As a NonDē filmmaker - or a member of our community in any context whatsoever – please indulge me in an exercise. Out loud, say the phrase “How am I helping?” four times. Each time you repeat the phrase, put an emphasis on each individual word. Try to remember throughout the exercise: this is not a rhetorical question.

How am I helping?

How am I helping?

How am I helping?

How am I helping?

If, as a filmmaker, you are asking me: What does this have to do with me or anything I’m doing? We’re already at an impasse; feel free to keep reading but we have a chasm to bridge between us. Luckily– perhaps even surprisingly– this article is a practical piece. Logistical things you can do to help. All it takes is a little bit of effort and even less time.

Everest and the Moon

When we learn about the first successful summit of Everest, often the first name we learn is Sir Edmund Hillary. The first White guy to climb the mountain all the way to the top and survive the journey back to land. The closest to heaven human fingers can touch. When we learn about the moon landing, inevitably the narrative proudly announces Neil Armstrong’s name. The very first of only a handful of human beings to pierce our earthly bounds and step closer to the stars than our oldest ancestors could have even imagined.

Neil Armstrong didn’t swim solo to the moon and Edmund Hillary had a close friend with him literally the entire time1. I love learning the history of mountaineering and I’m obsessed with the exploration of the cosmos. And if allegory truly is the core of cognition, then I’ll continue to use these metaphors in the context of cinema, cinemaspace, and our community.

Raise your hand if you’ve heard the name Sir Edmund Hillary before. Now raise your hand if you’ve heard Neil Armstrong. Good, almost everybody; great hands down. Okay. Now raise your hand if you know the name Michael Collins2. Then raise your hand if you’ve actively learned the name Tenzing Norgay. Those of you still raising your hands, I see you.

Tenzing Norgay

Tenzing Norgay was the man at Sir Edmund Hillary’s side. The two men had great respect and admiration for one another; genuinely, it was about the climb. Skin color and country borders are flights of manmade fantasy against the cruel reality of climbing the tallest mountain on the planet. While there has been a solid public push to recognize Norgay, he’s always had an amazingly humble attitude toward his massive accomplishment. When it was just the two of them up there, what else really mattered aside from achieving the goal? The Literal Summitting of The Mountain.

From 1955’s Tiger of the Snow: The Autobiography of Tenzing of Everest with James Ramsey Ullman:

This iconic photograph is actually of Norgay. Hillary didn’t want his picture taken, which is good because Norgay couldn’t operate the camera anyhow. All over the world, this photo represents the ultimate earthbound summit– a man under layers of masks and coats. Could be any of us. It was Tenzing Norgay.

Michael Collins

Neil Armstrong… Buzz Aldrin… who was the third guy? Well, I already gave you the answer but you get the idea. Someone needed to stay in the pod, right? You bring three guys to go to the moon- there’s only going to be one trip- you can’t bring all three… even if the LEM could fit all three, where would you anchor ship? When the rapist Christopher Columbus came to the Bahamas and floated to shore on his little boat, he didn’t empty out the entire Santa Maria; some poor schmuck must’ve been happy to hang back and keep house, right?

We quote Armstrong. We laugh about Aldrin and his petty phototaking (or purposeful lack thereof) on the surface. Footprints and technology and travel and the vast, cold, vacuum of space, and the frailty of our green Earth. But I always think about Michael Collins up there. He was never going to walk on the moon. It’s not like he won the bronze or pulled the shortstraw– Collins’ job was to anchor the ship, so the explorers could do what they had to do and return to Earth in one unit as a triad. Staying in the pod was what he trained to do, and there would be no Armstrong or moon landing without Collins keeping the pilot light on.

From 1974’s Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut’s Journey by Michael Collins:

Ego. Confidence. Skill. Goals. What was once only myth for hundreds of thousands of years– ethereal storytelling and narrative legend– is now tangible. Real. Historical. Fact.

As the old saying goes: If they can put a man on the moon…

How Can You Help?

It’s shockingly simple, so I’m going to try not to waste any time:

1) Acknowledge. 2) Encourage. And 3) Tender direction.

AUTHENTICITY IS KEY. You actually have to mean - believe - the things you say when you say them. Blowing smoke or lying in this context is counter-operative to the process and ultimately devalues your currency as an artist.

Take pride and joy in the creative wealth of others. I believe in the rising tide raising all boats as opposed to let’s get all the fucking water out of the picture, that way our boats are on the ground and all level with one another. Boats are made to float. Otherwise, you woulda built a house, no? I’ve never met so many unbelievably intellectually creative human beings so fast in my life. It’s the only reason I’m comfortable writing anything on this platform. Tide’s rising folks, don’t get caught underwater.

Acknowledge

Acknowledge your fellow artist’s success. Listen, film friends, full disclosure: I can tell you a million reasons why I’m absolutely green with envy of every single one of you. But I also guarantee I can find one thing you’ve done I find admirable. If I can’t, there’s a good chance this is our first and only conversation, y’know, respectfully. It’s simple Newtonian physics: if you want to be acknowledged for your work– acknowledge the work of your peers. Care. What is it about this other artist you do admire? Tell them. I bet they want to hear it.

Been having this conversation a lot lately, so now it’s time to share:

I don’t care about your movie.

I am interested in your movie, but I do not care.

I do care about you.

And if I care about you, you can bet I’ll care about your movie.

Can you dig that?

Or are you here to Big Time your peers? To Hollywood your peers? That’s a great way to have the opposite effect of caring, however you choose to phrase it. The direct opposite effect. The dictatorial spirits, the landlord mindset– make it make sense to me. You gonna guilt me into watching your flick? Strong arm me? Some other aggressive option? I’ll observe in earnest; sincerely looking for the knowledge you have to offer because I don’t see it– I have no fucking idea where you’re coming from.

Respect, appreciate, and enjoy the awe you feel from your peers and those in your community. Act on that respect, appreciation, and enjoyment if you’re truly moved to do so.

Encourage

Encourage your fellow artist to create more. We all need to hear it. You like my work enough to tell me? You like it so much, you want me to make more of it? Feels like that’s the biggest compliment one can give. I don’t know if there is any compliment outside of the foundational, biblical: please make more because I admire you and your work. Everything else is just groovy in comparison.

Here’s a welcome side-effect of encouragement– it’ll make you feel great too. When someone tells me something I’ve said or written has inspired them, they may as well be giving me literal diamonds. I remember each time individually and I keep them in a velvet pouch on my chest. It’s one of the few treasures I quite actively treasure. It’s beyond currency and absolutely priceless. It’s that all too specific there-isn’t-enough-money-in-the-world-you-could-buy-this-from-me-period-and-I’ll-throw-hands-if-you-try-anything-funny kinda priceless.

We all need to be told to keep going sometimes. You never know when it’ll hit the bullseye. When your compliment, your encouragement is the exact push someone needs. The exact kindness missing from someone’s day. That day someone needed to hear it and it’s okay to be the person to say it. If you don’t say it, who will?

Be the community you wish you had. Be the mentor you never got. Remember the mentors who have had profound effects on you. Regardless of the context in which the line is spoken, I’ll always fundamentally agree with Walter Sobchack’s mid-film quote recitation at the bowling alley at its surface:

“If you will it, Dude, it is no dream.”

Tender Direction

I specifically phrase this section “Tender Direction” quite purposefully. Imagine I had subtitled this: “Acknowledge. Encourage. Direct.” feh. Shut up. Don’t tell me what to do. Don’t direct me, thankyouverymuch. I’ll tell you when I need fucking direction, boss.

I actually use the word “direction” trepidatiously and hope it’s not taken as anything more powerful or authoritarian than a helpful roadsign at an unknown junction. You could go left– this is here. Or…you can go right– I’m to understand there is there. My intent is never ever ever ever: “YOU HAVE TO take a left, then a right, then over, then under, keep going til you see the rock, and GODHELPYOU if you get lost, or veer off, or explore different territory—cuz I did all I could for your sorry soul and told you exactly what you needed to do.”

People do desire direction. They do not want a director. The people are their own director. They have no use for fascistic dictatorial direction. Fuckin’ line reading (amirite, actors?). I choose the word “tender” carefully. I use it as a verb first and foremost, then as a reminder. The verb tender means I’m handing something to you. As in: tendering cash or I tender my resignation. You’ve heard or read it in said framework.

I am offering direction in a way that helps you specifically. If I’m going to be presumptuous enough to give any comments, ideas, elucidations, piggybacking– it will be intentionally based on what I have previously acknowledged and encouraged. Aside from complimenting you as an artist, I want you to know that I see you. I see your plan. I see where you’re coming from. I see what you’re going for. I see what this means to you. I only wish to add. I only wish to help.

I will never tell someone what to do. I love to share my vision of the world with you– and how you fit comfortably within this world. The opportunities I see. The future you’re paving you may not have visualized yet. Or reiterating the exact words you feel on the tip of your tongue but haven’t spoken yet. Or just letting you know you don’t live in a futureless vacuum. You can be a much needed mirror in the void.

“Tender” in the loving sense3 is actually one of my ick words. Puke-shivers go down my spine when I hear Brad Pitt say “I’ve been harsh when I should’ve been tender” in his superfluously added voiceover in Ad Astra. Yuck. That.being.said– to tender direction is a reminder to be kind. To be soft. To be understanding and purposeful with any direction offered. In fact, this section was almost titled “Offer Direction,” but I find “tender” to be a far more accurate portrayal of the process I see in my mind. The word “offer” feels oddly onesided.

Share a map of the positive world you see in your mind. Illustrate how the artist you admire fits into this world. Introduce like minded artists with one another. Invite them to draw the map along with you. It’s more fun that way anyway.

You Are Not Alone

We all think we’re alone.

It makes perfect sense as a reflection of cinema in essence. We sit in a dark room in a chair and have an extremely personal experience watching the film. Individually receiving the information and having a solitary conversation in our own brain with ourselves. How do you share such a hyper-individualized experience? Personal. Individual. Solitary. Ourself.

Such a cosmic blessing– such a perfect representation of yin and yang: the essence of cinema is equally communal as it is an individual experience. Conversation. Sharing. Understanding. Audience. None of it exists without community. If a movie screens in the forest and nobody’s there to watch it– is it still a movie?

How are you helping?

How are you helping?

How are you helping?

How are you helping?

One time in middle school, I got an official detention slip “for being Jake.” Two or three of my friends, at the same time, got official detention slips “for being around Jake.” 100% true story.

If someone asks 10 of me, I will gladly give them 9– but never 10. People around me sometimes have a problem with this. I’m on one of those explorations of self-discovery to figure out why. If I have a better reason other than “because fuck you,” because right now I don’t think I do. Ultimately, in my mind, it comes down to a sensible bucking of authority.

One of Dad’s early lessons that really stuck was to “be skeptical.”
I want to say at a young age I reply with: “Even of you?”
He looks down and nods, “Yeah, even of me.”
I don’t think that actually happened. It woulda been good though.

My Mother’s Gifts of Outspoken Media

Growing up, all around were outspoken fictional characters in my regular media consumption. I really looked up to James Spader’s Alan Shore and that first season of House because those guys couldn’t keep their mouths shut. I, inexplicably or not, also really admired Denzel Washington in Training Day because good guy/ bad guy, nobody’s cooler than Denzel Washington in Training Day. These characters share- for lack of a better phrase- a problematic relationship with authority.

As you could already guess, it’s all my folk’s fault. They raised me this way. You don’t engineer a sports car to pick up your groceries, and you don’t raise your kid to be skeptical of authority then expect them to follow every rule. Part of the way they instilled these…virtues(?) in me was by way of curation, the media they deemed important enough to share with me with explicit purpose.

It’s not a mistake Mom rented Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory AND Young Frankenstein every. Single. Time I got sick as a child. Is there better company on a sick day than Gene Wilder? Is there a better example of freedom, whimsy, outspoken anger, danger, irony, and humor than Willy Wonka ‘71? And Young Frankenstein begins the Mel Brooks pipeline as quickly after the bris as humanly possible– as is tradition.

Later on she’d speak glowingly of the Smothers Brothers. How David Steinberg would give these uproariously funny sermons1, but they pissed off the network. CBS (surprise) told the Smothers they were not allowed to have Steinberg back on the program unless he stopped performing the sermons. In direct response, Tommy Smothers invited Steinberg back on the show, had him perform a sermon, and got the show cancelled, kicked off air for good.

Mom talked about this incident specifically. I might recall a Smothers Brothers bit or two, but the real association I have with them is their earnest fucktoitiveness. They did the right thing and Mom found the entire anecdote absolutely righteous. Imagine ten-year-old me in 1997 trying to figure out who the fuck Tommy Smothers and David Steinberg were without the sparkle of Youtube in anyone’s eye.

Weisman Women on the Steps in the Old North End

One time after my niece was born– probably 2001 or 2002, my Grandma Ruth came to visit. It may have been her last visit to Vermont for all I know. She spent most of her time on Ocean Avenue in Brooklyn. She was born a Polish Jew sometime in the 1920s and there’s still a debate over her actual age. Nevertheless Dad always said she was a Witch. Not in a negative, euphemistic way, but rather quite literally a Witch from the Woods. She knew things. She could sense things.

My relationship with Grandma Ruth was sitting silently in her living room watching stories. Or in my aunt’s side room watching stories. She was very quiet and had a thick accent. I could almost never understand the actual words coming from her mouth– but she was always fuckin’ clear. And sharp as a tack right to the end. Her silence and wit kept her alive; a genuine Survivor.

We were visiting my sister in the Old North End of Burlington (I grew up in the New North End). , thirteen years my elder and my oldest sister, was holding her year-old first daughter Sophie at her side. This must have been Grandma Ruth’s first visit meeting Sophie as she was born in Oregon and her whole family had recently moved back to New England.

It was a sunny day. We had just parked in the driveway and were heading inside. I stayed back by the car with Dad. As Sarah held Sophie, unlocking the door with Grandma Ruth in tow, Dad grew a big smile and let out a huge laugh! As if it was the greatest thing he’d seen in a very long time; a sight of true pride.

“Look!” He playfully knocked my shoulder and pointed to the Weisman women lining the stairs, “Three generations of stubborn!”

The S.

When people ask me what the S. in my name stands for I usually say “Starchild.” I don’t like telling people my middle name because… (gesturing to the aforewritten article)... I’m annoyingly obstinate. But I can’t tell this story without letting the cat outta the bag.

Jews don’t do “Juniors.” It’s a funny- but solid- superstition dating thousands of years about the Angel of Death mistaking the young for the old. Names very much confuse the Jewish Angel of Death. The confusion stems from the other side of the traditional coin; the honorific side2. We name our children after passed loved ones. My middle name was my Grandfather’s name– my father’s father, who’d died ten years before I was born. Grandpa Sol.

I treasure the stories about Grandpa Sol. There are only a handful of them, some I can share, some probably not. The man is a towering figure in my life. I wonder if people have MacGuffins in their lives like my Grandpa Sol. A man to admire, to look up to, and to never know. To be named after, to feel wholly connected, and to have never met or seen with their eyes.

A few focused and blurry photos over the old mantle in the family room: his official dress Polish Cavalry photo and the one of him in his uniform leaning against the fence the same way Dad leans against a wall. Both of those black and white photos were in my Dad’s wallet growing up.

There’s a photo of my dad in lederhosen, must be five or six years old. He’s on top of a horse and smiling bright. You can see Grandpa Sol’s hands and a little bit of his head behind the horse’s mane. My favorite one was a color photo my father took in the 70’s with a camera he’d been gifted for his graduation; in my memory it’s sorta blurry, sorta orange, sorta backlit.3

If Grandpa Sol is the MacGuffin, then there is one singular story concealing the theme of my life’s movie. It’s not the first family story I was taught– that’s the blending of my folks and their kids into one cohesive, legal, whole Weisman family. That’s Genesis; the first scene of the flick. But once that exposition is set, Dad shares much needed backstory to the audience by instilling the story of his father– who will not physically be in the picture, but will establish our theme, our character motivation, and a firm basis of the world’s morality.

Once Upon A late 30’s Poland, my Grandfather Solomon joins the Polish Cavalry. He protects his country on horseback with a sword. The Germans roll in with tanks and machine guns– Poland falls in two weeks.4 Grandpa Sol is a captured prisoner of war. The only reason Grandpa Sol survives is by lying to the Nazis. Directly after capture, the SS (or whothefuckever in charge) asks the Jews to step up, raise their hands. My grandfather was crafty enough to keep his hand down, as opposed to some of the other Jews in the Platoon who were summarily shot and killed.

Authority for authority’s sake would have murdered my grandfather. Quick wit and brass balls saved him. How am I supposed to ignore that story? I’m One Dad away from this fuckin’ beast. A physically huge Jew who survived the Holocaust, then worked the black market til he could bring his family to Brooklyn; my father the first Weisman born on American soil.

I’ve been told his community used to call him “The Bear.”

Generations of Stubborn

Every once and a while, Mom will hit me with a: “I wish I could have made this happen for you,” or “I wish I could grant you all of your movie dreams,” or “I wish I knew somebody that could get you in,” or “I wish I had all the money in the world for you to do this.” It’s not often– once every few years, from a very genuine place in her heart. To be fair, I wish I had all the money to give my family for them to do whatever it is they want.

The last time Mom offered this sentiment I made sure to thank her for the things she has given me. A painful independent streak. An irritating righteousness. A four-dimensional model and living real-time example of doing the thing the way she needs to do it because that’s the way it needs to be done. I’d say the same thing to my father if he asked, but he knows if I’m smart, creative, and don’t force it– all the success in the world will come to me. If I wanted to do things the traditional way, I’d follow the rules 10 outta 10. Climb that golden ladder and leave Filmstack forever for Traditional Corporate Hollywood next door.

As a little, little kid in daycare, sometimes the floor was lava. And sometimes the other kids started getting full of themselves and too dictatorial, so sometimes I’d hop off the pillow to remind them it’s not lava. It’s a rug.

I woke up this morning to the year 2026, unable to tell if I’m on an upswing or downswing. Feeling particularly manic, I am wondering if I can’t pretend to live in Hollywood 1926. Those were good times, no? I wasn’t there. Maybe I coulda got paid. The irony, of course, is Hollywood 1927 introduces The Jazz Singer to international audiences disrupting cinema and cinemaspace- without hyperbole- forever and ever and ever.

2026 feels like the worst part of every decade piled into one amalgamation. Tammany Hall politics. Pre-1960’s civil rights. Women’s Rights by way of 17th century Salem. If there are any people of color in my programming, it’s “woke.1” If it’s White, it’s cool. If it’s Black people for Black audiences, do whatever you want, we’re not gonna promote it even though it’s a goldmine. We’re apparently allergic or morally superior to the Black dollar. Something-something Tulsa, 1921.

