THROWBACK FRIDAY: How to Break-Through Your Fear & Shoot Your First Feature Film

Please note: Throwback Fridays are archival episodes from the Indie Film Hustle Podcast. After many requests from the IFH Tribe to bring back some of the show’s best episodes, I decided to create Throwback Fridays. These episodes will not be posted every week but at least twice a month…if not more. There are so much amazing info and knowledge bombs in many of these past episodes and I don’t want them to be lost in the sea of IFH Content so I’ll be putting a spotlight on them in Throwback Fridays. Enjoy!

Fear, the one thing that stops most indie filmmakers from moving forward and following their dreams. Fear of shooting their first feature film, writing that screenplay, making that short film or just taking the first few steps towards their goals.

Fear has been a strange bedfellow of mine throughout my career. It has slowed and outright stopped my progress. It has taken many years of failures to finally realize I have nothing to fear. As they say: "We stopped checking for monsters under the bed when we realized they were inside of us." - AnonymousBreaking through the FearI finally decided to "feel the fear and do it anyway".

Directing a full-blown feature film always seemed like this huge, monstrous mountain I had to climb. It was like going to hike Mt. Everest when I never even climb a mountain before.

Then I figured out that a feature film didn't have to be a "huge, monstrous mountain" and that many filmmakers started off shooting smaller films before climbing Mt. Everest. Chris Nolan shot The Following before he made Memento and then The Dark Knight Trilogy.

In that spirit, I ventured off into uncharted territory with the making of my first feature film This is Meg. Below is the story of how I got that film started.

In this podcast, I discuss what fear does to artists, writers and filmmakers and how you can break-through and make their first feature film. Enjoy.