Making Movies and Learning to Love the Plot
I remember being in the car for painfully long trips as a teenager. As my parents drove me or my brother to perform some act of academic valor or athleticism, I would stare out of the back window and fantasize about cinema.
Headphones in, blocking out the noise; playing in my mind were internal visions of action, and passion, and sweeping views, with grandiose camera moves and slick choreography. Set to pop music – likely pirated – of the current moment.
I imagined groups of armed men in acts of battle, lonely protagonists waking in bed, heroes driving away through the hills. The music cued the action. If my fantasy did not fit the pace, I would change the song. Hours were spent this way, in my own personal visual and auditory universe.
Now, in my sober, achingly muted adulthood, I don't believe that there was anything particularly unique about my idea of making films, if you could call them that. I'm sure many people share these memories. That fantasty of filmmaking was innocent and youthfully arrogant, brought on by my imagination and the media I loved.
I did not consider being on a set, nor did I know what that was, just the image, and the sound, together to make the hair stand on my neck, to offer me somewhere else to be.
Finding Filmmaking
As I left my technology job I held through my twenties, I was trying to explore "philanthropy" and what it meant, and if I could do something of note. I thought the on-the-street version of it, in metropolitan America, was probably the best use of my effort. I had just spent some time on an ambulance for the same reason.
But I was also living in Hollywood, down the street from studios and sound stages, and was surrounded by film lovers, makers, writers, producers. I learned about persuasive filmmaking, patronage, and the idealistic notion that maybe you could do something good for the world by making movies.
Hollywood was in a transformational moment. Decades of success and relative dominance was being questioned by content pouring into and out of our handheld devices. Technology companies propped up by zero-interest-rate policies had flooded the scene and upended financial common sense. Theaters, and their role in the ecosystem, were at risk.
The arrogance in those of us that are fluent in code and technology can be innocent, but it can also be held with authority and callousness. Disconnected from our human denominator, advancing beyond us or around us, confusing what makes us whole. I don't think I was ever a piece of shit about it, but I certainly didn't understand why things were the way they were in Hollywood, or how they had arrived there.
I had an idea that change was afoot, and I wanted to be part of it.
Falling for Tradition
There are tremendously potent traditions in cinema. There is a way to make movies, from set design and lighting, to editing and sound effects, to press, awards, writing, hiring, accounting. It goes on. I came from a world of acronyms, expertise, and complex systems – so it was not entirely unfamiliar. But I had also just spent more than a decade witnessing that old systems could be upended by lines of code, creating opportunity and wealth for some, squandering it for others.
I thought, as many do, that there must be a better way, this was all so silly, so outdated. Computers could organize us more efficiently, our incentives could be more aligned, we could even be more democratic, more egalitarian: more content, for more people, better, faster, easier.
Being on set for the first time felt like the first day back at school after the summer, or a first day after a promotion. I was petrified, confused, and shaky. Everyone seemed to know what was going on but me.
It was militaristic in its structure and language: Wheels up. Rolling. Speeding, 10-1. Exterior, interior, wide. Action, and cut. Pick-up. Wild lines, flying in, kill that. Call sheets and one-liners. So many hard cases, packed with gear. Nevermind the months of post-production, negotiation, rejection, following the actual "days". It was fun and exhilarating, packed with adrenaline and chaos, covered with laughs and shushes, anger and relief.
Despite my questioning, the traditions started to grow on me. It was romantic, exhausting, and connective. Everyone became friends on those long weeks of shooting and editing, a common goal of getting wrapped for the day, eating a real lunch, or maybe making something good together.
My tradition-crushing spirit was fading. I started to understand how it all came to be. But it still seemed implausible though, making this all work economically. The layers of bureaucracy and authority, the union rules. How could this movie we're making make money, or at least break even?
A couple of years on, I had begun to talk with all this lingo, acting the part. The whole range of specific skills and practice, I didn't possess, but I had picked up anything that had to do with a computer okay. I could edit, I could record and mix sound pretty well. I could certainly run payroll, manage expenses, licensing, documentation. I owned some cheap cameras and sound gear.
