scribble. Some more.

Hang it up by your computer.

Someday your films will be that good.

This past weekend, I shot a 17-page short, replete with martial art fights, in just three days. We never went over-time. Here's another economical-camera trick that saves time and raises production value:

In the diagram below, I have an isolated shot of a girl at the kitchen sink. In addition to this shot, I needed a shot of the girl speaking to her mother at the kitchen table.

Rather than create three shots: one at the sink, one at the table, then a third master shot to establish the kitchen, I placed a single pan that followed the girl from the sink to the table. In other words: I began with a single shot of the girl at the sink, then panned over with her to the table, ending on a shot of the girl and her mother having their dialogue.

This simple pan reduced three camera set-ups into one, single shot and wham, I just saved at least 40 minutes of camera set-ups, allowed the actors to flow through an entire scene rather than chop it up, and I raised production value with an elegant and super easy camera movement.

The diagram below demonstrates: The shot begins with girl at the sink. We pan over with her as she walks to the table, revealing the mother sitting at the table, and covering that conversation in that same shot. This same, simple pan also established the space, stitching the sink and table together, giving us the special orientation we need to understand the kitchen they're in.

All that was left to do after this elegant pan was to punch in on each close-up, of the daughter and mother. I didn't really need the mother's close-up because this was the daughter's scene and I didn't think I would use it in the edit. But with all the oodles of time I ended up, given how economic the camera work was, I was able to easily get that close-up just to have it.

For a whole slew of these easy and elegant camera techniques, join me this weekend for a unique (and uniquely inexpensive) Directing Camera Workshop.

THIS WEEK'S ASSIGNMENT:

Come up with two shots that take place in a single scene, then stitch these two shots together into a single shot, using a simple pan. Like the kitchen scene diagramed below, Make the end of the pan reveal new information: such as a character in the room, or an object we didn't know was there until we panned to it.

Reveals can be quite humorous. For example, we can watch someone deliver a very touching and dramatic speech, then pan over to reveal that they are speaking to a stuffed animal.

(My apologies for Friday's lesson showing up on Tuesday. I was on a shoot.)

The diagram below demonstrates how, by fully exploiting the moving camera, you can cut a camera setup by half, while increasing your shot options in the edit room. The red and blue circles are the characters. The yellow triangles are the cameras.

This tip and many others come from my Directing The Camera Workshop

THIS WEEK'S ASSIGNMENT:

Follow the diagram below using two objects and a camcorder (the video camera on your phone will do.)

Place two dolls (or two actors, or two friends, or two water bottles, or any two items that will represent two characters facing each other for a conversation), then get a camcorder and cover their dialogue with tracking shots. (If you don't have a camcorder, you can walk in a straight line with a stills camera to get the sense of it.)

First cover each character with the type of tracking shot diagrammed below.

Did that? Great!! Now try continuing the track all the way through, so that the camera pans over to the blue character, ending in the reverse over-the-shoulder! In other words, the track will go from: over-the-shoulder facing Red, push in to Red's close-up, pan over to Blue's close-up, ending on the over-the-shoulder that faces Blue. How's that for four shots covered with one, single set-up! (Dazed and confused...? Take my workshop. No prior experience is assumed. Working and aspiring directors at all levels are welcome.)

When I taught my producing workshop last weekend I assured the group that they'll be making many mistakes in their productions. Time and again, they'll do the wrong thing.

I've made more mistakes than I can count: miscast, overpaid, underpaid, worked with the wrong people, not worked with the right people, chose the wrong shots, misdirected my actors, the list goes on.

Some mistakes can be corrected, some can't be, some will end up on the screen forever, some will be forgotten, some mistakes will lose you a relationship, some mistakes will lose you money, some mistakes will lose you a lot of money.

This week I want to reassure you: every time you make a mistake, you deserve a medal.

Mistakes are an indication that you're out there doing stuff. The only way to avoid making mistakes is to stay home and do nothing.

Not doing stuff -- avoiding mistakes -- that's the most common mistake and the only mistake you should really make a point of avoiding.

Not doing stuff is the most common mistake and the one we make daily: How many times a day do we not call someone, not talk to someone, not take a step towards some idea we have? How many times a day do we not do the thing that would move us forward in some way? We find reasons: it's not the right time, it doesn't feel just right, it's too small a step, it's too big a step. This mistake: the mistake of not doing things because we're afraid to make mistakes, is the most commonly made mistake.

THIS WEEK'S ASSIGNMENT:

Do something rather than nothing, even if it's the wrong thing to do:

Txt the word "HAITI" to 90999

$10 will be added to your phone bill and sent to the red cross relief fund in Haiti.