We got 1920’s Wall Street. 1980’s Gay politics. 1970’s gas & Middle Eastern problems. The 1960’s…what 1960’s? We’re erasing anything progressive for a more “Vietnam War-y” ambiance. We treat immigrants how we’ve always treated immigrants. None of our taxes are paying for anything we want. According to Neil Howe’s The Fourth Turning is Here, my millennial generational class is to rhyme in history with our grandparents’ Silent Generation who fought in WWII. How far into WWII were we before we called it World War Two? I certainly know my Dad’s folks were very involved for years before Pearl Harbor.

This morning I woke up in Hollywood 1936. Jake S. Weisman’s Filmjourn Features shoulder to shoulder with Adolf Zukor, the Warner Brothers, and Darryl F. Zanuck (who merged 20th Century Pictures with Fox last year in ‘35). The Laemmles were ousted from Universal this year. End of an era. Louis B. Mayer is king but his wonderboy Irving Thalberg will die in a few months, September 1936. We don’t talk about Cohn. Hollywood appears to be my kosher oyster.

At my desk, I throw the receiver from the rotary phone under my ear to ring up . Pacing my office, looking out at the rocky grounds of my small studio. The other line picks up, “Riddle! I need your notes on this script. We go into production two months from now. We’ll be on the road before the end of the year.”

Nothing but excitement on the other end. He tells me he needs a week to finish up his previous production and I’m all his. This is great news.

I don’t have a script. This is less-than-great news.

I told him I had a script. I thought I did– here’s the tug-a-war happening in my head, now the receiver is back on its cradle, cold and still. Riddle is the best in the game. If I’m going into production in Los Angeles, I can’t think of a man I’d rather have next to me. A logistical genius and a true lover of his job; a one of a kind 1st A.D., a tree growing from concrete. So why did I ask for his help if I don’t have a script?

First things first– I have a ton of scripts. I’m looking for the one in the pile that makes sense for production this year. A budget of well under a million. A cast of my friends. An intensely personal, entertaining story with the best dialogue I got.

I thought the script I had written two years ago was the answer. A Hollywood-set haunted apartment horror film called 3E, dialogue heavy, actor-forward, limited settings. Thematically 100% the stories I want to put out– Judaism, the Titanic, Hollywood lore. I’m afraid the make-up will cost too much. I want very few parts shot on 8mm or 16mm for authenticity. A theater venue rent-out. I need actors that can pull this off– that won’t be cheap. My dream cast includes Lin Shaye, Robin Weigert, Cooper Tomlinson, Andrew Bowser, Dakota Loesch, and a decent audition process for our lead heroine. My gut tells me this is a $3 to $5 million endeavor… that dog won’t hunt, monsignore.

Now I’ve been percolating a new story. I have a title. I have a location. I’ve chosen some close friends cast in my head. Some solid influences. A genuine desire to write something fresh after two years without completing a screenplay. 3E isn’t beautiful. I want to write something beautiful. Beautiful words, dialogue, images, feelings, characters; taking my inspirations from photos, art, theatre, poetry, lyrics, and the grandeur of DTLA. In my head I’m heavily inspired by John Cassavetes’ Minnie & Moskowitz. The performances, the editing, the visual cadence, and timing.

This new story – currently titled Dust in the Spotlights – would need a first draft in seven days. If I make myself a deadline and an arbitrary fictional context (ie: I’m a studio head/exec/writer in Hollywood ‘36) will I actually get something done? I can’t tell if this is an upswing or a downswing…it’s a little manic right now and I don’t want to waste anybody’s time. I used to hide in a hole for a week and come out with a draft. It’s my favorite mountain to climb. I kinda wanna stretch those muscles again.

I intend to keep this journal. Maybe I can keep the fantasy alive through the trauma of existence. Maybe I can live in the metaphor enough to complete something, rather than drown in my assorted neurodivergence.

Dust in the Spotlights is a magical realist poem for Broadway on DTLA. A character-forward exploration of ambition, love, and survivor’s guilt. I want to make the smallest movie about everything in the Universe. Another love letter directly inspired by Cassavetes and Hal Ashby– with stunning vintage movie palaces as the centerpiece.

Now all I have to do is write it.

From Google:

Desalination is the process of extracting salt and minerals from seawater or brackish1 groundwater to produce fresh, drinkable water.

From Wiki:

Interest in desalination mostly focuses on cost-effective provision of fresh water for human use. Along with recycled wastewater, it is one of the few water resources independent of rainfall.

The Abridged History of Desalination

This is me summarizing Wiki now:

Desalination goes back to Aristotle. They experimented with it during the Middle Ages. Da Vinci had his own ideas on the process. Thoughts, philosophy, and observations on water, saltwater, rain, and evaporation led to small but concrete experiments. Most interestingly, there are tales of a 16th century garrison under siege forced to create a still apparatus to keep the soldiers hydrated and alive. Ingenuity by way of crisis, emergency.

We don’t cross oceans without desalination. We don’t circumvent the globe. Major explorers we’d learned about in elementary school participated and added their observations, experiments, and preferences– but the process didn’t really change through the centuries. Small quantities of fresh drinking water for small quantities of humans on isolated adventures.

Even with the steam engine and Industrial revolution, yes, the science advanced and the experiments grew larger– but still singular. A desalination plant on this port or that port. No thought of the grander population, this is about sailors and soldiers drinking water where there is no water to drink. Then comes World War II and the life it leaves in its complicated, chaotic wake.

The War brought global trauma. In the years following, society probed itself in vivisection. Religion, science, industry, art– every individual and shared paradigm absolutely decimated. Confusion and an earnest quest for knowledge infected the world’s population for better and worse. Born of this wake, the most consequential development and advance to the desalination process: reverse osmosis.

Back to Wikipedia:

A membrane-based process in which pressure forces saline water through a semi-permeable membrane that retains dissolved salts. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, reverse osmosis had emerged as a promising alternative to thermal desalination. Research in the 21st century has focused increasingly on efficiency and sustainability. This has included the integration of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power into desalination systems, as well as the development of advanced membranes including graphene-based, biomimetic, ceramic, and nanocomposite materials.

As of 2021, about 22,000 desalination plants were reported to be in operation worldwide.

A Tale of Two Cities

I would love to move Downtown. I love it. It’s the only city lookin’ part of my city. I’ve talked about how 7th & Spring, the crossroads home to Movie House L.A., is literally where our Los Angeles was born in the wild west, pre-camera days. Home to gorgeous lofts, a thriving artist’s community, and the largest concentration of original movie palaces in the world. I believe in DTLA.

Downtown is simply unaffordable. Bonesy and I are desperate for a one-bedroom somewhere between 3rd and 9th, Main and Hill. The buildings are sophisticated and enormous, they fill city blocks. There’s a weekly farmer’s market, delicious food from every country on earth, venue upon venue, and a thriving social scene. That’s DTLA in the light. Unfortunately, the harrowing shadow of Skid Row blankets the whole of the area.

Walking around the neighborhood reminds me of J.G. Ballard’s novel High-Rise; a rather on-the-nose parable where the rich live in the penthouses and the poor live in the trash. Snowpiercer by way of skyscraper rather than choo-choo train. It’s Parasite. It’s an internationally understood, pondered, argued, settled upon, and rewarded metaphor. Rich live in the clouds, poor in the dirt.

Many dead hotels transformed into Section8 for our lowest income friends and neighbors. Encampments thrive outside the Brutalist CVS. Humans in various stages of dress, undress, outdress, overdress, underdress, dressed-up, and fully nude hum along the sidewalks. Always moving. There’s always someone pulling a full-sized guitar amp behind them on a wheeled dolly blasting Tupac– sounds better than earbuds. Downtown swarms with humanity.

Why can’t I afford a one-bedroom apartment on Skid Row?

For the record, I don’t have government assistance with my housing with no intention to go down that road without absolute necessity. California helps me with my physical and mental health and for that I’m blessed. After a couple of reasonably civil conversations with landlords and landlord-siding individuals and have an observation to share: the landlord’s bottom line is nowhere fuckin’ near the top of my line.

This is as obvious as a dystopian-future genre novel where rich folk live on the 200th floor and the poor below ground floor, but it’s a conversation that must be had. In a vacuum– without feelings, in an even-keel, and without judgement on either side– the money these landlords need to function is WAY more than anyone I know can afford. They need to pay for HVAC, floors, water, insurance, tax, acts o’ God, and everything and everything. What’s plain to me: there is no bridge.

There is no bridge. There is no conversation of a bridge. There are no thoughts on how to conceive of a conversation of a bridge. A bridge is no more than a fucking twinkle in my eye. A one bedroom on Skid Row needs to go for $1,800 and I’m telling you I ain’t payin’ more than $750 a month to live on 5th & Spring. I know how that neighborhood looks and lives, no matter how you sell it. When someone I know proposed a name change I replied, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. You could call it ‘Westchester’ for all I care, it’s still Skid Row.”2

Personally, I think the very second rent dips Downtown, a flock of people like myself will move in. Right now, I don’t know how the landlords plan to save the neighborhood besides “clean it up.” I don’t know what that means, but I think it’s what they did to my family in Poland some 80 years ago. Or they have no ideas, they just need “the element” “taken care of.” I don’t know. I don’t live in a vacuum. I work my ass off for no money. I have zero answers.

How DO we begin to think about how to have the conversation civilly and productively? This hypothetical concept of a bridge between their bottom line and the top of mine? I’m pretty sure landlords have no desire to have the conversation. I think money people are money people and that’s the bottom line. Maybe if I were smarter I’d be richer like them? Maybe they should own fewer buildings and they can concentrate and focus up their wealth?3

I am ignorant. And as Dad taught me long, long ago: “Ignorance is NOT stupidity. It simply means you don’t know.” This advice has gotten me very far re: school, work, interpersonal relationships, MAGA, et al.

The Toxic Element

Hey Jake! Literally, what the fuck are you talking about? I genuinely forgot for a second– just kinda into desalination and wish I lived downtown, y’know?

Of course, I vaguely remember reverse osmosis from high school biology (decidedly not AP). Recently, I was walking around the neighborhood, smoking, listening to music, and I was thinking about the process of removing toxins from water for fresh, safe drinking– on an exponential scale. How on my best day, this is how I feel about the entire NonDē movement. How we, as a groupthink, hivemind, and cooperative insist on removing toxins for the greater good.

Immediately, it’s important to address: I do not find unhoused people a toxin. I do, however, feel apathy toward the homeless problem is toxic. Like any social problem, it’s to be solved with compassion, thought, and logistical righteousness. I’ve been called a communist. Okay…? That’s like when kids would call me gay in middle school and I’d be earnestly confused: Thanks? Every gay person I know is wonderful. I march in Pride every year. You can imagine how well that went over in 1999. “Communist,” “socialist,” all words appropriated for assorted personal use. They hold no currency with me outside their dictionary definitions.

I’m a proud Jew, but I dig Jesus– mainly as a Jewish guy and a rabbi, actually. I like the stuff he said. I like his story. He’s not my savior, but I agree with Jesus.4 Didn’t he talk about compassion, community, helping those in need, and tolerance? Is that controversial? Why does writing this from my POV feel controversial? A Jewish guy praising (not praising!) Jesus’ attitude toward poor people and personhood? I once read about a world famously controversial Jewish Rabbi who loved the poorest of us and preached loving brotherhood!5

Social Desalination

I’ve had two very personally important people say the same iconic platitude to me in polar opposite contexts; both times the words fell hard on my ears, like a sledgehammer on a church bell. There but for the grace of God go I.

I have so much more in common with my unhoused friends on the sidewalk than the landlord bitching politics in my ear. I’m one step away from the street. I’m careers and miles of red tape and fantasy before I own my own building on Spring Street. It’s hard not to feel brackish6 myself. A part of the toxin. An element to be removed. To be “taken care of.”

Any discussion of compassion or logistics is branded “weak,” or “commie.” Bootstrap it hard enough and you can pull yourself offa Skid Row and get yerself into the Eastern penthouse. I am blessed. There but for the grace of God go I. If there’s a gap to be bridged, it seems to be wholly on me. Not anybody who’s actually earned money. Otherwise, I’m pretty sure I’M the salt in the drinking water. I’M the toxin to be removed.

Hard not to feel like the perverse, obsessive proliferation of Artificial Intelligence and these obscene data centers is a form of Social or Corporate Desalination by way of the Tech Barons. There’s that gap again: the corporate bottom line doesn’t match the worker’s top line. Doesn’t come close. The answer isn’t to build a bridge. The answer is to “remove the toxin.”

The Positive Reframe (I swear!)

Film friends, I don’t believe in doomsaying. I don’t think change is bad (it’s the only inevitability in life). I believe in cycles, nature, patterns, history, observation, and love. I believe in meteorology– reporting the weather, nothing else. I joke, maybe Nostradamus was never a prognosticator, he could just read the room.

Since the A.I. conversation kicked up hard and fast, I’ve been asking the same question over and over and over and over. Nobody has an answer. I’m not sure if the Tech Barons have addressed the obscenely obvious: If A.I. workers make A.I. products for A.I. money– where’s the actual profit and how do I fit within this model? And the further along this goes, I realize the Barons, the landlords, and the powers-that-be do not know. Most importantly: they don’t give a shit. Figure it out, salt, I got money to make.

Listen. That’s all well and good for the Epstein Class. Their bunkers. Their acres. Their investments. Their reflective media. Their “five-dimensional chess.” Make your money. Fuck us to death. Cool. Bye! If everything goes to plan and you folk get everything you could ever want, what’s left of the life we’re to live? Do we just…die? Maybe, if these guys had their druthers, we would. Just *blip* off the earth so they can have their robots make their robot products for their robot money.

You and I– The Salt. The Brackish. The Toxin– will not die the next day. Rather - and fuckin’ dig this – the meek shall inherit the Earth. Jesus said that! I didn’t write that! That’s an old, old saying! Still holds water! These Barons have wholly disassociated from reality and they’re trying to take everybody along with them. Even my landlord buddy downtown has more in common financially with me than any of those scumbag Bezos, Zuckerberg, Altman, Musk, Theil, O’Leary cucks.

Remember that movie Elysium?

Neill Blomkamp’s hyped follow up to his shockingly good, left-field debut District 9. Having grown up in apartheid South Africa, Blomkamp made his name blending entertaining near-Spielbergian sci-fi with very grounded, very real politics. Elysium has the rich Jodie Foster people living in a big ring orbiting the planet, while desolate Earth is home to the Matt Damon poors forced to be the wealthy labor force… as opposed to a dystopian 1970’s skyscraper. Or a French-by-South Korean superlong bullet train.

Elysium got mid-to-bad reviews and was quickly lost in the shuffle. But when I imagine this epic-scaled social desalination, Elysium is the image that comes to mind. The Epstein Class and Tech Barons quite literally living in space in their own very literal bubble. But I don’t see them caring whatsoever about the bubble below, the planet they’ve left. This movie posits there’s still economic materials to be mined from the planet, keeping this bottom-feeding class working hard like slaves every moment of the day. This isn’t the planet I envision when these fuckers leave for good.

I see freedom.

I see these fuckers caring so little for the human beings left behind and their lack of profit production that they disappear and leave us plebes and trogs to our own devices. I’m watching this happen in cinemaspace every single day. Not just the proliferation of A.I., but the evolution of the modern multiplex, the current state of the Hollywood slate as a whole, and the dissolution of the PR ecosystem. If we don’t like it, they’ll take it for themselves and we can fuck ourselves.

Desalination is the process of extracting salt from seawater to produce fresh, drinkable water. The Tech Barons, the Epstein Class, and anyone stupid enough to think they’re in the same league— are the toxins. Not us. What exactly do they expect to happen? What is the endgame here? Where is their checkmate?

Movie Theaters aren’t suffering because of movie theater people. They suffer because business and marketing people get sent up the ladder until any semblance of a soul has been removed. Clearly, this isn’t only movie theaters, but so many aspects of life. I believe this is what my community refers to as “enshittification,” but I’m not 100%. I’ve written before: if they could monetize every single blade of grass, they would.

If Hollywood continues this industry-scaled reverse osmosis, I refuse to be the toxin. I’m the fresh drinking water. I’m building a desalination plant for my unhoused friends who are thirsty. I want to build one in every country. I want to build one in every city and village. Fuck you for monetizing fresh drinking water. I heard Jesus did that too once– not build a desalination plant, mind you– but feed the hungry and give drinking water to the thirsty. I didn’t write this. I didn’t come up with this idea. It’s not mine!

Toxicity demands removal, otherwise the community gets sick. Where do you find your fresh drinking water?

Modern life is flooded with digital quicksand. Every app has been redesigned for the endless scroll. If you have eyeballs and twenty-four hours, you’re a valuable financial commodity. You’re a golden goose. We’re truly only limited to the amount of time we have in a day; hence lightspeeds, data centers, aggregates. If we can’t make the day longer, then we can make the seconds in the day as short as possible. It’s called the “attention economy” for a reason, dig?

This is why I spend hours every morning digging around Youtube, Prime, HBOMax, Tubi, PlutoTV…uhhhhhh…back to Youtube, back to Prime, Disney+, Hulu, Paramount+1, back to Prime, back to HBO, back to Disney+2... until Bones comes home and we usually stay on Youtube (where she mercifully controls the remote); til we decide it’s time for a horror movie, then it’s back to Tubi. After the flick, it’s back to Youtube until Bonesy’s bedtime… then I go upstairs and the entire fucking thing starts over around 10pm til I pass out at 2am watching The Simpsons every. Single. Night.

You may think I turn my brain off during this extremely irritating, elongated process because, well, it sounds stupid. Very stupid. So very stupid. This endless scrolling ends up charging my brain, which unfortunately elongates the process further. The neverending remote-click philosophical fugue state, stoned hypnosis of the existential scroll.

First comes the dark.

There’s simply too much. Too many movies. Too many shows. Too many videos. Too much content. Too many platforms. Too many fandoms. Too many IPs. Too many indie flicks. Too many cookie-cutter genre pieces. Too many dreams. Too many ideas. Too many approaches. Too many reasons for making a movie and exponentially more reasons to watch.

The sheer scale of the content trough is beyond overwhelming; intimidating even more so. If I were to drop my film on any of these platforms, how is it any different than adding a drop of water to the Pacific or Indian Oceans? It’s a visual representation of the impossibility of it all; sailing across the Atlantic with two sturdy oars and no sail.

Wading Through Slop

While the term “slop” has been rightfully co-opted by A.I Generative “Entertainment,” I do extend the umbrella term to honest-to-goodness organic and traditional independent film. Yes, even the best of us can create slop. Have I seen this formula a million times? Have I seen this shot a million times? Have I heard this line a million times? Have I watched this movie with different actors over and over and over again? Am I just watching this director try making a film like that director? We Spinal Tap fans clearly understand “There’s a fine line between clever and stupid.”

