Insectula!

When naming my movie I made sure I picked a single word name that had nothing else associated with it. I think it was a smart idea because it made searches and stats easy to retrieve as opposed to names that were difficult to differentiate with other movies or even terms. I had about three other candidate names but tested it with a few people and this was the one they remembered the easiest.

Sarah's terror

I hope I was able to capture Sarah's terror as Russ Meyers might have.

SNL movies

I always thought the SNL movies were funny, but not in the way they intended. For all the millions of dollars, big names, big producers, they never really understood that a bit that was funny for ten minutes couldn’t most of the time carry a movie for 90. Such a simple concept, but very difficult for them to understand. Once in a while it worked, but their failure rate was astonishing, and their lack of ability to learn from their mistakes equally mind boggling.

You hand kindergartners paper and say draw a cow. None have had art lessons. Some will be good and some won’t. The ones who didn’t draw well can want to be artists later in life, take all the classes in the world but they will only get so much better. The ones who did draw better may never take an art class and they will always be better at drawing than the ones who couldn’t draw, it’s just a fact…you are born with the ability or you aren’t. You are born with musical abilities or you aren’t. That is just the unequal nature of humans and the luck of the draw.

The ones who couldn't draw will likely move to a more abstract style of art, I saw this a lot in art school. They will likely look down upon those who did more representational styles and claim art is in the mind, and it is in some respect. But in the end the lack of talent will show through. The ones with the ability to draw may move to more abstract styles by evolution but there is a big differance between the two, and the viewer clearly sees that.

Filmmaking is a combination of all the arts and follows exactly the same rules. If a director has made a shitty movie, they can only get so much better. All the film classes in the world won’t change that. Making a dozen more films won't change that. That’s what makes looking at a director and seeing if they have talent so easy, you just look at the past films. That will tell you all you need to know.

Film Schools


I’m not big on film schools because I like to teach myself. There are advantages, but the problem I see with people that get out of a film school is that they are taught “the way” you do things. Now if you are jumping right from film school to Hollywood that’s great, but that most likely isn’t the case. In low budget filmmaking “the way” you do it is any way you can. I constantly have to tell film students to unlearn what they have learned, and sometimes that takes a lot of time. Resourcefulness and ingenuity are the most valuable commodities in low budget filmmaking. You may look like a total goofball with your camera mounted on a 2 x 4 but if that get’s you the shot instead of spending 2K or more on a crane, that is 2k that can go back into the film in other areas.
This is a simple concept but very hard for people to grasp fully.
When I see a micro-budget or even low budget set and they have expensive dollies, cranes, RED cameras and lights that cost more than my car my internal alarm goes up. Equipment is just a means to an end, and in the end it means nothing. Unlike life, in film what matters in the end is what you have, not how you got there.
 
Unfortunately this is a mentality that permeates throughout our culture and happens just about everywhere, not just filmmaking.

Hollywood is now filled with people from film schools. That is why we don’t see anything really new come from there. If something new occurs, it is usually from an indie or a remake of an indie.  Instead Hollywood gives us remakes and sequels. We need indie filmmakers to think outside the box,

and unlearn if they have learned.

*ramble mode off*