I love the South

A couple of days ago, as I was reading the Austin Film Festival Program & filling in my calendar with workshops & movies I hope to see next week, my phone rang.  I own a business not related to the production company my sister & I are starting, so I'm fairly used to blowing off telemarketers that call my business trying to sell me something I totally don't need.  So, when I picked up the phone and a Southerner from Go Daddy answered I was pretty close to giving him a quick excuse about how I didn't want more domain names, thank you very much.

But then I remembered that the night before I had purchased 6 domain names for our movie - 3 with the movie's title in various forms (ending in "....movie.com" or just ".com") and 3 for the individuals in our team. My sister, the writer-director, our brother, the musical genius and me, the producer.  So, the guy from Go Daddy wanted to chat about the domain names.  Not so interesting right?  Wait, it gets better.

It turns out that he knew a few guys back in the day who started out from nowhere just like us and two of them made it pretty big while one is still working as a server at a local restaurant. 

He laughed and said, "You know, it was so cool to see them get big in Hollywood like, because these were just regular guys.  I mean, I knew the dog in their movie because it's their mom's dog! These were regular neighborhood kids!" 

So I of course had to ask, "Oh yeah.  Who are they?"  

"Well, have you seen Bottle Rocket?  That was their first movie with the mom's dog I told you about."

"You know the Wilson brothers? You're kidding me." 

What a great conversation we had after that. 

And I felt so excited all day because everyone really does start at the same place we are.  With a whole lotta heart, a bunch of amazing people who believe in us and our project and the focus to get 'er done - we're going love this journey we're on.  If we do manage to make a movie that people actually go & see, I think I'll call that guy from GoDaddy and thank him once again for the conversation about Luke & Owen Wilson and their mom's dog.

Other ramblings & news:

We leave for Austin in 3 days. I've had my toes painted purple for the Oct 20th Wear Purple event and will be sure to don my purple scarf in support of the teenagers out there dealing with homophobia & bullying.  The event was started on facebook by a high school student and now has over 100 000 people RSVP'ed to attend, and I'm hoping I'm not the only one at AFF who knows about it.  Oh wait, my awesome sister is coming and wearing purple too.  We'll be the dynamic purple duo - watch out Austin!

We're stoked for the first night's Film & Food event with Edward Burns.  If I meet him I will probably get too star-struck to even say anything. Ever since I watched the Holiday, I've been in love with his voice.  His movie making, and acting and directing and writing and all that jazz are pretty awesome too.  But I'll admit it, I have a massive crush on his voice.  That's kinda weird right?  Who gets nervous just to hear someone speak?

I'm seeing his new movie, Nice Guy Johnny where Ed will be speaking afterwards.  Will I have to leave the room before he talks just so I don't "Squeeeeeeeee"?

This week's Self-Directed Film School Assignment: Low Budget Comedies

Last weekend I watched a few movies that are beloved in the indie-film world - El Mariachi, Paranormal Activity &  Reservoir Dogs.  My sister and I watched the flicks to inspire & educate ourselves after taking Dov Simmens' 2 Day Film School in NYC and reading a few great books about being independent producers and filmmakers.  We're starting our own production company and are still in the initial research stages.

I noticed that many "low-budget" indie flicks are action or horror and while I appreciate them, I'm more interested in making our first movie a comedy.  But before we start, we like to do our research and find others that have already made their first movies on low budgets in the comedy genre.
At first it seemed impossible!

Until Jen put out a box of VHS tapes on the curb and discovered a long-forgotten favourite - Bottle Rocket. It was Wes Anderson & the Wilson brothers' first film, which started as a short & they later developed it into a feature film.  We love these guys, and Bottle Rocket was an all 'round awesome movie.  So, my assignment for this week's self-directed Film School is to find a copy of Bottle Rocket and watch it again.  Woohoo!  I am seriously loving film school.

Do you know of any other great first movies in the comedy genre?  Ideally, they would cost less than $20,000 so we can see what others have done with similar budgets.  Please share your thoughts below.