Making Better Movies on Smaller Budgets

If a movie makes $4 million at the box office, is it a failure?

I the producers spend $20M making it, it's a flop. If they spent $50M, it's a disaster.

But what if the film was made on a budget of $450,000? If you invest $450k on something and get a return of $4M in a year, you'd be pretty happy.

One of my favorite films, Brick (2005), was made for $450k. It was Rian Johnson's first feature film. His cousin composed the soundtrack.

Johnson went on to make big budget films, such as Knives Out and Star Wars: The Last Jedi, but of all of his work, Brick is still my favorite.

I'd like to see more films made on tight budgets. I like to see talented writers, directors, and actors working on projects because they believe more in a script than a paycheck. Even if it's a group of friends shooting in available light on consumer cameras, if the story is good, I'd want to see it.

The entertainment industry craves blockbusters. They want projects that will result in massive paychecks. And so, they make their $50-100M movies, and occasionally those movies give them a huge return on investment. And oftentimes, they flop.

The expectation of a massive payday makes it harder to fund and distribute independent films. That's a problem, because a massive payday requires filling lots of seats. Filling lots of seats requires sticking with ideas that have worked in the past instead of taking a chance on something that no one has ever seen before.

Low budget films are creative and bold.

Big budget films are derivative and formulaic.

Support independent filmmakers, and by all means, if you have an idea for a movie, make it and put it out there. Gather your resources, figure out how to work efficiently, and tell your story. Fresh voices and perspectives are more interesting than bloated Hollywood retreads.

Lies and Irony

It’s ironic that Trump’s Department of Justice has indicted former FBI Director James Comey on the charge of lying to Congress. One could argue that members of Trump’s own cabinet lied during their Senate confirmation hearings.

Attorney General Pam Bondi testified that “no one will be prosecuted, investigated because they are a political opponent.” The indictment of Director Comey can’t be viewed in any context other than political retribution.

Current FBI Director Kash Patel testified that “there is no enemies list” despite having published a book that recommended prosecution of a list of Donald Trump’s political enemies. Patel also testified that no FBI agents would be fired or disciplined for investigating the January 6th riot at the Capitol. This has happened to numerous agents; some are suing for wrongful termination.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. promised Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana that he would keep the CDC’s Vaccine Advisory Board in place. Once confirmed, Kennedy, a noted vaccine skeptic, fired every member of the board and replaced them with unqualified cronies.

The three justices that Trump nominated to the Supreme all testified that Roe v. Wade was “established precedent.” Each of them deliberately ignored that precedent when they had a chance to overturn it (Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization). Whether this rises to the level of “lying to Congress” is debatable, but it clearly was a tactic to make them appear to respect legal precedents by creatively evading the truth about their actual intentions.

The final irony is that Director Comey arguably helped Trump get elected in the first place by announcing publicly just weeks before the 2016 election that the FBI had reopened its investigation of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee for President. It’s not certain that this action was enough to tip the scales in Trump’s favor, but it definitely did damage to Clinton’s campaign and reputation.

Trump should have bought Jim Comey a beer. Instead, he fired him, and now he’s having him prosecuted. Loyalty, for Donald Trump, is always a one-way street.

Photography and Other Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

Where are you from?

Western Pennsylvania. Our sandwiches are subs, not hoagies.

How tall are you?

Not as tall as I used to be.

Why do you take pictures?

The same reason everyone else takes pictures. It’s fun, and it helps us remember things.

What advice would you give to new photographers?

1. Find that gets you excited and photograph that. Passion drives creativity.

2. Hang out with people who know more than you do and prepare to look foolish. If you’re not feeling humiliated from time to time, you’re not growing.

3. Try different things and different styles. Everything you learn will help you.

How would you describe yourself?

I wouldn’t. I already know myself.

Why do you write music?

I love music and I like to create beautiful things, and because I figured out how to do it.

What’s 2 + 2?

An arithmetic expression with a binary operator.

What is the definition of a woman?

If I knew, I might have done better with them.

Do you have any advice for creatives?

Yeah, two things. First, keep it simple. Complexity will slow you down. No one has time to waste.

The second thing is to be fearless. Absolutely fearless. The whole world might think it’s a dumb idea, but you don’t answer to them. You answer to yourself. You’re the only person who’s going to be disappointed if you don’t accomplish your goals. Don’t hold back.

So, creativity is about confidence?

It’s about ignoring anyone who doesn’t appreciate your ideas.

