1. Be honest and open: If actors have to take their clothes off - do it on the first day!

2. Just like in a restaurant, atmosphere trumps all:  If you’re not able to pay top dollar, then pay in set atmosphere - good food, good people, lots of fun. Its like hosting a party. If you make sure everyone is happy and having fun - good results will happen. (however, unlike a party, imbibing a great deal of alcohol does not help)

3. Don’t sweat it. You can’t control if someone likes your work, just if you enjoy it.  Everyone has an opinion. Form your own. One man’s “Best Picture” is another man’s “Pretentious Picture.” Likewise, one man’s “Quotable comedy” is an other’s “Snooze Fest.” Make the project you want to make. You can only please yourself.

4. Get rest. If you have to choose between an extra hour planning shots late at night or extra sleep - choose the sleep - the more sleep you can get the better you can make those decisions, even if they are at the last minute.

5. Focus on what matters. If people are paying attention to the color of the wall in the background, or that the background light doesn’t match, they’re not paying attention to the story or characters, and you’re screwed anyway.

6. Be in the Moment. If you’re thinking about Stanislavsky, Method, or Motivation while you’re acting, then you’re not “being” the character.  The same with writing - if you’re thinking of structure while writing dialogue it won’t feel real. Just get the characters to talk.  When you’re rehearsing, or outlining the story, then use all your learning, but when you’re actually doing it - go with your gut.

7. Embrace failure. The more tripping, stumbling, and outright fall off the cliff crashes you have, the more you’ll learn, and the better you’ll be.

8.Be open.  Editing the film is actually the final draft of your script. Be open to changing everything.

9. Be prolific. The more you write and film, the more times you have to fail, to learn - the more you don’t fall in love with anything, the easier it will be to ruthlessly look at and edit your work.

10. Be a kid. Remember the moment you wanted to be a filmmaker? An actor? A writer? The first time you picked up the camera? Got up on stage? Whatever it is, remember that moment, and always think of it. It’ll get you through the hard parts.

11. Don’t be an asshole. There is no such thing as competition with other filmmakers. Help everyone.  The only person you can be in competition with is yourself. As long as you win that competitive battle, you’ll always get better.

12. Be yourself. If you don’t know who that is - find out. Without knowing that, you’ll never be able to make anything.

So Season 2 of “Meet the Mayfarers” launches today.

Of course, this being on the web, there’s really no pressing need for “Seasons.” The only time it really matters is if say, a show is launched for a few episodes, then they stop for a long period of time, get new funding or ad sponsorships, and then come back.  But this being the web - there can be all sorts of different approaches.

I set out to show “a year in the life of the family” and I shot a year’s worth of content. So then really, why did break I it up? Shouldn’t Season 2 be “Year 2″ of the family - after they do, or don’t, get the money?

To be honest I’m just trying to test this out.

For my part, I know that I always feel I miss something if I jump into a show late into the game. Even if I know the characters and plot, when I see the number 16 or 20 it always makes me think I should start from episode 1. And then there’s never enough time to watch all the episodes, they keep piling up and soon you find yourself never watching that show. So some web shows I never get around to watching simply because they have episode numbers in the hundreds. I feel as if I will never catch up.

I don’t want this to happen to Mayfarers, so I decided to reboot - and start episode 1 of season 2. My thinking is that it would be easier for new people to jump on seeing “Episode 1″ in the title rather than “Episode 24.” But I could be wrong. This whole online releasing shows thing is overall an experiment.

The other thing I’m trying this season are smaller story arcs. So by the end of the season instead of being on episode 16 again, they will be smaller arcs - it will only go to episode 8 or so, with the rest being three or four part stories.  Again - this is all experimenting. What methods do you like?

In anycase, however you watch it, I hope you check out season 2 of “Meet the Mayfarers.”

And really, if you are totally crammed for time - you don’t need to watch season one. The plot’s simple really. If you haven’t seen the show, all you need to know is that the family is forced to be together for a year to get an inheritance - and my character, the son, had a one night stand with his dead grandfather’s fiancee, on the day he died - which she uses to blackmail him……..

hmmm………

On second thought…that does sound fairly wrong. Maybe you should just watch the Recap.

2010 has me really excited. There’s new shows to release, new shows to shoot, new friends to meet, and experiences to have. 2010 is the year that web video is really going to break out.

This week I’m in the final stages of editing Season 2 of “Meet the Mayfarers.” I’m excited to launch the new episodes. I hope you’ll join us for the ride. Here’s a pic of the Mayfarers clan, from a future episode.

Thanks for all your support!

We’re two days behind schedule, the pig’s guts are rotting, and we haven’t slept in two weeks. I was directing a feature horror film, and I was miserable. Cut from that set to the set of “Meet the Mayfarers.”All of us are Dancing next to people dressed in mascot outfits - particularly a Bunny Rabbit and a Parrot suit. And we are laughing hysterically.

Standing there on that original set, blood on my jacket, sheep’s guts oozing out of the cooler and onto my hands, I realized something profound: I’m not having fun. So what, you say? Is anything suppose to be fun? Making a film is, by its very definition - a difficult experience. You’re up before sunrise, working through the day, and lucky if you fall asleep before midnight, then do it all again.

