A week ago, I asked this question on Twitter, feeling that it would be good advice for everyone to have.
I started things out by sharing that I thought everyone would be professional and want to get along.
My first production was called TIGER WARSAW. I was 23 years old I believe. I found the script, developed it, did all the initial budgeting & scheduling, cast it, did the cast deals, hired the key crew, did those deals, designed some of the shot lists, over saw the production, and got credited as the “Assistant To The Producer”. There was very little trust or good behavior on the show, but there was a fair amount of drug abuse. Lots of threats of different sorts. Many separate agendas. When it was done I quit the business to become a drug counselor (but didn’t get very far with that…).The mistakes I and others made, including false assumptions, definitely informed me going forward.
I suspected I would get more response from the Twittersphere than I did. But what I got was good. Here are 8 responses. Next time I will remember the #hashtag…
Hammer to Nail @TedHope Using whatever music I wanted in rough cut and then falling in love with it before truly grasping that it was never gonna happen.
Mount Joy Movie @TedHope Tweet 1 of 2: Needed a barn built, made downpayment with contractor, then didn’t check until due date – behold, we were robbed!
@TedHope 2/ 2: But our barn was built by a better contractor, just to be burnt to the ground, GLORIOUS #worththepainhttps://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=268595943167910&set=pb.167615299932642.-2207520000.1354633057&type=3&theater …
Tony Vescio @TedHope I thought I knew what I was doing!
@TedHope By contract I had to pay my SAG actors for rehearsals, so we skipped them and hit the ground running. Not next time.
Milan Chakraborty @TedHope Thinking if I made a good movie, with good actors 4 less than studios then should make profit. Need 2 compete in a different space
Jay Hollinsworth @TedHope Flip answer is “making my first film,” but, jokes aside, not having a long-range strategy all the way through post to distribution.
donal ward @TedHope Showing a rough, rough, cut to buyers.
But Facebook was astounding, I got over 100 replies. Here are some:
But then I found out that Facebook is much better to source this sort of thing and close to 100 comments:
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Edward Crawford made the mistake tinking that the little details did not matter..and sound was horrible. i recieved many rejection letters from Film Fests stating they really enjoyed story but….
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Wayne Clingman Trusting -
Kevin Sonnichsen I’ve been exceptionally lucky to not have had this particular problem. However, rain, tidal schedules, shooting permits, a futon factory unexpectedly working on their day off in the warehouse next to where we were scheduled to shoot… All other matters entirely. -
Alix Whittaker mine was that I was just so excited to produce a film – any film – that I ended up spending a huge amount of time, energy, money, and love on a project that ultimately would have been worth it…if only we’d spent another little while on developing the script so that it wasn’t total bollocks!!! Script Development is the most important part of the process for me now! -
Michelle Dee this post smacks of bitterness and vitriol….my mistake was simply getting a surname wrong in the credits. Oh and leaving something on the edit timeline so you got a secret image minutes after the last frame (if you waited long enough) -
Enzo Tedeschi I learned that moving forward on anything that I wasn’t 110% confident in would ALWAYS come back to bite me. Trust your instincts!!! -
Mel Thompson Lack of preparation, reshoots, rehearsals and coverage. -
Lindy Boustedt I’ve learned from similar mistakes. Having one “bad apple” especially on a small budget/small staff indie set can be the death of a production. I also learned how important it is to have proper contracts protecting both sides – and pay for a lawyer to look them over before signing. -
Tommy Stovall Way too many to list!! And be very careful who you trust. -
Ellen Pickering THANK YOU FOR THIS POST TED HOPE! You just saved me thousands of $$ and hours in therapy. -
Laura Lex Great thread! -
Ben Gonyo That I knew what I was doing. -
Ryan Colucci That everything wasn’t in a contract before production began. -
Ryan Colucci Also being afraid to let people go. One miserable person is a cancer and sometimes you need to be the unpopular guy.