Is slop bad? I don’t know, it’s kinda moot at this point. Slop is slop is slop.

I like to joke that Bones and I have seen so many “found footage haunted house” movies the whole formula plays like Commedia Dell’arte. The Director is always the headstrong fool. The DP is a stuck-up dick. The AD is the intuitive type-A woman who’s killed before she can reveal horrors to the group. The Final Girl is often an innocent PA who’s just cutting her teeth– or a lovely lead actress with this production as her first big break. The Sound Guy is always killed first.

The movie’s actual filmmakers (as opposed to the actors portraying the filmmakers on frame) found an abandoned old <INSERT DECAYING INSTITUTIONAL BUILDING> wrecked with mold, littered with trash and papers, and rusty equipment. They picked a few weekends and had the actors choose their own costumes. There may be a script… I bet most likely there’s a kinda “plot-thru”-- paragraphs explaining the characters and actions with the actors improvising much of the dialogue. And lots of off-screen deaths.

I know I’ve seen about fifty of these films and it’s clear Bonesy has seen a hundred more. Some of these movies are objectively better than others. Most of them have around a 4/10 rating anywhere online. We like watching them whether they’re good or bad, but we can still recognize slop when we see it. Slop appears to be one of the main ingredients of digital quicksand. We desperately search for good movies through the slough as if we’re hopping on tiny, distant gemstones across a toxic green river of sludge.

Gem Formation

How many times have I scrolled, clicked, watched, (repeat) and asked myself the exact same question: “What does this filmmaker expect to happen?” What are they trying to achieve with this film? Is every film supposed to be a predecessor for the filmmaker’s next? Do they just wanna one-n-done it? If every single one of these filmmakers were to succeed beyond their wildest dreams, what would the landscape even look like? I genuinely don’t know. “Nobody knows anything,” Reb Goldman famously wrote.

Soon, I’ll have placed myself at the center of my meditation. No longer observing the filmmakers around me, but rather myself as a filmmaker. At the eye of this tumultuous tempest of thought is one very simple question: Why? To add to the metaphor– this storm is right over the Phillipe-forked sludge river. Why movies? Why now? … Why still?

My creative obsession eventually turns into overworked thought. Why make movies now? Why not focus my attention elsewhere? Why not novels? Television series? Comedy shorts? Youtube videos? Twitch streams? Literally anything seemingly more relevant than cinema? How did this happen? How are so many people still so interested in a medium that feels so antiquated, overcooked, and oddly off the mark?

Why does it have to be the feature motion picture for me? It HAS to be features. Am I paying off a promise I made to my younger self? Sure, that’s a small fraction of it– but all of these questions force me to reckon with the Almighty Why.

Too many questions. Too much pressure. Too much heat. In the simplest, most glib explanation possible– we know gemstones are formed through pressure and heat. These thought processes (read: psychotic spirals) lead us in the direction of the Almighty Why. Through pressure and heat, we turn our flowing ideas into the earth’s true treasure. Not just superficial muck that sorta looks like something precious but crumbles instantly in your hand, leaving wet skidmarks and a sewagey smell… fuckin’ slop.

Treasures Against the Sun

Our treasured artforms tell stories. Often times we choose an artform or medium because it’s the only way to express the Sublime3. To express The Real. The pulsing vein of truth through expression. Picasso’s Guernica COULD have been a novel, but it’s a 27’ oil painting. Every filmed, staged, or reimagined version of Shakespeare or Shelley will always only be a version of Shakespeare and Shelley– the sublime found in their words on the page.

I often think about how Ween’s music doesn’t work particularly well in movies4 because they’re so illustrative, thematic, funny, and filled with personality– it ultimately doesn’t need the visual component (though they have some fun music videos, natch). It’s kind of a hat on a hat.

All this to say: why feature motion pictures? Because the story can only be told as a feature motion picture.

If your script could be a poem– if your script could be a novel– if your script could be a serialized article, a facebook post, a stage musical, a youtube video, a symphony, a short story, an improv sketch– then let it be so. Movies are for cinema now. We make movies because the story has to be a movie. If it’s not a motion picture THIS story simply cannot be told to its fullest potential.

It’s not about “what will make me money.” It’s not about “Oh, I think people might enjoy this.” Or “Hollywood might buy this.” Or “This may get into a festival.” Or “Netflix might fuck with this.” Or even “Tubi, Prime, and PlutoTV will totally add this.” This is about: I have an astonishingly personal story within myself. I need to share it with the world through the art of cinema– that’s the only way this story can be told.

These are our gems. Our treasures to hold against the light. Motion pictures worthy of our artistic merit. Cinema finally worthy of us. Hollywood will keep force-feeding worldwide audiences slop in corporate beige megaplexes; that’s their cross to bear. Not ours. NonDependent attitudes, micro-budget production, with alternative distribution, and experimental exhibition will revive the art of cinema in a way never experienced before.

The last time the world of motion pictures was this exciting, two French brothers filmed a steam engine pull into a station.

Filmstackers live in metaphor.

There is no one solitary explanation for this. The simplest answer (read: Murphy’s Razor) is our communion as writers. Always trying to get folks to see the underlying, the subtextual, the heartbeat of it all. Often referred to as “The Real.” We’re all trying to get to and experience The Real. I genuinely believe this is why we are all here on Substack putting our imaginations, dreams, and vulnerabilities right out on display.

It’s the metaphors that get through to the filmmakers and artists I speak to; that expose The Real out of a simple reframe. Or simple illustration. Why tell your friend to just “take it easy,” when you can tell them about a smug rabbit and a slow turtle? Aesop’s stories are 2,500 years old, we still tell them to our children as foundation for their personalities. Or sing Billy Joel’s Vienna to that friend as if it’s your own at late night drunk karaoke? As says to me when she begins at the beginning: “I’m sorry, Jake– I’m a storyteller.”

The metaphors I share tend to come from nature. Lots of space, cosmos, time, and even the theory of relativity. My personal favorite– if you haven’t been able to tell yet– are mountain metaphors. I’m sure this is because I’m a proudly born and raised Vermonter (The Green Mountain State; Vermont being French for “Green Mountain”); my childhood was filled with skiing1 and hiking2. Growing up, I remember Dad always reading a book about mountaineering or the Space Race; naturally I shared in his enjoyment and understanding through shared anecdotes.

FilmStackers are intellectuals. We’re readers and writers. Thinkers. Philosophers. Illustrators. Cartographers and City Planners. We are cinema’s geologists and astrophysicists. We eat film. We swim, smell, and breathe it.

We’re mountaineers and astronauts. We explore the unknown. We ask the questions. We search for The Real– be it summit or star.

Some Distant Star

At a point in college (Dubya Pt II) it occurred to me the rewards of my childhood may not even exist anymore. That’s a decent mindfuck for a nineteen year old. I’ve lived so many generations of dreams/rewards, I’m not quite sure what the first one even was anymore.3 To be discovered, for sure, but to what end? I just wanted to direct a movie. Well, I did that twice, years ago.

To be accepted by a film festival. To be found by a beloved director who sees themself in me. To be given the comfort of a job. To be protected by a movie studio, like fuckin’ RKO or Fox or the aptly named Orion Pictures. To be hired as a writer. To be offered a salary and an office for me to turn out pages. Ray Carney inadvertently paved the foundation for mumblecore– maybe HE can help me! Where’s my fucking mentor already??

Friends, these are but stars in the galaxy.

The only star we can see from 2026 is the Sun. Every other star exists in the past– even though we see it right in front of us. Objectively before our literal eyes. The light has taken so long to reach our eyes, the actual stars we see are from centuries and millennia past. A writer in an office paid salary for features? That star shone bright in 1942. So did the Studio protection4. What film festival is gonna find me from a cold submission and platform me? That’s one a-them 1991 stars. Mumblecore is so early-Aughts-coded, it orbits my own college years. Can you dig what I’m planting?

You and I are in motion. We are not planets. We are not constellations. We are not stars. We are born on and visit planets. We see constellations from trillions of lightyears away. The closer we get, the more these constellations lose their shape and we arrive - and pass beyond - these individual stars; bound to space, time, and orbit.

I suppose in this specific metaphor, we are the light.

My favorite collaborators are beams of light travelling parallel to my own; exploring the unknown cosmos, the uncharted Universe, as I do. There are bigger mysteries to solve. And as Yusuf/ Cat Stevens so succinctly sings, “There’s so much left to know and I’m on the road to find out.”5 We can only observe 5% of the Universe. The stuff we can’t see– dark matter and dark energy that make up the other 95%– is expanding and accelerating and we have no idea why. There’s always more to explore.

Homeward Bound

I was working at the movie theater in 2017 in Chicago with a handful of other similar-spirited independent filmmakers. I had made Scrapers and did much of my mini-tour around town; I was wont to offer much solicited (and surely unsolicited) advice to my movie buddies.6 My pal Nate asked me how I felt after finally completing my first feature. I had been talking about it for years– now it’s forever finished, toured, and dormant.

This is– pretty much word-for-word– what I remember saying:

Have you ever seen Homeward Bound? I used to watch it all the fuckin’ time when I was a kid. I loved that movie. Oh, you have? Good. Remember in Homeward Bound, they’ve been left at that barn and the family is gone? Shadow shows Chance and Sassy this mountain just beyond the farm. He tells them, “All we gotta do is climb this mountain. Our home is on the other side.”

So they go to the top of the mountain; they reach the summit. What do they find? They don’t find their home. They find a fucking mountain range.

That’s how I feel completing my first feature, Nate.

Touching the Void

I only watched Kevin MacDonald’s 2003 seminal mountain climbing documentary Touching the Void once, but it’s stuck with me ever since. An authentic story of miraculous survival, there are very interesting lessons I learned; surely through the lens of my father’s midrash.

The story follows two mountain climbers on a joint climb up a very dangerous mountain. Sure enough, one of the climbers slips– and the two are attached by a rope. The climber who had slipped, careens over a ledge. Victim to gravity, the attached climber must make a choice: do I cut the rope?

Both of these professionals are trained to cut the rope in this very instance. So he does.

The film then follows the incredible tale of both of these men surviving the mountain. And both men DO survive the mountain. Obviously, I encourage you to watch the flick, but I bring it up in this instance for a very specific lesson I keep close to me: Cut the rope if you have to.

Dad caught the flick at the Show a couple years before I finally watched it at the video store in high school. I remember asking him, “Don’t these two men hate each other?”

He said, “No. That’s what they’re trained to do. If the roles were reversed, it’s understood the other climber would have done the same thing.” He says, “They don’t talk to each other anymore. But there’s no hard feelings.”

Dad also taught me that if you and your buddy are drowning– and your buddy climbs on top of you– you kick that motherfucker offa you. Can’t save anybody from drownin’ if you’re drownin’ yourself.

Same idea.

The Most Important Mountain Climbing Fact

More people die climbing down the mountain, after they’ve summited.

I have a desire to type this a few more times at the risk of coming off like a psychotic King character. It’s a pitch black fact. I think about it a lot in relation to my film career. More people die climbing down the mountain than hiking up the mountain.

Why? Because you’re tired and you did what you came here to do. You reached the top! You planted the flag. You took the picture. You used up that little bit of extra energy to make it to the top– you’re not working with a 50/50 energy split, now it’s 60/40. You think you’ll be working with gravity on the way down… but you’re simply working against a new, complicated, confusing form of gravity. One might even say THE DISTRIBUTION IS ALL FUCKED UP, if one were inclined to put it that way, y’know?

Film friends, making the flick is the easy part. So why does film school and the checklist distribution narrative bring us to the summit, just to let us die on the hike down? How is the film festival lottery anything other than being stranded at the summit? We don’t ascend to heaven once we reach the summit. We may experience heaven— but we do not ascend. There’s only one way to do that and that’s to die on the mountain.

This is about surviving the summit. This is about coming home safely, alive after the adventure on the mountain.

In order to survive— to climb the next mountain, first we have to climb down the one we’re on— so plan on it.

Next time on The Magic School Bus we’ll discuss reverse osmosis and desalination! If I can ever figure out why I was 🤏this close to sending the below image to Taylor and with zero context 2pm on a workday:

The Elevator Pitch

PIGFEED

Genre: Social Comedy

Summary: Newly single movie theater manager Kelly befriends a regular named Leon, a world-famous comedian cancelled by a sex scandal years prior. What happens to the relationship between artist, audience, and fandom when humanity gets in the way?

Spotify Soundtrack:

If you dig: The Descendants (2011), The Landlord (1970), Network (1976)

Budget: $250,000 (or larger, natch).

Tues Nov 7, 2023; from ‘Paramount Analogue’

On Pigfeed:

The first two acts of this screenplay were written in 2018. Louis C.K. was freshly canceled and #MeToo was mentioned daily in the news. Article after article exposing childhood heroes as frauds, creeps, and rapists. Pigfeed was delicately controversial. Nuanced and full of questions– perhaps a type of nuance and question unnecessary for such a current controversy; a well-meaning bandage lost in a monstrously open, bloody wound.

It was important for me to pass along to all of the women in my Brain Trust to simply see if anyone at all would want to touch this story with a ten-foot pole. To my surprise, the script raised eyebrows, began conversations, and was allowed by the readers the nuance - and an opportunity to ask questions in an agreeable environment.

Spike Lee once said something to the effect of It doesn’t matter if they like or hate the flick- as long as the audience is having a conversation on the way out of the theater.

Upon rereading an earlier draft in 2023, I came to the quick conclusion Pigfeed was without a third act. After dredging complicated feelings and raw controversies for seventy-five pages, my story never cemented its stance on the Louie C.K. Scandal itself. It talked about it, but didn’t say anything. By the end, vitally important themes were confused at best and murky at worst. After five years, a proper ending, and 118 dialogue-fueled pages– I poured these themes in concrete:

Louie C.K. can go fuck himself. And it’s up to us to keep this conversation alive.

–jSw

Today

Needless to say, Pigfeed was supposed to be a satire. I wrote the script about eight years ago and it never stopped nagging at me. What began as controversial turned cold, then hot, then dangerous, and is cold again. Maybe Pigfeed isn’t a satire anymore. Network is a satire. The Producers is a satire. Life of Brian is a satire. Pigfeed was born an ignorant man’s satire, and is currently a simple reflection of distorted reality (as opposed to a distorted reflection on simple reality).

Of course, The United States of America in the year of our Lord Twenty-Twenty-Six has expertly stress-tested the concept of satire. D.C. is some live-action sitcom amalgam of Mark Twain, Dr. Seuss, and Thomas Nast. This administration punched a hole in the Daily Show and turned the program inside out. The Simpsons is called “prophetic” because Springfield is too close to modern America.1

Our Nation’s capital is actively selling the People a $400,000,000 taxpayer funded White House adjacent Ballroom as the answer to rampant political extremism and gun violence. Andy Serkis showed up to the premiere of his Angel-produced adaptation of Animal Farm wearing a red cap reading “Make Animal Farm Fiction Again.” How does anybody even write a satire in 2026? NEED anybody write a satire in 2026?

If reality has already spoiled the end of my story, why does Pigfeed still pull on me? It could be the literal amount of time I put into this project. I tried to get a version of the film– then simply called Pig– produced in Chicago, but by the time I made my pitch video and bought some promotional pitchcards, March 2020 had rolled around and– well, time makes fools of us all.

The original pitch video.

Why Today?

The Louis C.K. of it all is really just a hook. All of the MeToo and Hollywood hypocrisy is a provocative plot boundary for the actual story. For better or worse– success or detriment– Pigfeed lives in the nuance. Folks have teased me for being an apologist. Many people didn’t understand why I kept the “Louie” character alive by the end of the flick. I heard several people wish this character some sort of natural death. That was never my story.

Pigfeed has always been about Kelly O’Rian2. A thirty-something woman running shifts at a neighborhood movie theater, dealing with an unexpected breakup. Working a job with kids ten years her junior, always moving on to better paying, personality-defining careers. An employee empathetic to her regulars, regardless of their history. A woman who sees kindness in a fuck up. A friend who expects her friend to reciprocate this empathy. A friendship of understanding and forgiveness– until this man acts as men do.

I wrote the first two acts after a bad breakup. The Harvey Weinstein article and subsequent Louis C.K. NYTimes expose were fresh scandals, less than a year old. Nobody was writing about the nuance– and to be fair, who knows if that nuance needed/needs to be explored (hence this piece). That’s why so many people wanted Leon (the “Louie” character) to die of a heart attack. I was just sad. I was sad about my break up. I was sad that one of my filmmaking heroes was being rightfully attacked and buried professionally.

A year prior, I had been taking this man’s directing and writing advice. Horace & Pete is an experimental masterpiece for its time and- now… what the fuck is Horace & Pete? I thought he was so funny. And now (in 2018) I’m supposed to hate him. How do I reconcile all of this? A reminder to the reader, this is eight years ago, three lives ago, four jobs ago– without my current Bonesy partnership, without my Hollywood experience, without a lot of anti-depressants and anxiety meds.

What would happen if Louie C.K. walked into my movie theater and wanted to hide from the world? That was my prompt; my base thought experiment. I love my regulars. If Louie walked in and called himself Joe, I’d treat him like Joe and talk only movies. Even though I’ve clocked hours of this man talking on various interviews about every topic.

After lockdown. After working for Hollywood personalities. After experiencing this fantasy first hand. After living in this setting– not its characterization– I could see the gears and machinations for what they were: Money is money. People are fickle. Memory is short. I wrote the third act and turned Pig into Pigfeed. I came to an understanding of the real and honest differences between these two characters, Kelly and Leon. Where the empathy dries up. Where the anger begins. Where willful ignorance settles itself.

The longer I live in this town, the more I work on our shared nondependent project, the clearer I see what this film is really about and why I won’t let go until it’s produced, toured, and breathing its own breath. Pigfeed is about those who get away, and those who suffer. It’s about class and talent. Manipulation and business. Ultimately my film about The Real. But it’s a comedy, too. You’ll laugh, I promise. My favorite movies are wildly comedic, but often thematically tragic; as far as I’m concerned as a writer, this genre best reflects life.3

What happens when nobody cares about the scandal anymore? What happens when you no longer have to hold yourself accountable to society at large? What happens to genuine friendship when the pull of success increases the tension? What happens to the empathetic soul when so many in positions of power– and hungry audiences– have no use for empathy? Who do we root for by the end of the flick? What do we actually hope to happen? Success? Death? A happy ending for everybody?

Unfiltered: I actually think it’s pathetic this script holds as much water as it still does after eight years. It saddens me, this transition from satire to simple reflection. Sure, the script is so much better with a third act (lol), but it bums me out to see the plot play out so similarly in real life. It pleases me as a writer, but not as a human.

