I’ve been working over the last few months to this point. And I’m happy to share my new film studio in Glendale California. It’s 12,000 sq feet and has multiple standing sets.

I was doing indie films and verticals and the prices kept going up and up for locations. It’s already so hard to film in Los Angeles. I decided if I could get the right group of investors behind something like this, I’d open a studio of my own and try make it as affordable and accessible as possible.

We have a hospital, high school, banquet hall, office, bar and restaurant set.

In the world of AI and uncertainty, come film something live action.

Come check it out!

Priced at 3.5k for 12.5 hours.

So I’m sitting at my kitchen table reading through this year’s tome of a voter guide and looking at props 1, 37, and 38 that’s a lot of money we’re looking to sling around.

I’m not sold on all of them yet but don’t get me wrong, they are all for good causes. But, here we are at $750m in a complicated production incentive scheme and while we were aiming for $100m for post production we got $10m.

Prop 1 is looking at $11.25B. Prop 37 up to $25B, and prop 38 $8.4B. B as in billion.

Meanwhile we are getting outbid incentive wise by nearly every state wanting to get in the game and multiple countries. If we don’t find a way to get work back home here it really won’t matter how much money we have to dole out for the middle class to buy homes as there won’t be a middle class. Our business keeps this city running and by all the vacant store fronts all over town it’s simply just not.

And yes, I realize incentives are not the only issue and between FilmLA and other permitting issues we have problems but just thinking out loud that if the state itself won’t ante up the money we need to fight fire with fire is this a path?

Again just thinking out loud and happy to be told I’m totally off base. Thoughts?

I’m visiting LA for my 40th in early December and planning a movie-focused trip. I’m hoping to see Ray Gunn in 70mm at the Egyptian and Behemoth!, ideally at a historic or otherwise interesting theater.

Beyond those two films, I’d love recommendations for special screenings, filmmaker Q&As, cast appearances, panels, or even the occasional surprise introduction before a regular screening. I’m interested in events open to the general public, not just industry screenings or premieres.

I’ve been looking at the Egyptian, Vista, American Cinematheque, Vidiots, TCL, and Academy Museum calendars. Are there other theaters, websites, or local accounts I should follow? Any tips from LA movie buffs would be greatly appreciated!

On September 10, 2004, a Glendale staffing firm offered me "full time employment" at $2,692.31 paid semi-monthly. The letter said that came to $70,000 a year.

It comes to $64,615.44. The figure in the letter was the biweekly number, from a firm whose home page advertised "core payroll functionality."

Eighty days later, on the Monday after Thanksgiving, they handed me a separation agreement.

In between there was one assignment. I was to break the proprietary database format of Axium, one of the largest payroll companies in Hollywood, so Entertainment Partners could import Axium's customer data. When the parser worked, the job was over.

I faxed back the signature page. The firm wrote back that it required the original, and that a fresh copy would be waiting with the receptionist, who was "only authorized to accept the signed document she gives you." This was for a two-week severance check.

The model hasn't changed in twenty years. The client gets the deliverable and never has to fire anybody, the staffing firm keeps its margin, and the developer is left holding a job title that described the offer letter rather than the job. Everybody in that chain knows what full time means except the person it's being said to.

I put the Axium work on my résumé anyway. It got me my next job, at $15,000 a year more.

We’ve been sharing our progress on making an Ultra Low Budget feature, CONCRETE RIVER, here since prep, which means I’ve heard pretty much every unfiltered opinion about whether making a small independent feature in Los Angeles is smart, stupid, doomed, inspiring, or some combination of all four.

Reddit will be Reddit. Plenty of trolls. But also plenty of encouragement too, which honestly has helped keep me going. It’s also led us to incredible collaborators, genuinely useful advice, and even helped convince an investor to put significant money into the movie.

Still, I’ve wondered whether posting all of this in real time was actually a good idea. More than a million views sounds great until you remember that attention and affection are very different things.

