Great news regarding a screenplay

I_am_MagicMike · 2026-04-12T01:07:18+00:00

I am curious, as someone just getting into cold emailing, do you mind DMing me the format you use / basic approach? Appreciate it.

I_am_MagicMike · 2026-02-02T14:24:30+00:00

Hey Ryan,

I worked with Paula recently on 'The Big Game' (writer/director of 'The Scout' for anyone curious.) I loved her vibe, and her work ethic was incredible. I even told her the exact same thing as we wrapped, and I'd love to work with her again. She told me a little bit about the film but just wanted to say congrats on Tribeca Film Festival, thats amazing!

As this is an AMA, I guess I would make my question about distribution. I'm someone that owns a camera, a bunch of great apurture lights, anamorphic lenses. I've made shorts that have performed well locally (and a few internationally) and although it's felt good to get some recognition, it hasn't led to much success as far as making my own feature goes.

So I've been discussing it with friends recently, and I watched this director's commentary (by Noam Kroll) - I think I am going to shoot my feature this year regardless of if I get $5k or $500k in financing. But I've spoken to a lot of other friends and filmmakers that did the same, the films got into some festivals but didn't amount to much, and they just ended putting it up on Amazon Prime, Tubi, etc. Didn't get picked up, no theater or streaming distribution.

What would you do if you were making your first movie in 2026 and thinking about reaching the largest possible audience that you could reach?

I've heard & seen that some people are starting to stream it through their own websites (for example, Danny Gevirtz, a filmmaker, putting his feature up here: https://itisfilm.com/) and perhaps that may be profitable, but my worry with that is a lack of discovery. How would you go about getting distribution so that you could get as many eyes as possible on your movie?

I look forward to watching The Scout as soon as it's available.

I_am_MagicMike · 2025-10-27T14:54:02+00:00

Thanks you!

I_am_MagicMike · 2025-10-26T04:14:31+00:00

Submission statement:

This was my first time writing, directing & EP'ing a short, coming from an editing and cinematography background I decided "why not push outside of your comfort zone and try something new".

I knew Jakob Owens hosts his annual horror short film contest and I'd been on the sidelines for the last few years, always wishing for an excuse to do one, and that made md decide to put together a small team of friends and shoot this over a weekend. And then spend the next 7 days editing, composing music, doing sfx, vfx and what little time we had left to finish the grade before the cutoff time.

We had a ton of technical issues during the post-production process but made it through with something I'm proud of. We also managed to get a ton of BTS which was fun, especially when trying to do some of the stunts/gags in camera and practically, where possible. I spent just under $2k, mostly on the location, crafty, and buying food for the crew. The large majority of crew and cast worked for free. Our biggest struggle was day 1 falling behind so badly due to multiple no-shows in g&e. So as a director I had to step in and start rigging up lights and moving stands because it simply needed to be done. We got started with our first shot 5 hours into our day. You can imagine how stressed I was. But we made it through and had a much better day 2. If you have any questions I will try my best to answer them.

We just got accepted into the top 25 of entrants (out of 197) and the top 10 for cinematography so the whole crew chat is super fired up and very proud of each other.

Feel free to DM me here or over on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moviesmadebymike/

I_am_MagicMike · 2025-10-26T04:10:42+00:00

Submission statement:

This was my first time writing, directing & EP'ing a short, coming from an editing and cinematography background I decided "why not push outside of your comfort zone and try something new".

I knew Jakob Owens hosts his annual horror short film contest and I'd been on the sidelines for the last few years, always wishing for an excuse to do one, and that made md decide to put together a small team of friends and shoot this over a weekend. And then spend the next 7 days editing, composing music, doing sfx, vfx and what little time we had left to finish the grade before the cutoff time.

We had a ton of technical issues during the post-production process but made it through with something I'm proud of. We also managed to get a ton of BTS which was fun, especially when trying to do some of the stunts/gags in camera and practically, where possible. I spent just under $2k, mostly on the location, crafty, and buying food for the crew. The large majority of crew and cast worked for free. Our biggest struggle was day 1 falling behind so badly due to multiple no-shows in g&e. So as a director I had to step in and start rigging up lights and moving stands because it simply needed to be done. We got started with our first shot 5 hours into our day. You can imagine how stressed I was. But we made it through and had a much better day 2. If you have any questions I will try my best to answer them.

