Categories
Truly Free Film

Who Did What For Me: Generosity, Guidance, & Support

It’s a bit hard thinking through what actually constitutes “good” within an industry.  A lot of our “job” is to make things better, to introduce people, to facilitate deals and stronger projects.  Generosity is about going that extra step — doing the thing that is not expected and that truly helps.

It’s Thanksgiving here in America.  It’s an odd holiday and even if it’s origins are not the greatest, I still dig the spirit.  Today I try to examine those that helped me when they did not need to, or whose help was beyond the call of duty

Categories
Truly Free Film

The Good Machine No-Budget Commandments

Good Machine logo

Back in the day, back when indie film was a workable financial enterprise, back before I ran the San Francisco Film Society, back before there was a Double Hope, back before I was part of This is that, I had a production company called Good Machine. James Schamus and I founded it together, and we later partnered with David Linde. Mary Jane Skalski and Anthony Bregman were also partners, and we had the good fortune to work with a host of other talents including my later partners Anne Carey and Diana Victor, and Ross Katz, Glen Basner, Heta Paarte, Lamia Guelatti, Melinka Thompson-Gody, Jean Castelli, Kelly Miller, Dan Beers, Eric Papa, Jawal Nga, and many other later-legends to be.

As good as the films we made, as great as the individuals we got to collaborate with, we also had a genuine fondness for memos and how-to’s. Those were the days when you stored things in file cabinets.  The 90’s are in boxes now in my garage.  Once things went digital, it as if they are lost.  I stumble through less.  When they were paper I occasionally had the pleasure of sorting through the files, finding choice nuggets. My madeleines… like this.