I had also come to believe in the traditions, at least partially, in all their fallibility, their grounding in the past.
A Bleak Outlook
Despite my indoctrination, I still believed what I was doing was destined to be overtaken by a Youtuber with a high-end sensor in their camera, a bright LED light. But I kept doing it. Now I was part of the club, and I didn't want it to change. I figured it was the end – a previous era – just a taste of what was.
Something though, was keeping things going in Hollywood, even as the industry shifted and productions shrank, moved overseas. The traditions were still fighting to stay alive. Something about the content from our devices, the handheld, messy, chopped together reality TV; it fell flat, passed the time, consumed us, busy, distracted. People were still wanting good movies, watching good movies, and patronizing the movies. It had, and has, forceful staying power.
There was a distinct separation of the off-the-cuff cruft from the good work, the films: the stuff you thought about for days after watching.
In all my absorbed learning of the tools, traditions, and workflows – the plot, the soul of the film – had slipped past me, understood and ignored at the same time. Perhaps if I had gone to university, taken the right elective in the liberal arts, this would be obvious. My reading and watching in the past had these well designed structures and fables find me, novels with carefully crafted stories, but I never questioned why I loved some more than others.
Could it be the reason I enjoyed the movies might not be the music and the flash and style out the window, as much as I might have thought in my youth?
The Plot
I now believe, in watching this unfold and learning from the inside, that crafting the story – be it on-set, in a script, or while you're editing after the fact – is the beautiful and definitive skill that makes a movie great. Combining it with visions and sound and expansive worlds creates magic, which some call cinema.
Instead of learning from experts, going to school, doing this the normal way, it took me, blindfold on, arrogantly charging forward, resources in hand, being rejected, dejected, confused – before I began to see and understand what is obvious in hindsight. I have found that at the end of it all, I love the story, the plot, the connection to us and our realities. Not a child's fantasy, set to a soundtrack out of a window.
Hollywood Forever
I know that I am not the one to predict Hollywood's fate. I know there are a lot more people like me at the gates. It's easier than ever to record something to your device, to light it well, to make it sound hearty and warm, to gracefully clip it together. It's hard to believe sets will always look like they do, or be where they are, with the crew we have now. The tools to connect with the audience, the traditions we hold them with; deeply romantic, necessary, nostalgic.
Everything will probably need to change. But now, as I stare, not out of the window, but at the people around me, and think about who we are to each other, what we want, how we behave, I know our stories aren't going anywhere. And I know the medium of film is still a beautiful way to tell them.
Constructing these stories is a skill, something requiring mastery, not something that can be synthesized. Our tools will continue to improve – but I believe Hollywood, should it stick to the plot, has staying power.
Below is a list of films I have helped with so far, in some capacity, very proudly marking the ones that I produced and worked on deeply: was with from beginning to end, carried gear for, wrote for, contributed to, edited. Where I made many friends, fought many fights, learned many lessons, pieces of language, and ideas.
The projects where I learned that this is so much more than images flashing by, set to music, but stories we are telling, connecting to, and watching on our beautiful, bright, pulsing screens.
Valentina Unreleased · Feature★
A series of bureaucratic mishaps plagues Valentina as she tries to tackle a simple to-do list at the El Paso-Juarez border.
Star Cash Unreleased · Feature★
A filmmaker seeking answers in astrology discovers the hidden world of financial astrology, where market cycles align with celestial patterns.
Good One 2024 · Feature
During a weekend backpacking trip in the Catskills, 17-year-old Sam navigates the clash of egos between her father and his oldest friend.
Row of Life 2025 · Feature
Angela Madsen, a Paralympian and Marine veteran, set out to be the first paraplegic and oldest woman to row the Pacific Ocean alone.
Red, White and Blue 2023 · Short
A poor single mother must go out of state for a necessary abortion.
It's Different for Girls 2025 · Short
In the post-Roe v. Wade United States, scientists are on the cusp of a watershed moment in birth control, the introduction of new, viable male contraceptives.