Part Two of my Progression from Writer to Filmmaker over Five Decades

Fast forward about twenty-five years after starting to write my very first feature screenplay … After being hired numerous times over those years to write scripts for several production companies … After having several of my own speculative scripts optioned and then developed by several production companies … After having pitched many story ideas to several production companies, some with studio deals and offices on studio lots … After having pitched said stories and having them developed by several production companies (many of these you would probably recognize) … And after having written sixteen feature screenplays at this point, and to then have none of them actually finish production … wow. Some were ready to start production, but snafus certainly out of my control prevented that from happening. So anyway, I became one of those writers who got paid some decent $$’s over the years to never see anything actually come of it. Well, other than be able to support myself and my family … which is certainly nothing. However …

 At a certain age (age discrimination?) with no real screenwriting credits, the phones quit ringing (to get hired) … and then, what’s a person to do? Yes, the repetitive lesson I learned over the years, is that for the most part, writers have no power in the film industry. Of course, I still had my day job(s) going on (at times), but I was determined to find a way though this ongoing crazy labyrinth. Or I could give up, right? Nah … not really a part of my DNA. 

So finally, yes finally, after about 20 years of this, I decided to produce my own little indie film project from one of my own screenplays. I figured to greenlight myself … somehow … some way. I had no idea at first, but I had gradually educated myself over the years as to how the industry worked. Or actually, how it worked against you. I needed to find a way to stack the odds in my favor, now that I had a head of steam headed in a whole new direction.

Over the years I had worked on several films in various production crew positions; a number of shorts and several low budget indies, as well as working for a major film studio. So I was not a neophyte to film production. But being a complete producer was a whole new gig, one I had to figure out quickly, as now I would be the guy “in charge.”

First thing I knew I had to do was find a script property. Well, guess what, I already had that. Hey, I’m a screenwriter, right? Producing 101 – find a script you want to produce. So, part of my job was already done. I certainly had plenty, but obviously it needed to be low budget, which led me to …

Next part, much harder. The greenbacks. If I was to attach any serious film person, cast or crew, or otherwise, I had to have those. So yes, I needed a finance person to find me the bucks. For sure the budget had to be under $1M, and possibly much less. Ah, I needed a budget to go along with that. I created a rough one, and searched for an executive producer to find the bucks.

 Needless to say, I found one who actually lived with me, my wife. She was not a film person,  but she had some savvy about money, so I volunteered her. Amazingly, she jumped right in, not really knowing what she was getting into. Ha, she had no idea of the quirkiness of the business, and I tried my best to educate her. Over time, we figured it all out, and decided to put in a few bucks of our own to make people know we were serious, and then went out to go and get a few more bucks. Obviously, it wasn’t as easy as all that, but we eventually got there.

Now we had to really be serious and pull together a cast and crew. Being a low budget indie, this first time out we decided to go non-union, as we needed every piece of change we could get to prep, shoot, and cut this thing. But above all, I needed to find a director right off. As the writer and producer, I needed that piece first to pull a lot of all these other things off. That turned out to take me on a lot of twists and turns, and ended in a surprising way. Until next time …

JAD

(to be continued)

Jerry Alden Deal

Jerry Alden Deal

Writer - Director - Producer

Over the past thirty-five years Jerry has been hired numerous times to develop and write screenplays for other production companies. During that same period several of his spec scripts were also optioned. In 2007 ‘Dreams Awake,’ shot in the Mt. Shasta area, was Jerry’s feature directorial debut. He currently has several other projects in various stages of development. One of which, ‘The Inner Sonic Key,’ a documentary, is in the post-production queue, while another, ‘One Hand Clapping,’ wrapped production in Austin, TX in April of last year (2018) and is currently in post-production. Two other projects are also on the horizon; ‘Patterns of Creation,’ an animated sci-fi adventure going through an extensive script rewrite, and ‘The God Dilemma’, an unorthodox courtroom drama, whose story is being fleshed out.

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