I want to get this film out of my brain and onto the screen. I want to share my story about friendship, empathy, and a very specific kind of personal betrayal. Something tiny– but really, really important. It’s a movie about a person stuck working at a movie theater, living the best life they’re able to, considering the extraordinary circumstances surrounding them. It’s modern, social, and real.

Pigfeed is a simple character play with a provocative logline. Somehow– it’s art imitating life imitating art imitating life. A fictional satire turned semi-autobiographical reflection. A script I’ve been intimately crafting for the better part of a decade. A story with a theme that appears to never leave the social memory for all too long. As an author, can I not let this story go? Or is it that story that won’t let go of me?

Scrapers: A Comedy for Romantic Stoners was written in 2010 as a love letter. At the time, it was for my long distance then-girlfriend, Sally, who eventually co-produced and starred in the film as our female lead, Mary.

When I watch the film in 2026- sixteen years later- the film still rings true as a love letter. Not to any person in particular, but to the ghost of my past life. I don’t speak to Sally anymore, haven’t in years. In fact, I don’t really speak to most of the cast. The film takes place in Rogers Park, Chicago– the neighborhood I called home for a decade, then had to abandon for the foreseeable future. It’s set in an apartment building I nested in from 2011 to 2017, it’s now completely razed to the ground. Scrapers is dotted with community businesses that disappeared without a footprint.

The film was completed when marijuana was still illegal in most states. Attitudes were just a little different. Today, it’s not uncommon to see casual weed smoking on TV and in movies– I promise it wasn’t always like this. It certainly wasn’t when we made the flick. Stoner movies were “caper based,” silly, cartoony. There were very few earnest, calm realistic portrayals of stoners; hardly anybody on the big screen acted like me and my friends. The intention was always to make Scrapers a romantic comedy first and most importantly. It was just as paramount to me to fill as much of the frame with grass. To my knowledge, no other film places any emphasis on scraping bowls and smoking resin– nobody making movies in Hollywood is that poor.

This microbudget independent feature greatest success is an authentic time capsule of my life. After all this time, the flick still makes me laugh. I still find it relatable, and I still have deep-seated opinions about improv troupes and their brand of comedy.

Inspirations

Scrapers: A Comedy for Romantic Stoners was inspired by a handful of filmmakers and motion pictures very near, very dear to my heart. Many of which (not surprisingly) are the respective filmmaker’s debut features. Also, not for nothing, all of these movies can be popped into the VCR at any time and enjoyed. If I were channel surfing and any of these films were on, I would stop to finish the flick. All of these qualities I wanted in Scrapers: an easy rewatch. One to “pop in.”

Hal Ashby’s 1970 debut The Landlord – visually. White. Overexposure. Relaxed performances.

My favorite example of a debut, where elements of The Last Detail, Harold & Maude, and Being There can be found in their infant stages. Seeds ready to bloom with time.

John Cassavetes’ 1958 debut Shadows. Improvised. Out of the ordinary for the decade; a film out of time. Handheld, ground level, indie spirit within the beat generation of the 50’s.

Again– the vibe, the cadences, and the rhythm of Cassavetes is there, but doesn’t emerge into full fruition until Faces, Minnie & Moskowitz, Husbands, and A Woman Under the Influence later.

Andrew Davis’ 1978 debut Stony Island. A heartfelt banger musical set and shot in contemporary 1970’s Chicago. One of my favorite filmed visions of the city. Like I’m walking on Wabash with these characters fifty years ago.

Davis once said he saw Scorsese’s Mean Streets and thought– I gotta do that for Chicago. This is a sentiment I share close to my creative heart– then continued on to my second feature Clean Sheets.

The late, great Rob Reiner’s seminal When Harry Met Sally… from 1989. Greatest romantic comedy of all time. The film’s dialogue is utterly hilarious, the characters and performances are well-rounded and honest- as is their journey through the film’s portrayed decades. It’s my personal gold standard romantic comedy.

Also, thanks to Reiner and Billy Crystal, Harry is written, directed, and performed very, very Jewish– without going to synagogue, celebrating Chanukah, throwing a Bar Mitzvah, or stepping on a glass. Shit, he isn’t even a lawyer, accountant, or exec. This is a stylistic choice I embrace in every single script I write.

F. Gary Gray’s 1995 feature film debut Friday. The most realistic stoner movie to date. Iconic– and I don’t use the word lightly.

Most importantly, Friday is a character play. Ice Cube, almost effortlessly, carries the story on his shoulders, along with one of the finest supporting casts a comedy can offer. The weed is so important and still secondary to Cube’s Craig and Chris Tucker’s signature Smokey. It’s about a guy who lost his job and is going through it. It’s about his neighborhood and friends. It’s about his honor and literally finding his inner character. What it means to be a man. AND it’s credit-to-credit chock full of grass smoking.

It’s also funny as fuck. I just made myself want to watch Friday again.

Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown. Tarantino says he wanted the audience of Jackie Brown to feel like they were sitting at the bar, having a drink with the characters. We’re hanging out in the room, flies on the wall.

It was really important to us to keep the audience in the smoke circle. Never above it, below it, or approaching it from a camera’s vantage. Hopefully making the audience feel like they’ll be offered the next hit. It’s still fun for me to smoke with Hal and Mary– and I highly recommend you do too (Pun…intended, actually. Why not?).

Lastly, Brendon Small and Loren Bouchard’s television debut Home Movies. Well before Metalocalypse and decades before Bob’s Burgers aired, these cartoon lovers created an animated television I hold incredibly, tightly close to my heart: Home Movies.

The improvisational manner, the casual attitudes, and the funniest, most quotable dialogue. I’ve seen every episode 400 times and I’ll watch them 400 more times before I watch them 400 times more.

Scrapers Related Posts!

Courtney Daniels

A small film that offers big inspiration

Today I’m writing about fellow Filmstacker Jake S. Weisman’s film, Scrapers: A Comedy for Romantic Stoners as part of the Filmstack Inspiration Challenge. Thank you Ted Hope and Avi Setton for starting and keeping this stream of inspiration going…

Read more

7 months ago · 16 likes · 11 comments · Courtney Daniels

WTF-Stop Camera Club

How I Shoot 005: Filmmaker Jake S. Weisman

jake S. weisman writes the Substack filmjourn and is celebrating the ten-year anniversary of his debut feature film, Scrapers. In fact, he is sharing the film for free with all filmjourn subscribers, starting today - 4/20/2026…

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2 months ago · 4 likes · Alan McIntyre

Now, I invite you to roll a joint, pack a bowl, eat a gummy or some chocolate– do what you gotta do. Make yourself comfortable and I hope you enjoy my feature film debut as a writer, director, and producer– Scrapers: A Comedy for Romantic Stoners.

When you hear or read the word “Speakeasy,” what images and phrases do your imagination conjure?

A hidden place; underground– metaphorically, literally. A wild, exciting party. A secret commune. Broken rules. Unimpeded conversation; free flowing ideas. Slightly dangerous. Commerce; black market.

Freedom. Romance. Affordability.

filmjourn’s Sunday Speakeasy DTLA

Every Sunday, filmjourn hosts Sunday Speakeasy at Movie House L.A.; 201 W. 7th St. & Spring St. in the heart of DTLA.

Our Speakeasy is free of charge and welcome to all in the know. I will be here personally from 11am - 4pm every Sunday to play movies on our 200” screen, write, converse, and offer a third space for Los Angeles.

Do you need a place to meet your crew for an hour or two? Come through. Do you need to get out of your house? Come through. Do you want to meet other non-dependent filmmakers in town? Come through. We have couches, seats, and a conference table– most importantly, a free and open atmosphere to discuss all things cinema.

If you need a destination on a Sunday afternoon, I want Movie House L.A. to always be an option for you.

We also want to use these open house hours for you to tour our facility.

We rent out and have the least expensive venue in town. The open salon style lends itself perfectly to works-in-progress, birthday and staff parties, and so much more. Come check out our space and reinvent the way movies are screened.

Movie House L.A. on FilmFreeway

SUBMIT HERE: https://filmfreeway.com/MovieHouseLA

from our filmfreeway:

MOVIE HOUSE L.A. IS NOT YOUR TRADITIONAL FESTIVAL. Before Hollywood was even conceptualized and film was invented, 7th & Spring was the bustling hub and birthplace of the City of Los Angeles. Today, we continue the innovative spirit of our corner screening independent, nondependent, and fringe cinema.

A home for new voices, Movie House L.A. accepts submissions of both traditional media and AI. We encourage works in progress and experimental exhibition. If you - as a filmmaker - have an audience and are looking for a venue, we highly suggest you submit your work. The more submissions we get, the more days we can be open! We want to build and run more days of the week— your submission will help grow our clubhouse and expand our L.A. Film Scene community.

Movie House L.A. is connected to The Circuit Alternative Distribution Network, a network of hundreds of microcinemas across America and the entire Earth fronted by of Luz Films and of filmjourn. If your film plays well in Los Angeles, there may be a whole future for your film across the ocean. It’s the greatest non-dependent film project to date; billing ourselves as the connective tissue between filmmaker, venue, marketing, and audience. We want to see which cities play similarly, we want to see indie theaters and pop-ups thrive, and we want to bring your film to the audience you’ve earned through your tremendously hard work.

Movie House L.A. is a flagship and model for microcinemas around the world. Submissions will be included in a vast bank shared with our immense network. If your film plays well at Movie House L.A., it will be shared with like-minded experimental exhibitors in cities like Portland OR, Charleston WV, Chicago IL-- as well as the UK, India, and Venezuela-- and ever growing.

The prize is allowing your piece to be seen by as wide an audience as possible without breaking your bank or selling your soul.

Our Growing Los Angeles Microcircuit

Jon Stahl

How Not to be a TV Writer

You Are the Studio Now

Quick Announcement…

Listen now

4 months ago · 50 likes · 18 comments · Jon Stahl

Aside from being a magnificent writer, comedic juggernaut, and huge dreamer, has been absolutely instrumental getting us FilmStackers offline and into the Open World. Jon’s FilmStack MeetUps have been a crucial tool in our community. Many of us have met one another through Stahl’s hosted meetups at Hermasillo in Highland Park.

A multi-talented thought-leader in our community, Jon has been mapping, experimenting, and thriving in the nondependent television space. He’s also a kind soul with open arms who graciously planned and co-hosted our FilmStack Holiday Party at our microcinema downtown.

If you’re not quite sure how you may fit into the community, I can’t recommend going to these meetups enough. You’ll find friendly like-minded filmmakers who can always point you in some positive direction.

Register here to join us at our upcoming get together: https://luma.com/dxsyhe0i

Dave Baxter & Dallas Miller of Vintertainment

Vintertainment: Wine and Movies

Watch Now | Ralph Bakshi's American Pop (1981) - 4 Wines for 4 Generations

Two weeks ago, we attended filmjourn’s microcinema screening that takes place every Sunday at 1pm in downtown Los Angeles inside an indie art gallery (and right next to a farmer’s market! Wheee…

Listen now

9 months ago · 6 likes · 1 comment · Dave Baxter

and live at the intersection of cinemaspace and wine culture (practically Park Place on the Board). Not only are they both professional wine experts, brilliant authors, and affable entertainers– they are fierce advocates of nondependent film. They’ve become filmjourn’s first regulars at our DTLA Sunday Matinee, now Movie House L.A. Supporting the local scene for the love of the game.

Their love of cinema and wine have fused in two bold, salient projects under their label: a clever podcast and an extremely helpful screening series. The Vintertainment podcast pairs films with wines. Over the course of an hour, Dave and Dallas guide us through the films, their histories and legacies, and how they relate to specific wines. You’ll learn a ton about both.

Dave and Dallas produced an amazing Work-In-Progress screening of ’s upcoming feature at Curated Wine Shop on La Brea & Beverly. An inviting wine shop with a pop-up microcinema built in, the audience was able to mingle, share thoughts, and meet one another in a really creative, exciting environment.

Females in Film & Television (FiFT)

We Did the Thing! First Ever ND50 Film Work-in-Progress Feedback Screening.

Okay, I have to tell you about our first ever ND50 Films Feedback Screening, because it was one of those afternoons I’ll be talking about for a long time…

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3 months ago · 10 likes · 4 comments · Dorez Douglas

Ellis J. Sutton of Coffeehouse Cinema

Surely news of ’s growing popularity has hit your front page. ’s and his team have created an exceptional short program series; elevated audience expectations of what nondependent cinema and cinemaspace can look like IRL, here in town, setting our bar very, very high.

They’re also building out a much-needed and desired Shorts Culture here in Los Angeles. I’m excited to help Coffeehouse Cinema bring repeat screenings of their programs all over town for audiences who may have missed their premieres. This team is giving filmmakers all over town a warm home to aim for. Now, I want to make a short worthy enough of the pedigree they’ve maintained.

Coffeehouse Cinema

I’ve Run a Microcinema for 3 Months. Here’s What I’ve Learned.

Most people don’t watch short films…

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3 months ago · 99 likes · 20 comments · Ellis J. Sutton

Courtney Daniels

On this mountain of filmmaking, is our city’s greatest free soloist. Producer, writer, and director of nondependent L.A. features What Other Couples Do and It’s Not You, It’s L.A., Courtney has a wealth of knowledge producing feature films her way with a skeleton crew.

With decades of professional experience, Courtney’s big Texas heart mixes with ingenious Los Angeles energy to make her an absolute powerhouse; a strong adhesive within our community, personally connecting many of us one by one. Courtney and I met at one of Jon Stahl’s early IRL meetups and she very openly shared the secrets of the Universe with me without hesitation. Currently filming her next feature, I’m so excited to watch her assembly cut (perhaps at Curated?).

Courtney Daniels

How my movie shoot is going

If you’re new to my posts, I’m currently making my next feature. Just as with my last film, It’s Not You, It’s LA (aka This Fucking Town), I’m shooting without a crew. I’ve been on a natural high since I started, in mid-February. Here’s my first post about it, in which I tell how I accidentally started making this movie…

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3 months ago · 43 likes · 45 comments · Courtney Daniels

FilmStack:

I have met so many amazing artists, thought-leaders, cinephiles, and buddies through our FilmStack community.

The following list is by no means complete and is also in NO PARTICULAR ORDER. If you’re not on this list, please don’t take offense! In fact, please comment below! I either don’t know you or am making a complete ass of myself! But I CAN vouch for the people on this list! If you’re in town, we should know each other.

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and, the pirate king, (natch).

Off-FilmStack:

And of course! Don’t forget about our world off of Substack. Hop on Instagram (or, y’know, fuckin’ Google or whatever) and check out these filmmakers, venues, series, libraries, and video stores. Los Angeles is still the capital of Movies.

Walter Sartucci, Take Your Medicine and Smile, Harem Scarum, Braindead, Be Kind, Davey B. Gravey’s Tiny Cinema, Videoteque, Lumiere Cinema, Heavy Manners, Green Room, Digital Debris, Whammy, Secret Movie Club, and Silver Lake Shorts.

Welcome to the NonDependent Hollywood Underground.

Naturally, I’m inspired by ’ gorgeous piece on world-building. I’m equally inspired by ' reflection of self-doubt and action. If I lived in a vacuum and could have my way, what would the world look like? What would I look like? What’s stopping the world– and me– from looking like this in the first place? It reminds me of one of my favorite Ween songs, “What Deaner was Talkin’ About,” a song (aptly enough) about witching hour panic attacks.

I’d read about it– and it was depicted in the movie, too– that as a little, little kid Andy Kaufman would bounce alone on the bed, performing to an imaginary audience on the wall two inches from his nose. I remember doing the exact same thing as a little, little kid. Big international stories, an eclectic cast of characters, and usually a deeply loved relationship at its core. Surely this is the seed of my cinema obsession.

Soon deep roots grow from this seed: ABC’s The Disney Afternoon, Burlington High School’s 1993 production of Guys & Dolls starring my sister Hannah– and the VHS of my brother Noah’s short horror masterpiece The Best Movie Ever.

And root hairs: Gene Wilder, Jim Carrey, Adam Sander, The Beatles’ Help!, Mel Brooks, Bowfinger, View Askew, High Fidelity, Reservoir Dogs, and The Royal Tenenbaums.

It starts with playing make-believe all alone as a little, little kid– telling stories to myself.

My Silent Film Career

My best friend David and I created Atomic Studios when I was eight years old.1 The shorts we’d make – very often during sleepovers – were stop-motion classics; frame by frame moving legos, playmobile, or a mysterious aluminum box crafted and produced by my father. We really hit our stride when we figured out the secret of slapstick silent film.

We shot on Hi-8 and edited in-camera.2 I would film Dave performing the funniest stunts. A handsome Yankee blonde fella, Dave has always had a rubber face and an elastic body– he’s one of the funniest guys I know. We grew up as next door neighbors. I’ve known him since I was one year old and don’t have a friend older; one of the few people in this world I can speak telepathically.

It’s only natural we discovered cinema, storytelling, and having fun at similar points in our lives. I have as many legendary stories of influence about David as I do Mom and Dad– The South Park NAMBLA episode, Spielberg’s A.I. opening day, Punch-Drunk Love opening night, discovering Kubrick, brass brads from Ben Franklins, babybel cheese, Julien Donkey-Boy, and– of course- our shared lemonade stand. It’s our silent films, though, that remain absolutely foundational to my current nature as filmmaker and curator of cinemaspace.

Looking back, Dave and I cracked the NonDē code sometime in the mid to late 90’s as preteens.3 We conceived, wrote, produced, and exhibited from the very beginning. We weren’t distracted by nonsensical, distracting bullshit like “non-linear editing” or “lighting.” In fact! We took care of the sound issue right away. The Atomic Studios-era silent films were the genuine predecessors to Movie Party; I never figured out another way to produce and exhibit my movies. Everything I do cinema-wise was born from my sleepovers with Dave and a bulky Hi-8 camcorder.

Our debut instant hit was entitled A Night of Leisure. Our sophomore effort was Bob’s Outdoor Restaurant. Both tennish-minute films depict very simple Chaplin-inspired slapstick: Dave trying to get comfortable, followed by something hysterically uncomfortable. He tries to take a shower and Surprise! There’s a fat kid already there showering. He tries to eat a meal but on his plate– Surprise! It’s a living painted turtle from the swamp across the bikepath. I wish I could remember more, but do remember they made us belly laugh.

Our ingenuity shined brightly in post-production and exhibition. Again, we didn’t bother using computers or editing software until many years later, so we- outta necessity- thought outside the mysterious aluminum-crafted box. This tends to be the way of things.

Here’s what we’d do:

• We’d insert the Hi-8 into the exceptionally cool VHS adaptor and pop that sucker in the VCR.

• Mute the television.

• Turn the saturation all the way down, removing all color from the picture.

• We found a track on Mom’s Best of Fats Waller double-CD.

• Our TV and five-disc CD changer could be found on the same late-80’s era particle board entertainment center, so Dave and I would sync our efforts and press play on the CD player & VCR at the same time.