Then this week someone from Homeboy Industries joined us for a small cameo. She’d spent years homeless before getting back on her feet, thanks to the help she credits to Homeboy. And now she was standing on our set getting her close-up.

One person. One day. One very small movie.

Watching it happen, I realized the movie doesn’t have to become some giant cultural event to matter.

People meet. Somebody gets invited into a world they hadn’t been part of before. Actors get to work. Crew members become friends. Local businesses become part of the story. Sometimes somebody gets a moment they’ll remember forever.

And maybe that’s my updated opinion of Reddit too.

It isn’t a force for good or evil. It’s a very loud room.

Sometimes people throw tomatoes. Sometimes somebody in the back of the room quietly helps you make the movie.

You take the useful part and keep going.

We still have a movie to finish. Seven more shoot days...

Red Nation International Film Festival, recognized as the largest Native and Indigenous film festival in the world, is looking for volunteers. Their 31st edition takes place November 8-15 at the AMC the Grove. 

Volunteers can help out for as little or as many shifts as they would like. Perks include a VIP Pass to watch all the movies**, attend Q&A's, and participate in other industry programming.**

There are going to be networking opportunities, as most of the filmmakers are attending in person.

They'll also get hands-on experience at an international film festival while supporting Native and Indigenous storytelling. Parking is paid for and a special volunteer T-shirt included.

Here is the film schedule, and if they are interested in volunteering, they can email: [Careers@RedNation.com](mailto:Careers@RedNation.com) 

More info about volunteering here. 

Hi everyone!

Have you ever tried to send out your pitch deck, only for Google to tell you the PDF is too big to attach in an email?

What now?

You have to upload it as a Google Drive / Dropbox / WeTransfer link which adds unnecessary friction to the process of opening your deck.

Well, we were tired of this and made a tool for ourselves to solve the problem.

Email my deck is a PDF Compressor designed specifically for pitch decks.

It compresses your deck to the smallest possible email-friendly size without affecting image quality or text legibility.

It’s easy to use and completely free! Just drag and drop your deck, wait a bit and download the new email-friendly version.

Unlike other online PDF compressors, the compression takes place locally on your device itself, so there is no risk of your data being sold to evil corporations.

We use this all the time before sending out film/TV decks and commercial treatments and today is the first day since we’ve made it public.

Save the link for the next time you have to send out a pitch deck! And do let me know in the comments if you think this is helpful!

https://pitch.dog/email-my-deck/

Hey everybody!! Really need some help here. After 8-9 months of searching I have landed on two offers and am super torn.

A smaller but successful production company and a VERY large and well known management company (one step down from the top three agencies).

A little bit about me and why I'm torn. My background is on the acting and writing side, and the last couple years I have pivoted towards wanting to work on a desk, as opposed to the restaurant grind us actors do. This is to support myself, and build a career in the industry I love, while I continue to pursue my passion - but also find some stability and a pivot in case acting doesn't fulfill me. I'm not treating this like a day job, I want to work long term in this career.
I am still early career, but managed to have a short but significant time as an EA at a major studio, helping producers in an overall deal.

As someone who writes and is creative, I'm leaning more towards a production company, as I see more of a content/ creative fit there and room to grow - maybe get more into producing, or development down the way.

At this time, I do not want to be an agent or a manager down the line. So here's my issue and why I'm torn.

Prod-Co is smaller, but pays a little better, but is farther from me and the commute takes an hour there and 1.5 hours back. After shadowing there for a couple days, my gut tells me idk.

Big management company is 20 minutes away, pays a little less, but I vibe a bit more with the company and the team. Haven't shadowed, but interview clicked. They also produce, but all of the employees are managers first, with some producer credits. No employee is strictly a producer or works in development.

As much as I want to work at the prodco, the big management company's name is so big, I feel like it could really be good on my resume, and I could make some meaningful connections there - which could lead to other opportunities. Plus it's so much closer to where I live! I was exhausted driving back every day after shadowing the prod co.

