Rick Schmidt 
Film Making Workshop
“End of the Beginning”

During the recent Memphis Indies Film Festival, I was lucky enough to be able to enroll at the last minute in what I think may have been, for me at least, a life changing experience.
Rick Schmidt has long been considered one of the grand old masters of low budget, independent film making. His two books, Feature Film Making at Used-Car Prices (Penguin June 2000), and his latest, Extreme DV at Used-Car Prices (Penguin Books July 2004), sell really well, and anyone even thinking of making independent movies of any type should read them. As well as tons of insightful encouragement, he also offers up a wealth of knowledge concerning all the practical details that go into the making of a movie.
Rick does a certain number of workshops every year all over the world. Some workshop projects last for a couple of weeks, some are completed in as little as a couple of days.
In the project we did, thirteen of us, including Rick, all strangers and wannabe film makers, screenwriters, directors, and such, met for the first time at 9 a.m. on a rainy Saturday morning at The Power House, an art space/performance hall, in Downtown Memphis, near the intersection of Front and Calhoun. Rick first put us through the very boring, but necessary paperwork of everyone signing what seemed like thousands of copies of official looking papers purporting to make us all equal partners in some theoretical film that, so far, existed only in a gleam in Rick’s eye. Next, he had each of us write a half a page about an experience that was a sort of turning point in our life that involved irony.
After reading them out loud, Rick divided us up into smaller workgroups. Each of these groups then went about choosing a set (due to the rain, everything was shot somewhere within the Power House the first day), deciding which of us would tell our story in front of the camera first, who should do the shooting, and then actually shooting the footage.
On a good, energetic set, everything becomes like sharks in a feeding frenzy, or crappie spawning, totally focused on the shoot, and oblivious to everything else. Everything is worried over minutely, the lighting, ambient sounds, back drops, even the sweat on our actors’ foreheads, as everything we either prepare or overlook will be set in plastic in our final film.
We shot until 5 that afternoon, and then went home or wherever to relax and rest. 
The next day, Sunday, we started shooting at 10 a.m., and shot footage until two. The weather was better on Sunday, and we got to split up into a couple of work groups and wander around South Main with tripods and cameras, shooting more crucial scenes and b roll. We shot until around 2 p.m., and then Louis Griffith and Jennifer Kay edited all the footage into something loosely resembling a 70-minute narrative feature film, complete with a soundtrack (including a bit of my music) and titling, and credits.
We were allowed to debut our film on the big screen at Muvico Theaters Downtown at 9 p.m. that Sunday night. Louis and Jennifer had truly worked a miracle in the short time allowed them to hurriedly edit all that raw footage. They did a great job. Yes, it was a bit rough and uneven with such a hurried edit, but parts of the film still grabbed you, and, over all, there was more continuity than chaos. Our musical soundtrack, which I think fit well, was provided by David Brookings and myself.

The main thing I came away with from this project was a brand new confidence that I have everything I need to make movies, that I can make movies, and that I can make good ones. Rick is a nurturer, an inspiring teacher, and a fine new friend.
Working with him was the first time I actually felt, more than understood, the word, “empowering”.

Rick claims to have high hopes for our film at festivals, and plans to do a more leisurely editing, himself. 



My fine confederates in this fun and exciting undertaking were ;

Rick Schmidt - Executive Producer
Jennifer Kay, John Miller, Tony Dixon, Laurence Hall, Marc Hudgens, Chris Richey, David Merrill, John Barnum, Michael McCune, George Cowan Jr. MD, and Louis Griffith.

Information coming soon.
If you just can't wait, please contact Don McGregor at don@whopperjawed.com .

References and samples available upon request.