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Awhile back I wrote a piece about the struggle to create content versus creating good content. The urge to create content never goes away for me. I do have other things I'm focusing on right now with grad school, a new job search and something I can't talk about right now. (Teaser!) But lately, I keep thinking about shooting something...anything. I just keep hearing the opening line from "Can't Fight This Feeling" from REO Speedwagon in my head. It never fades. I'm writing, but not enough. And even when I'm writing, that doesn't quell the desire to get behind the lens and tell a story. It's a bit different this time around. It''s not about getting a reel together. It's not about submitting to festivals. I just want to tell a story. I just want to create good content. That's it. Ideally, I'd like to shoot something once a month or once every two months. Churning out short film after short film. That should quench that thirst. Yeah. That'll do it. Here's the REO Speedwagon music video: Pretty sure that's Tony Sudol on piano. (inside joke) #filmmaking #shortfilm #contentcreation #writing

Cue the "Boys are Back in Town" by Thin Lizzy, please. Movie Night is coming to my house. My good friend and I, while texting about how much we enjoyed The Nice Guys - one of my favorite movies from last year, each remarked a really good movie night would be Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and The Nice Guys, both movies written and directed by Shane Black. And it's on! Tonight! Movie night! And I may just live tweet it. Maybe. Probably. It's happening. I encourage you to check these movies out, if you haven't experience them already.

Friends, family and self-help gurus will extoll the virtues of having confidence, but you can't make someone have it. You can't teach it. You can't learn it. You can't develop it as a skill. It starts with belief. Belief in your choices, in your abilities, in your talents, in yourself and who you are, what you love, what your passionate about. Only then can your confidence grow. Then what happens? You share everything that makes you believe in yourself and someone responds in a way that's not what you expected. They make a joke. They criticize. They're not impressed. They simply just don't support you. And all that confidence you built up comes crashing down with ease. If you've already figured it all out already, I know. This doesn't happen to you. You shrug of any direct or indirect attack at your confidence. You've found success. For everyone else, it's a struggle. It's hard. I fight it every day. Keep on keeping on. Even though confidence is so fragile, once you master it, it hardens like a rock and nothing will break it or so I'm told. #confidence #selfhelp #wrtiting #filmmaking

This will probably make me feel old and make you think I'm old, but remember when songs and movies were thought of in the same breath? When you can listen to a song on the radio and remember the movie it either premiered in or was a big part. The Breakfast Club - "Don't You (Forget About Me)" Top Gun - "Danger Zone" St. Elmo's Fire - "Man in Motion (St. Elmo's Fire)" Rocky III - "Eye of the Tiger" Footloose - "Footloose" (Duh!) The list is long. (I know my wife is yelling about "Time of My Life" from Dirty Dancing with now) And yes, there are still movies today that have songs associated with them. I'm not disputing that. What I'm merely suggesting is there seems to be a lack iconic songs in movies occurring today. 10, 20, 30 years ago - songs and movies were equal partners. Now, it's waned. Could be cyclical. Could be an adaptation to the way people get their music. Perhaps musicians don't need the power of movies anymore to help catapult their careers. They have YouTube, Vimeo, etc. Maybe I'm just old. #music #soundtracks #movies #RealGenius #Footloose #Rocky #TheBreakfastClub #StElmosFire #TopGun

The rules are changing. Technology is breaking down how it used to be and leaving an empty space which very few people are willing to fill. Make a movie and get it into film festivals. That was the goal in 1991. But that game was rigged and it's even worse now. The best part is that you don't need it. You can find an audience on-line. You can connect with fans over social media. You can build your community of followers without the guise of dropping $1000 in festival submission fees per project. This is a business. Every project you start is a small company. When you make a feature, you should be creating a small LLC for that feature. Your company is My Awesome Movie and your product is that awesome movie. We need to stop doing it the old way. We need to stop doing it "the way it's always been done." Screw that thinking! The market is out there for us. Go get it. We're starting a business. We need to act like it. We have the tools. We have the talent. (No, we're not the Ghostbusters) We have the access. We have the technology to make it happen. #technology #indiefilm #webseries #writing #filmmaking #storytelling #Ghostbusters

Would it be fair to say that the indie film world or maybe this whole industry is based upon hope? Potential? Wishful thinking? Is the major commodity that's being traded amongst storytellers the idea of what project they could possibly be working on? I get it. This is how the business works. When we realize we want to tell stories, we naively go into it thinking: Just give me a chance and someone will see the talent. We all know the end of that story. Even the most talented get overlook, so we persevere. We keep at it. We struggle until opportunity and luck meet. And that way works. I wanted it to work for me. But is it the most efficient way to get it done? Isn't there a better way to do this? This is a business. We need to start acting like it. Every project you make, you're starting small business. Your product is the content. She doesn't sell seashells by the seashore in hopes to get to sell more seashells. She sells them to make money to help her sell more seashells. (Say that three times fast!) Note: Why the hell is she selling seashells by the seashore? Wouldn't the seashore already be loaded with seashells for people to pick up on their own for free? She should go inland where seashells are scarce. Or open up an Etsy account. We make content, we want to find the best place to sell it. Stop making content in hopes it'll get people to notice you. Make content that you can sell. Make content that you can market. I'm not saying to make content that goes against your style, but if you like to make black and white silent horror films, you have a niche audience. Find them. Promote to them. Sell to them. We always hear: Tell the stories you want to hear. Maybe it's time we tell stories that we want to sell, not the stories we want someone to like and then maybe give us a chance to make more. #indiefilm #writing #content #etsy #SheSellsSeaShells #filmmaking #storytelling

