Introducing Hollyweird 2.0
Let's make a movie together! I'm serious!
Last week marked one of our nation’s most important holidays, the birth of this newsletter!
As much as Hollywood is a very weird place to be, Hollyweird the newsetter has been a dream! Such a nice community has already formed here, and I’ve heard from many of you that it’s been an informative (I have even been told “inspiring”(?!)) look at what living and working in Hollywood looks like today.
I started Hollyweird with the goal of allowing anyone who wanted it a peek into the process. And what that usually means is being as transparent as possible about just how much work it takes to get something, anything, to happen.
I have occasionally found myself frustrated with my inability to be completely transparent. As much as I’m getting to talk about creative process (which I love) I’ve found myself feeling a bit boxed in by the inability to share it all.
I’d love to tell you which project of mine feels like it’s falling apart, and why, and talk about my thoughts on how to handle it this time, as well as how I’m going to try to avoid it in the future. I’d love to be able to share with you the beautiful pitch deck I was writing about a few weeks ago. I’d love to share the latest script and treatment and outline so you can see exactly how I do it. I’d love to share who we just sent my spec to, what we’re asking of them, and why. But… that’s not really done.
As Hollyweird enters its second year, I’d like to experiment in building something in the open. Entirely transparently. From idea to writing process to execution to building a team to fundraising strategies to distribution. All of it. So we can see it done together, and hopefully all learn a little bit, together.
The first thing we have to do is figure out the idea for a movie. And I’m going to let you vote on it.
So far I’ve managed to give you as many glimpses as I can, given that everything I’m working on has so many different stakeholders, so many different people and companies and personalities involved, none of whom particularly want things to be transparent.
Hollywood is historically very anti-transparency. Keeping everything secret creates both an air of mystery (aka glamour), and, more importantly, protects people from failing in public. This is ultimately everyone in Hollywood’s main fear. Getting caught looking stupid. In an industry that mainly runs on “heat,” there is nothing that more quickly chills than letting people see that something has been worked on to death, that it’s been hard to put together, that it’s taken time and energy and a lot of tolerating the word “no” before getting to this point where it just might work… We all know all of these things are true, and yet! We are not encouraged to broadcast it, at least not with too much specificity. In general, sure, the business can be hard, but never say that it’s been hard with the thing you’re currently trying to sell!
So, I’ve found myself unable to share some of what I most wish I could have seen when I was just starting out in my career. Whether it’s because of the nature of how Hollywood works (mysteriously) or the nature of my specific process oriented brain, I always want to know HOW things happen and WHY they happen that way.
Especially starting out, I’d find myself wondering: How would a “professional” outline this? How would they write it? How would they pitch it? How would they find producers? How would they find the money? How would they find the actors? How would they make it? And how much would they get paid? These are all things nobody really tells you.
So I’m going to share all of that with you here, for one specific project, a true Hollyweird Picture!
But Colby! You’re not really allowed to share this kind of stuff! Aren’t you worried about people stealing your movie idea(s)?
No. I’m not. And here’s why… you cannot copyright an idea. I really don’t think stealing an idea and beating someone to it is a thing. If I share my ideas for a movie (and I will, here) and someone else goes and writes them… they will ultimately end up doing it pretty differently from me. There are a lot of movies with the same idea. That doesn’t really mean anything. Every idea is different if executed differently. Not really something I’m worried about.
Aren’t you worried by exposing the project too early, distributors / financiers will be turned off?
No. I think this kind of “everything must be secret” is actually a misunderstanding of audience and scale. Even if the newsletter reaches… let’s say 50K-100K subscribers (which would be great, I’d love that, let’s make it happen), that is a drop in the bucket relative to the number of potential moviegoers out there. We want millions of people to see our movies, not 50K. So the film will be exposed to what essentially amounts to a small but dedicated fanbase, hardly the entire movie-going public.
If we were to have 100K people reading the newsletter, following along with the film’s journey, that would mean we have 100K fans who are already extremely invested in the outcome, who’ve signed up to go on the journey week after week, from idea to implementation to release, which would actually be… extremely valuable! This is exactly what we talk about when we talk about building a brand, and building a distribution pipeline directly between audience and creator.
I see this all as a net positive. Not a negative. So no. I’m not actually worried about this being a thing. And if it is a thing for a potential distributor or financier, I think they’re probably thinking about all of this wrong. Especially in our current marketplace where a direct relationship with audience is essential for success. This is that pipeline!
Aren’t you worried nobody will take you seriously if you’re creating like this?
I don’t really care! I’ve written and made movies (and television) in the traditional model. And I’m going to keep doing it. I’m currently doing it on a few things. I’m going to be fine. This is not a sign of “desperation” so much as it’s a sign of “curiosity.” If I were desperate, you’d know it! A lot of people are desperate right now, and it is a privilege to not be. And I want to use that privilege to my (and your) advantage!
This is an experiment in a new model. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with trying something new. In fact, some of the best things were at one point new!
Aren’t you worried this is kind of “cringe?”
Is it? I don’t think so. I think it’s a sincere attempt to make something interesting and to do it together! Sort of sounds… nice!
I’m sure there are a lot of other reasons not to do something like this. But I don’t really care about any of them! I want to share it all.
I want to let you, and anyone else you may want to join for the ride (hint hint, please share with your friends) in on the extremely candid, extremely real, extremely in the moment live-time creative process of making a movie. The tedium of pushing that boulder up the hill. The good, the bad, and the ugly. The success and the failure. The entire Hollyweird experience.
I am still going to be making movies in the traditional manner. Don’t panic. This isn’t going to apply to everything. It can’t. For legal reasons.
