I made [3 short films](/films) which amount to pretty much nothing in the end of the day. Apart of select few, nobody heard about any of them. And because I worked on them pretty much just by myself, alone, I did not get any useful connections. Which in the end of the day puts me in a weird position. I know I can make a movie. I know the shots and the lenses and the technical stuff. But nobody would ever believe me. Which means I'm at the same playing field as other beginner film-makers.

Yet somehow film-makers stop being nobodies and become somebodies. There is always the first film. There is always something that puts you under the spotlight, allowing you to make the movie you've always wanted to make. Let's look at those first films and how they got to be made. And analyze the patterns. And hopefully find a clue of what to do ourselves.

# Steven Spielberg

The first film [Steven Spielberg]() directed as a cinema picture was an extravagant chase film [The Sugarland Express](/reviews/the_disappointing_impressiveness_of_the_sugarland_express_1974) from 1974. It had thousands of extras, hundreds of police cars, and it looked and felt like a proper Spielbergian epic of the time. 

Yet 1974 was not when Spielberg suddenly appeared out of nowhere in Hollywood.

The first documented case of Spielberg ever directing something ( according to wikipedia ) would be *The Last Gun* from 1959 ( 15 whole years before that ).

And that is if we don't count multitudes of child-hood films he did as a very young little Steve. But *The Last Gun* or the child-hood little projects ( even though useful to build skill in film-making ) aren't much of a help when it comes to getting a 3 million dollar budget ( of 70s money ) to shoot an extravagant chase film.

In 1969 Steven Spielberg directed a part of a pilot episode of a TV show called *Night Gallery* which was produced by Universal. How the hell, a young 21 year old Jewish boy who made little funny videos with his sisters, suddenly directs a TV episode?

There is a very noticeable gap in between those two things.

According to a lot of sources, what won him a contract with Universal was a little 1968 short film called *Amblin* written, directed and edited by Steven Spielberg. Yet produced by a little known producer called [Denis C. Hoffman](), who's friend provided 2/3 of the $15,000 budget used to shoot the short-film.

Hoffman was a beginner producer himself and saw potential in Spielberg. They made this movie to kick-start Spielberg. And signed a contract, where Spielberg agreed to direct at least one Hoffman's project sometime in the future. Which means that by the time of *Amblin* at least this small producer already saw Spielberg as a talented enough film-maker, to do such a thing.

How does one get from nobody to being recognized as talented enough for this sort of thing?

If we look back even further we could see a few little clues to how it all went about. First would be the 1967 unfinished short film by Spielberg called *Splitstream*. He ran out of money shooting this film. So it was never done. Yet... Even here we have a problem. One of the cast, presumably the main character, is played by [Tony Bill]() a Hollywood actor, working in the industry since 1959. By that time Tony Bill already worked alongside Hollywood icons like [Frank Sinatra]() and [Steve McQueen](). If he agreed to be in a small short film by Steven Spielberg, Steven Spielberg must have been good enough at at least something by that point.

If we look even further, we arrive the 1964 feature length movie Spielberg shot for just $500, with his childhood pals - *Firelight*. The producers for this film were his own parents. And the cast was comprised of students of the acting class in the school he went to.

Somehow between *Firelight* and *Slipstream* Steven Spielberg became known enough by the people in the industry, to try to make something.

In the biography of Steven Spielberg by Joseph MacBride we learn that Spielberg handed out the Universal lots a lot after his family moved to California. ( He shot *Firelight* in Arizona ). He was denied application to UCLA film-school. And so, out of desperation he would sneak into the Universal pictures and would try to find what he could do. 

According to the biography he ended up volunteering for a lot of projects. And soon became somewhat of a recognizable face there. He probably had few chances here and there to show *Firelight* to people in Universal. Which ended up creating a reputation for Spielberg as a young aspiring talented film-maker lad. Which presumably lead to him making a short film with Tony Bill, and then another short film with Denis C. Hoffman. And which also explains why the first company that ended up actually hiring him for real was Universal. 