What happened to the rom-com? Where'd they all go? I did a quick, unofficial Google search for romantic comedies and the closest one I found listed was Silver Linings Playbook. While I enjoyed that movie, it's not a romantic comedy. It has elements, but it's not a rom-com. The next closest was Crazy, Stupid Love, which I like quite a bit. But again. Not a romantic comedy. The Proposal. Ok, not bad. That works. After that was Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Now, I wasn't a biggest fan of that movie and while yes, technically, it's a rom-com, I also think it delves into a straight-comedy at times. But that's when I started to think about comedies that have rom-com elements, but are not in that genre. I watched Dirty Grandpa the other day. And it was a raunchy sex comedy that somehow attempted to squeeze in a rom-com element, as if to give it heart. That seems like a trend. Elements of rom-coms being placed into movies for heart. And this leads to the demise of the rom-com as a genre. While You Were Sleeping, Sweet Home Alabama, Just Friends, Sleepless in Seattle, Notting Hill, Dan in Real Life, The Wedding Singer, 13 Going on 30, etc. - Where have these movies gone? They'll be back. It's all cyclical. Just like how soon we'll be seeing the reprise of slasher Horror movies, which went into hiding after the late 90s. #90s #romcoms #romanticcomedy #movies

For me, it's a toss-up between "Kingsman" and "Mad Max: Fury Road". Those two stand out. Although, I do like "John Wick" quite a bit. Sure, I can toss out "Edge of Tomorrow" or "Live. Die. Repeat.", but that's part sci-fi as well, so I'm hesitant to choose it. Plus, I like the top two choices more. I also thought about "The Nice Guys" but that's not action. It's mystery and noir with action elements. I do like "Pacific Rim" as well and while it's dumped on constantly, the final 10 minute action scene in "The Lone Ranger" is pretty darn good. Remember. We're going back to 2012 only. So what am I forgetting? And...go! #Kingsman #MadMaxFuryRoad #actionmovies

I'm antsy because I'm not creating content. I'm writing (not enough), which quells it slightly. But I'm doing no content creating and that's annoying me. I'm even entertaining the idea of doing a fake trailer for "Sous Chef", the Tina Fey-American Express commercial joke that she pitches as a TV show. That's how bad the drought is. I'm resorting to these tactics. And now my children are getting into the act. My 10-year-old (seen to the left) told me on Sunday: "I want to be in a YouTube show." So clearly I'm creating a legacy of content creation or maybe it's all the YouTube videos she watches. Yes, the younger they are, the more they care less about where to find their content. They want it now. They want it on any device. And I need to start creating it. #contentcreation #writing #video

It's Jackie Robinson's number when he came to the major leagues. It's the answer to question: What is the meaning of life? ​It's Fox Mulder's apartment number. And now, it's my age. Happy Birthday to me. #May5th #CincoDeMayo #42 #XFiles #FoxMulder #HitchhikersGuidetotheGalaxy #JackieRobinson

I posted this photo yesterday on my Instagram with the caption "The Dream Never Dies". It's a chalk drawing of the Up on the Roof logo. Up on the Roof is the name of my production company. The name has been around since the early 90s and it represented a majority of my shorts, the web series and the feature. But after I posted that photo, I kept thinking that the caption is misleading. Dreams are not concrete. They are not bankable. They are wishes. Dreams drive us. They inspire us, but they also obfuscate us. We've all had the late nights with our friends where we keep saying: "I just want to be _____." Fill in the blank with whatever your dream may be. I even texted that the other day to a friend of mine. But it serves no purpose. It helps no one. It's an empty wish in hopes someone will grant it. Dreams are how we start. It's our true passions. But it's up to us to act on it. Telling people your dreams is not action, it's wishful thinking. Stop dreaming. Stop wishing. Stop drawing chalk logos and sending out vague reminders of what once was. (That last one is probably more for me) Act. Do something. Do anything. Stop dreaming and starting making goals. Goals are tangible. They are attainable. They are the re-branded, realistic version of dreams. I've been telling stories for 20 years, but I've never made a living from it. All those years ago, my dream was either to direct or write films. Today, my dream is a goal. And that goal is to tell stories in any form and make a living out of it. I'm in school to help with goal. I'm networking to help with this goal. I'm working with others to help with this goal. I don't know the end game, but I know that I'm no longer dreaming. #dreams #storyteller #writer #writing #UpontheRoof #michaelfield

The MFA is the new MBA. This isn't new. I know this. Here's some quick reading. (I'm aware these are somewhat old in age) Let Computers Compute. It's the Age of the Right Brain. Is An MFA The New MBA? The MFA is the New MBA So this weekend, I was at a pretty awesome conference, Digital Jam, at Quinnipiac University. A lot of great information on the state of the social and digital world as of today and for the future. And this topic came up briefly. How creative minds are what's lacking in the business world. Creative people are the what drive innovation. Corporations are loaded with business minds and no creative ones. And that's all true. And accurate. And hoorah for this idea. But, I couldn't help but think to myself that this has always been the case. This has always been the truth. This isn't a new concept. This isn't a new business philosophy. This idea of creative minds being integral to the success of the business world has been forgotten. It's been taken fro granted by the very same people that now claim to be in dire need of it. Maybe I'm being petty. What do I want? A mea culpa? Someone to say: "Listen. We screwed up. Come help us." More to the point, it's probably because I've tried to be creative in my day job. I've introduced ideas, but they're ignored or tried and left to fail. I've been part of a company that doesn't really want to do anything creative for fear of who knows. One person not liking it. One reason they can think of to be a negative. ("We'd have to print all that paper") Creatives will change this world. They've done it before. They're doing it now. They'll do it again. #becreative #MFAisnewMBA #digitaljam2017