But I can try something new with one little movie.
So… why do this now, Colby?
Given the current state of our industry, a lot of film writers seem to be spinning around this question: how do we make a movie in a truly independent, or a “non-dependent,” manner?
Ted Hope has termed it “NonDē cinema, and Brian Newman’s newsletter Sub Genre has for years been singing the same tune, asking filmmakers to please, please, consider new ways to make and distribute films. They have both been beating this drum for quite some time. Here’s Ted in 2024: “We still have many business and creative practices based around the way things used to be. It is not about the way things are. We need a rapid reset. The quickest solution is often the simplest, and here that is to reject the old ways. They no longer apply.”
It’s been exciting to see a new crop of writers and artists over the last year pick up the mantel, including
& ’s (who I’ve shouted out before), and my friend , who’s writing in his newsletter about “learning in real time, out in the open.”All of the brilliant writing that so many have been publishing about how we need to try new things to save cinema (including the great work from Sophie at That Final Scene) has centered on this idea of challenging the “traditional” model of doing things.
So for the past few months I’ve been thinking about how I could do this. What would a scrappy NonDē feature production that challenged the traditional/institutional models look like?
While we’re re-thinking everything about the filmmaking process, shouldn’t we also be re-thinking what we can and can’t talk about? I have a feeling being open with the creative process for a movie, in order to build an audience for the movie before the movie even exists, despite not being “how things are done,” might actually be a much better way to do them.
What would it look like to do all of that within the confines of this newsletter so that people can see and steal the playbook? Because I want people to steal the playbook! Cinema needs as much diversity as possible, especially in terms of scale and scope of movies, in order to maintain a healthy ecosystem...
As I was daydreaming over all of this…
went ahead and beat me to the punch! She’s already making her own short film in exactly the “open-source,” totally transparent, method I’d been considering. So thank you very much Lauren for the inspiration and the confirmation I’m not crazy for trying this kind of thing!!If this experiment I’m proposing doesn’t work… lots of things don’t work. I’m used to expecting things will fall apart. That’s Hollyweird, baby! Heck, that’s life.
At least we will learn something along the way. And I will get to share all of that with you! Which is why I started this stupid newsletter in the first place!
But, I need your help.
Starting this week I will be turning on paid subscriptions. That does not mean that there will be less content for free subscribers! All of what I’m proposing here will be available entirely publicly. I don’t want to paywall the process, or else I’d be replicating the exact Hollyweird dynamic that I’m writing about trying to change.
But… if you can afford to pay the $8/mo, your paid subscription will be a way to vote with your dollars (the most important, American method of voting there is) in order to support this not that kooky idea of producing a movie entirely in the open.
You can think of your paid subscription in one of two ways. A) you are contributing directly to the movie that I’m going to go make. I will be earmarking the newsletter’s proceeds for exactly this purpose, and if we can break a critical mass of 10K paid subscribers, that could actually end up being enough to pay for exactly this kind of experiment, if we pick the right project. B) you are doing a public service by subsidizing the newsletter for the artists who cannot afford to pay for it, allowing me to keep all of the newsletter’s content free and available for everyone.
What will you get as a paid subscriber? Everything I’ve been proposing in this post, plus…
Access to a monthly, paid subscribers only, Hollyweird Hang. Part accountability group, part shooting the shit, we’ll meet monthly over zoom and do exactly what it says in the title, just… hang!
Quarterly Shareholders Meeting. The quarterly meeting of Hollyweirdos will cover both the state of the newsletter (subscriber count, revenue, most successful pieces, least successful pieces), as well the state of this, the first ever Hollyweird Picture. Shareholders will get first looks at all materials of the upcoming Hollyweird Picture, including outlines, treatments, scripts, and pitch materials. You're the ones paying for the movie so you should get to see every piece of the process -- so you can do it for yourself.
Close Friends on Instagram. Sometimes there's a post that is simply too revealing. This will be your chance to see it all. Expect this behind the scenes content to get particularly exciting once we are in prep and production!
Not to mention… the feeling of doing a good deed, for all of the newsletter’s current subscribers, and, the feeling of potentially doing something good for… cinema?! Sounds like a pretty good deal!
Enough about the Paid Hollyweird Tier. Which you can sign up for here.
So what should we expect from Hollyweird going forward?
To make a movie, we need to come up with an idea. I have a bunch, but I have a few that feel like they’re the right ones for this exercise in… doing things differently.
I’d like to tell you what they are, what my thought process is around the pros/cons of each, and then let you vote for which one I go write and direct! But that’s for another issue of the newsletter.
In the meantime, if you are into what I’m doing here, I would really love it if you would help by SPREADING THE WORD!
Sharing, commenting, and (dare I say it one more time) choosing a paid subscription are the best ways to vote with your attention and your dollar (the only two things the American economy prioritizes) for more open-source filmmaking efforts like this!
Thanks!
I will be off the next two weeks (and completely offline) so in the meantime, let me know in the comments what you think.
Think I’m crazy for doing this all out in the open? Think this is a good idea? A bad idea?
And yes, I am asking for you to sign up to pay and then taking time off. I know, I know. But Hollyweird will return… August 1st!
I simply picked up a camera 6 years ago, and started teaching myself all disciplines of Filmmaking, by making 11 shorts and several music videos. Directing, lighting, set design, scene composition, color correction, editing etc. Then, after 4 1/2 years I started on my feature which took a year to shoot. Guerilla style without a crew. So, if you want to be a filmmaker, make films.
This a fantastic idea! Go forth and open the kimono!!!