How would Spielberg have started his career if he had not made the 26-minute Amblin’ which VP Sid Sheinberg had seen after Steven was caught infamously sneaking on the Universal lot? It’s one thing to fool a guard at the gate but he sure had the goods when he had to show his potential talent with his film. That short film got him a 7-year deal at the studio. The only way to make noise is to enter festivals and competitions, and hope to win awards and get some promo. Amblin’ had won at the Atlanta Film Festival and Steven could put the word “WINNER” on his poster.

My American Film Institute short Once Upon An Evening, which ran 22 minutes, got me that same Spielberg deal back in 1978 when VP Peter Saphier thought it showed promise and was my industry angel. Just a few years later, when I was about to direct my first feature SHRIEK and was looking to hire an affordable production designer and visual effects artist, I saw James Cameron’s 15-minute short Xenogenesis and hired him on the spot. Roger Corman had also seen it and had hired Jim which is where he was slaving when I met him. He built my creature/monster and I almost succeeded in stealing him away from Corman’s company, but Roger had promised him a directing gig to keep him and Jim wisely stayed and directed his first feature within a year. The rest is history.

Making short films is absolutely essential for every promising filmmaker with a movie career dream. Not only does each film build confidence, but with every film your knowledge base grows and your third film should be a lot better than your first…your fifth even better. It’s all about learning the craft and becoming a better storyteller, and it gets more challenging and complex as the films get longer. Making shorts is how it all begins and they are the entry passports into Hollywood. Whether you go to film school or not, the passion of making short films is the currency to building a pro career. Almost everyone you ever heard of started out making shorts from George Lucas’ Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB made at USC to Marty Scorsese’s NYU films What’s a Nice Girl Like You Doing In A Place Like This and It’s Not just You, Murray!

Winning festival awards, making noise, promoting your work, and building a resume making short after short until hiring opportunities in features or TV open their doors is the life of a committed filmmaker with a dream that cannot be denied. You’re invited to come see the latest winning dreams – the hottest winning shorts – just announced at the Action/Cut 2011 Short Film Competition. These are among the next generation of filmmakers making their own short films as their promise of an exciting cinematic future and as their entry ticket to the Hollywood film industry. Bravo and “Roll cameras!”

First, a director they can rely on to tell this wacky story and pull it all together. Since Iron Man and its sequel did so good and was packed with CGI, let’s bring in Jon Favreau. Jon is a talented good guy (I briefly played poker with him) and has proven to be a much more exciting director that can deliver commercial flicks than his acting chops have delivered. “From the director of Iron Man” will look good on the poster. Hire him and pay his freight!

Second, who do we get to star in this thing? For the mysterious weird dude with that wacky wristband let’s bring in James Bond himself who can play hardcore and kick some butt. Pay his freight! But geez, for a projected budget of over $100-million, we’re gonna need some big-ass name to insure a couple of good weekends. How about Indiana Jones himself? Too old? Hell, John Wayne played an old cowboy in True Grit and that worked. OK let’s bring in Harrison and pay his freight. And enough big time expensive producers to choke any studio budget!

I haven’t seen the film but I think it’s safe to say that everyone in the industry was stunned when all of that money and hard work was edged on opening weekend by a bunch of SMURFS? What? How can that be? Well, I can guess that such a film is put together by a committee of very scared people trying to avert all possible risks…usually, that means a water-downed storyline with all the good human stuff and cool/bold ideas carved out, homogenized for broadest bland mass appeal, and amp up as much as possible the “wow” CGI effects. As usual, bombard the audience with lots of booms and hope no one has time to think rationally about this story…or concept which obviously they didn’t trust.

Thus, there are three writers with story credit and another five writers with screenplay credit. This doesn’t count all the others who came and went uncredited and the many executives with “opinions” and eleven producer types credited on the film. That’s one hell of a mishmash of notes messin’ with the original story everyone liked in the first place when they bought it.

But in the end, all that tinkering with story and execution, no matter how many zeroes added to the budget, they got their butt kicked by a bunch of smurfs that edged them in the holier-than-thou boxoffice divinity! I even saw a tweet by Favreau congratulating the little blue guys for their “strong opening” weekend. He couldn’t believe it either.

Once again, William Goldman was right when he said “Nobody knows anything!” What a business!