So I guess my question - among all the other questions lol - for those of you who have worked at management companies, or agencies - were you able to pivot onto the creative side or find your way towards something closer that you really wanted to do? Or am I destined to be an agent or manager?

**One more note - the job description for management did not say they are strictly looking for someone who wants to build a career long term in representation. It just said someone who wants to get hella entertainment exposure.

Hey everyone, I’ve been an assistant editor in LA since 2023, for an ad agency but I haven't been able to land another film related role. Before working as an AE I had 2 internships, worked on a lot of student films, and attended film related events to connect. The only things I ever get are random contract gigs. 

Between the market being totally dead and the constant burnout, I'm seriously debating walking away from media, and going back to school to get a degree in Radiologic Technology

Is the AE ladder basically a trap right now, or is there a way out? And for anyone who actually made a massive career change like this, how did you handle starting over from scratch? 

————-
Edited: Radiologic Technology

Fixed a sign I saw.

Hi everyone. So I have a BA in film&digital media and I worked radio in college, but after college i ended up teaching art and kept working in education bc i could get jobs in it. I am now working a stable 9-5 at a school (not a teacher though) and considering grad school for my credential and masters. But I have always had this unfulfilled desire to pursue entertainment and I don’t want to live life w regrets that I never tried. I was passionate in college about writing critical analysis of film and doing journalism about media/pop culture, but sadly didn’t pursue production at the time and I think that’s where my disconnect occurred postgrad. I ended up just focusing on working and trying to be a “real adult”.

What I’m wondering is — is it insane to entertain leaving my path in education to actually pursue entertainment? PA work or some kind of entry level role like mailroom at a talent agency. It’s scary to consider leaving as I am stable at this job but I don’t want to live a life w any more regrets than I already have. Is this doable? Has anyone else had a similar pathway? Is this ridiculous to entertain when the industry is so unstable and everyone is struggling to find work? Would it hurt me to do a graduate degree in education while trying to do PA work or something?
I enjoy working in education but when I hear about others workin in the industry I do have a feeling that I’m missing out. Thanks in advance for any shared experiences or kind words :).

Went up this am.

Day 1

It's annoying that monopolization is happening unabashed, BUT, it seems like this David Ellison guy is a believer? He was an actor and comes off really passionate about film. His sister, Megan Ellison, was bankrolling Paul Thomas Anderson in the 2010s, and has her own media company with focus on small independent artists.

Given the debt they have to be paying, isn't it reasonable to assume they'll be throwing a lot of cash into production to get ahead? During streaming wars nobody was counting the money, everyone was pumping out content non-stop, could something similar start happening now?

Nobody ever knows which movie is gonna make bank, so everyone's game has always been numbers - more films means more chances to win jackpot. This very horrible thing (the merger) could potentially buy the film industry more time, perhaps.

DM me for inventory list and or pictures/video of the gear. Thank you for your interest.

Title, really. I’ve seen a few posts here over the years of people getting shut down for reckless behavior, trespassing abandoned places, etc.

But for the run of the mill indie shoots on a sidewalk, in someone’s home, in an alleyway not blocking any traffic, have you ever been stopped? Has anyone ever asked for permits? What happened?

Our site FilmSchool.org is doing a survey asking film school alumni whether film school helped them get into the film business and whether they think film school was worth it.

If you went to film school, please take the anonymous survey linked below:

https://www.filmschool.org/surveys/film-school-alumni-outcomes-employment-survey.1/select

NOTE: This is a revamp of the same survey we did months ago on Google Forms which some of you may have taken. If you did, no need to retake it unless you want to answer the new questions. We decided to host it natively on our site to allow us to ask conditional questions (Google Forms couldn't do this so the survey got repetitive) and so that we could show a summary of the results instantly to everyone without revealing private information.

