A flurry of articles are reporting that talented actresses like Nicole Kidman and Meryl Streep would like to work with highly acclaimed director Martin Scorsese but he only makes movies focused on male characters and has no interest in creating female-centered stories. These articles go on to say that Scorsese is cutting himself off from rich stories that could "widen his lens" (Ruuskanen 2024).  As the writer and producer of Talentless, a female-centered story, this article hit a nerve. But the nerve that it hit wasn't disgust over Matin Scorsese's narrow lens. Rather, it's that those criticizing him seem to have no understanding of how writing or directing works. When you write or direct a story, you aren't managing a company and, therefore, need to be an equal-opportunity employer. The first rule of writing is to write about what you know. And with directing, your strength is in directing stories that appeal to you. If you stay in that lane, the odds of ...

Talentless  will be an ultra-low-budget film. Movies made for under $300,000 fall into this category. Sometimes movies in this category are also referred to as micro-budget movies. For those of you living outside of filmmaking, those numbers may be shocking. I mean, you can buy a house for $300,000 here in Milwaukee! Or in California, you can buy a shingle! Okay, that's a slight exaggeration. You could probably buy a roof. But you get my point, moviemaking is expensive! A moderate-budget movie costs between $300,000 and $700,000. Theatrical releases typically have budgets over $2 Million with the average movie made today costing between $50 Million and $100 Million.  Why do movies cost so much?  Simple. It takes a small army to make one. There are at least fifty necessary positions needed to make a quality movie. These positions range from the ones everyone has heard of, like actors, producers, and directors, to the ones that go unnoticed, like transportation coordinators...