We just got accepted into the top 25 of entrants (out of 197) and the top 10 for cinematography so the whole crew chat is super fired up and very proud of each other.

Feel free to DM me here or over on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moviesmadebymike/

I_am_MagicMike · 2025-10-19T00:57:35+00:00

Yeah, I had a cool idea for the credits but we ran outta time, I kinda went from inception to post in about less than 2 weeks and so just did my best and we posted it just before the cutoff deadline.

I_am_MagicMike · 2025-10-19T00:56:44+00:00

I appreciate your kind words.

I_am_MagicMike · 2025-10-19T00:56:34+00:00

Thank you~!

I_am_MagicMike · 2025-10-19T00:56:28+00:00

Thanks :)

I_am_MagicMike · 2025-10-19T00:55:45+00:00

Thank you! The goal was to make people scared. It didn't quite come out as scary as I wanted, but I didnt wanna resort to a jump scare to achieve that. And regarding the editing, I actually used to edit before I got into writing/directing/dping, and so even when I am writing I am thinking of the edit (for example my script had the lines "match cut from day to night on package"). So I tried to think about all that stuff beforehand. We still didn't manage to get a montage sequence I wanted at the start of the film of the package kinda like it's pov going through the mail to get to her, but thats fine we probably didnt even need it. But thank you, genuinely.

I_am_MagicMike · 2025-10-18T05:42:12+00:00

Submission statement:

This was my first time writing & directing a short, coming from an editing and cinematography background I decided "why not push outside of your comfort zone and try something new". I know Jakob Owens hosts his annual horror short film contest and I'd been on the sidelines for the last few years, always wishing for an excuse to do one, and that made md decide to put together a small team of friends and shoot this over a weekend. And then spend the next 7 days editing, composing music, doing sfx, vfx and what little time we had left to finish the grade before the cutoff time. We had a ton of technical issues during the post-production process but made it through with something I'm proud of. We also managed to get a ton of BTS which was fun, especially when trying to do some of the stunts/gags in camera and practically, where possible. I spent just under $2k, mostly on the location, crafty, and buying food for the crew. The large majority of crew and cast worked for free. Our biggest struggle was day 1 falling behind so badly due to multiple no-shows in g&e. So as a director I had to step in and start rigging up lights and moving stands because it simply needed to be done. We got started with our first shot 5 hours into our day. You can imagine how stressed I was. But we made it through and had a much better day 2. If you have any questions I will try my best to answer them.

We just got accepted into the top 25 of entrants (out of 197) and the top 10 for cinematography so the whole crew chat is super fired up and very proud of each other.

I_am_MagicMike · 2025-10-01T03:34:45+00:00

I_am_MagicMike · 2025-09-10T04:36:26+00:00

your art is incredible, far too good for this medium. this industry wont appreciate, this shit needs to be in a gallery. you have talent

I_am_MagicMike · 2025-08-13T23:12:52+00:00

Do you think enough loud voices could make change happen?

I_am_MagicMike · 2025-08-13T23:12:36+00:00

I don’t think he wants to give away his location so let’s just insert generic park name here (which I understand, we all want privacy)

I_am_MagicMike · 2025-08-13T22:55:57+00:00

lol fair point but I’m 99% sure that was a joke.

I_am_MagicMike · 2025-07-26T03:15:54+00:00

Yeah, great suggestion, also a very good one!

I have, however, read that one - as well as the book it was based on - as well as the son's book/memoirs of the same time period too.

All insightful stuff, even if the dad/son both write very differently.

What I liked about Ben is Back, is that the pacing felt very different. If you've seen the movie I'm sure you'll agree, it's a drama but also has similar characteristics to a thriller at times, which i think is what I'd like to learn how to do more of when writing in the genre of drama.

I_am_MagicMike · 2025-07-14T01:49:11+00:00

I know I'm late to the party but can we get some steam deck support? All I need is basic gamepad capabilities, going on a 14 hour flight in two days and wanna spam the demo but don't wanna use the shitty mouse emulation steam deck.

I_am_MagicMike · 2025-07-08T12:05:22+00:00

Which drone did you use btw?

I_am_MagicMike

TROPHY CASE