Movie Magic

I swear I’m like a little kid when it comes to watching movies. I still love going to the movies, watching them at home, and reading about them at work. It never gets old to me and I never want it to. I was scared that the magic of viewing movies would go away when I first moved out here and started working as a PA on sets. When most people are around all the drama, stress, and other bullshit that goes into making a film, they tend to think of only that when they are watching the movie. I worked my way up from production assistant and eventually started directing. I’ve had a few disagreeing moments with people on my sets that turned into small fights. But, because of those fights we pushed harder to get the shots, resolve our differences, and make a brilliant movie that we all believed in.

Believing in a movie is everything to me. Studio X makes anywhere from 8 to 12 movies a year, and I only direct one of them. I get first pick from the scripts as they come in and always pick the one I believe in the most. People often assume that I pick the one that’s going to bring in the most money, but that’s not the case. At this stage in the game I don’t care about that. I’m CEO and Co-Chairman of this place; I’ll see money from all the films no matter how little I’m involved.

In an effort to remain anonymous, I can’t really say which movies I have picked in the past years versus the scripts I’ve passed down to up-and-coming directors. I usually pass on comedies, unless it’s something extremely clever like Little Miss Sunshine, or Stranger Than Fiction. I also always pass on comic book movies. Those things will effortlessly make their money back from the books already existing fan base, and I don’t want to be held accountable for their virginity any more than I have to. Chick Flicks and Romantic Comedies are also a no go. I can’t involve myself with a film that will only work depending on how bad the audience actually wants to see those two actors having sex.

That leaves everything in-between for me. I like things that are different. So I will pick a script that could either suck really badly in the hands of someone who didn’t know what they were doing, or be total genius if crafted by someone who cared about it and believed it could be great. That’s how I got where I am today. I take a stack of papers with words on them, and turn it into a visual masterpiece that everyone can appreciate. That’s weird that I said that, I just received an email from Friend and the subject title was “Visual Masterpeice.” However, I’m sure it’s just another forwarded video clip from pornbloopers.com.

AJ