I know you can do something more significant and effective than that. But if you haven't done that yet, start with this one, and enjoy knowing that you did something rather than nothing, even if it was entirely unsatisfactory.

Every time you do something, you've done the right thing.

---

PS: Don't forget to leave the wrong comment below and write something embarrassingly bad.

This weekend I'm teaching a producing workshop where one of the things we'll talk about is raising money and resources.

A point I'll be making on the topic is that you don't need money to make films. You need money to acquire goods and services to make a film, but if you have people who'll donate food (or feed themselves on your shoot), if someone donates vehicle/s and a parking spot, if someone lends you equipment, if someone donates a location to shoot in, if a group of people volunteer to work on your film, then what do you need money for? Not that people shouldn't be paid for their work, but being a fully funded production that can afford to pay people their rates is not likely to be your first step as a filmmaker.

Your greatest assets as a producer are the relationships that you build. If you swindle someone out of a hundred bucks, you get a hundred bucks but you lose the relationship. A hundred bucks gets spent and they're gone. A relationship is forever.

Relationships are your most valuable asset and the only asset that brings real and lasting security. The interest that builds with each relationship as it grows in depth is an upward trend that you can count on, no matter what the economy looks like. In fact, our economy is so volatile because its foundation is built on fear and greed rather than on community and human caring.

My last two films were produced entirely on favors: from sandwiches, to walkies, locations, legal services, equipment, costumes, you name it. I had no money but I was rich with people. I did manage to raise a tinsy amount of cash, but the fund-raising went well because of relationships. The money didn't come from a rich dude who "discovered me" and pulled out his check book. In fact, no one that donated money for the film even read the script.

This month I'm shooting Judo Girl. A DP that I love wasn't available on the weekend we're shooting and asked if we can shoot on the weekdays prior. When I told him it would be too expensive for us to shoot on weekdays he offered to forgo his (small) salary if that would make it possible for us to shoot when he's available. This is not a guy who needs another short on his reel; it's a guy who has a good relationship with me.

We decided that moving the dates was still not feasible, but another DP who has worked with one of my producers jumped on board. You see: each person that you build a relationship with brings to you all the relationships that they have. So every time you nurture a relationship, you're sitting on a goldmine of an endless flow of additional relationships that this person will bring to you.

This week's assignment:

Make a deposit into your savings account by giving someone a call. Skip the txt'ing and the emails. Those can be useful but are often misused to avoid real contact. Call someone up and ask to get together to discuss your next film project (or your next project, whatever it may be). If you have no project in mind, if you had no intention whatsoever to make a film, if you don't even have an idea for a film much less a script, if the idea of making a film makes you shake in your booties and you seriously doubt that it's something you can do: all the better. Make the call. Meet this person.

It doesn't have to be a person who has anything to do with filmmaking. This can be your cousin Rita or your facebook friend who was your college roommate. (But no facebook messages! This has to be a phone call with the purpose of meeting face to face. The in-person meeting gives your phone call a goal.)

Meet this person to tell them that you want to make a film (could be a short film made with no money). You can tell this person that you have no idea when or how, that you may be making this film in 2015, but that they are the person you want to talk to about it. Read my article titled "Making a $4 Movie" for some guidance.

If your in-person "production meeting" lasts for five minutes before you walk into the mall together to shop for a handbag or you end up going to the movies instead, consider your meeting a great success.

If you put in the call and end up having this meeting, a meeting where all you do is bring up the idea of making a film – then you have just opened a door that will lead to more than you realize. All you have to accomplish in this meeting is the scheduling of your next meeting. That doesn't take more than five minutes.

Good luck! Feel free to post comments below. I'd love to read your musings about who you'll call. Follow-up comments on how the phone call went, or how the meeting went, or what kind of a handbag you ended up buying: would love to read those as well!

Happy filmmaking,
Ela

New Year's is a hopeful time. People get excited about starting a fresh page and resolving themselves towards a more positive direction in life. I love hearing people's New Year's resolutions: this year I'll reach out to friends more often; this year I'll eat healthier food; this year I'll write every day.

In my experience, however, these resolutions keep us hopeful for about ten minutes and by Jan. 1st, say… 1pm, we're already having a chocolate bar and thinking that we'll start the healthier eating habits on January 2nd.

I'm writing this article to suggest that there is something much more hopeful and powerful that we can do on the New Year than resolve ourselves to "better" behavior.

What we can do is set up concrete goals. A goal is not a manifesto that declares our preference for one behavior over another. A goal is a destination. A measurable milestone. Whether or not we reach it is a yes or no question.

