OK - so.... Everyone's got money problems, right? It seems that whether you're making money or dead broke, there are still money problems. I know lots of people who make plenty of money, and they still have money problems, so it's not as if making the money solves anything if you're clueless about what to do with it. So, here's a link:

http://docs.google.com/View?id=dhn8tb68_10dfp94zhd

It takes you to my renowned (in the small pond of the BHP) "Get a Grip on Your Finances" booklet. There's nothing in this that I invented - it's just a bunch of well-known financial principles put together in a sequence and written from a certain actor-friendly POV, since it came out of eight bazillion meetings over the years with cashflow-challenged students.

But since I don't trust that anyone will click on the link and read it, here's the Number One Important Item to Change Your Financial Life Forever (and you don't need to send $19.95 or call an 800 number to get it)...:

SAVE TEN PERCENT OFF THE TOP OF ALL INCOME, AND NEVER TOUCH IT.

This should happen no matter what level of catastrophe you're in financially. Most people don't save because they feel they're in such a fix that they "can't," or don't deserve to, or whatever. But debt shouldn't affect savings - and no I don't care that the interest being charged on the debt is higher than the interest on the savings. Savings occurs no matter the fires burning around you. You can be fucked up financially and save 10%, or fucked up financially and not save 10%. Short term you're still probably fucked up, but the difference is that the saver has decided this fuckedupitude will finally stop. If you owe an ugly world $10,000 and made $100 this week, save $10 and then face the world. It will still be ugly, but the $10 means everything to the future and very little to the present situation. The rest of this post is quoted directly from my "Get a Grip..." booklet.

I'll just add in up front: Those who make the decision to do this and don't flinch and don't pull the savings out to handle an emergency will win. That doesn't mean the converse is true, that those who don't save lose - although I've observed those who don't save or constantly blow it usually continue to exist in a month-to-month, year-to-year haze of financial stress, waiting to win a career lottery. On the other hand, those who are able to do this will win - "win" being defined here as "will get a grip on their finances and stop stressing out about it in fairly short order, usually within 12 months."  Period. It's just a statistical observation.

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Set up an automatic, recurring transfer from your checking account to your savings account. The transfer should occur once a week. The amount should be equal to roughly 10% of your weekly income. If your income varies from week to week, take an average.

If you get a bigger check along the way, or you have a great week, then you have to manually transfer an amount that reflects 10% of that great week. If you have a regular $40.00 transfer that is automatic, based on $400 a week income, and you suddenly get a residuals check for $1,000 – then you must ensure that you save an additional $100 in that week.

Notice that there is nothing here about a prerequisite that you make more than you spend. It doesn’t matter. Most people raise their eyebrows and say, “I have $500 a week in expenses, I’m making $200 a week. I’m $300 in the friggin’ hole, and you want me to save $20?”

YES. Savings occurs based on income. It’s not based on what you owe. It’s not based on you making more than you spend. It’s based on income. It’s based on any incoming money. You made $10 this week? Or you borrow $10 this week? Or you found $10 this week? Cool, cool, cool. Save $1.00, and then move on to your other issues. Pay yourself first.

Here's the kicker: Do not touch your savings account. Ever. Don’t touch it. Don’t touch it. Don’t touch it.

DON’T TOUCH YOUR SAVINGS ACCOUNT.

We were all brought up at some point with the idea of “saving for a rainy day.” And this is why most savings accounts are so empty. Many people start the savings action, but the first time the brakes fail on their car, the savings is gone. “Rainy days” come to mean just about anything. Your savings account is not just a “rainy day” fund. Nor is it a new TV fund. It is your FUTURE. The idea is that you will never touch this money. In fact, let’s call it your future account, your prosperity account, your some-day-I-don’t-want-to-work-this-goddamned-job-and-be-able-just-to-pursue-my-friggin’-ART……..! account. Whatever we call it…

DON’T TOUCH IT.

Here is the biggest gut check of the whole program: Most are cool to this point, they get all jazzed up to save, they do it for a month or two, and then….. A rainy day hits. Dental work. Car repair. What do you do? Well…. If you come across a day when you have zero dollars in your checking, $1,000 in your savings/future account, and the rent is due, you will… borrow the money for rent. This is the hurdle. And once you cross it, you’re well on your way, because that means you’ve finally decided: your future is more important than whatever stupid bullshit is happening right now. (And don’t forget if you borrow $1,000, the first thing you will do is transfer $100 to your savings account!)

The concept here is that debt is managed. It may go up and down, but the one thing that NEVER stops, NEVER goes down, is your rate of savings. Ultimately, this savings can be transferred to an investment vehicle like stocks, bonds, real estate, a business that provides you income, etc. But for now, it’s just cash that sits in that account or CD or IRA and accumulates and earns a bit of interest. Don't worry about investing in non-cash vehicles until you've got about $100,000. I'm not an investment advisor by a long shot - I just assume by the time you've got $100K in savings, you'll have worked hard enough and know better what to do from there.

As things start cooking, you can raise the percentage that you save. But don’t get aggressive, save $500 in one week because you're feeling swell, and then the next week go, “Ooops. I shouldn’t have done that. I'm so manic! Part of my charm. I’m just going to remove that $500. That was a mistake.” NEVER TOUCH THE SAVINGS. Because if you touch it once, you’ll touch it again, you’ll go back to thinking that whatever bullshit is happening right now is more important than your future, and then your savings will be gone in no time flat.