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GB Hajim Rushing into distribution. Take a year or more to build interest. Get the good reviews and awards then get a distributor. I have theatrical distributors interested now, but it is too late- my movie comes to VOD in two months. -
Nick Rossi Be very, very, very choosy in casting. It’s not worth making the movie until the cast is right. -
Anna Wise Thanks -
Marcus Kent Hamson The first film I shot was a guerilla style shoot. It was January, cold and miserable. Everything went okay on the shoot. My biggest mistake was in the editing. I did not have a full understanding of wave form and vectorscope. The finished film was so dark that it was almost not visible when we screened it. -
Cathy Stadtfeld Am sharing all these great tips with my fellow movie makers. Thanks y’all. -
David Fussell Yes I think finding the right people too work with is the hardest thing at any level of film making, even a tea boy can damage your production if his heart is not fully behind your film and anyone wanting to destroy your film can do so much damage before you know whats happen. Sorry if I have put anyone off film making.
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Pleasant Wayne Mind blowing to me that anyone with an opportunity to be on set would behave so carelessly!
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Ross Katz I hit the dolly grip in the head with a piece of track. I’m not kidding. I was a grip in training. -
Phil Morrison I made that mistake (Ted’s) on 2nd film, on account of how much it was the case on the first that people were the way one would hope. -
Rita Ryack continuity mistakes you wouldn’t believe. -
Barry Norman My first film was a fantastic experience. If I made any mistakes, I was blissfully unaware. -
Geoffrey Nardine Ted, was that perhaps a function of no budget or zero budget financing? In my very limited experience I found that if people weren’t paid a nominal amount let alone fed well the over all esprit de corps flew out the window pretty fast. -
Sarah Marder I’ll read this with interest since my partners and I are in post-production on our first feature-length film (doc): The Genius of a Place. It’s too early for us to say what our worst mistakes are… -
Sarah Marder ah, Barry, I like your point along the lines that ignorance is bliss!
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Phillip Lefesi You mean you thought there are professionals in the movie business? Did you soon find out that being in the movie business has nothing to do with merit and requires no big mental resources… like a lawyer or a doctor. (except the people who ARE actually trying to come up with a story) -
Barry Norman I had an all night editing job in Atlanta – took two planes and rented a car from Seattle to drive up to Port Townsend and by 10 AM that morning, I was on set. I was one of five, first time producer/directors. Ended up being a co-executive producer. The film had a great fest run including the 2nd Slamdance, and from that experience, I founded my own international film festival. Wish all film experiences were like thawt
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Stacy Title Had to thin a crew on Last Supper and a work light fell over and started a big fire. -
Phillip Lefesi and Stacy, then I heard some of the crew pulled out a Billy Joel song and started to dance on “we didn’t start the fire”… so I heard..
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Stacy Title Ha! no i missed that but. we had been so lucky that ralph odeirna who was our pm had taken all our shot footage (short ends of course! to the lab) so we didn’t lose anything thank god.
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Jennifer Lyne When the lead actor was arrested, pooling my cash with the director and trying to bail him out of Rikers before we knew what he had even been arrested for. Rookie mistake. (We re-cast with an extra, gave the former lead a smaller role, and the rest is history). -
Samia Shoaib Thinking it was enough to ask the lead actors not to sleep with each other ’till after the shoot. -
Paul Koronkiewicz One eye line issue which I knew was wrong but didn’t follow my gut. -
Mike Nichols Paying for it -
Jennifer Lyne And paying for it.
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Paul Koronkiewicz @Phillip I’ve been working in film/TV for more than 25 years and have acted professionally most of the time. I’ve also met very intelligent crew people and some dim people “trying to come up with a story”. If I have not survived on merit it must have been something else like ignoring elitist jerks who think they are the smartest person in the room.
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Mitch Klebanoff On the first film I ever worked on (1980) I believed the Producer had all the money to make the film. On the last film I’ve worked on (2009) I believed the Producer had all the money to make the film. -
Mike Nichols Mitch, I’d appreciate it you kept my private affairs out of this.
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JB Bruno Assuming that when you handed crew a call sheet they read it.
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Joseph White counting on the wrong people is a BIG ONE! I was talking to someone the other day who was billing 2 jobs for rigging while on a commercial with me, sadly, its just a job to most people and to others its an ego game -
Mike Nichols So here’s a fun story: On a film where the producer allegedly had the money (i.e.: me), Money stopped coming in from my source after week 1. So I spent the better part of a weekend soliciting bank loans at ridiculous percentages, family loans and personal savings to ensure…wait, why am I sharing this? Nope, none of that ever happened. We made the movie on time, under budget and recouped 500%
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Samia Shoaib What a fun question Ted Hope! Btw Tom Luddy said you were a welcome addition to the SF scene. Of course
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Mitch Klebanoff Fun story, before mentioned, unnamed but extremely lovable producer, thrust a stack of cash into my 23 year old hands and said pay off the crew 50 cents on the dollar – as he sped away in a car. Sorry Ted, this is getting off track.