Voila! A perfect silent film to share with the whole family. And guess what! We DID share it with the family. We shared these movies with anybody who would watch them. My folks hosted lots of annual holiday dinners throughout the year– Pesach, Rosh Hashannah, Chanukah, Birthdays… After dinner, we’d make everybody stop what they were doing, turn down the saturation on the TV, crank Fats Waller, and make everyone watch our movies. Then I’d bring the shorts to school– and if the teacher was willing to share the TV stand, I’d bring in the single copy I owned, borrow my Mom’s CD, and we’d watch my short together as a class.

Movie Party

Our silent films played pretty well, I gotta say. So when it was time to produce my first feature Scrapers: A Comedy for Romantic Stoners, I didn’t think to reinvent my own wheel. Sure, I’d moved on to computers, non-linear and non-diegetic editing, external microphones, and even a legal original soundtrack– but Movie Party remained the same in essence. These are really the only shorts I’ve ever made, so as far as I could tell producing a feature would be akin to making several sleepover shorts and simply stringing it together into an appropriate TRT.

Making these shorts were the most fun I ever had in my life, and people appeared to have a fun time watching them. I took that extremely important lesson with me on Scrapers. If you have fun on the shoot, and look like you’re having fun in the flick, then the audience will have fun watching your work.

Movie Party is multi-fold. It’s my personal style of production and exhibition.

Pre-Production

I cut my teeth producing live screenings in Chicago, many of which were fundraisers for production & festival budgets. I offered the 6740 Micro to some close friends raising capital for their debut feature film. They filled the joint up, screened a tight, entertaining shorts program of their work for the crowd of friends, and held a silent auction. Folks had a lot of fun; it was a good show!

The very first show I produced was a similar situation in the old Chicago Filmmakers on Clark & Berwyn. I’d known Dimestore Films since college; two of my oldest friends in town, who’d thrown me in shorts and kept me around socially (now they have kids and I’m an uncle again). We screened their shorts from the early mid-aught high school days on through their latest gems. Between two short blocks was a live performance directed by the boys– a scene from their upcoming feature. The audience, full of their friends, could get an in-person taste of the film they were eventually donating to.

We also sold original poster art!

I remember taking the boys into the projection booth so they could watch their work on screen through the porthole. Even back then, all I wanted to do was share the romance.

Production

In a very literal way, the term “Movie Party” was born from- and coined for- production. A way to commune, work, and have an absolute blast with your cast, crew, and anyone else hanging out on set.4

Let me tell you about our shooting day:

• The cast and crew would gather at our apartment building, which is where 75% of our flick was shot (using every room of our 1BR, and each neighbor’s 1BR on either side of us; not to mention the sidewalks and a few stolen– well, I’ll stop there.) While my producer and lead Sally Anderson and I had a sense of what our shooting schedule would be, we would go over every option together at the beginning of the day with our lead actor . Between the three of us we could see which scenes we could cheat, which night scenes could be shot earlier in the day, which can be swapped out for later. How can we shoot the most out of the day?
  

• Unlimited craft services every morning provided by production (me and Sal)! Bagels, granola bars, coffee, water, soda– all the munchies, open packs of cigarettes, and bottomless grass. We made sure we were all happy and fed; as long as everyone still kept production top priority.

  

• Then we’d shoot, natch. It would take as long as it took. Locations where we needed them, apartments when we could use them. Improv and B-roll; all the NonDē trappings. Did we get four pages? Did we get eight? How much footage did we nail? Were we laughing? Did we hit the beats we needed through the improv? Were my actors happy with their performance? Were my actors happy with their appearance? All that good production stuff you’re continuing to think through in real time.

• After martini, I would break off from the living room and head to the kitchen. Sally and Dakota would chat about their day’s scenes over a cigarette or four, building their own relationship as co-leads– also Sally’s well-matched producing style and idiosyncratic (read: iconic) costuming. As the two leads listen to Neil Young, Billy Joel, and David Bowie records in the smoke-filled den, I’m busy on the stove making sausages and parmesan butter noodles for everyone’s dinner.

  

• The end of the day was always my favorite part, when Movie Party felt most like Movie Party. As we’d eat dinner– Sally, Dakota, Dee (on sound), and me… sometimes Matt, Jim, Kineta, Tristan, even Tyler– we’d smoke and watch ALL of the dailies as a family. Eating good food and appreciating our hard work on the television screen together as a single unit. And if you work with Dakota, you’ll watch those dailies four or five times throughout the meal.
  

  The actors would find little moves, certain quirks, and real continuity for their performances by watching dailies together. Maybe Sally sees something Dakota and I totally missed and it turns out to unlock the mystery of a scene or their character’s subtextual personality. Mostly, it’s fun to watch all the make-believe we’d conjured the day earlier and plan spells for the following production day of alchemy.

  
  A full day’s work. A great job, well done. Celebrated, studied, and appreciated by everybody on set equally. The heart of Movie Party.

Post-Production

Music

I tell the story of my relationship with the incomparable stoner music icon Netherfriends in the embedded article below.

This is an extended case study on the musical production and licensing journey of the Scrapers Original Film Soundtrack by Netherfriends. It’s one of my only paid articles so far because I explain step-by-step the logistical process we used. I like to offer artistic encouragement gratis because it’s good form, but oftentimes unsolicited logistical advice can go down pretty painfully. Nonetheless, I think we pulled off something very clever and wholly unique; a process I have no intention of abandoning anytime soon.

Editing

The very short, all-too abridged version of this story.

As we were walking dogs, Sally and I came up with a harebrained idea and couldn’t let go of it. We don’t have any editing equipment. We don’t know anybody who can utilize the resolution and execute this film technically… in Chicago.

See, I had cast a very dear friend of mine from film school, Matt Gossen, in a major role. Every project I made, I served as my own editor. The only time I used someone else, it was Matt and I remember loving my day editing with him. Knowing I could find someone who I could jive with mentally and aesthetically. We could shoot out Matt in Chicago because he was in for the holidays visiting family and he graciously donated his time. But he’s based in Los Angeles and he’s not moving back to Chicago any time soon.

What if we had an adventure? What if we’re a jet-set coupla artists who shot their feature in Chicago and edited it in Los Angeles? That’s a pretty good story. So that’s what we did. And it is a good story. Too long for right now. We flew to L.A., Matt and his partner put us up in his apartment in their guest room (the fuckin’ sweetheart). We stayed in town for a week; editing all day and night until we could get an assembly cut.5

We ate at the diner, we ate frozen pizza, we visited the New Bev, we did a little L.A. trip, but - even though we were broke broke broke - we made the experience happen. We went to L.A. to cut the film and write a story.

Exhibition

Much like the Netherfriends soundtrack article and the above editing section, our Scrapers mini-tour of Chicago is worthy of a case study all on its own. Luckily, I’m working with the ingenious Taylor Lewis to cityplan, blueprint, and map The Circuit Alternative Distribution project and upcoming newsletter, where we talk in depth about this exact niche subject.

You’ll definitely want to follow and/or subscribe to either of our journals for more information on our insanely exciting, future-forward exhibition/distribution logistics and philosophy. It seems as though the only Movie Party mathematical proof left to solve is the equation of home distribution, then we’ll really be in business. Something tells me, FilmStack already has it covered and they’ll be reaching out to The Circuit (or vice-versa) sooner than later.

Movie Party FilmStack

Turns out it’s not all that deep: we want to laugh with our friends. We want to pursue our passions unimpeded with joy and appreciation. We want strangers to talk movies with because all we want is to talk movies with strangers. We want to share our art enthusiastically. We want to sit in a dark room, watch light hit a screen, and remember why we do any of this in the first place. We’re here for authentic connection. We’re in it for a good time; this is supposed to be fun.

Together, we are Movie Party.

Cinema’s Big Bang Pt. I or How Timothée Chalamet’s Backhanded Ignorance Gave Me Hope For the Future of My Favorite Artform’s Community

Cinema’s Big Bang Pt. II or How Community Theater Infrastructure Will Change Cinemaspace Forever

Community Cinema

Think of the real world changes from this perspective shift. No longer an army of pirates fighting over Treasure Island. It’s exhausting, ineffectual, and ultimately achieves no goal…or gold (pun intended! Cuz those pirates didn’t find much of anything on that Island and that may just be the moral of the book but I never finished it, just watched the Muppets over and over and over.)

What else does the stage world possess that our cinema Universe ignores? Kids making after school movies. Backyard film festivals and youtube archives. Little Free Libraries on neighborhood corners filled with thumbnails, DVDs, VHSs, all of it.

I lived for theater camp every summer. It was three to five weeks in the summer and called X-Theater. It was the only thing I looked forward to all year. And when I aged out of the camp, they built an older kids camp and I did that. And when I aged out of that, I became a Junior counsellor. And when I aged out of that I was a counsellor, helping Marc write scripts. From age 8 to… I don’t even know. 30? I never left! I’m still a member of X-Theater with lifelong friends– lots and lots of other people I’ve known since grade school.

I flirted with my high school girlfriend exclusively through drama rehearsals, tap lessons, and senior citizen community service performances. There were days– because of theater– I got to hang out with her from the beginning of the day til, like, 8pm. Imagine being 16 and your day looks like: film history during the day. Production meetings and rehearsals in the afternoon. Cinematography lessons in the early evening– all for a seasonal project and public exhibition. One full of pride, love, personality, and familial investment. Then on the weekends, you set up a pop-up at one of the local senior citizen homes and either play your movie, one of the previous year’s films, or anything really; show folks West Side Story or The Searchers but now it’s part of a student’s community service requirements.

We’re in a technological world where we can offer the next generation all of this with the power of cinema. To all preaching the good word to create your own film community and collectives– I support you wholeheartedly and love the work you’re busy building for all of us.

Here’s an example of a movie I made on my own (and that first best friend) in high school over twenty years ago. Imagine what we can do now.

Yes, Timothée, there IS a Relevant Opera Scene

There is an Opera Industry, a Ballet Industry. There are programs, schools, higher education– some sort of a track. If someone in Macomb, Illinois wants to be the greatest Soprano in the world, that path is tried, true, and paved for her. Get a NYTimes write up. Be the absolute toast. Of course this world exists. Yes, it’s politicized, unfair, oftentimes disturbing and disappointing, but it supposedly has all of the reward we’ve aspired for decades to achieve. You can be a musical loving kid from Oregon and change the face of contemporary Broadway.

There will always be a film industry in some form. You can excel at film school, make a movie for a few million bucks, win Sundance, and get your chair at Paramount. Spielberg didn’t necessarily know he’d be the next Spielberg. He was trying to be the next Capra or Stevens. He had some great folks surrounding him to make him the Spielberg we’ve lovingly anointed today.

We can catch the attention of Gunn, Gerwig, and Faverau– in theory; they’re one of us, right? Soderbergh, Tarantino, Smith, Rodruiguez, and others owe their career to being specifically courted, groomed, and chosen at luxurious, dreamlike film festivals. They became voices of an entire generation of film lovers. The dreams of yesterday’s industry are still alive if that’s your path– just understand what those bricks look like as you’re sprinting ahead.

And then there are the rest of us… The movie lovers. The cinephiles. The theatergoers. The love-a-the-gamers. The knowledgeable artists. The Zooks and LaChapelles. They may not have any paid jobs for anyone just yet, but there ARE four generations of film students from age 18 to 60whatever that have genuine education and expertise. Like, we were literally trained for this. They can revoke my diploma if I can’t pay my bills, but they can’t take what I know about cinema. That’s just silly.

This is what happens when an entire artform becomes fully democratized, holistically affordable, and internationally accessible. It belongs to us now. Not the Medicis. Not the Meyers and Zukors. Just like Milan no longer owns Opera and Paris, ballet. This is what happens right after a creative medium has its own Big Bang. It becomes anything we want it to be. The gates have dissolved completely. They’re gone. It’s an open world out there. Go have fun. Drink water, come home for dinner.

Our Cinema Universe isn’t dead but actually quite the opposite. It’s been reborn and is expanding and accelerating at magnificent speed. It’s so much bigger, far-reaching, and beautiful than its previous iteration, I can only spend so much time looking backward at Time’s beginning and mourn. This adventure is so much grander in scale and so much more fun.

In Southland Tales, writer-director Richard Kelley infamously - purposefully - misquotes T.S. Eliot’s very famous poem The Hollow Men (as recited by Justin Timberlake in a silly Texan drawl):

“This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. Not with a whimper…but with a bang.

Cinema’s Big Bang Pt. I or How Timothée Chalamet’s Backhanded Ignorance Gave Me Hope For the Future of My Favorite Artform’s Community

COMMUNITY THEATER!

You know who participates in Community Theater? Folks who love it.

I have yet to meet anyone who got into Community Theater for the money. Sometimes status or notoriety plays its role, but the absolute unifying truth amongst all participants– on stage or behind– is an honest-to-God genuine love of the game. They love it so much, they want to spend their free time collaborating and creating with one another for the sole purpose of sharing this love with their greater community.

You may be picturing a derelict band of hippies travelling around the desert performing for food and faith. You may be picturing Hal Roach’s Little Rascals, carrying loose 2x4’s over their shoulders trailed by a pitbull with a black eye. You’re probably picturing your kid on the elementary school stage, caterwauling through Luck Be A Lady while an octogenarian accompanies on a single, sorta-tuned upright piano. Or that rrribald episode of Game of Thrones or that transcendent scene mid-Beau is Afraid or Marge Simpson’s Streetcar Musical. Community Theater has many amazing, cringey, exciting, pitiful, blessed variants.

I’d like to describe one specific type of Community Theater infrastructure I find most relevant to our conversation, but it takes a little imagination. I suggest the reader keep cinema in the forefront of their minds while they read this write up from a Bizarro Mirror Universe where filmjourn is a local theater company and I have pointy ears and a sharp Van Dyke-style goatee.

I politely encourage the reader to get lost in the metaphor while keeping cinema in your periphery, always.

Our Local Theatre Company

Welcome to our local Theatre Company, we call ourselves stagejourn because we’re clever and cute like that. My name is Jake, I’m the executive director of the group– dictating the general direction and flavor of our season (and company as an entity). We have a residency at The Regent downtown, a thousand seat theater where we’re able to meet, rehearse, and ultimately perform our show for a delighted audience of friends, family, peers, and townsfolk.

Because we have this homebase, we’re able to curate a really diverse, stimulating season for the city– a musical in the fall, one-acts in the winter, and a three-act stage play in the spring. People really look forward to our runs; it started at three night performances and a matinee per play but now each show runs at least two weeks.

My friends fill our tightknit group. Actors, directors, writers, choreographers, musicians, singers, songwriters, dancers, conductors, gaffers, painters, world builders, sfx, carpenters, clowns, cowboys, and comedians– everyone is welcome and needed at stagejourn. And the best part is everyone is multi-disciplinary. The writers paint. The gaffers act. The dancers hammer nails. Nothing is set in stone. People get to experiment and educate. There are masters and apprentices across all disciplines. Everyone feels really invested in everyone else. Auditions turn up the heat sometimes, but there haven’t been any blowouts quite yet. Passions run high in creative space; that’s the nature of lionized art.

Of course, on top of this army of creatives are the employees of the Company itself. Surely you don’t think I’m doing everything above-the-line. I’m just the executive director– and what a wonderful position this is. I come up with ideas to pitch to my team and as a group we decide what’s best for the company– our tech director, our art director, our treasurer, our bookkeeper, our communications and outreach director and our poor, unbelievably talented fundraising coordinator… I’m sure I’m missing a few people.

Together, we program our season based upon how we can best engage our community. What does the town wanna watch? What will they pay for? How do we fill a thousand seats? What will folks want to sign up for? Would we catch more flies with Brigadoon or The Producers? Sure, in the audience, but on and backstage, too!

Please Allow Me To Introduce Our Season

We have our big budget, crowd pleasing feature as our season kickoff. We have our exquisitely written, sublimely acted and directed meditation on life and society as our finale. And in between we have a handful of short pieces, experimental and beyond. A place for anyone and everyone to cut their teeth on an artform formally elusive; the most entertaining, eclectic festival we can manage to produce. Each production attracts familiar faces and brand new alike. Sometimes crews crossover, sometimes they’re wholly separate cadres of artists. It’s great to see different personalities and tastes mix through the context of the various productions.

Sometimes directors and stage managers return. Some of them only want to do the musical. Some only want to do the wildest one-act. I’m proud to say some people participate in every production we put up, but that’s not usual. It’s a piece-by-piece arrangement. It keeps our community large, diverse, and always fresh. I’ve had choreographers direct shows. I’ve had first time playwrights have packed houses in tears. One time a stage manager wanted to do this wild practical effect with the flats, so they got a friend to direct the actors while they focused solely on the aesthetic. The stagejourn Company’s core mission ushers artists along with creative freedom, and a humane, productive process.

We curate our season according to themes and taste1. We represent many voices with exponentially more points of view. We want to produce well rounded works of art. We do not want to repeat ourselves. We want to explore new worlds and new civilizations (I wrote that. Don’t look that up.) Through these works and themes we’ve created a little reputation for ourselves. Authenticity is our most treasured currency and folks in town are starting to see it and associate it with our name.

We’re far from painted into a corner. We’re far from typecast. Far from desperation. Our benefactors appreciate both our mission and its execution. We don’t chase audiences and we don’t chase money, we attract them. We do what we want- and dictate our own journey. We are only allegiant to those we hold allegiance. We’re not building some pipeline to Manhattan or the West End; we’re building an infrastructure of education and execution for our friends. Powers willing, a sustainable company for everybody.

Our Community Theater Community

We’re far from the only game in town. There are companies that consist of the same people in the same positions with an inclusive ladder that only reaches so many rungs. There are writer-based black boxes. The wildest experimental scene. Fabulous improv theaters and troupes. Homemade musicals. School plays. Recitals. Our landscape extends on and on and on and the best part is the audiences see everything. Genuinely, an artistic blessing.

There was talk of competition, but that died quickly when we found no reason to compete. There actually IS room enough for both of us in this town, because the art speaks for itself. The audience knows what it wants and an artist’s job is to blend their vision with an audience. We have an age-old adage we always return to: “If the piece is good, the audience will come.” Word-of-mouth amongst friends is a hell of a slipstream and failure is no deterrent.

This isn’t dodgeball. We’re not picking first and second strings for shoot-outs and end-of-the-season brackets. It’s about the club and its participants, not the trophy that may or may not have your name engraved.

Join us next time for our exciting conclusion: “Cinema’s Big Bang Pt. III” or “After the Chokepoint”

There’s a theory about The Big Bang– that it isn’t the beginning; simply the next.

Prior to the birth of the Universe, may have been the death of another. A chokepoint within a cycle. Incomparably intense pressure leads to ultimate collapse and inescapable darkness followed by a singular burst of power so great, it creates an explosive field of cosmic reality and beauty forever changing everything that is, was, and will be… until the next cycle.