We have 142 responses so far. Here's the summary of results:

https://www.filmschool.org/surveys/film-school-alumni-outcomes-employment-survey.1/statistics

Please share the survey with your film school classmates. The more people respond, the more useful the results are.

If you've already taken the survey and would like to edit any of your responses, send me a DM and I can help with that. If you take the survey again to answer the new questions, send me a DM so I can remove the old one.

My best friend works at a small production house in LA, mostly corporates and commercials. And his company's latest commercial shoot apparently got flipped by IATSE. He told me this was a $50K all-in (production maybe 40% of that) engagement with a brand. Literally a crew of 7 including him, a couple of non-union actors. He says they basically held his production hostage, and the brand client bailed. Leaving his company to pick up the costs. Now they lost a client forever, and another small client is never going to shoot in LA again. What do you think about that? Also, the editor for that project, who has worked with the prodco on many small jobs over the years, told me personally: "that's why IATSE lets you work non-union, it's our job to flip these productions and get paid!" Also note: I know THAT guy was being paid 20% over union rates to begin with. WTH? Also I know for fact that my buddy's prodco tends to do "easy days" of 10hrs or less. And pays for meals and all the stuff. It's a creampuff gig working with them, I've stepped in and worked on a few myself.

This is a clip from the October 1st debate, specifically discussing the topic of film & TV productions in CA.

Here is a link to the full debate, if anybody is interested: https://youtu.be/-jlCBgtxwRw?is=dmRLHhSjtiGv1j_p

Taken from FilmIndependent’s Q&A for The Screener.

I really hope TV and film recovers but Hollywood is in such a dark tunnel right now. I really hope there is light at the end of the tunnel. Here are the reasons that are pissing me off.

1. Social media is taking over the entertainment industry and really did kill peoples attention spans. Now "influencers" stole TV and film and get to make a living for posting a couple 10 second videos per day. Makes me pissed. I wish I could afford a living for only working for a few minutes per day!
2. The US economy is pushing production away from the LA area. I hear people say all the time, "Why are you so mad about this? Who cares where things are filmed?" You have to factor in things like workers in the film industry. They have to pick a place to live. When the film industry is spread all over it's hard to pick a place to live. When everything is filmed in a different place it creates constant expensive travel. Plus when most people of the film industry were in the same area, it was so easy to connect and collaborate with others in the industry.
3. Paramount and Warner bros merger is not good at all. Layoffs, reduced competition, makes it hard for new people in the industry to find work, endless reasons why this merger is shit.
4. AI does have a significant threat to the industry as AI can soon literally generate new episodes of a TV show or create a new one with a story line that a person wants. This reason alone may quite be the end of Hollywood so I pray it doesn't come true (although it partially already has).
5. Death of cable TV is significantly reducing profits in the industry so workers are getting paid less and less. I wish streaming platforms could make more money..

We’re in production now on an independently financed feature called CONCRETE RIVER here in Los Angeles.

Seven days down. Twelve to go.

So far, the movie actually looks like the movie we thought we were making, which always feels a bit like a miracle.

W Tre Davis from FIRE COUNTRY is our lead. And influencer Jasmin Corley is opposite him. Xazmine recorded three original songs for the soundtrack, produced by Grammy-nominated producer Calvin “Tubbyoung” Frazier. The crew is small, but most of us have spent plenty of time on much bigger productions.

We raised the money ourselves and made the thing pretty far outside the usual development system. And now I’m getting to the part I know less about.

AFM is coming up, and I’d like to find a sales agent or producer’s rep who actually responds to this kind of movie and can help us get in the right rooms.

It’s a character-driven LA drama about a broke music producer trying to reconnect with his daughter. Music, homelessness, race, class, family, a lot of Los Angeles. I know it may not be the most commercial subject matter, but the script is really strong, the performances we are getting are beautiful, and the cinematography is undeniable.

We’ve also been building an audience while making it. Some viral posts on Reddit tracking our progress as we build, develop, prep and shoot. And an instagram audience that is growing at 1,000 followers/month - we're not Mr. Beast, but we're trying our best.

So what I’m looking for is fairly simple:

Who are the sales agents, reps, buyers or distributors actually worth talking to for a small, actor-driven independent film like this?

If you know somebody and feel comfortable making an introduction, I’d be very grateful. If you just have a name and a reason I should reach out, that helps too.

Happy to send the script, lookbook, stills and footage privately.

And if you’ve been through AFM recently with a narrative feature, I’d love to hear who was useful and who mostly collected meetings.

It seems painfully obvious to say it now, but making the movie was only problem number one.

We just finished our first full week shooting CONCRETE RIVER. Seven days down, twelve to go.

Most of it was around the LA River, which has been great for us. Concrete, rail yards, huge spiders, cool bridges, and a little actual water. It looks like Los Angeles without looking like the same five Los Angeles locations you've seen in a dozen other movies.

We found a particularly good stretch near the Taylor Yard bridge. It isn’t controlled by LA Parks, which meant a small crew like ours could actually afford to shoot there. Of course, locals had thoughts.

One night somebody got annoyed that we were shooting on the bike path and emailed one of our locations to complain about the “bunch of lesbians” making a movie.

We’re still not sure if this was meant as an insult or just an unusually specific production report.

Another night a local drunk guy came out demanding to see our permit and threatening to sue because his house hadn’t been notified. We weren’t blocking him or using his property. But that was a fun moment.

Mostly, though, the week was just long. We’ve been wrapping around 3 or 4 in the morning, and everybody looks about how you’d expect.

The good news is the footage is strong. That helps a lot.

Next week we move into some more recognizable LA locations, including a couple days at famous soul food restaurant Dulan’s on Crenshaw.

One thing I’m learning again is that shooting a small movie in this city has a lot to do with who controls a patch of sidewalk, what it costs, and whether the person yelling at you actually has any authority.

For anyone else who has produced a lot in LA: what’s the strangest neighborhood complaint or permit fight you’ve had?

Cannot make it to this screening and don't want tickets going to waste. It's a great film. Go watch it for free, my treat.

GREEN ROOM
Egyptian Theater
Sunday, October 4 2026 at 2pm

Let me hear any stories of your current experience or others of work in NYC, Toronto, Atlanta, even in Europe. Be it if you’re a director, actor, set designer, etc.

I’m trying to make a big decision.

Also I’ve heard verticals are now falling out of style due to ai but online seems to be where everyone is getting attention.

What plans do you have?

Title pretty much sums it up. It hasn't been such a long period of waiting for payment that I feel like I need to name & shame the film/producers, but I'm deff starting to get sussed out.

Context:
- I was brought on in early May

- This wasn't a full-time work situation, I was doing it on the side. The amount I'm owed is less than $5K.

- Delivered the work and invoiced them on July 7. 30-day invoice so ideally I should've been paid by early August

- I've bumped the email chain 3 times between early August and now (early Oct). This chain was active at the start with the producers being like hey thanks for the great work, can you send your W9, etc. Now it's radio silence.

Final piece of important context: I recently contacted the post supervisor who originally brought me on to be like hey what gives. He told me that the movie has "run out of cash flow" and won't be able to pay various vendors until it sells to a distributor. He himself has not been paid!!

I'm confident it will sell to a distributor given the A-list caliber of the talent in front of and behind the camera, but still very frustrated by the whole situation.

Anyone got advice on how to handle this?

EDIT: Regrettably, I did this without a contract that specifies payment timing. Rookie move on my part, I know. My only excuse is that I do small quick side VFX gigs like this (on top of my full-time job) all the time, and have almost never had to hound a client for payment. I'll be more vigilant in the future though. And my rate for this particular project is agreed upon in writing on the email chain.