There’s a difference, and that’s passion.

So I’m sitting there with a film I’m not passionate about and then I see what people are doing online. There was a lot to be impressed about. Within a few months, some of the channels received more views than any of my filmmaker friends. But more important than any of this - they were all having fun. Or looked like they were anyway.

I sat down, and realized what was wrong. I wasn’t having fun.  For me the happiest moments, of both childhood and high school were having friends come over, and “make a movie.” Of course some, (many) of these are laughably bad. But they were fun to do. We’d make ‘em, have a blast shooting them, and had a laugh watch them. The perfect way to spend an afternoon.

But somewhere along the line, when I started making features it didn’t become fun. At first I thought, this is what it is to be professional, and truth be told, there is a lot of work, from scheduling, to figuring shots, to dealing with on set divas. But fun and professional are not mutually exclusive. Fun doesn’t have to be lazy and professional doesn’t have to be bland. And on that horror film set, a crew member said to me, “Not every project can be fun” But I disagree. We can’t control many things on set, but we can have fun.

I remember sitting in one of countless screenwriting courses, and the teacher kept saying that writing “shouldn’t be fun.” She said that writing should “make your head bleed.” On one level, I understood what she was saying - that writing is rewriting, and to make the script work you need to keep rewriting it. But I think she’s wrong. Time and again, the scenes that I’ve had the most fun writing, the scenes where  I’m so into the scene and I’m writing one character talking to another and I’m “in the zone” are invariably, so much better than the scenes that I’ll slave over for months, or years even. I see that it my colleagues scripts as well - when the passion isn’t there, it isn’t on the page. That doesn’t mean one should “toss off a script” with no rewriting, nor does it mean neglecting and shortchanging the very difficult architecture like importance of structuring a script.

But still - it needs to be fun. Writing - filmmaking - it should be fun.

At the end of the day, in filmmaking, as in life, there are no guarantees. Try as you might, you can’t be sure certain a film will sell, you can’t be certain people will latch onto it, you can’t even be certain that the scene you’re shooting won’t eventually be cut from the final film. But you can control your enjoyment. This career is too difficult not to have fun.

I love this web Internet space because the cost of projects have gone down, but the possibilities are limitless, and there’s no excuse not to have fun. I think it shows on the screen.

For me, that’s what “Meet the Mayfarers” is. A chance to reclaim the “fun” of filmmaking. A chance to bring the level of fun I had as a kid, making movies with friends in my backyard, but hopefully with a more professional sensibility. Whatever becomes of the show, it totally rekindled my love for the fun of making movies. And I’ll be forever grateful for that.

I can’t wait to shoot more episodes, to shoot more series, and then use this passion to do more features. In many ways, I feel like a kid again, and that’s important.

I hope you enjoy the show, and I hope that passion and fun plays through your computer monitor and gives you a smile.

It did for me.

I thought I wasn’t going to be one of those people who start a blog and then let it drift into the netherworld. However, here we are and its been quite a while since I’ve posted. All for good reason - I’ve been very busy on some exciting new projects.

And now - the year is winding down, as is “Season 1″ of “Meet the Mayfarers.” Of course, the gap between seasons won’t be that long. We’ll be back up and running next month, with a new episode every Wednesday. Season 2 of the show will be bigger, with  more guest stars, crazier situations, even stranger animal mascot costumes, and a few surprising revelations.

Thank you to everyone who has watched and supported us over these past few months.

Happy Holidays!

Today “Meet the Mayfarers” moves in a new direction. This is our first Holiday Episode - “A Very Maryfarers Halloween.” Given that the show takes place over a whole year I wanted to showcase the various milestones and holidays the family would encounter. I was inspired by the many cartoon holiday specials I had seen growing up - from Charlie Brown to the Simpsons.

A key thing to remember is that these episodes really have nothing to do with the chronology of the story. Even though the show veers towards the fairly bizarre, I wanted to have a group of episodes where I had the freedom to pretty much do anything. And as you’ll see as the holidays progress, the shows definitely do not take place in any kind of real world. This is a point of key importance when we get to the Thanksgiving special. In some cases they blatantly ignore some of the chronology, especially parts of the Halloween episode.

And as an added bonus, they are usually doubled sized episodes - really their own short films. So sit back and enjoy the show. And keep posted for other holiday themed “Mayfarers”episodes down the line!

There’s been a lot of recent blog posts alluding to the rumor that the web series is dying. Most of the articles are looked at from the business side of it.

I’d like to add my two cents into the discussion as a content creator myself and a “small grasshopper” in regards to putting material online. From my own point of view, as someone who has been in the independent film world for a long time, creating web series is the best single damn thing to ever happen.

Is it a crowded space?

Sure.

Is it hard or near impossible to make a buck or attract advertising or sponsorship?

Of course.

Are the huge view counts attainable on a consistent basis?

No.

Hard? Challenging? Feel like your banging your head against the wall impossible?

Yes!

