EVERY ADVENTURE HAS AN END

This entry was posted on 6/10/2008 5:38 PM and is filed under uncategorized.

After the many months of planning, filming and posting the completed feature length movie documented in this blog, it's a blast for me to look back at how much effort went into making Mary Shelley's THE LAST MAN into a profitable motion picture.

Making a profitable feature film is a feat that very, very few films out of the many thousands of independent films made every year accomplish, especially when it's someone's first feature. Successfully competing with one to six million dollar movies and getting paid the same rate is the best thing anyone can put on their resume as a filmmaker.

It wasn't luck though, and it's not so much a formula as it is a target, where the labor that goes into every detail in the film is trained on making the best film you can with what you've got to work with. In my case, it was an incredibly thin $7,500 production budget and about the same for post production. Everything went on the screen or in the gas tank, filming at over 40 locations in Southern Arizona. But we still made the movie as if we had millions to spend on everything from jet planes to machineguns and cinematic scope that you won't even see in a much bigger budgeted film. It's the people behind the film that makes all the difference.

Anyone who has ever worked on a movie for "deferred pay" before knows that means you'll never see a dime. This independent film got everyone's deferments paid out as well as recovered the investor's money and paid out their profit too, just as planned. It's great to reach the creative and financial goals I originally set out to achieve because I worked the plan and kept the show on-budget and on-schedule. It just took a lot of hard labor, talent and nerves of steel, on everybody's part. The cast, the crew, everyone involved can take pride in a job well done, a job unequaled by people who had far more money, equipment, and means. You can't fake that kind of achievement when you're handing out the checks paid out by profit alone.

Handing out profit checks to my investors and fulfilling my commitments on this project also accomplished something else, something bigger than the making of just one movie - No one can ever again say that Tucson independent films are always a total loss investment. For the first time, and certainly not the last time, independent feature filmmaking in Tucson has demonstrated a profit. Mary Shelley's THE LAST MAN turned the page on that inglorious bit of history. And that's what happens when you don't follow the herd off the same cliff and do everything "wrong" by conventional wisdom. You always have to think of the result and work your way back to figure out how to get to that result from where you happen to be standing at that moment.

My online Guide Book For Guerrilla Filmmakers is the theory behind making film and this blog is the real-world application of all that theory. If you're a filmmaker, you just might find some of this inspiring to know you're on the right track, or learn a new way of approaching a feature film. Yes, it's a lot of hard work and sacrifice, it will test you far beyond your limits each time, but if you love your job, you'll never even notice. How many other jobs leave you with something this entertaining to show for all of your hard labor?

That's why I might not be as crazy as I sound to deliberately put myself through it, all over again on the next film, on the next adventure.

I'll be doing another low budget genre film (that's what I can afford right now) filmed in Arizona. I'm not in a hurry because a great story (that means constant rewriting) and great acting (and that means a lot of rehearsals) are musts to have a prayer of a chance to make another profitable movie. It's an original story this time, so I have a lot more creative freedom than my first movie. I'm excited about who I'll be working with on this show. That's on the short term.

On the long term, if and when I work my way up to a movie with a budgets that can afford to hire bankable name talent, I have a green screen project using virtual sets and backgrounds waiting in the wings. It's a future-noir. Because it's green screen, I can get the actors in and out quickly and turn a cameo shoot into a supporting character in two days of filming, or shoot a principal character in a week or two, which would cost a fraction of the time and money of a typical movie but with the same earning potential as any theatrical release.

Below are some previsualizations I've been developing for a future-noir movie that takes place in New York City after a US President disbands the military and surrenders sovereignty to a global federation of socialist nations. I think all good sci-fi always takes a current brewing fear and push it over the top to make the audience think, what if? Maybe you'll get to see it one day. Here are some screen shots from "New World Order":

So what is someone who can do all this stuff doing in Tucson instead of Hollywood? Hollywood imports their talent from places like New Jersey, Iowa, Berlin, Hong Kong, and yes, even Arizona. I've made more movies in Arizona in a few years than in the 20 years I spent in Los Angeles working on everyone else's bad movie.

So what did I learn from the whole adventure? I learned that opportunity is always under your own feet, where ever you happen to be standing. If Hollywood can't live without me, I'm sure a swarm of helicopters will land on my front lawn and sweep me away. But I'm going to keep making movies where ever I am, working with what I've got. I love my job too much to wait for anyone to give me permission or a "green light". I'll make animated films on my own schedule if I could never raise another movie budget. That's the lesson Mary Shelley's THE LAST MAN demonstrates: If you want to make films, then make them, don't waste your life waiting. Oh, and love doing the work more than eating or sleeping.

Thanks for following along with the last adventure. A new one begins, so it's time for me to get back to work now.

- James Arnett

• 6/11/2008 12:08 AM Joe wrote:
  Hi James. I've followed every post and want to wish you congratulations. The amount of dedication and hard work you and your crew put into this film amazes me.
  
  If I can duplicate even 1/10 the passion you have for film making I'll consider myself a success. Congrats again.
  
• 6/16/2008 8:02 PM The Saint wrote:
  Dear James,
  
  You are my kind of people Jimmy James. Everyday people ask me, "Why not Hollywood", and now along with my own reasons, I can add you to the list. Good people get it done, with or without the glam of my ex-home the left coast. It was great working with you and Gabi, and I hope to taste it again. Thanks again for everything, keep up the fight.
  
  Boat drinks, The Saint

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