It’s been an eventful weekend. This Friday, my wife and I flew out to Los Angeles.

While she hung out at the Bayyinah Tajweed classes taught by Wisam Sharieff, I attended a low-budget film financing seminar conducted by Suzanne Lyons, an independent producer.

I met Suzanne in April when she spoke at Film Specific’s Going Global Bootcamp. It was there I learned out about this particular workshop that I attended.

Outside of all the technical factors of financing and getting investors, a few points I took away from the class,

• Be selfless and inspiring - To be a successful producer, you have to be more than just a leader. You need to do more than just influence those around. Be able to put yourself aside and genuinely care for all of those you’re working with. Your very being must inspire excitement and enthusiasm for the work at hand. If you can’t do that, don’t be a producer.

• Make your movie for less – If your budget is $200,000, cut it down to $180,000 and get ready to work your butt off. – You’re better off than the people trying to sell their films today. It’ll take you about two years before your feature is done. By then the market will have picked up again – hopefully.

• Be unique in your movie – Don’t be a Slumdog Millionaire, Paranormal Activity, or Blair Witch. Be your own thing that the market wants to enjoy. Be the one to be copycatted.

• If you have a niche audience, truly consider developing your own distribution channels and systems.

One of the guest speakers – a sales agent – used an interesting analogy when talking about taking on the entertainment industry.

It’s like an Olympic race.

Are you getting up early every morning to run around the block while others sleep? Are you training yourself to be the best in your neighborhood, town, city, state and region?

Are you working to be the best in your country? Are you working hard to represent your people?

If in the end you make it into the Olympics will you really win the gold medal? That Oscar?

That is the reality of the business

Not everyone wins the Oscar, but many people have careers. Some just race. Others become trainers and mentors, but very few get the gold.

Out of 100 ideas there are 100 scripts. Out of 100 scripts only 10 movies get made, but there is usually one success.

My thoughts to all this: Dream bigger dreams, work smart and leave the results to Allah.

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Next up,

My meeting with some of Hollywood professionals.