The Filmmaker's Notebook

I’ve been thinking a lot about casting lately, especially since we are in the thick of reviewing hundreds of auditions for The Quiet Canadians. One of the books I read recently on independent filmmaking is Dan Mirvish’s Cheerful Subversive’s Guide to Independent Filmmaking. It has made me think about revisiting one of the most famous casting stories in cinema history. You know the one - how an unknown Scottish actor with a thick accent and working-class background became the most iconic spy...

I was chatting recently with a Producer friend who’d just wrapped a micro-budget feature. “You know what killed us?” he asked, “We spent half our budget on crew positions we didn’t actually need because, well, that’s what the call sheets always look like.” That got me thinking about something I’d heard called “zero-based thinking” - this idea of stepping back from how we’ve always done things and asking: if we were starting fresh, what would we actually need? It’s a concept that’s...

It's 5:30 AM. I'm on my second Americano, staring at the rejection email from Telefilm that landed yesterday. Three cups of coffee won't wash away the sting, but they might fuel the anger-typing that follows. Look, I'm not going to sugarcoat this. Getting that "Unfortunately..." email hit like a sucker punch to the gut. After six months of application prep, budget revisions, and endlessly tweaking that pitch deck - the suits in Toronto decided "The Quiet Canadians" doesn't deserve their...

So you want to make a movie? Great! But here's the million-dollar question that most of us filmmakers skip right over in our excitement to get behind the camera: What exactly do you want to accomplish with your film? Trust me, I've been there. When we made "13 Miles," our triathlon-focused first feature, we were so focused on telling a great story that we hadn't fully clarified what success would actually look like beyond "finish the darn thing." It wasn't until later that we realized how...

“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” — Marcus Aurelius Admittedly I had a different article in mind for this week... I was writing it on Sunday until a news piece changed what I wanted to talk about this week... So you're getting this Monday morning instead of on Friday or the weekend, as usual. But hey... Life happens. By now you’ve likely heard the news that sent tremors through our industry: President Trump has announced plans to impose a 100%...

Why gathering 150 interested fans can save you months of wasted work. Okay, this week, I'm giving you something hopefully you can use. We’ve all heard horror stories of filmmakers spending a year writing a script or shooting a proof-of-concept only to discover nobody cares. One way to avoid that fate is to test your idea first, before you write a single scene. The “0–150 email list test” does exactly that: it asks you to build a small mailing list – up to about 150 people – who are genuinely...

Why Volume Beats Perfection—And How Indie Filmmakers Can Build a Sustainable Career One Movie at a Time I've been on a bit of a soap box the past couple of weeks, admittedly. It's because I’ve got a confession: for years I chased the “perfect” film. You know, the One: waiting for the right pieces, circumstances, people, etc. for the perfect movie that would launch my career like a rocket. I polished scripts until they fell apart, waited for ideal conditions (spoiler: they never came), and...

April, 16 2025 From the Producers’ Chair Hello Reader, Today is National Canadian Film Day—a moment to pause and recognize the incredible stories born here, told here, and shared with the world. And it’s a perfect day to send this update because The Quiet Canadians—our next film—is more than just a movie. It’s a declaration of how we believe films should be made: • With clarity of purpose. • With a committed audience from day one. • And with a whole lot of Canadian grit and ambition and some...

I'll admit it. It feels a little awkward to write about Taylor Swift. I’m an independent filmmaker. I make movies with names like The Quiet Canadians—not Speak Now (Taylor’s Version). Like I should be drafting a gritty script about espionage instead of analyzing pastel albums and glitter-filled fandoms. But stay with me—because if you’re serious about being an indie filmmaker, you need to study the moves of the greatest self-marketer alive. And that person? Isn’t Scorsese. Isn’t Nolan. It’s...