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JB Bruno Assuming that anything was actually “free”. My mentor, Stan Bickman, used to call it the “High Cost of Free”
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Katherine Dieckmann Not fully realizing what guys in trench coats from Queens fully signified when they popped up at lunch in an extremely remote holler in of western North Carolina. That, and crying on set. -
Samia Shoaib James Schamus – when teaching “No-Budget Producing” at Columbia, taught me many tricks (all stolen from Ted Hope no doubt). Did shots with the owner of a strip club in Wall St. to get him to let me tie-in when my generator conked.
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Jennifer Lyne Oh, and when I called Magno Sound and they said they “lost the mix.” Forever.
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JB Bruno Samia, that goes with one of the other things I learned – cash speaks. People can walk away from a deal memo or a promise – take cash out of your pocket that they can have now but not if you walk away – priceless
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Jonathan Goodman Levitt agreeing to a heavily-publicized, public work-in-progress screening before having anything resembling a decent cut. followed shortly by: believing that 3 hour assembly should be shown to anyone outside your immediate team. the screening was packed with people who might have helped finish it i’d made an appropriate ‘presentation’…but as it was it took years to get those same people to watch anything of mine again. still haven’t fully learned this lesson with my own directing work, but as a producer for others, it’s much easier to know when to wait… -
Christine Haebler believing the director had all the answers…. -
Scott Macaulay You executive produced mine! I would say not relying on or getting enough advice from a professional locations person so that we realized that a condo location contract had to be approved by not only the condo owner but the condo’s board. A potentially disastrous mistake that we were fortunately able to correct. -
Samia Shoaib Crying like a baby in the lobby of SoundOne when I got my bill and having a zero knocked off by Alishan (?) Granted – that was NOT a mistake
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Jim Fall Believing that when you showed a rough cut to informed creative people that they could see pass the “rough” part to what I saw as the finished film…rarely happens. -
Samia Shoaib JB Bruno – “Free” never cost me anything. Just a little appreciation and getting people emotionally invested. Lesson from James.
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Christine Haebler Yes that one too Jim! Oh and…believing that LA agents were telling the truth.
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Mark Lipson oh fuck, where do i start…. -
Jennifer Roth Learning that 3 sets of script revisions/day was normal and that new pages needed the time as well as the date. -
Jennifer Roth PS: Sleeping with the boom operator on my first movie was the BEST decision I’ve ever made.
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Antonio L. Arroyo Phillip – I couldn’t disagree more. Most people in the film are actually very bright and very professional. Yes, professionalism may be lacking at the very low level, where some kid with no experience decides that he is a director,granma gives him some money, and the crew is a bunch of kids just out of school who think that film making might be fun and bottom-feeders who rent beat-up equipment to said kids. But in the real business, almost everyone is dedicated to doing the best job that they can. It reflects on them, their reputation and their career. They may not care about the actual project due to a bad script and/or bad acting and/or a hack director, or maybe disrespectful higher-ups, but they still want to do their job as best they can. AC’s want everything to be in proper focus, wardrobe wants everyone to dress as they should, make-up wants actors to look beautiful (or horrible), sound wants everything to sound clean and clear. Even the folks in the lower ranks want to do everything quickly, safely and well, in order to get their boss to call them for the next job and recommend them to others. -
Samia Shoaib Skimping on craft services – BIG mistake, not to mention irretrievably short sighted.
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Jesse Ozeri If the key grip is a vegan, have vegetables on the crafty table. Nothing is scarier then an irate vegan refusing to work because he hasn’t had celery in a week. -
Lee Friedlander Thinking that people with more experience knew more and placating ignorant investors.. -
Antonio L. Arroyo As to Ted’s original question – my biggest mistake was being more interested in how films are made rather than how the real industry functioned. I also should have been more aggressive and careful about finding mentors.
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Larry D. Eudene I remember that! Geez, I think that was shortly after I did Metropolitan and found out if you didn’t have a cut in the film, you need to get paid decently no matter what. Long time ago. -
Samia Shoaib Touché. Finding mentors was the best bit of film school. (The fab Bette Gordon and Terry Southern in my case.)