Eating more healthfully is not measurable. Healthy according to who? And how healthy? How consistently healthy? You can have an occasional chocolate bar and still eat healthy. A measurable goal would be: this year I'll be taking a cooking class. That's measurable. You'll either take or not take a cooking class. (I recommend the public classes at "the Natural Gourmet School". A wee-bit pricey, but if you want to learn how to prepare healthy food and get inspired, that's the spot.)

In my screenwriting workshops I discuss goals to great lengths. If you have a character meandering around doing this and that, rather than pursuing a goal, then you end up with that episodic screenplay that nobody can read. You create a portrait rather than a story. If your character is in pursuit of a goal: you have a story. You also have a reader turning the pages because she'll want to know whether your character meets her goal.

In my camera workshop I talk about camera movements in terms of the starting frame and ending frame. The camera movement will take care of itself; you don't even have to think about it if you know where you are going.

In my directing actors workshop: same concept. If the actor doesn't know what concrete goal he is trying to pursue, then you get a self-conscious actor going through lines rather than a real and dynamic performance of someone who is genuinely trying to achieve something.

In my producing workshop: same thing. If your goal is to succeed as a filmmaker, well, that's a recipe for pipe dreams that are never realized. But if your goal is to shoot a short by the end of the month, now we have something to talk about.

Don't think about the path. Don't think about how to move the camera. Think about the destination, and the movement will take care of itself.

What concrete, measurable goal, would you like to achieve this year?

Complete a feature script? Shoot a short? Have the experience of being on a film set, no matter who's film it is?

A few tips about setting goals:

1) It's ok to change your goals. That's not an indication of failure. It's an indication that you're moving; you're doing things; you're learning. Trial and error is a good thing. Having goals at any given time will keep you moving forward. You can change them at any time.

2) Just like with movies: ticking clocks move things along. Your goal should include a time table: Write a script by Dec 31, 2010; Shoot a short on March 5; Get a black belt in karate by the time you turn 50 (that's one of my goals!) Which brings me to the next topic:

3) Identify both long-term and short-term goals. The long-term goals are like your north star. They keep you on the right trajectory, so that when you're working your butt off you can remember what you're working towards. Shooting a short in March is a good idea, but what am I working towards? Why make films? What is it that you want to have achieved in 20 years? Or for all time?

Short-term goals, however, keep you moving forward. If all your goals are long-term, and you don’t lay out concrete steps for the near future, than these goals turn into pipe dreams.

If, for all time, this is what you're working towards, then when do you want to be in 20 years? And if that's what you want to achieve in 20 years, then what should you accomplish in 5 years towards that? And to achieve that in 5 years, what do you need to achieve this year? And so towards that, what do you need to achieve this month? This week? Today?

This is my holiday season gift to you: for the New Year, I'd like you to lay out your long-term and short-term goals as a filmmaker:

For all time: (your mission statement. Why make films? What effect do you want your films to have?) This "for all time" goal is extremely important. When the going gets tough, and it will, this will remind why you are bothering to do this.

In 20 Years:

In 5 Years:

In 1 Year:

This month:

This Week:

Today:

4) MAKE YOUR GOALS SUPER EASY TO ACHIEVE. I find that ambitious goal setting is generally a mistake. They leave you discouraged.

The long-term goals should be hugely ambitious. No limits.

The short-term goals should be easy as pie. Instead of writing a script this week, make it a goal to write crap for ten minutes today. (see my article titled "Writing Exercises to Help You Write Badly". This is no easy feat!)

If you keep your goals easy and gentle, you'll be less likely to be hard on yourself and go down the road of self-criticism (the ultimate path to creative blocks.) Easily achievable goals keep the process FUN, which is what you want. That's the only way to stay inspired and joyful.

If you pursue small, easy-to-achieve goals, you will move forward in leaps and bounds.

Put on your seatbelt!

5) Share your goals. Share them especially with people who are willing to think about and share their goals as well. (Leave your boyfriend out of it. Instead of trying to change him, make it your goal to tell him he's exactly right, every day, between now and the end of this week.)

Sharing your goals is important. We usually keep our goals secret because we've been dismissed and poked fun at too many times. Each time that we demonstrated openheartedness we got squelched (remember last time you did that? When you are, umm, 8…?)

Let's model openheartedness and hopefulness by sharing our goals, and, without blame or reproach, ask our friends not to make sarcastic jokes about our efforts.

One of my goals this year: to write 50 weekly tips.That's one down, 49 goodies to go!

Feel free to comment and share you goals on this page.

With love and appreciation,
Ela

PS - The holiday gift that I want from you: help me spread the word about my new "Weekly Tip" column by forwarding this page to your friends.