Welcome to your friendly, neighborhood Indie-film Collective.
(yes, it exists... and we’re not asking you to buy anything either... well, except for our movies!)
Who We are and What we Do....
WE MAKE MOVIES is an indie film collective in Los Angeles dedicated to making the independent film world a better, more humane place, and also to make some really cool shit. Created in the spring of 2009 by filmmakers Sam Mestman, Joe Leonard, and Tara Samuel, WE MAKE MOVIES is the following things:
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1.Our monthly writers workshop in LA- Our “Something To Do On A Wednesday (usually) til you get really famous night” is a free monthly Hollywood screenplay reading workshop run by Sam Mestman, Joe Leonard and Tara Samuel. We are focused on providing a venue for fresh pages to be read by actors -- with the aim of encouraging the writers and exploring the material as a precursor to pre-production, whether it be for a short film, a spec pilot, or a feature film. It’s also a place for writers, actors, directors, etc. to get together and maybe meet a few people worth working with. Not only that, but we serve free wine, chips, cookies, and sometimes a vegetable and cheese platter. We are always looking for new writers and actors. This workshop is free and open to the public.
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2.This website’s resources page - There’s a lot of bad information out there. There’s a lot of useless information out there. If anything, the editor of this website (Sam) is a discerning, cynical bastard with a really good bullshit detector. For some reason, he’s fascinated by all this crap, and has decided to make the filmmaker resources page he’s always been looking for but never found. It’s a continuing work in progress, and will continue to get better the longer we’re around, but everything on there we found useful or interesting in some way, and hope that you will too. We’re also hoping you’ll send links to stuff that you like or found useful as well. The goal with this is to help filmmakers, especially less experienced ones, to get really good, really useful information before they go out and make all the same stupid mistakes we made... and continue to still make. The sections are broken down in Distribution, Production, Post-Production, and Writing,
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3.Publicize community events - If you’re a member, and have something going on, tell us, and we’ll help you spread the word. We’ll post your event on this website in the events section, and mention it in our emails and on our facebook page. Part of having a community is getting people to show up at each other’s stuff and hang out together... we want to make that happen. We can’t guarantee anyone will show up to your event, but fuck it, we’re trying.
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” - Albert Einstein
“Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you’re going to do now and do it.”
- William Durant (founder of General Motors)
WHAT WE’RE GOING TO DO (where we want this to go)
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1.Our own productions - We have just completed shooting our first short, The Anti-Porn (coming soon!) and we plan on it being the first of many. It was cast and crewed entirely with people who are part of our community. Everybody got paid for their time, the shoot was run professionally and realistically, and this will be the only way that we will work. It is our belief that all of this free shit has to stop somewhere. We are interested in doing things the right way, and making things in a way where no one is being taken advantage of. We are also interested in developing crews that work well with each other, and enjoy working together. This way, as we achieve success and our budgets become larger and the projects longer, we will have crews that we trust and won’t require a learning curve. We are not interested in making movies just to make them. We are interested in making good projects, done the right way, that don’t leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouth who decided to lend their talents to them. If you’d like to work with us, and want to make an official WMM film, those are our requirements. Don’t be a douchebag. Take care of the people who are helping you. If you can’t afford it, don’t do it.
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2.Screenings and events - Also beginning in 2010, we will be organizing screenings and fundraisers featuring the work of our members.
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3.Crewing and casting resources- At the end of the day, people are trying to actually WORK in this business. It is our aim to help people find jobs worth having, and people with jobs to find people worth hiring. This will be a continually evolving process, but the point is that if you have a project, and are looking for people, we want to help you, and will do this for free. We know a lot of people that we can recommend and have worked with, whether it be actors, editors, wardrobe people, DP’s, Locations, whatever. We want this to be a go-to community of people-who-know-people that do good work. Save yourself the Craigslist and Mandy nonsense, and ask us first. However, if you are the type of Producer/employer looking for something for nothing (as in... no pay/lame project/all about you). Don’t bother. We will not help you, will not ask our friends to help you, don’t want to talk to you, and don’t want to know you. Point is that if you are a regular at our workshops or we can vouch for you in some way, we will absolutely go out of our way to make sure that you find the right people for your project, and do everything we can to make sure that your project comes out the way it’s meant to, with as small a cost as possible. We’re not going to make it for you, but we’ll help you get it made any way we can.
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4.You tell us - We make this up as we go, and do whatever the hell it is we feel like doing. If you have an idea, tell us. If we like it, we’ll do our best to make it happen.
“If you can find a path without obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.” - Frank A. Clark
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
If there’s a single real problem with the Independent film world at the moment, it’s that it has a Lord of The Flies Mentality. It’s every man/film for itself, and it’s all about figuring out a way to separate yourself from the crowd, get that deal, and hold the conch for a little while. But what no one seems to realize is that it’s that mentality that has led the indie film world into the situation it finds itself in... which is, well, that there is no indie film world anymore. When everyone is so busy with their career, and their film... who the hell is left to watch your film? And so, you have 4000 indie movies being made each year that no one watches... and maybe 5 that people actually do. When you add this overcrowded marketplace to a total economic meltdown, a world with ADD that has too many different avenues for people to find their entertainment, a completely broken indie film distribution model/film festival circuit, and a prevailing mentality from the average person that all content should be free, you have a recipe for an independent cinema apocalypse. Like it or not, that’s where we’re at. If you don’t believe me, ask anyone who’s trying to find distribution for their film at the moment (and yes, we are some of those people) how things are. It’s bad. Things suck. This site, and our group, is dedicated to changing that. And while we may not be able to make a dent in this ridiculous mess... well, hey... everybody needs a hobby, right?
At the end of the day, we’re filmmakers who are trying to make things. Whether it’s our stuff or other people’s stuff, we’re interested in making things, Not only that, but we’re interested in meeting other people who want to make things, and make things better. That’s the reason this website is here. That’s the reason we run our workshop. That’s the reason we throw events. It’s so that we can make the films that we want to make, and actually have a few people give a crap and want to see them. There’s no film community anymore. We’d like to make one.
So... yeah, that’s all great and wonderful, right? Let’s all hold hands and look at rainbows! Hell, part of me just re-read the last two paragraphs and laughed, too. But the fact is that is that if we don’t figure out a way to get together, and get a workable indie film model into place, this will all die, and we’ll all be working at Walmart. Anyway, WE MAKE MOVIES is our attempt to get something going, and get a little indie film community vibe in the air.
To sum up... we intend to make shit happen. We have eight features actively in development, an award winning feature, How I Got Lost, that received distribution and is now available on DVD, various shorts we are planning to make in the coming year, and, in general, an absolute refusal to accept that indie film has become a hopeless and miserable experience. We may be wrong... but at least we’re doing things. What are you doing? If the answer is nothing, but you’d like it to be something, come hang out with us.
About WE MAKE MOVIES:
We Make Movies has an animal mascot, a deformed footed rooster we call "el pingüino" ('the penguin') because of the way he wobbles when walking. We use the crippled rooster as a symbol and parable of the various disenfranchised people whom we champion. We hope to build a coalition: indigenous people, women, unionists, the young and jobless, actors, factory workers, writers and small farmers. (20 bucks to the first person who can figure out what wikipedia entry we stole that from).... anyway, In addition to that:
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