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There is a certain air of desperation in Hollywood, an exhaling of dreams too great for the hills to absorb – and the truth of the matter is that on the other side of the studio gates, nobody cares. The recent history of independent film is as old as the Roman empire assimilating cultures in the Middle East, as new as skateboard counterculture being commercialized by MTV, and as simple as Walmart buying out JimBob’s Convenience Store. The independent film movement born out of admiration for rogue 70’s filmmakers fertilized by new cultural perspectives blossomed at Sundance in the 1990s, and has been cut, dyed and sold in the grocery store by mini-majors in the last five years. One global credit crisis later, the feeling of being overstocked and drying out in the trash bin in the back of a giant warehouse is palpable. It’s a 3-D Starbucks Time Warner world.

And yet, film schools continue to create a new crop of independent-minded filmmakers with enough technical savvy to conquer the changing production models, giving up celluloid dearly but without looking back. And self-taught auteurs crowd the filmmakers’ and editors’ ranks, working unconventionally, finding new ways to live and create media, new ways to thread the same old needle.  And every month out here in Los Angeles, there are more of us, working in and around this industry.

I recently turned five years old, in LA years. I work as an editor on a TV show, and I just finished my first feature film, (How I Got Lost). On the one hand it’s satisfying to have gotten where I wanted to go. However, starting over, turning out fresh pages and talking about new projects has been slightly paralyzing. I wonder: what else do I have left? What do I want to do now?

For the past month or two, I have been spending a lot of time over many drinks with my producer/editor/filmschool comrade-in-arms Sam Mestman and actress/artist/enthusiast Tara Samuel trying to figure out exactly what we can do, considering the current state of indie film. It’s a Facebook RED camera post-independent do-it-for-the-love-of-it world. Since we are not a distribution company, production company or a cable network, we have focused on the one thing that is nearly free. And the amazing thing is that worn out, broken down, banged up filmmakers and actors like us can still find inspiration through this one thing.

Work. Without a paycheck, without a timetable.

We are doing readings. Twice a month at a small Hollywood theatre we read four 15-page pieces. We cast it. We talk about it afterwords. In a way it’s a support group and kind of therapeutic. The same way an athlete takes batting practice, that companies send executives to seminars, it is our exercise.  D.A. Pennebaker once said to me, “If you’re a filmmaker, you should make movies, all the time.” Thus, we’ve named our group, WE MAKE MOVIES.

The NEW independent film movement will come out of this kind of love and enthusiasm, and it may be under the radar for some years, but we are encouraged that we can continue to be artists and create our brand of filmmaking in the comfort of our own independent Hollywood home.

For more information, join WE MAKE MOVIES (our group page) on facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=184607180054