Cinema is not at its death; merely an existential chokepoint.

EXTRA! RICH GEN-Z NEW YORK FILM ACTOR BAD MOUTHS TRADITIONAL ARTFORMS! STIRS RUCKUS ABOUND!

I gotta give it to the little shit, Timothée Chalamet unlocked something in my brain.

It’s impossible to escape his “opera/ballet” discourse of the past week or so. I’m excited for him to lose the Oscar to MBJ and end this specific, inelegant Marty PR run. I suspect if he were nominated for playing Zimmerman, he wouldn’t be acting like a schmuck across international media (he’d probably be quiet, cryptic, and slightly more poetic– read: “classy”). It’s all part of the show. When the Oscars end, he’ll slink away and figure out the next PR move for Dune 3: Dream Warriors.

ALL THIS TO SAY:

Where does cinema fall into this conversation? I’ve seen a few thinkpiece headlines speaking Chalamet’s quiet part loudly– cinema is going the way of ballet and opera. The currents have shifted. The world is entertained elsewhere for cheaper. Social media has forced cinema into this chokepoint. But this is not the period on the sentence; merely a semi-colon.

Theater, ballet, opera– while they don’t exist as they once did, are all transforming into something larger, deeper, and foundational to everyday life. This is a wildly positive paradigm shift. Change is inevitable. It’s how we have a chance of getting out of this current chokepoint.

puts it best. On a call this week she astutely shared, “[Chalamet’s quote] struck a chord with the art community because, by large, it’s a true statement– but we don’t want it to be true. Because then we’d have to accept the bigger truth– that America(n Media) isn’t championing, uplifting, or sustaining any artform at the moment.”

I was struck by this passage from the March 9th issue of The Hollywood Reporter. They interviewed Conan O’Brien about his upcoming Oscar host gig. Somewhere in the bottom third of the article, Conan’s instant-classic Hot Ones appearance is brought up and how it ultimately led to him understanding the current state of Late Night television:

Twenty-seven minutes of O’Brien going absolutely feral as the wings got spicier and spicier, more pop performance art than comedy, hijacked the news cycle. His name was so inescapable on social media that some friends initially worried he’d died. The episode has since logged more than 15 million views on YouTube alone.

“That was the moment the scales fell from my eyes,” he says. “If a guy can do World Series numbers with overhead that looked, to me, to be about $600, and you have every big star lining up to do his show or Chicken Shop Date … that’s when I profoundly understood that late night shows are in trouble.”

If the scales fell from Conan’s eyes, what second sight could I have? What is the Late Night scene without the television platform? All of the sudden, Youtube channels seem to have more cache, more currency than traditional tv programming. It’s akin to a Youtube channel having more cache, more currency than an entire movie studio– nay, a field of movie studios. Business Insider reported “YouTube [as a platform] now generates more ad revenue than Disney, NBC, Paramount, and WBD — combined.”

What does Opera look like without elitism? Or ballet or the symphony, for that matter? What’s theater without Broadway? What’s Leonardo DaVinci without Medici money? Or the Sistine Chapel without Catholic Church backing? Mozart without the patronage of an Austrian Emperor? What’s Hollywood without Meyer, Zukor, and Laemmle? Is a studioless Hollywood still Hollywood? Are we existing within a Hollywood of Theseus?

The Movie Business has always been a movie business! I’ve built an entire belief system around the concept of the Movie Industry! But what in the world is the Movie Industry without the industry? What does that universe look like? Is it the end or the beginning? What is it that’s going to get us out of this current chokepoint? Will Conan O’Brien ever be my friend?

That’s a shitload of questions and I’m thrilled I asked! For– as is the case with every one of life’s problems– this issue can ALSO be saved by COMMUNITY THEATER!

Join us next time for our thrilling continuation: “Cinema’s Big Bang Pt. II” or “How Community Theater Infrastructure Will Change Cinemaspace Forever”

Prologue: “You think passing the Bechdel test is hard? Try passing the Gigi test.”

We Brake For Rainbows

If Mom is driving and sees a rainbow in the sky, she’ll pull over and watch the rainbow until it disappears. If it rains and the sun comes out, like clockwork: “Oo! Maybe there’ll be a rainbow! Keep your eyes open.” We may be five minutes late to whatever we’re driving to, and teenage me may have rolled my eyes, but if there’s a rainbow– we’ll pull over and watch it til it’s gone.

Living in Rogers Park in my late twenties, watching tv alone in my apartment. Soon the sun shines bright as the sound of rain patter grows against my windowpane. It could be Pavlovian. It could be embedded into my DNA. Slip on my shoes, wearing a tshirt, and walk eastbound across Clark St a half block from my home. There she is– above the lake. Absolutely stunning. And there I am, this absolute goon standing in the middle of the Far North Chicago rain, smiling like a dork at this immense rainbow above the city.

So I look around and people are going about their day; scurrying through the rain, looking at the sidewalk. I see a fella about my age, my height (skinnier), wearing a bright, white thawb walk toward me. I inelegantly point to the sky and yell at this gent minding his own business: “DO YOU SEE THIS?!”

The gent in the thawb, kindly acknowledges me as a human being, then looks up in the sky. He sees the rainbow and his face brightens. He stops in the rain and looks up with me: “Wow! That’s amazing!” Two grown men smiling at a rainbow on the corner of Clark & Wallen. We shook hands, he thanked me for stopping him and pointing it out, then we both went on our way, never to see one another again.

This story is 100% true and the best way I know how to introduce my mom’s profound influence on my personality and the way I journey. Though - without hyperbole - it’s about equivalent to the time Mom, Dad, and I were in the car driving wherever during the Xmas season, when the guy on NPR literally spoke on “Santa’s bulging sack of toys” and Mom and I BURST OUT LAUGHING, repeating in unison: “SANTA’S BULGING SACK!”

The Gifted Teapot

We weren’t a coffee family, whatsoever. We had shitty instant coffee we’d bust out for dessert at holidays, dinners, and gettogethers; the coffee my brother Noah- with a huge smile shouted across the seder table, “Jacob! This is jail coffee!” Then he laughed his Noah laugh as my mother pleaded in her thick Brooklyn accent, “Noah, please? Come on…” All this to say we were a tea family. English breakfast for Dad every single morning, reading the paper top to bottom. Today Mom has a full “tea drawer,” of every kind you can imagine. Herbal, honey, mints, chill tigers, bears with sleeping caps.

Did we need a new teapot or was Dad just trying to give Mom a sweet gift? I could ask but it’s ancillary to the theme. One of my childhood Chanukahs, Dad gifted Mom a Mrs. Tea brand hot tea… maker. The brand Mr. Coffee was expanding into new knickknacks and doowaddles, and they’d come up with a brilliant bit of kit: A coffee maker for tea… So, I guess the vibe is a “stoveless teapot.” This is 1995. I am 7.

It was a sweet gift. It’s nice to be given anything, especially during the holidays. It’s not that Mom didn’t appreciate the gift. It wasn’t even about the tea. Here’s the discourse I remember:

Mom: Mrs. Tea?

Dad: It’s a teapot you don’t need the stovetop for.

Mom: I see what it is. Thank you. Is she married to Mr. Tea?

(I was too young to remember this exchange word for word, so excuse the filter of my “childlike wonder.” I’m sure she made a Mr. T joke because that’s something my mother would do.)

Dad: What’s the problem?

Mom: What, is Mrs. Tea supposed to be married to Mr. Tea? Is Mrs. Tea married to Mr. Coffee? Because that makes even less sense. How are they connected and why is everyone married to each other?

Dad: I don’t know. It’s a teapot.

Mom: Well, I don’t like that she’s married. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s needlessly gendered and I hate the “Mrs.”

Again: This is 1995. I am 7. I remember some such frustration from my father’s end, probably thinking he was simply gifting my mother a toy– and I honestly don’t remember how long this back-and-forth took place before cooler heads prevailed. I remember my parents working together on a compromise for both of them–

Dad: I’ll buy White-Out.

So the next day, Dad whited-out the “R” in “Mrs,” and the teapot became Ms. Tea.

And that was a solution we could all live with.

No Chocolate Milk For Young Men

One summer day, Mom and I were walking up from the beach toward the parking lot. Again, sometime in the 90’s, ice coffee turned into a wild trend– like, nobody had ever heard of putting ice in their coffee before the mid-to-late-90’s.

Someone was giving out free samples of the novel NesCafe Ice Coffee in a can. I was excited to try some and Mom told me Absolutely Not. It had nothing to do with caffeine or coffee in particular: “We don’t drink Nestle. They kill babies in Africa.”

The fuck?

“They gave African mothers free samples of their formula and waited for these women to be unable to produce their own milk, then CHARGED THEM FOR MORE FORMULA. We don’t buy Nestle. They kill babies.”

Copy that! So the Nestle Bunny on the chocolate milk always seemed like an insidious, gentrifying villain. Grab Hood or Ubets if you want chocolate milk. Fuck Nestle. Right on, Towanda!

ON THE SAME NOTE: We never ordered Dominos pizza my entire upbringing because- quote: “Dominos donates to Newt Gingrich and the rest of the pro-life GOP.” Local Leonardo’s it is.

Movie Theater Memories of Mom

• In college, I was so devastated by the end-end-end-end of a relationship, Mom gave me a hug, looked me in the eyes, and said: “Do you wanna go see Poseidon?” Through tears, “Yeah Mom, I do…”
  

  She drove us through a massive thunderstorm– something she would never do under any circumstances– across town to Cinema 9 where we watched Wolfgang Peterson’s final film alone in a big theater with one other unfortunate soul. “Unfortunate” because Mom and I were guffawing through the flick, particularly when Kurt Russell ripped off his clothes, shouted: “I used to be a fireman!” and dove into the water– canonically connecting this picture in our minds with Backdraft.

• Mom and Dad took me to see Death to Smoochy at the Show. Dad didn’t laugh, never mentioned the film ever again. Ever. Mom and I roared through the movie– she still quotes Rainbow Randolph. “It’s…IT’S A ROCKET SHIP!”

• We were obsessed with Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show, and this was the first time I could see one of Christopher Guest’s flicks at the Show, so Mom drove me to Long Island to see A Mighty Wind in the theater because it wasn’t going to be in Burlington, VT for another few weeks. Much, much love Ms O’Hara 💖

• The last Disney movie Mom took me to was Pocahontas. She made sure I knew the eponymous heroine was a thirteen year old girl, not a statuesque, bombshell hand-drawn tribute to Tia Carrere. John Smith was not a blonde heartthrob, but a greasy old British man entangled with, y’know, a child. I’m almost positive she MADE HERSELF GO TO SLEEP once the baddie was singing “Savages! Savages!” as if that was ever an okay thing to do in a massive Disney cartoon.
  

• She refused to let me see Hercules in the theater because Meg’s waistline was too small. “It’s ridiculous, already!” she’d say. While I understand the character design is based on greek pots or whatever–

—this design bugged my mother out.

(Ed. Note: Mom also hates WALL-E because - much like Ms. Tea– the robots are pointlessly and needlessly gendered: “THEY’RE FUCKING ROBOTS.”)

Mom Does The Right Thing

The following is the story of one of Mom’s first vital Canon Events.1

Considering how much gender discourse this piece covers, it may seem counter-intuitive (read: very wrong) to refer to Mom as a “song-and-dance-man.” But having known her my entire life, I can safely say everyone who knows Gigi Weisman personally understands “song-and-dance-man” is the only way to describe her. My mother woulda been QUEEN of Vaudeville; she was born to entertain. My mother is Danny Kaye. My mother is Andy Kaufman.

Mom saw Madeline Kahn and Zero Mostel live on stage (“I saw Zero Mostel play Tevye and he SWEAT on me!”) She yearns for the audience. In preparation for this piece, I asked Mom if this story from her teenage years was around the time she finally internalized she would never be on Saturday Night Live– “No…That was my 29th birthday…Then I knew it was never gonna happen.” I dare you to get her near the lip of a stage just so see what’ll happen. Double dare you to stick a microphone in front of her.

It’s the early 70’s and Mom is in high school. She’s an amazing fiddle player to this day, but back in school she was quite the violin player in orchestra. As I recall, she refused to compete for chairs so she was happily Last Chair every year. Maybe it wasn’t “happily,” but it was her terms and how it was gonna be. That being said– she was terrific at that age and would have been first or second if she ever felt her community of creatives needed competition in the mix. She never did. She was talented enough to consider scholarships and take the musical route through college. Itzhak Perlman was a big deal growing up.

At the same time, she volunteered at the “hospital” (or maybe it was called an “institution”) because Mom is a good egg and apparently was one in school, too. She would volunteer weekly, helping neurodivergent individuals- as they are known now. I believe they were called “residents,” by those in charge. My mother is kind and she is giving. She’s also smart as a fucking tack and dangerously curious. Ignorance isn’t stupidity. Kindness isn’t weakness. It didn’t take Columbo to notice a few patterns at the “hospital.”

Why…? She would ask herself, are there only female “residents?” Then she’d look around the room. Why…are there thirty volunteers and six “residents?” Each of these girls has three or four volunteers hanging off of them. Well, they clearly don’t need me right now.

And because Mom is smart. And because Mom is curious– she didn’t leave. She wandered around. Turned corners. Found empty hallways. Found some locked and unlocked doors. One of those unlocked doors had a DO NOT ENTER sign. ‘Fuck do you think she did?

Mom opens the door to find - to her memory - “a sea of boys… must have been a hundred boys. ‘Residents.’ In diapers. With one attendant.” She acquiesces to her sense of memory– “Maybe it wasn’t a hundred. Maybe it was thirty. It doesn’t matter.” Did Mom close the door, suppress the memory, and move on with her life, mouth shut? ‘Fuck do you think?

When Mom DID ask whoever was in charge why the males and females were separated, the Powers That Be spouted, “Volunteers can’t mix with the male ‘residents’ because they get too excited and start masturbating.”

With her full sarcastic chest, Mom says: “What else is there for them to do?”

The moment was - is - a definitive fork in her journey. From that moment on, she put the musical ambitions on pause2 to focus on education, specifically for those “residents” at the “hospital.” It’s not hyperbole to say my Mother changed the landscape of Autism awareness around the world. Always adopting whichever path fit the individual very best– and she loves her job.

She’s a leading expert in education regarding neurodivergent individuals, their communities, and integrating our ultra-diverse worlds through some loving understanding and patience. She has infused her industry with love, science, and promise for decades. She’d do it til she was a hundred if it were physically possible.

I was in my early teens– assumingly Bar Mitzvahish age– when I definitely decided I was not adopted. I am equal parts my mother and father. I also look exactly like both of them when I’m standing next to either (Dad says, “No, you look like your mother.”) For as much dissonance their relationship carried, they performed their best harmony with me. Logistically, creatively, thoughtfully– in humor, art, faith, life, and everything in between. There’s infinite stories about both yet to come.

In the absolutely iconic words of my beloved Grammy Lenore– Mom’s Mom: “It’s funny how genes work.”

IMPORTANT NOTE: My Mother and I will be reading these comments, so please only write something of which your mother would approve.

Earlier this week, nondependent film’s very own Long John Silver hosted Slamdance’s Market Monday officially titled:

Ted rallied the most amazing speakers (and myself) to proselytize genuine independence and the outright destruction of the current Hollywood infrastructure. Perhaps more aptly illustrated as a handful of unbelievably passionate artists pitching their hearts to receptive, curious minds.

He invited me to discuss microcinemas and pitch my “Terraforming Hollywood” article in some such entertaining, preferably punk rock style. Well, if unrehearsed and manic counts as entertaining and/or punk rock, then hopefully I held up my end of the deal.

I grew up on stage and am pretty comfortable in front of a crowd of people, but that doesn’t mean I don’t wholly disassociate when I do make a presentation. A history filled with improv comedy, diagnosed anxiety, and being the youngest child of five allows me to eagerly perform for an audience– but I won’t necessarily remember what I say... So I’m going to do my very best to recap the essence of what a rambling cinephile, filmmaker, and movie theater employee told a group of people who actually got into a really good festival.

Before The Speech

I did take notes! I did give this lots of thought! I also don’t like reading speeches. I know I’m received better when I’m more off the cuff and reading the room. Is ten minutes too much time? Is ten minutes not enough? I can make this pitch pretty quickly, but I’m more than happy to filibuster. Ted told me about an 8-hour marathon solo speech he gave in (I believe) Madrid (?), and I thought- he prolly coulda gone for nine. When you breathe and eat cinema, it’s not hard to talk and talk and talk and talk about it.

There were a couple ways for me to attack: do I roll with straight logistics? Here’s what I’m doing. Here’s what you do. Or do I intertwine biography with lessons learned? I did this way back when, that’s how I learned to do this now– also, here’s some lore so I can connect with you on a personal level and really make a meal outta being the center of attention. That sent me spiraling a little bit, but it was a positive spiral (even though that feels like an oxymoron).

Suddenly I have an excuse to talk about any number of experiments I’ve performed over the course of the past fifteen years. That’s a long time. And if you’re like me, you’re always moving forward and you need to keep the blinders up for a significant portion of the journey. It was cool to think about the journey thus far and handpick a few gems to share with people I admire; who are listening to me, by the grace of God, voluntarily.

I needed one or two anchor points for the speech. All the logistics and all the lore and all the jokes are all for not if there’s no… y’know– fuckin’ point. At the foundation of everything, what are the emotions propelling our ambition? WHY do we do this? Why MUST we do this? What is at the bottom of the silt of the Mariana Trench, really?

We’re romantic. We’re poor right now. We want to be happy.

And when you can’t get any deeper…suddenly, it ain’t so deep.

That morning I told myself: if I lose focus, just remember this is all about “Romance & Affordability.” And I think I’ll keep the phrase around; it’s able to carry a tremendous amount of weight.

Boots On The Ground

First, I congratulated everyone for getting into Slamdance. Something not everybody is able to do. It’s a big deal and should be treated as such. Just because I have complicated feelings toward film festivals, it will never take away the distinct honor of being chosen.

I then made sure EVERYBODY knew I work next door to the DGA building (where our talk was held) at the *REDACTED CORPORATE MOVIE THEATER*, slinging popcorn and frying chicken tenders for this literal, actual crowd. Nobody can take that away from me. I suppose this was supposed to lend myself some credibility as “boots on the ground” of the current movie theater landscape, but it probably has more to do with this unmistakable redwood chip on my shoulder.1

Special editor’s shout out to for reminding us all we’re always just one stump speech away from changing the world forever.

Also a very specific thank you to and for coining the phrase: CHECKLIST DISTRIBUTION. I spent the majority of the morning wondering how I would boil this all down and you did all of the heavy lifting for me. It’s the only reason spared my life.

