What scares you in today’s Hollywood movies are the big budget, notable celebrities, exhausted locations and endless special effects. When it gets down to the final stages of making a movie, the information is simply cut and dry. Any person graduating from high school should be able to comprehend it. Now, should you go to film school or just break into Hollywood without any course of action? Do you want to be a talent, a producer or a director? If you're going into filmmaking or looking for filmmaking courses to get yourself on the road to Hollywood, but you are not sure where to go, here is the cut to the chase information.
Do not be mesmerized by the glamour or the media build up. After all, they want their prestige preserved so others won’t be able to compete with them. All I am saying, if you believe in yourself and you have the tenacity and the basic know how, just go ahead and produce your first film. You want to be a well-known film producer; you must get your feet wet first. No one in the beginning starts with a mega budget production. My approach by using my Jeet Kune Do principles will cut to the chase and show you how.
There are no secrets in making a film. Making a film does not require one to understand physics like Einstein or a medical doctor that needs to know about 100 prescription drugs by memory, the individual dosage and all the possible side effects he needs to avoid when prescribing it to his patients. A traditional film school takes four years to complete. Such as the UCLA and USC film schools. However, graduating with honors may make you and your parents proud of you, but it does not instantaneously make you a well-known film producer. This applies especially in hip-hop Hollywood Tinsel town where exploitation and fabricated reviews are part of the daily operation to keep certain people in and certain people out. Now, I went to film school. However, I was not doing it to get a degree or to make my parents proud.
RULE #1
In Jeet Kune Do you cut to the chase and learn the basic elements of combat, to punch, kick, grab and throw.
I learned whatever I could to understand the nuts and bolts of making a film. Which are the following: WHO IS IN HOLLYWOOD. Breaking into Hollywood, knowing the who’s who. PRE-PRODUCTION. Registering your idea, copyrights, packaging, budgeting. PRODUCTION: Hiring professionals, auditioning, star power, assembling the team, shooting on schedule and on budget. POST PRODUCTION: editing, ADR, music, prescreening, publicity, film rights, selling your films, distribution deals, social media, and reviews. Once you learn the know-how, implement it and start preparing for your first film. Don’t sleep on it.
RULE #2
In Jeet Kune Do, the distance from point A to point B is a straight line, you attack by going straight to the target.
Which is, how I produced 13 pictures by understanding the film industry and I bypassed a lot of hurdles using the above principles. While others may wait forever until the budget and the production are cleared, I would try to find ways to make it happen sooner. That means, there will be times when you would have to wait for the opportunity. But you must launch your action the first instance that opportunity presents itself.
RULE #3
Keeping the techniques, fast, accurate and powerful yet being simple, direct and effective.
Assemble your production team with one goal in mind. Finish the movie on schedule, do not be wasteful, making sure there are no possible delays, difficult stars or difficult directors that impede your progress. Assign people to do the things that they have passion for as well as the know-how. By pass all forecasted barriers. Don’t beat around the bush, be motivating to the whole team collectively with the goal of finishing the movie with zest and a sense of quality. You should have a backup plan should any of your plans fail. Knowing that there will also be some failures, expect it, modify and keep the production going.
So, there you have it. That’s the Jeet Kune Do way of of film making.
Aside from Jeet Kune Do ways to film making, I also want to quote an ancient and I think it is also a modern Chinese saying:
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”
Well…making your first film is that single step.
PS - If you are in Los Angeles in August 16-19, I am hosting a screening of my new film “Gung Fu, JKD & MMA” as well as some other JKD and filmmaking seminars during this time. I hope you can join me. You can reserve tickets here.
If you would like to learn more about attending my film school seminar click below: