I've loved reading Kat Candler's blogs about the ups and downs of filmmaking. She's realistic, and I like that. I need that. For example, she goes on about how when she made her first feature the Weinsteins were calling her asking for screeners and she was so excited and then she made her second movie and realized the Weinsteins call everyone and ask for screeners.

But good grief. If I'd known in 1999 how hard it is to write a screenplay would I ever have attempted it? Never mind how hard it is to sell it and/or get it made. For my first attempt I sat down and tried to write a big historical movie about some country I'd never been to just because I was a little inspired by some stuff I'd heard from a relative. Since I knew zero about that time period and less about the country, the screenplay was terrible. It went on like 40 pages and then just sort of stopped.
And so did I.

(Whiny voice:) It's too HARD. Screenplays have too much STRUCTURE. I can't write something that LONG....

That summer I was determined: I'd take whatever plot came into my head. Something commercial. And just go to Cape Cod (we were going to Cape Cod anyway-- Cape Cod isn't part of some magical formula you need to write a screenplay...) and sit down and write as much as I could. Just add plot, plot, plot until I had 120 pages or so.

So I did. AND I DID!
I wrote a whole screenplay.
Man, did it suck.
But I did it. And it was fun!
No reason you can't.

And the same for making movies. I haven't been to film school. I don't understand Fstops. But when I realized I was going to move to Austin and no one had ever made a movie about Frank Allison & the Odd Sox yet I realized I had to get cracking.
So I did.
I didn't know Frank. I didn't know any Odd Sox. I didn't even know their names. In fact, I couldn't even find a complete published version of any of their albums. I'd had them, but I couldn't find them. (They were always better live!) I could only find a mix tape I'd made. No liner notes, nothing. So I went to the library and checked out their PIG OUT album, read the liner notes and grabbed a phone book. One magical day I was determined to get things started. The only person whose phone number I had was the drummer. Yikes! (Drummers are scary. They're cool (yikes!) and perhaps a tad violent? (double yikes!) But he was the only person whose number I had. So I called. And he was home! I yammered on about my plan for a short documentary-- there was a Shaky Jake documentary at Liberty Video. Why shouldn't there be a Frank Allison and the Odd Sox documentary? And lo and behold he was excited and he agreed to do it! And he gave me names and phone numbers of more people to call!

Now I've made a movie. A short. It's not Scorcese. But it's made. No reason you can't!
That first historical family script is still 40 pages of blech. But then I wrote another one. And that script where I just started writing plot and so on ended up doing decently in a contest. And my next script- set in a country and time period I DO know about- won a contest! So hey! Sometimes people moan and groan about how hard things are but you'll never get anywhere if you don't get started. Put one foot in front of the other. And soon you'll be walking cross the floor!