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!

A Moment with theory11 – ‘PURE’ DVD Magician Ekaterina on Her Signature Effects and Rewarding Performances

Magician and card flourisher, Ekaterina Dobrokhotova As a filmmaker who is constantly trying to figure out how my work can sustain itself, I sought out to learn what makes it possible for Ekaterina Dobrokhotova, a Russian Canadian artist who performs card flourishes (skilled visual displays of playing cards such as fans, cuts, shuffles and sleight of hand tricks), to do magic as a profession rather than a hobby.

Documentaries aside, movies are a type of illusion, created out of necessity from the sheer pleasure of seeing figments of our imagination come to life. This is what keeps many of  us going despite the sacrifices that come with such a costly endeavor; where the chances of getting paid to do what we enjoy and see our works play out on the big screen, are pretty slim to none. Based on what Ekaterina has accomplished so far, there are a few things writers, directors, actors, and anyone who works in a creative field, can learn from someone who built a career for herself by manipulating playing cards.

The Madlab Post

asks:

Which area brings in the most revenue for a professional magician – performing, developing new tricks or teaching new techniques?

Ekaterina: Personally, I earn a living by performing my craft. It's a great feeling to leave a legacy in the magic community as the first female magician to release a cardistry DVD and one that creates beautiful magic, but it's not something I do for profit.

Dobrokhotova’s ability to monetize her live performances tells me that, if anything, people do enjoy a good show and they (whether that be presenting companies, venues, audiences or all of these) are willing to pay for said appearance.  Although favorable box office results aren’t what they used to be – unless you’re making something like “AVATAR” or “THE EQUALIZER” – theatrical releases are still worth taking into consideration. The common practice of studios and filmmakers using their final product as loss leaders to support other avenues (i.e. VOD, DVD, Merchandising, Gaming, etc.) where we hope to gain distribution/revenue seems to defeat the whole purpose of going through the hassles that making movies entail.

If we’re creating one thing just to sell something else, we might as well skip the feature presentation and follow the money trail wherever it leads us, which is usually still not very far, given that simply being on Netflix, iTunes or even YouTube won’t make you rich. Zeke Zelker, whose one-night film screening raked in an impressive $10,000 and Jay Craven’s six-figure earning DIY theatrical tour of alternative venues in Vermont prove that profiting from theatrical revenue or related live showings such as concerts or book signings can be done. Yes, getting a return on the investment is hard as hell….but not impossible.

The instructional DVD "PURE" by Ekaterina contains 90 minutes of versatile card flourishes for all skill levels.The trick to making it work appears to lie in how well you can get your main attraction to be as sensational as possible. What you have to offer – be that talent or skills -- is much more valuable when audiences are highly anticipating a particular show.

Ekaterina is well aware that building anticipation involves controlling where and when she demonstrates the skills people respond to most, which helps her keep audiences on the edge of their seats. “Because I am first a performer and second a creator, I keep the best tricks to myself,” says Dobrokhotova.

Just as Ekaterina knows that there is value in not giving all of her tricks away, creative minds could stand to benefit from keeping the finest aspects of our work under wraps. Even award-winning actors Denzel Washington and Daniel Craig believe that sharing the who, what, when, where and why of how our feature presentations came to be not only ruins their magical appeal, it’s also nobody’s business on how a movie was put together. I know that showing audiences some parts of the moviemaking process has its place, especially for educational or promotional purposes where landing distribution/earning revenue is concerned. However, I do understand the need for maintaining the wonder among people who are viewing our work for the first time.

Ekaterina: I recently fooled Penn and Teller on the show “WIZARD WARS” and received a lot of requests to release my card effect. However, I decided to keep this trick as my signature effect and be the only one to perform it. 

Consider the possibility that any disclosure of how we create our motion pictures to people will make them less likely to still pay to see any signature moves these films contain, in action. If this happens, I think we run the risk of having to work much harder to earn a living through our work – unless our primary business or bread-and-butter is teaching other people what we know so they can go out and do it themselves. Still, I believe that to be taken seriously, the best teachers are those who do the work just as much, if not more, than they talk about it. Dobrokhotova’s priority on her performances is a leading example of someone who walks the walk.

Ekaterina: There's a lot of magicians who can indeed make a living out of only creating magic, but for me, if I don't go out there and perform, I don't feel like a magician and entertainer. The real secret is not about how good you are, but how good you make people feel. 

Before learning about Dobrokhotova, I didn’t know female magicians even existed. If asked to name one, in fact, I bet very few of you reading this probably wouldn’t be able to either. It’s pretty cool that a she is succeeding in an art form that has gone unappreciated for a long time.

Available at theory11, Monarchs playing cards can be seen in Ekaterina’s “Love What You Do” video on YouTube.Ekaterina Dobrokhotova is among over a dozen respected magicians and acclaimed artists behind theory11, an elite team of performers, creators and producers who strive to advance the art of magic by producing the latest tricks, instructional DVDs and playing cards, including Monarchs – a regal deck of cards featured in the heist movie “NOW YOU SEE ME” and made in the USA. Now available at theory11.

What are YOUR favorite card games to play?

When was the last time YOU either watched or attended a magic show?

From Street Hustling to Cannes – How One L.A. Actress Got $2,400 to Pitch Her Natural Hair Documentary (Part 2)

When IndieGoGo no longer seemed promising for actress Nydia Simone’s crowdfunding campaign, she turned random people on the streets of Los Angeles into benefactors of her Cannes Film Festival trip. The experience quickly came with some hard but important lessons as she met with strangers in several areas including Long Beach, Old Pasadena, UCLA, Baldwin Hills and Crenshaw Plaza.

