What I Love About the WAMEGO Documentary Series

WAMEGO Film Director Steve Balderson's recent projects include "Farflung Star," "Culture Shock" and "Occupying Ed."Told in a trilogy, Steve Balderson’s WAMEGO documentaries uncover what it takes to make films outside of Hollywood. It showcases the real-life experiences of a film director who found success on his own terms, but not without dealing with various complications, naysayers and downright manipulative, egotistical people who believe that there is only one way to make a splash or be relevant (whatever that means) in show business.

Making his feature debut “Firecracker” -- complete with 35mm film cameras, elaborate set constructions, and tons of personnel -- quickly taught him how expensive and time consuming it is to try and emulate tinseltown’s method of producing, marketing and distributing movies. So when the time came to start new projects, he eventually took a different, simpler route to get his movies made and hasn’t looked back. While WAMEGO STRIKES BACK is my favorite among the three documentaries in this series, I’ve learned a lot of valuable lessons from all of them.

The best part is that viewers don’t have to work in film or be in pursuit of careers in the entertainment industry to enjoy any of these movies. What I love most about WAMEGO documentaries are how they don’t put that glitzy, sugar-coated veil over life as a filmmaker nor do they present the movie industry as a doom and gloom, dog-eat-dog, swimming with sharks image to viewers. Its message encompasses both ends of the spectrum and various areas in between that have you saying “wait a minute…did that just happen?” – Oh, yes it did! Welcome to the independent film and what it’s really like behind the camera!

There is a moment in one of the docs when Balderson arrived at a film festival where organizers didn’t know the name of his movie, despite being on the schedule to screen in front of hundreds of people.

I also remember the time when craft services went AWOL in the middle of production, causing an unexpected change of plans on how (and what) his actors, sound guy and other people working on his film would be fed. Only he can tell you how that compares to the time when he found out the footage of scenes his cast and crew just finished filming was suddenly gone. In addition, there may be nothing like the time when prospective investors bailed on a film he was developing, without a word or so much as a heads up.

When the challenges of independent filmmaking aren’t rearing their ugly head, road trips with his cast and crew are among Balderson's ideas on how to spend your day off. It’s also common to see those who work on his films enjoying beers together, pool parties on set or attempting car repairs for a fellow member of his eclectic brigade. WAMEGO shows how making movies can be fun and productive, with Balderson fostering the kind of workplace environment you would have at a summer day camp for adults.

The events that transpire from one minute to the next in these documentaries can teach you about persistence, self-confidence, overcoming obstacles, speaking up (and standing up) for what matters to you and having the courage to buck trends even when other people are betting on you to fail.

In celebration of the 10-year anniversary of WAMEGO: Making Movies Anywhere, Steve Balderson decided to do a re-release of this award-winning documentary. WAMEGO is available on Vimeo to watch for free as well as WAMEGO STRIKES BACK (Part 2: Watch Here) and WAMEGO: Ultimatum (Part 3: Watch Here).

So, consider this my gift to you this weekend: Three movies I love watching. All Free for you to watch now, thanks to the passion and grit of a man from Kansas who the late Roger Ebert named as the “best-kept secret in American independent cinema.”

Happy Valentine’s Day to all, and may YOU enjoy the people, places or things that make you smile this weekend!

Monday Movie Meme - Ms. Officer...

Named after a favorite Lil’ Wayne song, the theme for this week’s Monday Movie Meme is influenced by a crime drama I watched over the weekend that had me wondering if Boston has a shortage of female cops.

Out of sheer curiosity, I then tried to figure out how many female movie characters, who were members of the police force, came to mind. This was no easy task, which brings us to our Monday Movie Meme theme: Ms. Officer

Share on your blog or in the comments section, movies featuring your favorite or most memorable women who are a part of law enforcement. This includes patrol cops, detectives, correctional officers and related workers involved in making arrests.

Here are my selections for this week’s Ms. Officer theme.

