Here’s my first Vlog. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think and please check out the other blogs on this site. Can you tell I’m nervous? I don’t know how many takes it took, but as you can tell by the annotations I included, I still missed stuff.

Additional thoughts are that there are a bunch of new Online Film Festivals for directors and producers to get their films into. If you haven’t taken advantage of these, you should consider it.

For years, directors and film producers made their films independently then sent them to festivals across the country hoping to get accepted. If they got accepted, they might get viewed by a couple hundred people at the fest–unless it was a real hit. Today, you can get a couple hundred people to view your movie online without even trying.  With cheaper bandwidth has come better video sites and more people are beginning to view movies on their computers–even Netflix offers movies via download.

There is a foreseeable future, and may already be here,  where independent film makers will be able to enjoy a decent living from their films without ever having to come to Hollywood at all. Imagine digitally uploading your film directly to theaters.

In the meantime, check out what I’ve been told by directors and producers here in Hollywood is the best way for young filmmakers to break into the business now.

Thanks for stopping by. Please leave your comments and/or questions. And don’t forget to let me know what you think about the video.

Good Luck,

TRL

With a book entitled “What I Wish I Knew Before I Moved to Hollywood,” it is inevitable that I would get asked that question. After all, is it really necessary to move to Hollywood to be involved in the entertainment business?  Johnny Depp  lives in France. Morgan Freeman lives in Mississippi. Robert De Niro lives in New York along with many other actors, directors and writers.

It’s pretty common knowledge that the entertainment business has two homes—one on each coast. Both New York and Los Angeles are home to nearly every national television show (excepting Oprah) and both also are home to the majority of Film, Music and Dance production. So perhaps the question is more fairly worded to include both cities. Of course, my book is named as it is because I moved to Hollywood, but the truths in it apply to both places. So…

“Do I need to move to either Hollywood or New York if I want to be in the entertainment business?”

The answer depends on which aspect of the entertainment business you wish to enter. What I want to do with this topic is break down the answer into separate blogs. So over the next few days I will address this question and share insights from successful Hollywood players for each of the following fields: acting, writing, directing, film producing (including crew), dance, music production (including singing/rapping, etc), comedic performance, and representation.

If you or anyone you know is considering whether to move to Hollywood or New York or wondering if you’re ready to take that next step, please check out the blog over the next few days for some insights that might help make that decision a little clearer for you.  My goal is to save you a lot of pain and time by helping to you to be sure that, if you do come to Hollywood or New York, you’ll be ready and you’ll know more of what to expect. Please bookmark, subscribe to the RSS feed above, or share on your networks to let others know about this series. Thanks.

First up tomorrow… Writers.

TRL