Categories: Articles - Digital

Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker

Published by
Mark Decena
Bruno Campos, John Livingston and Sabrina
Lloyd star in Dopamine.

Be passionate.

Moviemaking should be something you do with a story you need to
tell. Your passion is always what drives it.

On heeding advice.

Peter Hedges, who was one of our advisors in the Sundance Lab,
said ‘You’ve got to write this screenplay because you have to.
Not because you want to be a screenwriter or a filmmaker. You have
to enter a tunnel and not know where you’ll end up when you come
out.’

Set realistic deadlines.

Even though it worked out for us, I would say don’t make any festival
your deadline! It causes an incredible amount of strain. We were
editing as we were shooting and days off were spent in the editing
room.

Mark Decena

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