Living the Dream: Being an Indie Filmmaker in Los Angeles... Or, What the HELL was I Thinking When Picking a Career! Pt. 1 of many

So, you thought about becoming a filmmaker.

You got a camera, an idea, some friends who can act... Now you want to make a movie. With today's such easily excess-able tech (I'm looking at you smart phones) and the invention of YouTube (It's not JUST stolen porn and cat videos), you, YES YOU can be an indie filmmaker. I'm originally from Detroit, where I made a few feature length films, among other things but, the dream was to make some product, come out to Los Angeles and be the next big thing... Doesn't always work like that, unfortunately. Needless to say, now that I have been a Detroit transplant living in LA for over 12 years now, I've been shooting things to use as "pitch pieces" or "proof of concept" sizzle reels, these are, basically, low to no-budget versions of ideas or scripts you want to create as shows by filming a scene or pilot, sizzle reel (a fast paced, slick, stylized trailer) or trailer of what your show is about because executives in Hollywood hate to read (and some of the more famous ones actually don't know HOW, if you can believe it... and I bet you can). See, back in Detroit, back when I started in this business, we didn't have YouTube or any real outlets like it... so, you actually had to put together a business plan, raise a lot of money and rent camera gear, buy and process film (unless you wanted to shoot in video, which, then in the late 80's- early 90's looked like crap), edit WITHOUT A COMPUTER (If you can remember THAT far back) and project it... with an actual film projector. Nowadays, you can film a short on your iPhone and upload for the universe to see... which is great AND horrible at the same time since, the market (especially online) is so over-saturated, 9 times out of 10, if you post something, it's going to be buried by 100000000000 other things (I'm looking at you cat videos) and it ends up in the vast, swirling sea known as the world wide web. Well, since being an LA resident, I have gone the route of the more modern filmmaker and have shot a few of these "proof of concept" pilots myself. A few are in the process of being pitched as I type this. One is called F.O.S. (which stands for "Full of $#!+... which, I myself find that, in LA, a lot of people ARE F.O.S.!). The concept came about when some friends of mine and myself were talking about how strange, crazy things... truly, things that seem to come right out of a movie or are just too crazy to be really happening DO HAPPEN IN LA. So, we came up with this concept that's part Laverne & Shirley (a much darker version of them), part Comedy Central's Broad City and part Entourage. Two 30 something girls struggle to find their place in the weird and wacky city of Los Angeles, where some of their friends make what we think is crazy, seem sane. That was our idea. So, with hardly any money, we pulled favors and created a 30 minute pilot for the show (with pretty good response). I wish I could post it but, it is ACTUALLY being shopped... Instead, I give you one of the (extended) scenes from the show that I think is pretty funny (with script pages included). Was it easy and fun to make? Hell, no. Making things with no money, on favors, trying to juggle everyone's schedule (in a town where EVERYONE tells you they are constantly busy, yet sit in their apartments smoking weed half the day), with no permits, struggling to find locations, crew, whatever... It's difficult. Surprisingly, we got a cute 23 minute show and interested people. Here is the opening scene with script pages and a few pics attached... the extended version (the final cut version, I hope to be able to post soon, along with the rest of the pilot) turned out somewhat different but, not much. I hope you enjoy the scene. It actually happened to me when I first moved here... watching two people argue in a public coffee shop with some interesting results. I was pretty proud of the scene. I can say that Murphy and his stupid, fucking law played a HUGE role in the production as everything that could go wrong, did... except death. No one died making it but, we came pretty damn close to killing one another. No one said film-making was easy. Hope you enjoy and stay tuned for more Indie Film-making plights and stories, straight from me coming at you from LA, CA! Have a look:

F.O.S. (copyright 2015)
by Michael Kallio