Are you always this snarky?

Only on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Any other advice?

Stay humble and always be learning. The moment you think you have it all figured out, the world will run past you.

Dream 2025-09-03

Dream 2025-09-03

She was an exotic beauty in her late thirties with olive-skin, a nice body, and an air of sophistication. Her shoulder-length raven hair was dominated by a loose wave. We didn’t speak much during out time together.

Afterward, I was compelled to explain our interaction, first to her father, a short, well-dressed gentleman with an ascot, who might have been from Italy or Greece or Lebanon. Thankfully, he was good-natured. Our conversation was brief and respectful.

Next came the guy, the one who thinks she loves him even though she doesn’t give a damn, a frat boy with blond hair and a trust-fund attitude. He was aggressive verbally and physically.

“She doesn’t even like you,” I scoffed in an indignant tone as I dodged a chair that he threw at me.

Eventually, the frat brat gave up and stomped off.

I was asked to speak with a blonde woman named Kathy, someone I worked with years ago. She was upset, but not by me or my fling with the exotic brunette. Something else was bothering her. Her friends asked if I could help calm her down.

I agreed, but they said she went to her office. It wasn’t a work day, but her company was hosting an event for the employees.

I was relieved. I made amends where I could and did what I could do. The dream came to an uneventful end.

Light A Candle

The United States of America is failing to protect its children. Politicians love to go on TV and talk about all sort of threats to children, real and imagined, but when it comes to addressing the REAL danger, they hide in their office for fear of upsetting a powerful lobby that represents a small part of the population.

I am not anti-firearm. Countries that ban firearms are not always safer than the USA. Japan is safer. Mexico is not.

But something has to be done. Some changes must be made, because the system we have now is GETTING KIDS KILLED.

It’s time to stop pretending. It’s time to stop blaming mental health. There are mentally ill people all over the world. Only the US has rampant mass shootings in schools.

It’s time to stop pretending that we are safer when anyone can buy as many guns as they want. I understand that some people are really attached to their guns and that the vast majority of gun owners don’t commit violent crimes.

But we have to face the fact that within our society live a significant number of people who dream of committing mass murder. That is an inescapable fact. And as long as we cannot determine in advance who those people are, although there are often clues, we need to come up with a system that slows them down when they attempt to arm themselves in preparation for a mass casualty event.

I don’t claim to have the answers, but I know, and you know, that if nothing is done, more children will die.

Adventures In Recycling

Early in my career, I worked on a large project with consultants from a well-known firm, a company whose name started with A. After the Enron scandal, Company A rebranded to a different name which also starts with A.

Company A was leading the project, so we worked side by side with their people. I sat in a room with three of the A consultants, collegial young fellows who enjoyed talking about sports and sharing movie quotes. We got along pretty well; they invited me out for drinks a few times.

Another consultant from Company A was young lady named Holly. Holly’s desk was elsewhere on the floor, but she stopped by our room frequently. One of the guys was her boyfriend.

In our room, not far from my desk, was a recycling bin for papers. One day, Holly threw trash from her lunch into the bin. I mentioned to her calmly and politely that the bin was for papers. Trash should be tossed elsewhere.

There was a tense silence in the room. Holly didn’t acknowledge my comment. No, “Oh, I didn’t realize that.” Just silence.

Boyfriend didn’t take this well. For the next hour, he raided file cabinets all through the building, bringing back ream after ream of paper which he threw violently into the recycling bin. He’d disappear for a few minutes and return with more paper. Slam! Right into the bin!

When the bin was stacked to the top with what must have been fifty or sixty pounds of paper, Boyfriend brought two coffee pots from the cafeteria and dumped the coffee into the recycle bin. It was a huge mess. None of the paper could be recycled.

I can only guess at Boyfriend’s intentions. Perhaps he thought that he was teaching me a lesson for daring to criticize his squeeze. It was the most unprofessional behavior I have ever seen.

Every time I see an ad for Company A, I still think of that guy. “Hire us. We’ll run your project, quote ‘White Men Can’t Jump’ all day long, and if you criticize us, we’ll act like angry toddlers.”

Let's Solve A Puzzle!

Let’s solve a puzzle! Here are the clues.

1. The administration deported hundreds of migrants and asylum seekers to a country that is not their country of origin. This seemed random. Why would they do that, and why were these people given no due process before being shipped off to a foreign prison?