Then through a lot of very good TV work on *Night Galery* ( 1969 ), *Columbo* and *Duel* ( 1971 ), *Something Evil* ( 1972 ), *Savage* ( 1973 ) and a lot of stuff in between, he proved himself to be a very talented guy worth betting something like 3 million dollars on. That is how *The Sugarland Express* was born. And then the next thing he did was fucking *Jaws*.

So let's condense it. What did Spielberg do?

He made a lot of movies as a kid. That lead him to know what to do when making *Firelight*. Then he proved to be a useful guy by sneaking to Universal and helping who he could. Until he could show them his *Firelight* movie. Which in turn made him able to meet and work with some of the people from the industry. Even if on small projects without much commercial potential. Those projects ( because they were tangentially connected to the industry ) were enough to prove industry people that they could take chance on him, in small TV related situations. And through doing good work in that regard, he proved that he could be bet on to make a cinema picture. The rest is history.

# James Cameron

Everybody knows the inspirational story of the first [James Cameron]() film [The Terminator](/reviews/the_terminator_would_not_have_happened_if_not_for_rear_projection). How he had the best script in the world. How he pitched this script to everybody. And how everybody rejected the script when he insisted on being the director. Everybody knows of a small producer that took a bet on Cameron and bought the rights to the script for $1. But not a lot of people know that Cameron's first cinema film was not in fact *The Terminator*. It was fucking [Piranha II](/reviews/piranha_ii_1982_taught_james_cameron_to_be_a__no_bullshit__director) from 1982.

![Cameron painting for Carpenter](/pictures/user_upload/blenderdumbass/james_cameron_matte_painting.jpg)

But even before *Piranha II* James Cameron was already in the industry for some time. Mainly he worked in effects. For example he painted some of the Matt-Paintings for [John Carpenter]()'s 1981 film *Escape From New York*. 

So by the time he made *Piranha II* and by the time he and his *Terminator* script were rejected by everyone, he already was a part of the industry. But how the hell did he got there in the first place?

It seems like the story, when it comes to James Cameron, starts with *Xenogenesis*. A small short film he co-directed with a buddy of his [Randall Frakes](), that they made on $20,000 in 1978.

The story goes something like this. Cameron read anything he could read on film-making in the library. Learning about how cameras and [optical printers](/articles/2d_compositing_for_vfx_explained) worked. Then ( when George Lucas made StarWars ) Cameron was able to get a bunch of dentists, seeking a tax write-off, to give him and his buddy $20,000. And using this they made a movie called *Xenogenesis*.

Somehow ( which is unclear ) [Roger Corman]() ( a big B-movie producer ) got to see *Xenogenesis* and was impressed enough to hire James Cameron.

How? How and why did Roger Corman saw *Xenogenesis*? Well, perhaps it was because Corman was constantly on the lookout for anybody who could work cheaply and produce something of B-Movie quality for him. Being a small, unknown, nobody, with a pretty impressive film on a technical side, was something Roger Corman would probably be looking for anyway.

And so he hires James Cameron as a model maker and then a full art director for his Star-Wars knock-off picture *Battle Beyond The Stars* 1980. 

But if you look at the [Wikipedia entry for Battle Beyond the Stars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Beyond_the_Stars#Visual_effects_and_art_direction) under "Visual effects and art direction" you will see the following quote:

> He was recommended by long-time working partner and future wife Gale Anne Hurd, who was at the time working for Corman.

So Cameron knew [Gale Anne Hurd]() personally in 1978? And she happened to know Roger Corman? And ( if you know anything about *The Terminator* ) she ended up being the one that bought the script ( for *The Terminator ) for $1.

In a way, James Cameron happened to know the right people at the right time. He made his *Xenogenesis* at the moment right after *Star Wars* because he could bullshit a bunch of dentists that he might be able to make a knock-off *Star Wars* movie.

This was then used by Gale Anne Hurd to pitch Cameron to Corman, for his own knock-off *Star Wars* movie. 

Obviously if Cameron didn't have any talent, this whole intrusion operation would not have worked. But it wasn't just Cameron who made James Cameron. It wasn't just that he wrote a banger script and got to make it right away. There was a complicated multi-year strategy to the whole ordeal between Cameron, Hurd and whoever else that helped them pull this off.

