Three Years Ago, I Decided I Wanted To Be A Filmmaker. Here Is How That Went (Is Going)
In February of 2017, something happened that changed the course of my life. I got deported from South Africa. I had just finished backpacking around Africa for about a month and I needed to return to Cape Town to catch my return flight to Washington D.C. I had a worn down 9-year old passport that saw over 40 countries and would no longer scan. When I arrived at customs in South Africa, they denied me entry due to the condition of my passport, even though I had successfully entered the country several weeks prior. They sent me on the first plane back to the US, which happened to land in New York. I didn’t realize this at the time, but this deportation would not be nearly as good of a story as what followed.
I had several hours to kill before boarding my train back to Baltimore so I decided to have lunch with a high school friend, Mazin, who had been pursuing a career in acting and screenwriting. It had been years since I had seen him and I thought that it was badass that he had recently appeared on popular tv shows such as Homeland and Jessica Jones, yet he revealed some dissatisfaction with his career. He was similarly intrigued that I had traveled the world and now worked with a party travel start-up company, but I too was dissatisfied with my current trajectory. Picking right up from our high school days, we discussed tons of grandiose ideas, but one idea of a feature film about the Syrian refugee crisis seemed to stand out. About two weeks later, Mazin emailed me the first 10 pages of a script for this Syrian refugee story. To be honest, I had never actually read a movie script before, so I was extremely intrigued with what I saw. Making good on a childhood dream of mine to make movies, I decided at this moment that I wanted to be a screenwriter and producer.
The Script
We easily fleshed out the first act and the climax of the story, but our second act and resolution was nonexistent. Mazin would write the dialogue, and then we would spend hours each day discussing the intricacies of the upcoming scene. We had successfully written about 70 pages when I took a three-week trip to the Philippines (my last trip working with the travel start-up). The break was much needed, as I felt like we had hit a bit of a wall in the second act. Mazin would always reassure me that the characters would start speaking to me and the story would begin to write itself. This sounded like bullshit, but these things indeed started to occur, and they helped me map an outline for the remainder of the story. I returned home with a path to the finish line and after 4 1/2 months and 140 pages, we finished our first draft.
Financing
The looming question of how in the hell we would fund this had persisted since the moment I took on this project. I knew almost nothing about the film business, so raising $500k-$1 million of investor money just because I had written a script seemed wildly unrealistic. My first move was to turn inwards to family and friends. I offered cash rewards to anyone who could connect me with someone who would eventually invest. However, when I made a business plan (called a ‘lookbook’ in film terminology), I had a realization. I realized that our idea was not actually that crazy after all.
Commercially successful films made for under $1 million usually seemed to fit into one of four categories; horror films (i.e Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity), documentaries on hot button issues, faith based films with built-in audiences, and high quality dramas. Upon researching the high quality dramas, I found Fruitvale Station, which only made over $15 million at the box office on a $900k budget. Furthermore, Ryan Coogler wrote/directed this in his feature film debut before he went on to write and direct Creed and Black Panther. I thought that this may have been a fluke, but then I found Half Nelson, which made over $5 million on a $700k budget by first-time writer/directors. Then I found Searching, which made over $70 million on a $880k budget! This too, was made by a first-time writer/director. I found self-financed films made by first-time writer/directors, such as Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong, and the ultra-low budget films Another Earth and Tangerine — both of which were made on a $100k budget. All three of these films had critical and commercial success and helped launch the careers of the writer/directors who created them. Ample evidence showed that our goal might not be so unrealistic after all.
I explored every possible connection. I messaged old friends who were connected to the film industry. I networked while at work bartending. I ran a campaign on a platform called AIN (Angel Investment Network), which connects investors with entrepreneurs. Mazin and I attended pitch events, dominated mostly by fintech start-ups, and proceeded to get our idea ripped to shreds by ruthless investors. I even messaged alumni in my fraternity who I had never met. I hated asking people for money, but I convinced myself that I was presenting them with a good investment opportunity. We repeatedly faced rejection, so we decided to go to Lebanon — our primary filming location — to build a ground campaign.
