Hollywood and the economy of the calculated sequel

There seems to be a shortage of original thought in the industry of film and from what I am hearing from the audience members they are getting tired of the bigger explosion and faster paced action selling the show.
What about art? Why isn't that being really cultivated in the market?
Well it's a lot like the recent bailout of the stock market. The choices were made clear and what should have been done wasn't.
I will clarify this. One politician stood up in the forum and said that if the government was going to try to bail out the economy it should give the $700,000,000.00 distributed to the citizens of America instead of to the very people responsible for the debacle in the first place. (that is paraphrased of course or I would have named and quoted)
But he was right. Look at what the money distributed to the people would have done:

For each citizen that would have been about $300,000.00 as a economic boost from the government.
What would the majority of American's do with the money?
Spend it of course. They would pay off debts and buy new cars, electronics and all the things that they buy now and some would even invest in the stock market.

Honestly who cares what the stock market does if they don't have money on the line?

But the people we elected to make decisions with that kind of money, our tax dollars, decided to give it to the failures that got everyone scared in the first place.

I personally think that is stupid. They don't trust their own constituents.
I think it would have made this a much better country to live in over the next five years and before the money is spent they should put it to a vote.
This is supposed to be a representative democracy. The problem I see is the the elect are representing the wrong people.

And so it is with Hollywood. Instead of letting the artist have free reign in the creation of the cinematic piece, the industry is controlled by the non creative financial types and decisions are based for distribution on what a film just like x or y has boxed in the past. The sure thing, or as close as they can get.

Very much like Paul Zane Pilsner talked about in his book, "The Next Trillion". Predominately about the wellness industry. He talked about the drug companies being a for profit group making decisions for research and development based on not what the world needs, but on the profit generated in the outcome of the research. He gave the example of a comparison of the profit between a one pill cure for cancer and a maintenance drug that the patient (customer) would take for the rest of their life.
The decision is obvious. The greater profit is in the maintenance drug of course.

Therin lies the problem with a capitalistic approach to decisions of this nature.

Don't get me wrong I'm up for profit just like every red blooded American, but where do you draw the line between sanity and profit margins?

Art and politics, The carving of the future by the desire for the almighty buck.

Life goes on and targets come and go.

So I've been busy working on getting all the things together for a great new project that I think will help filmmakers.
I worked on a short film here with friends and wrapped about a week ago. I am starting the editing process and it looks like all I have to do is the capture and documentation. I'm really not an editor and looking forward to handing this off to someone else for a change and not having to edit myself.
I've got several projects nearing the production phase and one of them is a personal project that I have been working on the script for two years now.
Of course every filmmaker thinks his first vision is the next Citizen Cane but though I am not deluded into that megalomania, I do have confidence and am eliminating the negative forces in my life that sap my creative energy.

I have written many things in other places but feel that this is really the blog for the gritty details of carving a project out of the opposing universe. Which is really what it seems like I am doing many times.
I have met some really nice helpful people along the way and some real boneheads even been kind of gullible with the partners I have fellowed with.

But that is behind me now, with some new data and a head full of steam, some lofty goals and impossible odds I will triumph where others only persevere.
I have survived the desperate filmmaker series and come out nearly unscathed and one less anchor for the belly drag.
Yes, a new day indeed. For a man that is a filmmaker in his heart and would be an auteur.

Search for a lost friend

So we went and I took a camera watch the video to see what happens.
No cuts or any real editing, no script, just reality.


Find more videos like this on filmmakershelp

Update on the search for Todd

This is the life of a desperate filmmaker,
The things we go through for the story the people we have to deal with and the suppression that we face.

Here is a long overdue submission to this blog.