Getting donations from people who generally don’t carry cash on them when they’re surfing was among Simone’s many obstacles. Still, that Hermosa Beach experience was nothing compared to getting kicked out of The Grove by the concierge and later visiting Beverly Hills – a place she believes is so pretentious, you can feel the judgment oozing out of people. When a man who donated to the Cannes trip asked if Simone was homeless, she started wondering if her signage deterred potential supporters.

In the end, she is certain that all successful moments during this entire stint pounding the pavement was made possible by letting go of her pride and talking to God. I met with Nydia Simone before she flew off to France and we discussed how this New York native went from living out of a carry-on bag to getting over $2,400 in two weeks for her Natural Hair Documentary.

Madlab Post: How many hours a day did you spend holding signs and collecting donations for your Cannes trip?

Nydia Simone: An average of 3-5 hours a day. In the beginning, it was three hours and then I was thinking “If I’m gonna get this money, I need to average like four or five hours a day!” and that’s just standing outside. That doesn’t count me going there – and I take public transportation. So, it takes time to get there and it takes time to get back. I remember one time it took me over two hours to get to a place and I was a little upset because all I got was $35 at this beach but I did get a really cool idea after that. The thing is, you live and you learn.

In between getting money for Cannes and auditioning for film and television roles, actress Nydia Simone also worked with production crews.In total, it takes up your whole day because you leave in the morning or mid-morning, you get to your spot and by the time that’s done, you go home.

You collect all these business cards and you’re emailing people “thank you for this” and people that want you to work with them or send them your headshot or information, blah, blah, blah!

Half of these people are bullshit. So, you have to figure out which ones are real but you never know. I’m going to be interning with a distribution company that I met on the street.

I don’t know what will come of that but I’m going to absorb notes and work as hard as I can so that they go “That girl right there is going to be somebody and do something amazing! We better watch her!”

Why did you choose those particular locations where you went to collect donations for your trip?

The most important thing was traffic. High traffic wins over…whatever. Sometimes I would get advice but I stopped listening to people because they were giving horrible advice. People told me to go to Hermosa [beach] – that was a horrible, horrible place! It was probably pretty good for what they were doing, but for what I was doing, I needed to be somewhere else. So, I’ve researched high traffic areas in L.A. when I ran out of ideas.

I learned that places where there is community, the people in that community are more likely to donate than those in tourist spots. When I went to Hollywood and Vineland – I could only stay for an hour that day because I have so much to do – but I got one dollar in an hour. Maybe I could’ve gotten $20 in the next five minutes -- you never know, but that’s not a good place for me to be.

Is there a stake in the community? North Hollywood was really good because a lot of people live and worked in L.A. and they believed in dreams. Crenshaw was great because black people are more likely to donate. Period. It’s a community, they want people in the community to do well; the older people in that community want young people to do it!  It is common for people to collect donations this way. People don’t do it as much in California but I feel like what I did wasn’t so outlandish. Maybe it was, but I was so desperate that I was like “I don’t care,” (laughs).

Of all the places you went to collect donations, which spot brought the least amount of donations and what areas contributed larger donations?

The most amount I received was at Crenshaw Plaza -- $201 in one day. The least amount of money was West Hollywood and that was like $30. However, a lot of factors go into it because what time of the month are you going? Everybody has money at the beginning of the month. At the end of the month, their funds are a little low. It was the end of the month when I went to West Hollywood. Maybe I didn’t go to a good spot.

Maybe I didn’t have as much traffic as I was expecting. You can’t be on private property; you have to be on public property. The most I got was $35 or $37, so that was probably the worst place just because people didn’t have cash on them; If you’re in a bathing suit, then you’re probably not carrying any cash. I know I still have a lot to learn about crowdfunding, but, I make more money collecting cash on the street than on IndieGoGo.

What factors attributed to your IndieGoGo campaign falling short of its goal online?

My video was basically just me and my computer. Definitely your video is very important – if it’s nicely edited, if you have it done professionally, you’re probably going to get more money. I edited my video on iMovie and threw it up on there; you can see the black couch in the background.

When we’re face-to-face, I can sell you on my film, what I’m passionate about and what I want to do. It’s either you’re going to donate or you’re not. If you’re not, let’s move on to the next person. It’s very straightforward. Online, people have to take out their credit card, look at the numbers, and type them in. Soon it’s like “I don’t think I want to do this anymore. Oh, the pizza is here! I forgot,” so it’s a lot easier to get money now, on the street.   

What role does making movies, particularly documentaries, play in furthering your goals as a Television actress on Nickelodeon or Disney channels?

This came because I learned that as a black actress, in Hollywood, we just don’t get hired. People are like “Oh no, I hired a black girl last week” and a lot of people will agree that yes, black people do get hired – but not that much in Hollywood.

If I’m going to be working here, I’m going to have to create my own work. Otherwise, I’ll just be sitting around twirling my fingers.

I’ve wanted to do this documentary for 2-3 years and planned on waiting until I was seasoned and know more about show business but if I wait, I’ll just be waiting. This has already provided opportunities for me. I’m working on a new television network called the G-Block for teens and tweens. As soon as I figure out when we’re going to be shooting, then I’ll be able to start my production schedule. I’ve noticed that when you’re on a moving train, everything just comes. But when you’re waiting, nothing comes.

Stay tuned as my conversation with actress/producer Nydia Simone continues, where we cover…

• How Facebook played a role in her decision to seek out movie investors in France.
• Why she changed her business major to acting while studying at The City College of New York (CCNY).
• How she survives in L.A. while making time to attend church with one of Hollywood’s elite couples.

If you missed my chat with Nydia Simone about her Natural Hair Documentary, read Part 1: HERE.

What are some of the most pretentious cities/towns YOU'VE ever visited?

Who is YOUR favorite natural hairstyle wearing actress?

*Photos courtesy of Nydia Simone