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Ian Mackenzie Jeffers not making it. -
Samia Shoaib Thinking that the teamster I had hijack HMIs from the “Quiz Show” set wouldn’t expect me to sleep with him eventually.
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Antonio L. Arroyo Actually, Metropolitan was one of my best early experiences. I was thinking of all of the time and money I wasted trying to raise money for mediocre scripts with senior partners that knew less about the business than I did. And as a sound mixer, starting out as a mixer and trying to reinvent the wheel rather than taking a stepping back and assisting people who really knew what they were doing.
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Samia Shoaib As Spielberg said “Good directing is asking qualified people for help”. (And getting your tits out in the process if necessary).
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Larry D. Eudene Thanks, Antonio! I remember you well!
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Larry D. Eudene Hey Mitch. I sent you a response to your blink tank email. I hope you get it.
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Jack Mulcahy My first film was PORKY’S, and the mistake I made was thinking the 1st AD was my pal. -
Larry D. Eudene Hey Jack! Happy Holidays! You’re the funniest! Did you at least have fun on The Reunion?
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Al Magliochetti Letting the film fall out of the camera was kind of a problem . . -
Al Magliochetti Biggest mistake on my first feature – not quitting when the idiot producers budgeted 1/10th of what was required to complete the visual effects, against my vehement objections.
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Jack Mulcahy I did, Larry. Had high hopes for it.
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Larry D. Eudene Me too! You did an amazing job in the Lead! Too bad Paul ran out of money!
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Larry D. Eudene It’s funny that some of my favorite people are on here! Thanks, Ted for starting this thread! Happy Holidays to you!
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Jack Mulcahy And I, like you Ted, learned from that mistake.
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Martha Coleman My passion for the characters made me blind to story weaknesses. -
Stavros Georgiadis The chain is only as good as its weakest link. -
Terry Green I learned that by the time you get to your fourth film, nothing replaces the romance of that first one. You only get to make the first one one time, and there’s a certain poetry in that. -
Icarus Arts Assuming that if we made a good film and got it into a major festival, the rest of my career would fall into place. We worked for almost 3 years to get that film out. -
Cornelia E. Burnham I actually had a blast – entire company stayed most of the shooting at my folks in CT – and Charles gave me an A+ / Boris….on the other hand, noticed one shot had Baby Legs in the middle NONE of us noticed it. Ha! -
Sasha Santiago I learn to let go of complete control and trust your collaborators as often as possible. Maybe more often than possible. The bond becomes stronger, the results of the day more fulfilling and the willingness to push higher and for longer… oh yeah, we’re cooking now. “They” say you should approach every movie as if it’s your last, maybe it’s better to approach every film as if it’s your first? -
Mamta Trivedi I assumed I had to work with lousy, awful & inept dolts just because the industry was small & exclusive. -
Martha Coleman I learned that if you hire all the right people you can kinda let the movie make itself.
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Rich Martini Not fighting like a banshee when the studio decided to cut ten minutes of comedy, despite an 86 rating. I found out years later, if u can believe it, the distribution guy hated the producer and deliberately torpedoed the release (his asst apologized to me years later when I ran into him). Leave no stone unturned until its completely out of your hands. -
Isen Robbins 1 Showing films to distributors in large numbers before getting accepted to a major festival. 2 using atm to hand cash to crews and not keeping records. 3 Passing on famous actors because we want audiences to identify with just the character… or what ever that is. 4 Shooting in one’s own apartment (neighbors organized and signed a eviction petition when we got turned around and shot night for day, for a week) 5 work with friends. 6 having a weak non film lawyer. 7… and so on… -
Neda Disney dated one colleague, then another. it was a three month project which felt like years to a young girl in the city. silly. -
Jake Abraham Thinking I could trust the director to stop cutting and give us enough time to prep for Sundance without almost having a heart attack -
JB Bruno Isen , but other than those little things everything went ok , right?
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JB Bruno Neda, I learned that one in theater when I was stage managing and dated my ASM during rehearsals. We were out of town. We broke up right before opening and I had to sit next to her EVERY day through the rest of the run. We both hated it. Didn’t make that mistake again in film – until years later. Not much better. Sometimes, we need to RELEARN.
