We all gamble one way or the other.
I live in the only place in Texas where there’s a casino, and I know many avid gamblers including my beautiful wife.
Today she opened the doors to her new business.
It’s a learning center. A place where kids can learn and have fun. A place where adults can learn either English or Spanish. Teenagers can improve their algebra or reading.

This business had been in her head for many years, but she never had the money for it. Or maybe she had the money and the thought of investing gambling on a new business seemed too scary, too damn risky.

When she finally took the step to quit her job (as a college professor), to take care of our son (full time), she suddenly got her last check ($10,000) and after months of talking about a business, she finally took the plunge and rented a place, invested gambled thousands of dollars and created a place exactly how she envisioned a learning place should be.

Was she successful? YES.

On the first day she opened her website (the place was still in the works), she had filled a whole summer camp session (without any advertising).

The lesson: We all have to gamble; and if we gamble smart, on actual human ability, on passion, on great ideas… Well, you really can’t go wrong with gambling like that. It’s something that will pay off, in some way or another.

On the movie front, our goal is to create the best movies in the world, and we’re gambling with our time. And since time equals money, we have a very valuable asset.

I’ve been hacking at this script for quite a while now, and I am at the final stretch. However, this is a very important piece of the filmmaking process and we cannot afford this to be mediocre or lame. If we are going to put a great amount of money, human effort, belief, passion and a shitload of hard work, then this script has to be fucking great.

If all else fails. We can always go back to initech.

PS: Congratulations Gaby.
PSS: Grisi, thanks for your talent and dedication.
PSSS: Thanks to everyone (on standby), who will help to make the Heart of Treviño possible.

For more info on Gaby’s new biz, head on to: www.thecenterofintelligence.com

To me, the most crucial part of any movie, are the first 10 minutes. If the opening act doesn’t work, then why should I care what happens next, right?

In the book Aristotle’s Poetics for Screenwriters, the author Michael Tierno states that all (great) movies have a simple question that needs to be answered by the end of the movie, and that this question should be planted by the beginning of the film.

I agree 100%.

I used to use the “sling-shot” method (wish I could remember who coined the phrase): What happens in the first part of your story is what is going to drive the rest of the movie. The whole weight of the first act has to thrust forward the rest of the movie.

Except that it didn’t work for the biopic I am writing.

I found that this “Question/Answer” method would work much, much better than what I had.

I have no conclusion for this post, but I do have several examples from this “Question/Answer” method:

Rocky: Will Rocky succeed in “going the distance” with the champion (against incredible odds). Answer: Yes

The Shawshank Redemption: Will Andy Dufresne escape from Shawshank? Answer: Yes.

Scent of a Woman: Will Lt. Col. Frank Slade succeed in killing himself (after a great trip in New York). Answer: No (and that’s ok). It’s OK because the question gets answered. They closed the loop, and we got a great movie.

PS: It also the job of a great filmmaker, to not only answer the question, but offer so much more.

From the Quick Dirty Trick Blog:

http://quickdirtytricks.blogspot.com

Official signing ceremony

This week I finally signed the distribution deal for our second feature film Ash Wednesday: Capitulo Unus!
It’s been a long and winding road and I’m glad that that part of our lives has finally come to a close.

Of course we’re thrilled that it is going to be distributed, however the distribution chase has been exhausting (to say the least).

We made Capitulo Unus with the intention of making a mark and making things happen for our careers. It was risky, it was bloody but it was the movie we really wanted to make. A meaningful action movie with a strong statement.

When we finished it in 2007, we had high hopes.
We were sure we were going to take everyones breath away. Which we did. Just not the way we intended to (HAHA).

I submitted to distributors and got several positive responses.
One from our old current distributor Venevision International and the other from Laguna productions.
Laguna offered us $13,000 and a piece of the gross revenues (too good to be true, to tell you the truth, but we went for it). Venevision had offered us a little more upfront but nothing on gross points.
We went with Laguna, I signed and sent the contract.
More than six months passed and I never received a contract back. The deal was signed on our side, but not on theirs.
The deal was still on (I guess), I got anxious and canceled the whole deal.
Their excuse was the usual, “…in this economy”. Lost cause.

Our friend Hector had gotten another offer from a new distributor.
Their upfront offer was okay, but they wanted to keep the rights for 21 years!
We finally told them what we wanted and that’s where communication broke down.

We were back to square one.