But this is nothing compared to the indi film world. You’ve got - dried up film financing, artistic compromises made for investors, diva talent, a distribution platform that has dried up, and has been proclaimed dead - an atmosphere of downright swindler ship with most low-budget foreign distribution companies, an over saturation of the marketplace leading films to wither on the vine, all of these are a daily occurrence in the indi film world with far, far more dollars on the line.

Perhaps it’s a result of me still being “buzzed” from being a newcomer in the online video world, but the sense of creative satisfaction I’ve gotten in the past few months has surpassed all my experiences in the indi film arena.  I’m making a show that I like, not what other cooks in the kitchen want to see, I’m making it with friends, shooting it in the style I want to, and above and beyond anything else, enjoying myself. This is not even taking into account the viewer ship we’ve gotten, which, while by web standards is fairly minuscule, is for my own experience in showing films to festival audiences, far and away amazing.

No DVD screeners that fail to work, no dealing with unscrupulous sales agents who won’t return calls, no barrier to pushing your material out to an audience. The ability to be completely and totally in control of your destiny.

Is it still hard to make money online? Do you still need some kind of recognizable talent or element? Is it still a momentously uphill battle? Of course, and those debates and challenges have been written by voices in other far more established blogs. But for web series creators who have been around for a few years, who have become disillusioned that things haven’t changed, don’t forget the tremendous power that doing these shows have given you - and don’t forget what the alternative could be - because doing a web show, with all the inherent challenges in doing so, is far, far more creatively satisfying than any alternative in the independent realm.

So “Meet the Mayfarers” moves in a new direction today. The story so far has been one continuous ensemble of the family struggling to live together to get the inheritance.

Every few months or so however, we focus on one of the characters in their own story outside of the main plot.  This first one, “The Penguin Chronicles” showcases Nick’s struggles in the entertainment business, made even more difficult now that he’s living at home.

Since the show has been shooting on a fairly regular basis now for over a year and a half, I wanted to make sure we’d be able to film even if we couldn’t get the entire family cast together. That was the genesis of these “Solo” episodes. Even though they are stand alone pieces,  a lot of the plots and characters introduced here are woven into the main ensemble episodes down the road.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this little narrative detour in the show.

My definition of a great movie is solely based on one thing:  Is it rewatchable?

Forget if the “Subtext was important” or it was about some historical event, or an “important’ social issue. All that matters for me at least is - after I finish watching it, could I pop it right back into the DVD player and watch it again?

That’s why the movies that usually win all the awards never do it for me as much as the ones that are just additively re-watchable.

What’s your definition of a great movie?

One question I get asked constantly is why I created a show with a name so similar to a feature film I directed a few years ago. Many people assume that one must be a sequel to the other, or they take place in the same word, or that I simply just ran out of family name ideas.

The truth of the matter is a little more subtle than that. But to answer the questions: a) No, they don’t take place in the same world b) No, one is not a sequel to the other.

“The Wayfarers” was a comedy/drama feature film I shot a few years ago. It was the story of a family who are reunited when the dying matriarch of the family wants to stage a “remembrance ceremony” for herself before she passes away. The story veers from comedy to seriousness throughout the film. Tonally it is completely different from my current show. While there is absurd stuff going on, for the most part I tried to ground the film in reality.  It is a “slice of life” character study which is as much a study of the seaside villages of New England and the fishing life as it is the character dynamics.

Making “The Wayfarers” was a special time. I had been writing commercial spec screenplays for a number of years and came to a point where I wanted to do something that was straight from the heart, that was totally “me.” The story is not autobiographical, though there are many true to life and autobiographical elements in certain situations, and character colorings.

Even years later I look back at the eleven days we shot that film as one of the highlights of my life. I was doing what I loved to do, and the cast and crew truly bonded as a family in a magical seaside town.

Cut to a few years later and I was coming off of directing a film that was not close to my heart. I had been dealing with the hassles of distribution and bureaucracy of the film business. Most of all, I wasn’t having fun. When I decided to make a web show, I wanted to do a project for me, once again. But this time, being on the web, I knew that instead of embracing a “heartfelt” type of screenwriting, I decided to embrace my inner absurdity. I wanted to take the experience I had on “The Wayfarers” and put it in a fun, funny and comically bizarre context. Whereas “Wayfarers” was grounded in the real world, “Meet the Mayfarers” would be totally absurd, with a deliberate lack of logic. Unlike the film before it, the characters would not be people you would care for - they’d be utterly irredeemable. If I felt like the story zigging one off the wall way - well sure, why not? The point was to do something and have a blast shooting it.

And the reason I wanted to do a story about a family, even in a bizarre setting, was because I had so much fun on “The Wayfarers.” I wanted to return to the fun and sense of satisfaction I had on that shoot. I wanted to do something right off the bat that would be a “good luck charm.” That would ensure that the web show experience would be as good as the film.

So what did I do?

I flipped the W.

And there we go. Two totally different projects. While some of the foundation of them are the same, they are miles apart, both because they are each made for different mediums, and because their goals are different.

And, while I am a huge fan of crossovers - there won’t be any for these projects.

At least…not yet.