# Michael Bay

The first theatrical motion picture by the legendary director [Michael Bay]() was the 1995 buddy-cop comedy [Bad Boys](/reviews/bad_boys_1995_is_a_tarantino_picture_gone_bayhem_). But as you already guessed by this article, he didn't just make *Bad Boys* out of nowhere.

Before *Bad Boys* for half a decade, Michael Bay was working for the *Propaganda Films* studio, producing music videos and commercials alongside other film-makers like: [Zack Snyder](), [David Fincher](), [Michel Gondry](), [Spike Jonze](), [Dominic Sena](), [Simon West]() and [Gore Verbinski](), just to name a few.

Pretty much every single one of those directors owes their Hollywood carriers to *Propaganda Films*. Like Roger Corman in the 70s, *Propaganda Films* in the 90s, was a stepping stone, for young film-makers right out of the film-school. But instead of doing cheap B-Movies, they made A-material for the same low budget: Music videos and commercials. This gave the ability for the film-makers to experiment on their craft, and ultimately transition from short-form to long-form motion pictures.

In a way, Michael Bay went the safest route toward becoming a film-maker. He worked for a bit as an intern for a Hollywood company in the 1980s. Doing boring, uninteresting, but valuable jobs ( like filing storyboards ). Which then lead to him being accepted into a film-school. And from there he was pretty much directly hired by the producers at *Propaganda Films*.

# Quentin Tarantino

It is widely known that the first picture made by [Quentin Tarantino]() was *Reservoir Dogs* 1992 that he made from his own script for less than $3 million.

Similarly to people like James Cameron and Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino did not go to a proper film-school. And instead made short films on his own money with friends. One of which *My Best Friend's Birthday* is partially survived. But that doesn't mean that he didn't do any professional film learning either.

In the 80s, Tarantino spent some time learning how to act in *James Best Theatre Company* where he met many of the co-stars of his short-films. About the same time he and another film-maker [Roger Avary]() ( who co-wrote Pulp Fiction with Tarantino ) worked at a movie rental store called *Video Archives*. 

By 1988 he already had small roles on TV, like at one point he played an Elvis impersonator. Which got him access to some people in the industry.

Based on his own testimonials in various interviews he did over the years, via different channels ( some of which were customers of Video Archive and some of which he met through the TV gigs ) he ended up script-doctoring, making alterations to movie scripts, to make them better, for actual produced films.

This lead him to write *Natural Born Killers* and *True Romance* in hopes of directing one of those films. But he couldn't sell the scripts if he would be a director. *Natural Born Killers* was later directed by [Oliver Stone]() ( who hired somebody else to do a re-write, making Tarantino angry ). And *True Romance* was subsequently directed by [Tony Scott]().

At one point he met with a young producer [Lawrence Bender]() to whom he mentioned an idea for a dialogue based, ultra-cheap, heist film, that later became *Reservoir Dogs*.

As you can see, Tarantino didn't just write a banger script and was magically handed $3 million to prove himself. He had a long journey from Video Archives, through the acting classes and self-funded short films, through small TV roles and script-doctoring and multiple failed movie projects, until he got to a point where an ultra-cheap idea of his was something that could be risked on by the producers.

By chance he was also fucking Quentin Tarantino, so his script did become something that people wanted to do. With or without him. And after *Reservoir Dogs* and *Pulp Fiction* there was absolutely no way you could stop the shier force that is Quentin Tarantino.

# Soft Conclusion

If there is anything you can learn from those examples, is that, people don't just trust other people out of the blue. You submit a spec-script. Chances are you will be over-looked, or utterly dismissed, and most-likely dismissed outright. Most companies don't even want to read unsolicited work.

The only chance you have in the industry is to become solicited. If they don't need a writer, they might need an actor. If they don't need an actor, they might need an extra. If they don't need an extra they might need a technician, or at worst a janitor, or something.

Just being a janitor on set, though, does not help you. You cannot just say that you want to do something. You should be able to show the people that you already did something. Being on set is having conversations with staff, with heads of departments, occasionally with directors and producers. And if the moment is right and you can show them your *Firelight* you may get a chance to do something a bit bigger. You wont immediately jump to the super-stardom. But you will pave your way towards it.

**Happy Hacking!!!**