We finally went back to Venevision International.
We were not exactly received with arms wide open, but we were received nonetheless.
Thankfully, an offer was made and accepted.

Conclusion

In any artistic profession it is very challenging to get your work published.
To have your work published is to have your work validated. It means that your work is worth watching and worth paying for.

I am very grateful to all the incredible people that helped make Ash Wednesday: Capitulo Unus.
Even though we didn’t reach the outcome that I expected… Well to be honest, I didn’t really know what to expect, but I am not disappointed. I am thrilled to have worked with such incredibly talented and interesting people, the good times were great and the bad times were very awful (jajaja incredible stories to tell).

We met some really cool people and it took us to some really cool places, frankly I couldn’t ask for anything better.

If this movie would have been a giant success from the get-go, we would have never had met the incredible Jesse Treviño.

So there you have it. The written and recorded (brief) version of how we distributed Capitulo Unus.
Capitulo Duos in the making? Maybe. But first we got two movies to knock out first.

In the meantime we are in the pre-production stages on THE HEART OF TREVIÑO.
We are hoping for more great times and awful times alike.

Satisfied!

Just when you thought that the last thing the world needs is another blog, well guess what?

There’s a new blog in town, but don’t panic!

It’s very narrow and geared toward filmmakers and it is called QUICK DIRTY TRICKS.

Add it to your RSS feeds, bookmark it or add it to your twitter.

Just like the name implies, it is a minimalist blog with quick tricks any filmmaker can use in making a movie, be it in editing, directing, writing or simply for quick inspiration.

Here’s the last post I wrote about one of my favorite words: Inspiration.

Inspiration: Everywhere

The real trick to writing is not how well you write, but what you write about.

Just like anything else, the more passion and fire a work of art has, the more powerful it is.

If you feel, you have what it takes to write, but don’t really know what to write about. Then disconnect your computer, and get out there and have an adventure OR find someone that has had an adventure. Even if you don’t end up writing that person’s particular experience, it will burn a fire in your heart and inspire you to write something powerful.

Today, I went to the Witte museum in San Antonio; to my surprise there was an incredible exhibit called: Stories of hunger and resilience.

Each picture had headphones on the bottom with each persons story about hunger, home, love and about life. Each was different; some were scary, some were sad, some had happy endings, but they were all beautiful and very inspiring.

My point is: inspiration is everywhere, sometimes we just got to stop and listen to the world.

This blog will continue to focus on the films we make and the people who make them!

Happy reading!

Source: http://quickdirtytricks.blogspot.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/quickdirtytrix

NOTE: We’ve had the great fortune to have had the help of many, many, many (CHINGOS!), of wonderful and talented artists in all fields, and I’d like to profile them, because they deserve to be honored and appreciated.

Projects: Ash Wednesday- Capitulo Unus, The Heart of Treviño

Call it chance, destiny, luck or whatever you may call it, that’s exactly how we met Rolando (or Rol, to his friends).

It was September, 2006 and we were in Monterrey, MX doing the soundtrack to Ash Wednesday with our friends and great artists Waris Rodriguez and Giuliano Innocenzi.

A week before we arrived for the soundtrack, Giulias & Waris went to a school reunion in their hometown Sabinas, Coahuila, where they saw their old school chum Rolando. They chatted for a while back and forth about everything that they had done with their lives and were excited that they all had chosen a path that involved music.

Giulias and Waris told Rol about the movie soundtrack and Rol was intrigued, and to our luck he was also going to be in Monterrey that same week.

Sure enough, a week later we met Rol at the studios and I was very excited to work with Rol, because he had been built up as a piano prodigy.

To my surprise, he not only is an accomplished pianist but also an accomplished opera coach AND a really nice, down-to-earth kind of guy. Very rare to have that combination in any human.

The funny thing is, that was the only night we’ve only been with Rol for two nights in person. Thanks to the internet we’ve become friends and have recently collaborated for THE HEART OF TREVIÑO.

This guy really pours his soul into every piece.

For THE HEART OF TREVIÑO, he composed an incredible piece that will grab your soul, break it to pieces and then put it back together, it’s that powerful.

The piece is entitled: “Pintando las calles…” and is inspired by Jesse Treviño himself.

I cannot wait to see how we can take “Pintando las calles…” further… An orchestration is in our to-do list for the soundtrack, but I guess we’re going to have to wait and see what the future holds for all of us!

Here’s “Pintando las calles…” live:

Waris, Me, Rol and Paco