Thursday, June 7, 2007

An Impulsive Decision Six Years in the Making

People often ask me, "Why did you decide to make a movie?" and I'm not sure how to answer. They have every right to ask this, because I'm not the type of person you would expect to be a movie producer. I'm a 47-year old female math teacher with absolutely no experience making movies. I don't live in Los Angeles. I don't work in "the Industry". I never took a film class. I couldn't even tell you the model number of the video camera that was used to shoot my movie. I know that it was a Sony, that it was "HD" (high definition), that it cost approximately $25,000, and that it (or a model very similar) was used to make several recent films such as "Miami Vice". That's good enough for me. Who cares what the model number was?

Back to the hypothetical question. Why did I decide to make a movie? The shortest answer is "Why not?" But that doesn't really shed much insight into the matter, and presumably you're reading this for insight - if only to arm yourself with facts that justify your opinion of what an incompetent idiot I am.

There were actually several factors that went into my decision to make this movie:

1) I love movies. I always have. But that's a given, right? I wouldn't spend tens of thousands of dollars making something that I don't love.

2) I have written several screenplays over the past fifteen years. One of them was even optioned for two years by a producer with a first look deal with HBO. What a first look deal is, I don't know, and why he couldn't get HBO to look at it, I don't know either.

Tip #1 for Producers - Don't be afraid to admit what you don't know. Being female helps a lot with this - we were socialized to develop a strong sense of "learned helplessness". This is very handy for getting out of things you could easily learn how to do yourself, like assemble furniture from IKEA, but don't want to do.

However, I was heartened that this well-connected producer thought enough of my screenplay to push it for two years. He was also an expert on James Bond movies, having written several definitive volumes about the franchise. Since my screenplay was a suspense-thriller involving several action sequences and bad guys, I felt like I had managed to convince the Big Boys to let me ride bikes with them. For a short distance, and with training wheels.

3) Defying Gravity was such a personal and quirky story, I couldn't imagine anyone else doing this film.

4) I never would have made this decision a year ago. I was raised by cautious (bordering on pessimistic) Jewish parents. We took no monetary risks. (This probably explains why I majored in Math-Computer Science instead of Creative Writing. ) Never buy anything you don't need (like 64 crayons instead of 16 crayons) and never, ever throw anything away. When I was cleaning out my father's house after he passed away, I found toenail clippers that I recognized from forty years ago. When you are raised with a mindset in which you don't buy something unless you absolutely have to, and real estate is considered highly speculative - investing in a movie would be absolutely unthinkable.

Let me make it clear, though, that my parents also gave me something invaluable - the belief that I was extraordinarily talented and brilliant.

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