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There is a phrase I dislike, but that is a truism nonetheless: “Everyone likes a moving train.” It means no one wants to start anything but once something’s started, everyone wants to be a part of it.

When I came up with the premise for DRG, I knew I had come up with an idea that is good enough to use as currency. This is not an ego thing; I have proof: everyone who has heard the idea, with one minor exception, has loved the idea. Every creative person I’ve approached to collaborate with me in making the idea come to pass has agreed to do so, even though there’s no upfront money involved. EVERYONE. No exceptions.

I’m not under the delusion that everyone everywhere is going to like DRG. In fact, I’ve been very selective so far about who I choose to disclose it to, people I thought either might be interested in, or who have a talent that will help me make an amazing movie.

This is going to be a wild ride and I’m going to be as open as I can possibly be with every stage of the making of DRG, from casting to production, to actual real distribution metrics!

We are in a world full of possibilities. I believe this world is made better by the free sharing of information. As such, I’m going to be releasing DRG myself, and it will be as DRM free as I can make it.

If you’d like to know more about DRG, as it happens (read: as soon as I can type it up and send it out), send me an email: drg@spiritusvult.com and put the word “Subscribe” in the subject. I’ll add you to the email list, which you can unsubscribe from at any time. We’re also on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Google+. Just check the links at the top right of the page (there are 4 little icons each linking to the appropriate page.

As always, let me know what you think.

Money is not gold. Money is an idea. Movies also begin as ideas, and good ideas can also be used as currency.

I love TED Talks. I watch them and am inspired by them. I adapt my strategy for life based on some of the talks I’ve watched. I can’t afford to go watch them live. I’m not rich. But, I have the Internet, where information has been democratized, if you choose to access it.

Anyway, one TED Talk by Dan Ariely was about how people aren’t as motivated by money as we’ve built our society to believe. In fact, people are motivated by the sense of accomplishment. If you remove that sense of accomplishment, even though you still pay them, they lose job satisfaction and eventually quit, despite the fact that neither the work they actually do, nor the pay has changed.

This is a MAJOR paradigm shift. I mean, every religion teaches the same concept, but to see it proven through scientific research, no valid argument remains against it. I’m not saying money doesn’t motivate, but it’s not our primary motivation.

For the above reason, and many others that I’ll get into in future posts, I’m making DRG entirely independent of any funding strings (read the first paragraph again to see what that means).

If you’d like to know more about DRG, as it happens (read: as soon as I can type it up and send it out), send me an email: drg@spiritusvult.com and put the word “Subscribe” in the subject. I’ll add you to the email list, which you can unsubscribe from at any time. We’re also on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Google+. Just check the links at the top right of the page (there are 4 little icons each linking to the appropriate page.

As always, let me know what you think.

There are basically three ways to make an movie these days. 1) With the help of a studio; 2) Through the help of investors; 3) Search the couch and use loose change (not really, but it can feel like that.

I have a theory about studios that I’ve talked about with some of my other independent filmmaker friends and they largely agree. Movie studios and major production companies are U.S. style businesses attempting to turn art into a cog. The problem is that art isn’t a cog; the principals you use to create and distribute cogs is different from the way you make and distribute movies.

Yes, money is involved. Yes, manufacturing is involved, of a kind (and this is largely the difference). Yes, even marketing is involved. But, even though these similarities exist, a cog has a specific shape, engineered to produce a certain result. Physics, chemistry, geometry, engineering can all be applied to the manufacturing of a cog. There is a very specific tried and useful method to creating a cog.

While those same sciences can also be applied to movies, it’s anything but a science. There is no method for making movies. The right way to make a movie is the way that gets the movie made. In other words, there is no right way. Even those three ways I mentioned in the first paragraphs are enormous over-simplifications.

But, movies cost money and people with money usually make their money via a business. When they come to movies, they think that they can simply apply the same principals that worked the last time to movies. And now, we see the homogenization of movies, as they become more and more cog-like, more predictable. They rely, not on good characters and storytelling, but on the new, the spectacular… the gimmick and the fad. Like 3-D.

The expression of the artist becomes muted, moot because, in this country, he who has the gold makes the rules. The fact is, creative people, artists who have taken a natural talent and refined it through the perfection of craft and create something relevant and meaningful, that is the gold.

For the above reasons, and many others that I’ll get into in future posts, I’m making DRG entirely independent of any funding strings (read the first paragraph again to see what that means).

If you’d like to know more about DRG, as it happens (read: as soon as I can type it up and send it out), send me an email: drg@spiritusvult.com and put the word “Subscribe” in the subject. I’ll add you to the email list, which you can unsubscribe from at any time. We’re also on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Google+. Just check the links at the top right of the page (there are 4 little icons each linking to the appropriate page.

This is the first in the complete production and distribution journal blogs. As always, let me know what you think.

DRG came to me one morning while I was letting my mind wander. The moment I had the idea, I knew it was the kind of idea that I just had to make. Some ideas are just too good. I’m playing things pretty quietly right now, but I’ll reveal more soon.

SYNOPSIS: To be discolsed!

State-of-the-Project:
Outlining the script

Rating:
N/A

Runtime:
Approximately 120 minutes.

Check out all DRG related blog posts.