Handling debt certainly has its place in getting a grip on your finances, but it's simply not as important a priority as INVIOLABLE SAVINGS.

It doesn't quite work, because "Cynema" and "Cinema" are homonyms. Visually - okay. Aurally - needs to be "Cynical Cinema."

Over the last year, I'd say I've seen about a dozen short video/film projects that have been conceived of and/or produced, directed, acted in by students or friends of mine, plus a few more via the "Check this out!" entreaty of a Facebook post or what-have-you. I've noticed in far too many of them a gravitational pull toward a glib, cynical tone - fully half of them are allied with the mockumentary style that reached its apogee first with Spinal Tap and then with Waiting for Guffman, and recently popularized on television by The Office, but depressingly absent a certain quality to be discussed below.

I think part of why the mockumentary is appealing to low-budget short film auteurs is that it offers relief from certain hoary technical considerations like "good lighting" and "camera moves" - the genre is defined by natural lighting, handheld camera, improvised lines, etc. But when you put poor lighting and jagged handheld camera moves on top of NO STORY and glib, improvised The Office-ish dry humor - this holds interest for about one minute  - if you're really funny. My problem is that unless you're going to be better and funnier than those two films or The Office, you shouldn't attempt it. Those are professionally funny people, and in this business I think if you haven't been paid to be funny, there's an awfully good chance that if you tried, you simply aren't funny enough to be paid for it. Ipso facto whatevero. And then there's the common offshoot of this tired genre: The mockumentary about The Industry. One of the short films I watched was an industry insider mockumentary about a horrible actor who screws up audition after audition while thinking he's Marlon Brando. Or the other one about, get this, The Awful Agent!  Ugh. If there's anything worse than generalized cynical mockumentary tone, it's that tone applied to the industry. It all just feels terrible irrelevant and clique-ish and narcisisstic. There's a reason Unscripted didn't make it past one season - and that was produced by George Clooney, who would seem to know a thing or two about creating successful work (the pilot was shot in one of our theatres, btw). And Extras as well - I think there are 12 episodes total. (Though among others, that one oft-Youtubeified scene with McKellan and Gervais is brilliance in this genre.)

But Holy Hypocrisy, Batman: I love Entourage. Huh? How is this possible? First off - it isn't mockumentary style. It has a structured story line each season, it's shot beautifully, and has at its heart a pulsating performance by Jeremy Piven as Ari. No Piven, no tickie, no laundry, no series. (Kevin Dillon's hilarity runs a close second.) And I loved Spinal Tap and Waiting For Guffman. Huh? Why? Firstly, they are made by some professionally funny people. But I would offer that underlying successful mockumentaries and industry-insider comedies is the factor referred to in the title of this post: They aren't Cynema.

cynical, adj., 1. concerned only with one's own interests and typically disregarding accepted or appropriate standards, 2. distrustful of human sincerity or integrity

So a definition emerges: cynema, n., filmmaking motivated (too much) by cynical motives of what will move the creators' careers forward, at the obvious expense of humanity or passion; cynema is often characterized by mockumentary style, poor craftsmanship, trying unsuccessfully to be funny (or just imitating others' humor), hitting a visual punchline, trying to nail a tone without nailing a story.

To me, the reason Guffman, Spinal Tap, The Office, Entourage do well is because there is a palpable sense, quite simply, of  joie de vivre. There's just a raw sense of fun underneath the really good ones. And most of the dozen or so shorts that I've seen that attempt the mockumentary style are bereft of joie de vivre. They're cynical. There's a nastiness underneath it, there's a bitterness, and it resonates throughout like a stuck low note on a piano, its volume regenerated again and again because the hammer is not damped down. They're trying too damned hard to be clever and to hit a tone. Why? Because they think that will be funny or will catch the attention of someone who will move the career forward. And when considerations of tone are overriding story, I think you're heading down the chute to irrelevance. Without story, there tends to be an aimless non-energy, no forward movement, the pace lags, and thus the only thing you have left to elicit a response is friggin' cleverness, and as result I feel pandered to. As the viewer, I start feeling ornery, as if I'm being commanded to laugh because.... Why? I don't know. Because if I don't, the poor specimen won't make it onto www.funnyordie.com or some such thing...

But I must confess I think all this relentless glib cleverness and cynicism is undercutting the real potentials of the talent involved. The question I always have, similar to that of my "Shit Theatre" post....: What else could this person have spent the time creating? One of my most common rhetorical questions to actors is, "If someone gave you $1M to make the movie you want for you to star in, what would that story be? And who would you play?" It's kind of scary how few people have the answers. But I would conjecture that only a small number would answer, "I would take the $1M and make umpteen cynical mockumentary short films, plus one narrative film about how bad my agent is." I think we'd start to hear about a broader story arc, more in-depth character, more dramas would show up to balance out the comedy, the imagination would take flight, etc.

So the bottom line of all this rambling would be that whatever passion and thoughtfulness would fuel the feature film you'd make for $1M or more, have the same fuel all that you do. A strong story, believed in by all who are making it, told with humor and compassion and humanity, has far more potential to launch you than a cynical attempt to nail a tone or style that is popular.