Miss Congeniality

An FBI agent goes undercover as a beauty pageant contestant to stop a terrorist attack, in this comedy starring Sandra Bullock, Benjamin Bratt and Michael Caine.

Stuck!

A cruel prison guard works her best at keeping a group of restless prisoners in line, throughout this women-in-prison drama starring Stacy Cunningham and Karen Black.

Firecracker

A police chief investigates a murder in her small town where traveling carnival shows and white picket fences hide years of child abuse and other shocking revelations, in this mystery drama starring Susan Traylor and Mike Patton.

What movies feature YOUR most memorable female cops? 

What Ben Affleck Can Teach Us about Bravery #atozchallenge #RatedR #IndieFilm

"I'm grateful for everything you've done for me. You're like my brother...but I'm leaving. Are you gonna shoot me? Go ahead...but you'll have to shoot me in the back."

 – Ben Affleck as Doug MacRay in the Crime Drama “THE TOWN” 

A "Four Eyed Monsters" Scene Directed by Susan Buice and Arin CrumleyYou have to be willing to stand up for what you want. It's about making decisions for yourself that might be unpopular or unwelcome by the masses.

It's about hearing people or traditions or even your own self-doubt try to hold you back or forbid you from doing something different; entertaining new possibilities, and still pushing forward in a way that says "Screw you! I'm doing it anyway!" -- even if it means losing the relationships or status that you had with friends, family or the extended community, up until this point.

Bravery is the moment when you take huge risks to forego what's comfortable and familiar, in favor of the possibility to be in a situation that best meets your interests or needs. It surfaces when you stop questioning your own motives. It reveals itself the moment you quit making choices that you are less than enthusiastic about, only to please other people. Being an independent filmmaker requires a certain level of bravery at many stages of the process.

That scene in “The Town” where Ben Afflecks character basically tells his best friend to go fuck himself, is what I think it means to be brave. Three independent filmmakers, however, also come to mind when I think about what bravery looks like.

• Collaborators Susan Buice and Arin Crumley’s Do-It-Yourself approach to finding (and growing) an audience of more than a half million people is unlike anything that has been done before they made the comedy drama “Four Eyed Monsters.” 

They captured their filmmaking journey as well as a budding romantic relationship, and shared it in a series of video podcasts on their YouTube channel.

Buice and Crumley were brave to make their experiences public on another level, chronicling the pitfalls and successes that they each faced as artists, lovers and friends who mixed business with pleasure; all for the world to see – through massive credit card debt, depression, insecurities about STDs and all, despite the risk of being scrutinized by people in their own social circles, co-workers, roommates, YouTube viewers and film industry critics.

They were also brave to pursue non-traditional means of getting people to pay attention to their work, which included convincing fans to “request” their film in local theaters, which helped them organize a release correlating with the demand in cities across the country.

• Bravery explains how Steve Balderson can call people, companies and organizations on their bullshit while also questioning the conventional practices that we irrationally follow when it comes to the movie business. 

Balderson doesn't limit himself in any way and is not afraid to stay true to his vision. He stands tall even when people are walking out of the theater where his movie is playing, or throwing objects at the screen in anger during the film festival run for his comedy drama “Watch Out.” He has worked with some of the most unforgettable talent that a filmmaker could have the pleasure to direct, including the late actress Karen Black.

In filmmaking, as in other professions (and various areas of life, for that matter), there will be people like Ben Affleck’s (fictional) best friend, who will want to keep you from steering your life in the direction you want it to go in -- and in the way you so desire to do so. Appeasing those kinds of people doesn’t do anyone any good. I know I don’t have time for that kind of nonsense and I’m guessing that neither do you, so we’re both in the same boat. So whaddya say we tell them to go fuck themselves! Stand tall like Steve Balderson. Get creative with your pursuits like Arin Crumley and Susan Buice. Be brave.

What does Bravery look like to YOU?

If you haven’t already, read yesterday’s post: Awards are Worthless – The Anxiety of Seeking Approval as an Artist, the first installment in my series about Why We Make Movies.