As many of the things I talked about were covered in the aforementioned “Terraforming Hollywood” article, I’ll do my best not to repeat myself for Substack’s sake. I also naturally led with The Carole King Analogy, probably the most potent anecdote I share. Every time I share this simple interaction with a single person or a crowd, I see a wave of understanding wash over my audience– followed by a goosebump-inducing smile. I live for it.

I live for it.

Priced Out

Here’s a common refrain– all together now! We’ve been priced out of absolutely every single fucking thing. I can’t afford anything. Whether or not this is a liberal-Soros-fueled “hoax”(?), my reality is everything that once was affordable is no longer…affordable. And tbh, it wasn’t all that affordable to begin with.

Rent, food, medicine, sports, plays, concerts, streamers, movies, amusement parks– I was just telling my mother: they’d monetize every blade of grass if they could. It makes me sick and it’s clearly old hat. How does anybody maintain any interest in anything if everything is too expensive to participate in? All anyone in my circle is able to do is maintain their lifestyle with one or two subscriptions and/or collections.

You don’t need me to tell you that going to the movies costs $100 to have a good time. When I was 10 years old, I biked my own self to the Cheap Seats with a buck and a half I found in the couch. THAT’S how filmmakers are born. How is my *wholly imaginary and hypothetical* ten-year-old kid supposed to find a love of cinema? Teaching them to indulge in the malaise and existential dread of scrolling Tubi, Prime, Max, Plus, and plus and plus and plus– as there (apparently) is no alternative?

Where’s the romance? Where’s the affordability? How could this possibly make us happy?

(Here’s a relatively relevant video I made in the gloomy shadow of the Palisades/Eaton Fires; if you wanna know what I really think).

The 80:20 Principle

Hollywood was built on a mutual agreement. We call it “the film business,” because the industry had this functional understanding– 50% Art / 50% Money. Film / Business. And this is how this town was run for over a century. The artists couldn’t produce and distribute their work without the business– and the business couldn’t actually make any money without the art audiences wanted to consume.

“Survive ‘til ‘25” was a shitty song we heard for a while, but soon wore out its welcome as soon as the town caught on fire. The Strike fucked us; proved to the world how little the current industry values artists and as soon as the smoke cleared away, I could see the landscape wasn’t 50/50 anymore– it was 80/20. 80% Industry / 20% Art. Not only do the money people not care about us, but now they don’t even need to pretend to care about us for their own best interests.

“The 80:20 Principle” is a call to action for nondependent filmmakers. If the powers that be insist on an 80/20 split, then- by Jove- it’s gonna be 80% Art / 20% Business. The pieces are in place. and I like to say about our movement: “We’re not inventing or re-inventing the wheel here; but we are the first ones putting four wheels together.”

Our gig economy, tech overlord infrastructure, and smartphone accessibility has made the need for Hollywood so very… diminutive. I also like to say that if a filmmaker were to follow the Checklist Distribution model to the letter, they’ll have the absolute pleasure of giving their money to other people. Why pay festivals for the false hope of distribution, care, and home? Why pay a booking agent? Why pay anybody other than the artists you work with? The very best models of 2025 Checklist Distribution— Superman and Sinners— had SIX WEEK MOVIE THEATER RUNS before digital offering. The window is dead; now you get to choose your own.

All of the “rules” we know– rules of pitching, screenwriting, producing, getting projects into theaters, and everything beyond and in-between– were created from the 50/50 agreement. If the artist does this, the industry will do that. If this agreement isn’t honored, then why should the artists meet anybody in the middle? Where is the compromise and why on earth would it solely be on my end?2 I have the resources right next to me; every single tool someone needs to produce, exhibit, and distribute my personal stories…so, what is it I actually need from the industry? Clout? Adulation? Validation? No, I need my movie seen by audiences is what I need, thank you.

In the year of our Lord, 2026, Hollywood has less genuine clout than a single Youtuber. I don’t know who called who’s bluff, but Hollywood was right: no need for that 50/50 split anymore. They can take our 20% and be thankful for it.

America’s Founding and Only Rule

Hollywood only has one rule: make money. That’s it. If you can crack that very simple two-word code, you’re as good as petroleum in this town. And in a lot of ways, this seems to be the only rule out there…in the world…period. And maybe those who know history better than I understand this country was most likely founded upon this same rule– make money.

But my altruistic side; my romantic side knows this country was truly founded upon one- and only one- very simple understanding: Don’t fucking tell me what to do.

Money is superficial and boring. Business and finance and Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Institutional independence is a life worthy of living and a fight worthy of fighting. If Americans didn’t believe this adage so profoundly, they wouldn’t teach it in schools and celebrate annually with hot dogs and fireworks. We threw the tea in the harbor because Fuck You. We took Ticonderoga for the same reason. Sorry guys, this is all of our America and this rule stands for all of us. Don’t fucking tell me what to do.

The rules are moot, folks. May I tell you what’s left? Your personal romantic feelings toward our artform and truly authentic happiness. What will make you happy? What do you want to do with your film career? Opportunities are infinite, so all that’s left is to make choices based on happiness, romance, and dignity, rather than capitulating everything you are and believe to a town that couldn’t possibly give a fuck.

Movie theaters will never be the same.

After being priced out of existence and completely isolated from one another, an affordable, experimental clubhouse cinema is a pathway into the future. A third space for filmmakers of every level to meet each other and share work in an intimate venue. Gone are the days of absurdly expensive theater rentals, budget draining festival runs, and corporate content farms. The future is in community. The future is in romance. The future is cinema for cinema’s sake.

The future is Movie House LA.

Movie House LA

Fixed on the corner of 7th & Spring St., Movie House LA honors this historic Downtown cross-section as a leader of innovative cinema, exhibition, and connection. Operated and curated by filmjourn (traditional cinema) and Relay.ai (A.I. art installations & entertainment), Movie House LA is a venue for open-minded storytellers and film friends from all over Los Angeles and beyond.

Ever expanding and always growing, Movie House LA sports a beautiful 200” screen, our state-of-the-art Riddle Projector, couches, soft seating, and large conference table. An easy going place to hang out, watch movies, and explore the artform together.

We’ll be open for General Admission on Fridays and Saturdays beginning Friday February 27; expanding to Sundays in April. We will also be open *ALL WEEK LONG* for rental opportunities!1

General Admission

Testing our Riddle Projector with ’s incredible FilmStack project Casen Pointe

A General Admission (GA) ticket allows entry to Movie House LA from payment to close. We screen a variety of programming – double features every Friday and Saturday. Each night is curated by genre, era, country, and so much more! (ie: 70’s American, South Korean Cinema, Adult Animation, Peter Falk-led Detective features, etc.) We keep our instagram page @moviehousela updated with current GA programming choices.

We encourage the clubhouse atmosphere! Come for your favorite genre of film, stay for the hang after and between features. You’ll meet other artists with similar tastes and maybe even meet your future production crew, series curators, or best friends forever.

GA shows will be listed on this calendar with links to individual Eventbrite pages. We’ll have guaranteed seating online for $7.00 or you can test your luck without a reservation and pay $5.00 at the door. It may seem a little backward but we want the extra couple bucks to pay for online service fees, rather than overcharging our intrepid clientele.

In the future weeks and months Movie House LA will introduce more “Special Events.” TED-type Talks. Networking Meetups. Even live music. Keep your eyes peeled for our upcoming (tentatively titled) Cinema Sip – a series of shorts accompanied with a paired wine tasting, co-presented by FilmStack’s own sommelier of fame. We’re thrilled for the unbelievable opportunities this space will afford us creatives.

Rentals

Message filmjourn@gmail.com for rentals and tours!

With affordability at the forefront of our mission, Movie House LA promises to offer inexpensive rentals opportunities. Our venue is the perfect spot for works in progress screenings, dailies testing on an enormous screen, social get togethers, birthday and staff parties, and - of course - punk rock movie screenings.

As we begin, we’re offering an unmatched founding price of $100.00 an hour; with a two hour minimum. We also offer bulk discounts if you need a rehearsal space over the course of multiple days or weeks.

Submit

Submit through our Movie House LA FilmFreeway page!

You are also at the forefront of our mission. The goal is not to open a microcinema to play classic Hollywood fare– we want to screen your work. Please submit to our FilmFreeway and we will keep your film in our library, ready to screen for our ever-growing audience.

Movie House LA is also connected to The Circuit, a network of hundreds of microcinemas across America and the entire Earth fronted by , , and myself. If your film plays well in Los Angeles, there may be a whole future for your film across the ocean.

It’s the greatest2 non-dependent film project to date; billing ourselves as the connective tissue between filmmaker, venue, marketing, and audience. We want to see which cities play similarly, we want to see indie theaters and pop-ups thrive, and we want to bring your film to the audience you’ve earned through your tremendously hard work.

Memberships

After we raise some funds (and with any interest within the community) we’ll be offering Movie House LA Memberships!

• General Membership or “Film Friend” – $70/ yearly
  🎞️One full year of unlimited General Admission3
  For the price of one ticket a month, members have unlimited Admission to filmjourn Micro’s General Programming.
  🎞️filmjourn Passport
  filmjourn Micro’s signature Passport is stamped every time a member attends a show.
  After 100 stamps, members receive a filmjourn collectable.

• Founding Membership or “Founding Film Friend” – $250/ yearly
  🎞️Unlimited General Admission + up to two guests
  🎞️filmjourn Passport
  🎞️Four Special Event Tickets (can be used for guests)
  🎞️filmjourn Founder’s Dinner
  A catered dinner for our Founding Film Friends; hosted by Jake & Bones
  🎞️Your name on our future Permanent Memorial Installation4

If you’re interested in signing up for a Movie House LA membership, please fill out THIS REQUEST FORM!

Surrounding DinoTown

Downtown Los Angeles is an overflowing cup of humanity and the truest city bustle in the whole city. It’s so unique and full of the best food I’ve ever had in my life. Movie House LA is set right beside Tierra Mia Coffee and across the street from a fully stocked CVS market. There’s tacos, chicken, ramen, ice cream, sandwiches, and so much more within a few steps of our clubhouse.

Several bars around the corner, pop-up restaurants, gorgeous food trucks with epic menus. We’re a stone’s throw from iconic DTLA food bazaars Grand Central Market, Corporation Food Hall & The Spring Arcade– truly stepping into a different universe. If you can dream it, you can order it, and bring it to Movie House LA.

Our gorgeous neighborhood is also home to the greatest concentration of Historic Movie Palaces in the entire world; a testament to our unerasable contributions to the history of movies. We also take our place within the community at the beloved DTLA ArtNight and Historic DTLA Farmers Market.

How You Can Help

We believe in social currency!!

Please spread the word of Movie House LA! Participate how you can. Submit your films. Fill out our membership questionnaire. Follow, share, and like our instagram account. Comment on our Substack. Email me about anything on your mind! Keep checking in! Do you have any seats, amps, or poster cases you’re hoping to donate? I’d love to talk to you.

Contact us! filmjourn@gmail.com

Linktree

Instagram

Substack

Website

Youtube

Many advance thanks to and for inspiring this discourse.

There is a huge, thick, black defining line between people who know Markiplier and those who have never heard his name. But after this weekend, people will have heard of Mark Fischbach and the incredible feat he and his team have accomplished. I talk to other 38 year olds and I’m literally spouting gibberish: “Markiplier’s Iron Lung is the biggest movie Hollywood is actively ignoring.” Hollywood is what to who, now?

Meanwhile, to anyone under a certain age (late 20’s, early 30’s), Mark is a generational and cultural icon. His face is a meme; his voice as iconic as Patrick Warburton’s. How can anyone not know a virtual entertainer with over 38 million subscribers. Not to mention a hit podcast and every other media platform he may grace. How can you not know Unus Annus? You may as well not know who IShowSpeed, Kai Cenat, MoistCr1TiKaL, Coffeezilla, Jacksfilms, FunkyFrogBait, JackSepticEye, or even Pokimane and the Game Grumps (ferkrissssake)! Gibberish?! As if. These creators are old. These creators are institutional. As far as youtube is concerned, Markiplier is James Gunn. Markiplier is Jon Favreau, Greta Gerwig, or Quentin Tarantino– as far as youtube is concerned.

I’ve been pretty obsessed with the following clip of Fischbach since I first saw it three years ago. I quote it often and have clipped and referenced it in more than one of my filmjourn youtube videos. It’s a really fantastic observation about the nature of the Hollywood Machine at the time.

(Anecdote begins at 01:45)

Short story shorter: Mark was nominated for an Emmy, so he walked the Red Carpet. The Press actively ignored him as he made his way. He says they obviously knew who he was but due to the severe disconnect between Hollywood and Youtube, they ignored him. Ultimately his point is not that he’s offended (far from it; he claims he didn’t want to participate in the Red Carpet process to begin with)-- the point is that it would serve the publications participating to interview him. Mark has understood his currency for some time now, has seen how the industry treats him, and has subsequently chosen the indie route.

Right on, man.

Iron Lung

I learned about Mark nearly a decade ago, the same time I began watching Youtube more than traditional television. They came paired together kinda like an N64 and GoldenEye . Even if I didn’t watch him, his presence in the Youtube community was noted and respected.

Iron Lung has been in my periphery since my later time in Illinois, so– 2020/21 abouts. I still only know the basic building blocks of his scheme. Fischbach independently (with his team, of course) bought the rights to an independently created and produced video game called Iron Lung, after playing the game live on stream for his faithful following. Then, he and his gang produced the adaptation of Iron Lung without any outside funding; building the set (as far as I know) in his backyard.

Mark was in it for the long con clearly as the film dropped on and off my radar over the course of years. I never knew if the project collapsed under its own weight or if we’d be able to experience the film on any such platform. Around Xmas ‘25 - New Years ‘26, news began to trickle. Markiplier’s feature film debut was dropping in independent theaters all over the country. Soon, the flick is invading corporate theaters as well! Each theater screening a one-week run with massive pre-sales booked by his own independent team. I heard a rumor there were midland movie theaters on the verge of bankruptcy, saved (without hyperbole: saved) by Iron Lung ticket pre-sales.

On Friday January 30th, Iron Lung dropped in theaters to middling reviews and instant financial success. I felt it worthwhile to stack this meme:

This post led me to a couple interactions on my page I felt worthy of sharing. Inspiring deeper personal introspection as to what it means to me to represent NonDē filmmaking.

My Discovered FilmStack Discourse

Firstly, I enjoyed this exchange with Cookie:

If I’m completely honest, the first thing I thought when I read this comment was: “How would anybody with 50 followers on Youtube do the same?” I promise I’m not picking on Cookie– this really, really made me think. Is that possible? Spoiler for the end of this article: I think it’s something I’d like to work toward, not wholly unreasonable, and a cool question to ask anybody with our shared interests. It made me wonder what scale had to do with this equation. Why does Mark’s immense following affect the “NonDē-ness” of it all? I ask this question in earnest, with genuine ignorance and an open mind. Even if my initial reaction is to get all defensive for no particular reason.

Enter fuckin’ Dave Baxter:

I had to do some soul searching. Is there a disconnect? Am I proud of Mark? Relatively unimpressed? Should I be apathetic toward Iron Lung’s box office success? Is it an impressive entry or a paltry footnote?1 What does any of this mean for our community? Is it ten thousand miles away from our community? Is it Ground Zero? 99% likely in Dave’s aforementioned “hazy-grey” area between the two.

Independent vs Non–Dependent

Another defining line is being drawn between independent and non-dependent, but it’s clearly in that similar shade of hazy-grey. A distinction first brought to my attention by . In fact, the man himself coined the term NonDē to specifically separate our movement with the traditional history of independent film.

In Hope’s own words–

Hope For Film

The Tenets Towards A Non-Dependent Independent Film Ecosystem

Read more

3 years ago · 41 likes · 30 comments · Ted Hope

Hope For Film

What is NonDē for?

Updated 11/6/25…

Read more

a year ago · 46 likes · 10 comments · Ted Hope

Hope For Film

Why do we need to call it “NonDē”?

Credit Scott Macaulay with prompting this mini-post. He asked why. Chat GPT punked him with some lies about Mark & Jay Duplass. You readers know the true origins and meaning of NonDē…

Read more

a year ago · 30 likes · 28 comments · Ted Hope

My note and its series of replies have brought me back to this founding tenet of our newfangled filmmaking community. I can be proud of Markiplier as a true independent filmmaker and upon further introspection, I do not believe the Iron Lung experiment to be NonDē, as far as our community is concerned. It is a triple-S tier Grand Slam for independent filmmaking– but its model is dependent on corporate theaters and traditional exhibition. Now that Fischbach has independently conquered the Box Office, his phone will be ringing off the hook with Hollywood opportunities which he can either accept or deny to continue his independent journey. This is a massive win for independent filmmaking, exhibition, and distribution. Mark and his team achieved this feat independently of the traditional system. No talk show PR. No massive billboards. It’s his own brand of word-of-mouth. No sharing rights. No following rules. He did it his way (hey, that’s pretty good– someone should sing that down).

He does have the power of influence. Genuine influence. As Cookie said: he commands an army larger than the population of Poland. As Dave said: Mark has all the financial opportunities at his fingertips. Technically, Fischbach and his team followed a rather traditional Hollywood model. Capital-I Independent film is often “self”-financed and off to market at some such film festival to be bought by the highest bidder and distributed through traditional theatrical roadways and packaged physically/digitally right to your home.

As a genuine lower-case i independent film, Fischbach and crew skipped festivals all together. Skipped studios all together. Skipped distributors all together. He corralled a personal gang to book his movie for a series of week-long engagements and split the Box with theaters 50/50. This is a no-brainer for theater owners, who receive anywhere between 20% - 40% of a traditional Hollywood title’s box office earnings, depending on its age and run. Mark has no interest in cutting into concession sales– which isn’t anything any theater owner I know would agree to in the first place.

On the whole, Mark is good for business– but there’s nothing experimental about his model. It may be culture shifting in its own way– a fully independent production by a popular online personality topping the traditional American box office; the same American Box Office of Titanic fame. Star Wars and Marvel and Pixar and Markiplier. It may be an absolute game changer for independent artists in the traditional Hollywood space…but what exactly is NonDē about the Iron Lung experiment? What would make it NonDē? Are rich, successful creators allowed to play in our sandbox? Who are we to say they can’t? By definition, is Mark not included in our movement? It’s not up to me and honestly, I don’t care at all to dictate where anyone else lands on our metaphorical mountain.

Dave asks a really important question: if logistics and capital are not in question, what makes Markiplier any different than A24? This is a beautiful entry point for our thesis. This question cuts directly into the heart of the indie/NonDē divide. As I stated earlier, If I were to independently produce my film, rent out a hundred theaters, and promote it to my 40 million fans, it would be a fairly traditional independent release. If I used my platform to lift other voices, it would look a little more like a traditional (or Capital I Indie) studio/production company. The scale and profits get fun-housed and distorted, but stay relatively proportionate with its history of Indie release.

