My Summer Reading

What's on *your* night stand?

I have a friend and former Nickelodeon colleague, Athena Lobit, who produced an independent film with her sister, Alyssa, called The Things We Carry.  It’s a gorgeous, deeply-felt movie about two sisters coming to terms with their turbulent relationship as experienced through their crack-addicted mother.  The film has found a lot of success on the festival circuit and you can rent it on Netflix.  So go put it in your queue.  Now.

I mean it.

Anyway, The Things We Carry was accepted into the Wisconsin Film Festival, so I flew home this past April to attend the packed screening of it with my family.  At the Q & A afterwards, Alyssa said something about independent filmmaking that continues to stick with me: “It’s impossible and possible.”

Amen.

When I look at the stack of books in the photo above, I feel the weight of the impossible.  The business plan, the financing, the deal-making, the terminology…yikes!  But then I think about The Things We Carry.  Athena has been a real mentor and inspiration to me about this process because she and Alyssa set out to make a low-budget film and they did it.  THEY DID IT. Athena loaned me most of those books (okay, not the Cocktails one – that one was already in my collection), and I know the books will offer me some good schoolin’ in movie-making.  After all, educating ourselves is a pretty effective way to make the impossible possible, right?  (Knowledge is power and all that…blah blah blah…)  That’s why I am also reaching out to anyone I know who has experience or friends in film production or “the industry. “  I am a sponge…watch me learn!  And to those of you who have already offered me advice or possible resources or just plain old encouragement, I issue a huge, appreciative THANK YOU!

And for what it’s worth, I’ll also – occasionally – reference the book of cocktails during this journey because a little Maker’s Mark can make anything seem possible! 😉

NEXT UP: The Project!

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