At this writing I am sitting on the road using a laptop connected to the battery of the truck that I have been abusing to search for the first of many mysteries that my friend Todd and I were going to investigate. The legend of the lost Adams diggings. Unfortunately my friend is now lost as well. The New Mexico Search and Rescue has been looking for him in the wilderness for two days and after tomorrow may pull the plug on the search. The terrain is prohibitive to an extreme and the June heat is so bad that I needed over a gallon of water during the hike I took with the first team on our search on the first day.
There must be fifty flies buzzing me now. (I think they like the smell of the bug spray I used.) I haven’t had a shower in five days and I can’t shake the feeling that Todd is waiting out there somewhere for me to come find him.
All my fault, the nagging voice keeps telling me, that he fell behind. We were out of water. My young companion and I were desperate to get back to the truck ,but Todd just wanted to get down to the river and carry on with our mission, he was unshakable, and unafraid. “Just leave me here” he kept saying, “I’ll find it for you and I’ll come back and tell you where it is.” The search and rescue teams haven’t even been able to get to where were trying to get. Twelve teams so far have been out there on foot and quad runners but finding no sign of him. The deputy told me an hour ago that if they don’t find him tomorrow they will probably pull the plug. Todd would want me to carry on like it didn’t matter but that will be difficult for me.
He wasn’t even interested in the gold nor was I for that matter, but of course we could have used it to buy equipment.
Todd has been on many missions before and always come through even without water in the desert of the middle east, looking for the most significant sites from the Bible, lost in antiquity. That’s how I found him, already bearing photos from those places and raving about the most significant site on earth, less than twenty miles from my house. That one is called the Mystery Stone of Los Lunas. He showed it to me in person and using an amassed body of books and research material, translated it to show that it is the Ten Commandments of the bible inscribed in Paleo-Hebrew from about 2500 years ago. Not surprising to me, no one believed him. Though he had much proof and accounts of it being reported before the language was even known, the State’s official stand remains that it is a hoax.
I know that if it is possible for anyone to survive these conditions out here that Todd is the one and remain hopeful that he will come out smiling with a report tomorrow.


The truth about people really comes out when they think you are looking for real treasure. I had an incident with someone I thought was a close friend, when I made the mistake of telling them prematurely that I was looking for this lost Adams diggings.

But the signs of suppression were already there, threats and fear based control tactics to try to manipulate. I am taking a hunting rifle with me. And why not? There are bear and wolves and mountain lions out here in the wilderness, me being military trained and from Alaska I know I’ll be able to sleep better and walk more confidently with a rifle over my shoulder.



But I’ll have to be completely honest , we left too soon and somewhat ill prepared. I brought a truck that was too small for the journey and we had to walk much further than we would have if I had taken the trip after I fixed my bigger truck, thus the state we were in when we were separated with Todd.

Am I shifting blame here? No absolutely not. I am entirely responsible for my actions and everyone that took on the mission were making their own decisions, in fact Todd offered many times to hitchhike down here and walk in on his own.

But my friend Todd is still missing and I will continue to believe in him and hold on to hope that we will find him tomorrow, or he will return as he promised to do if I sent him on his own.
Thus continues the life of the Desperate Filmmaker. No camera, no way, lost in a sea of insanity and uncertainty, but I will find a way, I will find a way.

Day six of the search for my friend Todd.

I have been sent away from the official Search and rescue base , by the deputy’s words the rancher would rather be left alone. Obviously he blames my companion and I for the situation and would rather we didn’t hang around. I had to use a calling card to call the search commander and verify he was getting the dogs down to where we actually saw Todd last and to where we were going. My confidence is somewhat lacking in this new group as he didn’t sound like he was seriously going to send any searchers to the locations I know Todd would go if he were okay.

My brother and I are about to take matters into our own hands as we found a new way in to where we were going that we can drive within two miles of the canyon. We are ready to go search it ourselves.
It is my friend after all and I can’t abandon him there in that wild canyon on his own any further. If this new commander never had a team dispatched to that location we are going in though I repetedly told them that it was our objective from the start.

The search has been officially called off and I have no solid confirmation that the site we discussed was searched and with the state police blessing we are going in at first light tommorow. I'll be taking the camera with me and reporting as I go.

It’s just now noon and only getting hotter but we have almost three gallons of water with us and are ready to go. I’m going to call the search commander now and find out what they are doing and tell him we are going in without them.