Lebanon
We traveled to Lebanon, where I had previously only spent one week — mostly getting drunk at Lebanon’s notorious nightlife spots. Mazin is Lebanese-American, so he had more of a connection to the land, however he hadn’t lived there in nearly a decade. In our first trip, we were not able to make much progress with the exception of provisionally bringing a Lebanese producer and first assistant director on board. The tensions began to boil over and I would often have those “what the fuck am I doing here?” moments.
In our second trip, I had become hell-bent on making inroads with cast, crew, and investors. In our first couple of days, this trip appeared headed in the same unproductive direction as the previous one. Tensions rose to the point that caused me to have a meltdown in the middle of Beirut, as I engaged in a shouting match with Mazin on the side of the road. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this moment was actually the turning point in our fortunes.
I headed off to meet a Kuwaiti friend, who invited me to a party filled with art investors, where I was able to collect my first potential investor contacts. We contacted an actress named Cynthia Khalifeh, who is well known in the Middle East, and had a great meeting with her. On a night out with Lebanese friends, I met an actor/producer named Charbel Ziade who had connections galore to cast, crew, and financiers in Lebanon. To prove this to me, he called Rita Hayek, my dream choice for the lead role, and set up a meeting with her on the spot for the following Thursday. Rita had just starred in a film that was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars. Because Lebanon has such a small population, not many degrees of separation exist between the people, making it a networker’s dream. In addition, an American film about Lebanon had much more appeal to Lebanese investors than a film with a predominantly Lebanese cast had with American investors.
Eventually I had to leave Lebanon because my financial nest egg was running out and I needed to return to work. I decided to work in Australia instead of returning to the US and continue working remotely on film stuff. I couldn’t believe how much progress we had made. We had a lead actress attached who had just returned from the Oscars and in her words, “loved every bit” of our script. We had many talented cast & crew members who are well known in the region. We had multiple investors offering 5–6 figure investment sums, and hot leads to several more investors in the region. We had a contact in UNICEF who could help us access the refugee camps. However, the longer I was away, the harder it became to continue this momentum. The thought had also occurred to us that it might not be the best strategy to start with a feature film.
The many paths to becoming a filmmaker
Many of the successful filmmakers who I mentioned were not at all first-time filmmakers, but instead were first-time feature filmmakers. They all had experience making short-films, giving them invaluable experience prior to their feature film debuts. Using some of the cast & crew that we accumulated, Mazin spearheaded a short film project. This short would cost a fraction of what the feature did, and was logistically easier to organize because of its smaller scale. A short film had these advantages, while remaining large enough to serve as a sample size representing the type of work that we could do on a feature film. We could submit it to Sundance, Cannes, SXSW, and all of the top film festivals. We could also show it to investors or any big-name talent that we wished to bring on board. Most of all, it served as an incredibly valuable learning experience for us.
I’ve learned many things throughout this three year process, but most notably that NO ONE PATH exists to become a filmmaker. I met a guy who began filmmaking by following rock bands around the country (similar to the movie Almost Famous). Mazin took the Ben Affleck approach, entering the industry as an actor, and then adding writing and directing his repertoire. My first experience with filmmaking involved making shitty GoPro videos of my adventures backpacking around the world. Some people start as PA’s, and go the traditional route by working their way up the ladder in Hollywood. No matter what the route, filmmakers are all hustlers. I’ve grown quite an appreciation for this. It’s been an absolute grind, and we haven’t even made a feature film yet, but I feel a hell of a lot closer to my goal than I did even a year ago. As for the short film, we are far along in post-production, and we hope to have a completed film by the Fall. For what may seem like one small step for outside observers, is one giant leap for us in our path to becoming filmmakers.
