February 12, 2012

Grassroots Moviemaker: Tool to Leave an Impression

by Timothy Rhys | Published September 20, 2007

As with a parent and his children, it’s tough for a publisher to name a favorite issue of his magazine, but this annual Complete Guide to Making Movies is rapidly becoming the one I look forward to the most. Why? For one thing, it’s packed with the kind of articles that make MovieMaker such a unique resource—the kind I envisioned almost 15 years ago when we first went to press. Where else can you find priceless pragmatic advice on how to make a living while you’re getting your first feature off the ground (as guru extraordinaire Dov Simens explains) under the same cover as an Oscar-nominated writer such as Mark Fergus (Children of Men), who doles out his own (more spiritual) advice on how to make it as a screenwriter in Hollywood? As a moviemaker myself who’s currently in pre-production on his third feature, this issue speaks to me because it reminds me yet again that anything is possible—and that’s the feeling you need to arm yourself with as you prepare to go into battle. Yes, you have to know your stuff and work hard, but you have to believe in the outcome, too. If you have those three ingredients, then you are eligible to live the American Moviemaking Dream. And isn’t getting there what this is all about?

We can’t help you become a hard worker if you’re not inherently inclined that way, but we can definitely help you learn your stuff. If you don’t have our first four “Complete Guides” in your home library I suggest you get them before we’re sold out forever because together these guides offer a unique combination of hard information and true inspiration that will get you off the couch and onto your own movie set.

Are you serious about this dream of yours? If you are, and you have the intestinal fortitude that makes you up to the task, the tools are all right here. Take advantage of them—we want you to become one of the rare moviemakers who understands that this is an art as well as a business. We want you not to just shoot movies, but shoot to make movies that become cultural legacies the way Orson Welles, John Cassavetes, Steven Soderbergh, Spike Lee, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino did. We want you to become a moviemaking legend. Why is that impossible? It’s not. And if you don’t believe that, who will? Speaking of the names above, why do I point to them in particular as examples? Because each of them inspired a generation of moviemakers. Each had the guts to do it his own way, and each made a landmark film that put his peers on notice that they could do it, too. Inspiration isn’t something that happens in a vacuum. As Mark Fergus states so eloquently: “If you’re not telling a story that you think is the most incredible damn tale ever told—the funniest, the saddest, the most beautiful, that will literally change the way people think, act and feel—if you don’t care more than any person alive, then your script doesn’t stand a chance. The only thing anyone wants to read is what haunts your soul, makes you laugh the hardest, keeps you up at night. No one is fooled if you phone it in. Despite what you may have heard (or would like to believe), there aren’t many dim bulbs running the movie business.”

For me, that about sums it up. Have that kind of passion and you have a chance of making a movie that will someday grace our pages—and reach the hearts and minds of audiences everywhere. Good luck. I hope we help get you there.

See you in November for our Fall edition, which will be packed with more useful stuff guaranteed to get you closer to where you want to be as a moviemaker.