Many of you coming to this site are very new to film making while others are the friends and supporters of THREE SOCKS MEDIA.  We're on a journey together telling our stories and I want to take a moment to thank two sources that taught me so much: Dov Siemens who teaches the 2-Day Film School, and John Mashni, an entertainment attorney in Lansing, Michigan.  It's important to have great resources, folks, and I plan to devote upcoming blogs to just this subject.

But back to the business at hand...
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Coming into 2018 we've gotten a bit off focus, so I want to go back to making a movie.    First of all, a few tools:

1. Learn about the film commission for your state.
2. Go online and begin meeting people who make movies.  (Knowing the film commission for your state helps with this.)
3. Get an attorney.  Yep, that's right!  From the word GO you need someone who knows the legal part of the process.  Most entertainment attorneys will meet you for a short intro for free if you tell them you're making a movie and will be needing an attorney.
4. A GREAT FREAKING SCRIPT.  Did you get that?  I was yelling at you.... A GREAT FREAKING SCRIPT.
5. Gain some background knowledge: you don't have to sign up for the UCLA film school or embark on a long journey.  If you're a storyteller like me, you want to get started.  I get that.  But take time to read a book or BETTER YET take the Dov Siemens film school.  I did it and I simply cannot say enough GREAT THINGS about this guy and what he teaches. 

Next, you need to get started on a checklist like this:

1. Create a budget.  If this is your first time, you'll want to start small, but the fact is that you'll need at least a few bucks to feed your crew at McDonalds if nothing else, so decide on a budget.
2. If the budget is bigger than your bank account, start exploring options.
3. Start chatting with your attorney.  You don't want to end up with a movie that you can't show because of some legal issue.  There will be costs, so include the attorney in your budget, but trust me when I say that you don't want to skip this step.  You may need little more than a few forms and some minimal advice, but keep the attorney in the loop.
4. Get the crew.  I've found it fairly easy to find wonderful people who are experienced and ready to work.  I tell them my budget and then they laugh hysterically....then a few good people do still step forward.  It works.  Trust me.  The film commission and websites like Stage32.com are very helpful for this.  Make sure to investigate the crew, get to know them and their work long before getting started.
5. Map out the script.  What are you shooting when and where?  That means planning a schedule and getting a place to shoot.
6. Shoot.  This can be lots of fun, but be sure to stay on schedule and on budget.  Those two items can slip away from you pretty quickly.
7. Send it to editing.  Don't scrimp on the editing.  It's important...REALLY important.
8. Plan ahead for distribution.  There are many outlets and I'll cover that more in a future blog, but for now know that this needs to be an issue on your mind from the very beginning.
9. Get your Oscar!  Okay, well, maybe not quite yet, but I believe in planning for success!!

In my last post, I shared my story.  Thank you so much for all of you who contacted me regarding how my story touched your life.  I am so grateful to have had the chance to share it.  Now we get back to film making.  I'm fairly new to the film making community, but I have to say how amazing everyone has been.  I've really enjoyed meeting people for coffee, brunch, and late night chats.  What strikes me about all of these people is their commitment to storytelling and their unique perspectives.

In a few weeks, I'll be holding an auction of movie/TV memorabilia to raise funds for my next three movies.  I'm current reaching out to Michigan celebrities for these items, although I may go beyond, and I am looking forward to a really amazing event.  Keep checking back for updates.

For now, I want to talk about the idea of labels.  Normally, I tell people not to label themselves and I've got a great story about someone I know who has been wearing a label of victim and failure due to being fired from her dream job, but before I tell that story, I want to share a new twist.  In his workshops, Dov Siemens (if you don't know him GOOGLE his name because he is definitely well worth knowing) immediately tells students to label themselves as producers, directors, writers, whatever role you plan to play in film making.  I loved that idea and when I took his course, I jumped on it right away.  The problem was that I didn't actually believe it.  It actually took me a few years before I felt like I could claim the title of executive producer and an encounter this past week has made me wonder about that process.  You see, I, like many other people, easily adopt negative labels.  It's easy to call yourself a failure.  A loser.  The list goes on and on.  But for now as you are working on your film career, I want to challenge you to take a cue from Dov and call yourself something positive and really mean it.

This past week I ran into a woman who had been my supervisor many years ago before I went out onto my own.  She hired and trained me at the company.  After working with her for almost three years, I heard she had been fired as a part of a "mass blood-letting" by the company.  I want to be extremely respectful to her here, so I'm going to be a bit vague and I'm going to use a fake name, but there is a very important lesson to be found in my recent encounter with her and it's been on my mind all week, which is why I am sharing this.  

She was let go, and I was promoted.  I was not a part of the decision making process, so I never knew very much, but a few days after she was fired I ran into her.  To say she was angry would an understatement.  She tried to be kind to me, but I also got a sense that her anger rain over onto me.  That was fine, though, because I could easily see where she'd be upset.  We chatted that day and I shared my dream of going out onto my own and offered to share the resources I was gathering for my big move.  She declined.  We parted ways.

I hadn't given her much thought until this recent encounter.  There was still a tinge of anger obvious in her, and her life had not progressed significantly from where she was when we last spoke.  Hearing this sent a chill down my spine.  I remember hearing a quote a long time ago that said something to the effect of having problems means you're human, but having the same problems year after year means you've got a full-blown crisis.  I'm not saying it as eloquently as the original quote, but the point is the same.  (Hey, if you know this quote, please contact me!) 

Hearing the tinge of anger and seeing that she hadn't progressed seemed heart breaking to me, but I understand.  I've been there.  Years ago I read the book "Forgive for Good" and began to work on the art of forgiving myself and others in my life.  Pain can hold a person in the same spot for years...even for a lifetime.  The irony is that we get angry at someone or something for ruining our lives and then we make a commitment to this vision and live it out.  Getting fired is unpleasant, and the actual firing was possibly out of your control, but how you handle it and how you proceed is 100% in your hands.

I've really been thinking about that lesson this past week.  Now, I'm not in that woman's shoes and I can't tell her what to do, but if she would hear me, I'd love to tell her that she is amazing and my time working for her made me a better person.  I believe she is capable of great things, but you know what?  The only person who can make the decision regarding what she is capable of is her.  That's true for us all.

Tony Robbins has taken some heat lately for making a statement about not defining yourself as a victim.  I see his point.  Being a victim is terrible and I would never want to minimize anyone's pain or struggle, but at the same time, I know for a fact that negative labels limit.   So, I will leave you here with the words that my favorite writing teacher used to say to me at the end of class: Get the hell out of here.  Go and be amazing.  (He was a bit rough around the edges! LOL!)