2. The president signed an executive order ending birthright citizenship. This seems frivolous, as it’s a right guaranteed in the US constitution, but the supreme court has already ruled against provisions in the same amendment. They could do it again. They used this case to ban federal judges from issuing nationwide injunctions. When a president issues an illegal order, it will be more difficult for the courts to block it.

3. After numerous legal battles, the supreme court ruled that the president does indeed have the authority to deport people to random countries.

4. The president publicly threatened to strip Americans of their citizenship and deport them. This raises the stakes considerably. Now, in addition to deporting non-citizens to random countries, they want to extend this practice to US citizens. If the high court rules that citizens can be stripped of their citizenship, this will not only be possible, but it can be expedited.

5. The bill recently passed by the congress massively increases funding for immigration agents and detention centers, a.k.a. concentration camps.

6. Project 2025 suggests that the US population should be limited to 100 million. Currently, there are 350 million US citizens. How are they planning to reduce the number to 100 million? 

The logical conclusion is that the administration, at the behest of Project 2025, plans to reduce the population of the US dramatically through all available means, including denaturalizing and deporting citizens.

Political Violence

When DJT came down the escalator to announce his political career ten years ago, I notice two things.

1. His wife was in front of him on the escalator

Every gentleman knows that the woman must be ABOVE the man on a staircase, so he can catch her if she stumbles. When a couple descends a staircase together, the man goes first. Trump flunked Man School.

2. The campaign was defined by demagoguery

DJT immediately launched into a series of unfounded smears about immigrants from Latin America, calling them criminals, rapists, and drug smugglers. Later he would claim that Latin American countries were emptying their prisons and mental institutions and sending “the worst of the worst” to our country.

Immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than US-born citizens, but Trump and his supporters in right-wing media have perpetuated the myth of the “dangerous immigrant” as a way of scaring their base into supporting his authoritarian policies.

The Irony is that there’s a real problem in Latin America that Trump failed to mention: political violence. Run for mayor in Mexico, and a drug cartel will probably try to kill you. It’s dangerous to be a politician in Latin America.

And yet, the lasting legacy of the Trump presidencies is political violence:

- The siege of the US Capitol on January 6

- Speaker Pelosi’s husband attacked in his own home

- Democratic politicians shot in Minnesota

- Two attempts made on DJT’s life

- Arson at Tesla dealerships

- The plot to kidnap the Governor of Michigan

- Arson at the PA Governor’s Mansion on Passover

- Cars ramming crowds in New Orleans, Charlottesville, et al.

- A mass shooting at the July 4 parade in Highland Park, Illinois

Harsh rhetoric, conspiracy theories, and demonization of the other have brought us to this point. How will we find our way back to sanity?

Random Thoughts - 20250507

Random Thoughts - 20250507

My name is Daniel. I’m 185 centimeters tall. I’m one of the people who graduated from my high school. My zodiac sign is among my twelve favorites, but I’m guessing that yours is, too.

I prefer the Jim Phelps version of Mission: Impossible to the Ethan Hunt version. Stunts don’t add to the story.

The Naked Gun is one of my favorite comedies despite the fact that no one gets naked, and despite one glaring casting issue.

I like to travel, but I’ve never been to Morocco. I have nothing against Morocco; a trip there just hasn’t risen to the top of my to do list.

“Walking In Memphis” is one of my favorite songs. I haven’t been to Memphis either. Occasionally, I imagine walking there and writing a song about it.

I didn’t care for broccoli or lima beans when I was a kid, but I’ll eat them now. I like most vegetables, but I’m not vegan. If you are, I’d prefer not to discuss it.

I watch lots of news, but I don’t spend time thinking about the price of eggs. I can’t remember the last time I bought one. It’s difficult to imagine needing twelve of them.

I once saw a UFO while driving on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. I was driving. The UFO was flying off to my right, heading in the same direction but faster. It was daylight, but no one seemed to notice. Noticing things is a lost art.

I’m fairly open-minded, but I believe that authoritarianism is universally awful. I doubt that anyone would be able to convince me otherwise.

Good people die too soon. Bad people have a long shelf life. I don’t know why that is, but it complicates history.

The Chinese zodiac is also based on the number 12. That strikes me as an unlikely coincidence.

Lies

The pat exaggerations

That shape the way we live

The blame and accusations

We’re oft prepared to give

Convenient excuses

We store on private shelves

The most corrosive lies

Are the ones we tell ourselves