It’s times like this I’m thrilled to be working and maneuvering within the microcinema space. To be passionate about infrastructure and experimental distribution & exhibition. The only thing experimental with Iron Lung’s release is the sheer size of the release. Most other creators, I assume, would take their film city by city (like Kevin Smith or Crispin Glover), rather than independently drop their flick in a thousand theaters on one simultaneous weekend rollout. This is not what I’m working on, nor my goal. Cookie and Dave are right. Fischbach’s model doesn’t need my input– it’s tried and true for all intents and purposes.

“The news would be if someone had 50 subscribers on Youtube and did the same.” States Cookie. This is my new wildest dream. There are a million proven ways to complete production of any budget and leave with a movie under one’s arm. Experimental exhibition is a bit narrower with fewer options on hand. We really only have one theatrical landscape at the moment, but we’re working daily to burn & slash the traditional model and replace it with as many options as the production side. Building a coalition of third spaces and various sized venues all around the world. 30, 50, 100 seat theaters all the way up to 2,000 seat palaces. Coordinating the film with appropriate distribution, matching cities and audiences with movies they don’t even know they crave.

We’re building a world where an Artist without a following can produce a feature film and screen it at their local micro for ten other people. The movie is so compelling. So romantic, funny, disturbing, or chaotic that these ten people can’t shut the fuck up about it. Soon our local micro has sold out show after sold out show. We push the movie into a 100 seater. It keeps selling out. It’s the talk of the town because it’s a movie made only for the town.

Reviews on Letterboxd go viral sparking international curiosity instantly. There’s a 100 seater in Nashville emailing the artist about booking. There’s a 30 seat house in Liverpool that caught wind and folks know the humor will definitely play across the pond. Some bored and ingenious European translates the flick into Italian. In France, an artist translates it into French. The French Artist has a like-minded cousin in Vietnam, who has access to a space and really wants to show the show.

Meanwhile, back in the U.S., people still won’t shut up about this flick. The artist dropped a new trailer and a handful of Youtubers are talking about it. I personally call the artist and ask them to play their hit film here in Los Angeles at The Regent Theater for 1,000 seats. The reviews, clips, and chatter have gone so viral, we sell out. And the world is desperate for the Artist’s sophomore follow-up as soon as humanly possible.

Now, that’s one wild dream. That feels NonDē. Mark’s flick is a massive win for independent film and a massive win for Mark himself. From one indie director to another, I’m proud of him. He accomplished something unconscionably complicated and did it on his own terms. He’s the real deal. Iron Lung still is a grand slam and a goal to celebrate and work toward. Fischbach followed a production model I believe in with my whole heart, but his release is far from creative. It’s large and successful; the sentence ends for most people here. But for us terraforming the landscape, there wasn’t anything particularly new, exciting, or helpful about the Iron Lung release.

Laurels are due and very well earned by Mr. Fischbach– any movie that makes 9x its worth in its opening weekend is worthy of praise and dissection. With its limited release and the explosion of media soon to cover the project, I wait to see how many theaters extend their engagements and what that means for the future of the film. And we don’t even have a clue how he’ll release the picture for home release.

Ultimately, I feel any win for independent film is a win for NonDē, but believe it or not– what we’re doing is far larger and deeper with rippling cultural implications than the Iron Lung experiment. Blueprints have been drawn and the structure is currently under construction. We’re not massive celebrities and iconic figures. We’re not multi-millionaires. We’re not connected to Google. We’re the real deal, too. It’s not about accessing the artform independently of the industry– a singular sperm into a singular egg creating one individual movie star fetus in utero. It’s about helping one another to build our own industry. Pulling the wrought iron gates up and leaving them there in perpetuity. Planting trees rather than building treeforts.

Markiplier’s Iron Lung experiment is a massive success and an enormous leap in the right direction. Its existence and discourse has helped me define my own objectives and principles. I’ve learned it’s not enough for me to be simply independent; non-dependence is the clear goal. As we roll along into the future, the distinction between the two will grow bolder and clearer, and the way we experience the movie theater experience will fundamentally change for the better.

It is a wild dream, ain’t it?

PS: As of the publication of this article, Hollywood is pretending Iron Lung simply doesn’t exist. Let’s see how that works out for ‘em.

Bones hopped in the Mini with the cats and I started up our packed Uhaul; the night we left Chicago forever, ash rained from the sky.

The sun had long gone down after spending a whole day emptying our Rogers Park apartment into the truck. The sky only appeared to be on fire. Over on the corner of Clark and Rogers, a street light had fallen into the corner Walgreens. The fire from the accident sent ashes into the atmosphere, flaking down like black snow as we drove procession out of town and into corn. In August 2020, after fifteen years in the city, I moved to the flatlands of Illinois.

Weisman, keep it light. I promise this is going somewhere useful, positive, and hopefully humorous. I’m literally joking with Bones as I type this intro, “It’s like those recipes: ‘This is my Bubbe’s Bubbe’s spongecake she learned as a little girl before the Pogroms….anyway, grab two sticks of butter…’”

This story’s about a phoenix, not a great Chicago fire. My filmmaking dreams didn’t die with the Pandemic. They could have! I had just made postcards and a pitch video for a movie called Pig, and was set to begin fundraising in March 2020. Bones had made the art and we were good to get going.

It was only a matter of weeks before Chicago would forever be in my rearview.

This turned out to be a very good thing as Pig has transformed into Pigfeed– a version of the story with a brand new, far more hard hitting third act and finale. Bones even made some new art for the updated, far more mature version of the story. Completed two years ago, I refuse to give up on this one.

A social comedy with character shades of Alexander Payne’s The Descendants mixed with themes from Paddy Chayefsky and Sidney Lumet’s Network. Pigfeed follows newly single movie theater manager Kelly as she befriends a regular named Leon, a world-famous comedian cancelled by a sex scandal years prior. What happens to the relationship between artist, audience, and fandom when humanity gets in the way?

Writing in the Flatland

We moved into our house in the middle of nowhere and I immediately wrote a screenplay, as is my preferred artistic coping mechanism. I became possessed by an idea for a character: the world’s worst boxer too stupid to quit. I was about halfway through the screenplay before I realized I was writing about myself— which is so obnoxious because Duh! I’m always writing about myself— but it always takes screenwriting to pull the sub-subconscious out and illustrate what’s deep in my mind.

I’d spent fifteen years trying to make movies, get productions up, learn the craft, put up indie shows, tour my work, network with every single film person I could possibly meet. And now I’m living in a cornfield with nothing but a deadly pandemic in my future. Thanks God for Bones, the cats, and our families. Here I am writing a $30,000,000 feature length screenplay, set in Philly 1953, starring my favorite actors Samuel L. Jackson, Jaimie Foxx, John Turturro, and Dakota Loesch with my full chest. I’m the relentless boxer, too stupid to quit.

But I still think The Pug is a classic in queue.

The Pug was inspired by many of my favorite HUAC-era classics. I’m pretty obsessed with the clean perfection of High Noon. On the Waterfront holds up like a mf. Characters stubbornly stand up for themselves, despite themselves. I also was super pushed by watching early Coen flicks, particularly Miller’s Crossing, on repeat. And Fat City’s influence is baked into the pages.

As I’m sure is the case with many of us, the pandemic led to lots of movie watching. Inspiration after inspiration and nothing to do but dream all day and night. I’m blessed I was able to create as much as I did during this period– both youtube videos and screenplay-wise. I fell into Ozploitation. I continued my decades-long love affair with South Korean cinema. I watched the same comfort movies over and over and over and over and over again. I made ultra-personal youtube videos and interviewed a ton of amazing filmmakers live, really trying to build out my little indie brand.

A million lessons learned, a million ideas conjured.

Video Pitch Decks

I could rot or I could stew. I chose to stew. Wake in Fright 2am screenings crossfade with Lady Vengeance, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, 29 viewings of Killing Them Softly, Merry Melodies— along with romantically tedious life in the heart of Illinois. I wrote a tight thriller called She Paints Roses– a midwestern fairytale. I quickly wanted to stir my youtube pot with this piece. The intention was to capture everything on the platform– conception to distribution, bringing the audience along.

It’s a natural order of events. I need to quickly tell my audience what the feature screenplay is about; I need a treatment. After writing the treatment, I need to present these words audibly and visually. We want our audience to envision the movie and whet their appetite. My friends in Hollywood told me about the effectiveness of Pitch Decks. I couldn’t believe Pitch Decks were a viable, usable thing in this town (show’s how much I’ve learned in the years since). I was taught in school never to use comps or fantasy casts and here is an entire artistic marketing medium specifically instructing filmmakers to use comps and fantasy casts. Y’know…word! I can play. Happy to!

Then, believe it or not, it’s easier for me to edit a video than to photoshop a classy looking booklet and print it on lovely expensive paper (and keep it flat and matte and perfect). This seems preferable to me because a video pitches itself with the click of a button. We’d all love a face-to-face meeting; to guide someone personally through our photos and artwork and spontaneous voice. A video literally speaks for itself, succinctly and consistently. Plus– on a sorta superficial level– we’re making movies. Why wouldn’t we use those same skills and tools to pitch the flick?

There was a solid chunk of time where I was playing with the Video Pitch Deck form. I had written an extremely personal drama called Vermonter about two high school sweethearts crossing paths twenty years later (no, I haven’t seen Past Lives. I’m sure they’re different enough). I love the visual style of Five Easy Pieces and the early 70’s Hungarian Giants of Cinematography. This particular video has no narration, plenty of reading, and clips of comps.

I only really include it because I got to play with casting in a fun way. Instead of choosing contemporary artists (of which there are so many brilliant working today), I chose to cast Magnolia-era Philip Seymour Hoffman against Officer and a Gentleman-era Debra Winger. Offering impossible options in the Video Pitch Deck leaves a big question mark and the beautiful search for someone or something new. Who’s the next 80’s-era Debra Winger? Who’s the next Philip Seymour Hoffman? Who’s the next László Kovács? These questions spark ingenuity, curveball ideas, and keep the romance of cinema alive.

I’ve spent over a decade telling people the exact same thing about screenwriting: writing a brilliant screenplay is akin to writing a gorgeous symphony. But handing a script to someone is like handing over sheet music. If someone doesn’t know how to read the notes in their mind, you need to sing the melody for them. Otherwise it’s all just symbols on a page.

Can you dig it?

One thing Substack offers its many readers is a general sense of media literacy. For lack of a better phrase: we offer a classier bottom line than many of our corporate counterparts. FilmStackers are the smartest people I’ve ever met and they’re just as independent minded, stubborn, and forward thinking as I’d like to claim myself to be.

When I left the theater from Paul Thomas Anderson’s soon-to-be-awards-sweeping neo-western One Battle After Another, something didn’t sit quite right with me. Something I simply couldn’t put my finger on. The fact remains, I couldn’t put my finger on it because I didn’t have the experience, the context, or general knowledge offered by those diverse minds on this platform. I thankfully found ’s brilliantly written, eye-opening piece One Fetish After Another: PTA Exploits Black Women and Averts Revolution to help guide me through a few new waves of thought.

Black Girl Watching

One Fetish After Another: PTA Exploits Black Women and Averts Revolution

*Spoilers for the plot of One Battle After Another…

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9 months ago · 2230 likes · 11 comments · Brooke Obie

My goodness, how grateful I was to this piece for letting my mind rest a bit. I’d read some quotes and skimmed some pieces by lots of film critics that look like me in the mirror– and boy did they love the film. No questions asked. Modern masterpiece. Best PTA flick ever-ever. I had enjoyed the film but - to be perfectly candid - didn’t think it was even the best PTA flick of the last ten years; maybe the most accessible, but for me it doesn’t touch Inherent Vice. I started noticing more and more women (particularly) of color– women that look like my sister, friends, and co-workers– had a different viewpoint on the film. Exactly the one I wanted to read. Unimpeded by tasteless editors, aforementioned corporate overlords, or - y’know- morons.

The audience is better for having read this piece, and ultimately the film is better for having had it written. It continues the conversation well after the credits roll, which is the unspoken ultimate goal of any movie ever made. Since OBAA (and every movie, really) is decidedly, unabashedly told from the director’s POV, I need to see any kind of analysis outside of my own. Especially if there’s a bitter note I can’t quite put my tongue on.

A Plea to Independent Film Critics

Yes, this piece was mostly an excuse to talk about Ms. Obie’s piece and spread word as Anderson’s flick as it streams/airs on HBO and takes all the Oscars in a month or so. But I use her piece more as an example of the staggering critical talent honed on this platform.

Film critics and movie reviewers of Substack! We need your eyes and expertise!

You’ve lent your time, critical brain power, and film romance to massive talent and major productions: Bugonia, Marty Supreme, Sinners, Heated Rivalry, and so, so much more. They’ve earned your respect and the right to be written about, no doubt. I simply ask, you offer the opportunity to non-dependent filmmakers and productions as well. In a world of bricks (niche expertise, filmmakers, exhibitors, platform creators, etc), I genuinely believe it’s the critics, the reviewers, and cinephiles – film lovers for the sake of loving film – that will be the most effective mortar for our longer-lasting structure.

While brilliant, while insightful, and well-written, a FilmStacker’s review of Superman will be one of hundreds of thousands. I made my first feature ten years ago and was the first person to write about it apropos of nothing. Not only did it “do the business thing” of getting word out about my movie (which is lovely), not only did she say very nice things about my film (which is lovelier), but it made a profound effect on me. It meant something to me personally. It put gas in my tank. We keep asking ourselves where the audience is, I really think you fabulous FilmStack critics are the honey.

Courtney Daniels

A small film that offers big inspiration

Today I’m writing about fellow Filmstacker Jake S. Weisman’s film, Scrapers: A Comedy for Romantic Stoners as part of the Filmstack Inspiration Challenge. Thank you Ted Hope and Avi Setton for starting and keeping this stream of inspiration going…

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7 months ago · 16 likes · 11 comments · Courtney Daniels

With your help, the general audience will be just as knowledgeable and interested in ’s Mary Rides the F Train, ’s The Big Break and ’s upcoming found footage horror feature as we are about Yorgos’ or Cameron’s next films. Learn us up! Tell us what works! What doesn’t! Be honest! FilmStack Critics are as vital to the lifeblood of this ecosystem as artists, venues, distributors, and platforms.

has compiled a list of amazing movies begging to be watched. We hope more people add to the list and more reviewers take a peek.

Share your work. Share your thoughts. Help us craft the culture of non-dependent cinema and guide the landscape in a way only FilmStack can.

Around Xmas time 2023, there came a bizarre tipping point in my life at the merch warehouse.

I’d spent upwards of fifteen man hours signing Funko Pops with their real-life Posca-pen wielding counterparts. As the director was signing books of his face-filled covers over his personally typed words, he pulled out his phone and showed me the first five minutes of his yet-to-be-fully-cut brand new feature film– soon to hit theaters nationwide. That night, after a physically exhausting signing session, I fell asleep and had a dream:

I was alone at the warehouse. One has to package the Funko Pops a certain way, otherwise the fan purchaser will complain, send it back, and make four times as much work for all of us. I dream I carefully place the Pop in a clear plastic bag– this protects the paintpen signature on the plastic window (and the whole excuse to triple the charge on a $20 plastic toy). The now bagged Pop goes into a bubble-bag next for extra protection. This merch is literally going all over the world and it needs to make it to the destination wholly unscathed.

This bubble bag goes into a little cardboard box (as I recall 4x4x6”)-- and that’s only the first part. Most of these orders were multiple units, so then I needed the proper larger box for the appropriate quantity of toy. Then I dreamt I went to the computer and clicked on address after address for each individual label printed out. By the hundreds. Then in the dream, I went back to the warehouse with a stack of paper and labels and packed the little boxes into bigger boxes with lots of bubble wrap. Then I’d slap the label on the box and say hi to the mail carrier every day.

Then I woke up.

Somewhere along the line, my dreamworld and waking life swapped places – and now I live somewhere in between. I live in a reality where I spent earnest face time with my teenage hero– that’s real, but not tangible. The job left me with nothing but stories, jokes, and anecdotes– which are very real, and not at all tangible. He personally gave me lessons to take with me forever– whether he meant to or not. But when the job ended, so did my relationship with him, his company, and any connection I might have had to that version of Hollywood. And the job ended rather unceremoniously. Turns out, all I took with me was my experience… which is real, but not necessarily tangible.

Creativity.

Honor.

Lateral thought.

Pattern-Recognition.

Morals.

Faith.

Humor.

An open mind.

Passion.

Drive.

Forgiveness.

Audacity.

Kindness.

Dreams.

They’re real and they’re yours. These non-tangible tools as important as any camera or microphone.

I’ve wanted to be a filmmaker since I was a little, little kid– at least 8 years old. Back when my classmates wanted to be astronauts, paleontologists, Iditarod runners, and Chicago Bulls. I never grew out of it. I know nothing but persistence for better or for worse– in celebration and tragedy equally. There isn’t a week goes by where I haven’t questioned this outrageous tenacity and arguable folly. Why did my classmates become orthodontists and realtors and I keep writing screenplays nobody will ever read? I’ve come back to the same answer now for years and it’s actually not all too terribly deep. The only way I’ll stop is if I stop.

I can’t win a screenplay contest? I’ll produce my own script. I can’t get into theaters or festivals? I’ll make my own. Pandemic takes away a project? Ingenuity and stubborn luck brings a new version back in exponentially more fascinating ways. Nobody can tell me what to do. Nobody can dictate what can or cannot be done. The only thing stopping me is me.

FilmStack and NonDē embody this stubborn ingenuity, which explains my instant attraction to the platform and community. The pipeline from thought to reality is one of our inexplicable strong suits. Simple ideas become brick-and-mortar before I can fully comprehend the new terrain. I’m extremely lucky to be surrounded by supportive, like-minded artists to help prop me up and keep me up to date with accelerating speed. Out: needless gatekeeping and artistic modification. In: communal education and genuine patience.

Whether you can touch it with your fingers or see it with your eyes, what’s real is real. Your filmmaking journey is as real as the wind across your face. Your experience is as important and valid as any professional advice. Your desires will become your reality. You’ll wake up from some relentless, real-feeling nightmare and find yourself with an idea for a story. The story will become a script. The script, soon an auteur film in your hand. Then with a community of friends to share your vision, a very real conversation will appear in the ether. From dream to reality, back to dream again.

When I was a kid I’d think, “Not in my wildest dreams could I imagine working for this director.” Now as an adult I realize, that was my wildest dream– now I have a whole career, a whole life left to go.

What dream could possibly turn into my next reality?

To be very fair, the director did leave me with one very tangible relic, which I’m happy to share with you in honor of full transparency: