12 Key Traits of the “Indie-Friendly” Director

Video Village, Indie-Style

Not every director is suited for low-budget indie filmmaking, and that’s OK if you’re Terrence Malick or David Fincher. But chances are, you’re not…or not yet, anyway. I get a fair number of calls from biggish directors and producers who are having trouble raising money for their films and want to explore how to make them on the super-cheap. I’ve entertained some of these requests, collecting funny anecdotes along the way, like the director who wanted to fly in stars from another country and rent large trailers for them, but forego unions and production insurance. Or the producer who wanted to cast an actor whose agent demanded $12,000 worth of perks, when our entire costume budget was just $4,000. As much as I want to work with these namey folks, I usually end up politely declining because I know that it will be difficult for them (and for me, especially) to make a movie on a fraction of the budgets to which they’re accustomed...  [Read More]

Film Project Markets, Dissected

Film Independent's Fast Track

Sometimes I feel like a traveling salesman, going from festival to festival selling my finished films, and from market to market pitching my new projects.  I recently participated in my ninth project market on the “filmmaker” side, and I’ve done four of them on the “industry” side, so I figured I’d write about my experiences with project markets to try to demystify them a bit... [Read More]

The Privilege of Representation

Elderly Chinese folks in Chinatown's Columbus Park. We tried to get these guys
to audition for Children of Invention. They thought we were crazy.

Here's my first monthly post for IFP, in which I make my case for casting minority actors and share my experiences with "community casting":
>> The Privilege of Representation

Musings of Yesteryear

Hey, I'm back (after a very long hiatus)! I'm going to be blogging for IFP, so I thought I'd put together a little collection of some of my musings over the last few years so you'll have an idea of who I am and what I'm about--although it's weird reading these old statements of mine since I disagree with some of them now. But hey, since they're already floating around out there in cyber-eternity anyway...

Check back for more posts to come. I'll be republishing my monthly IFP posts here, and perhaps blogging in between those as well. In the meantime, c'mon and follow me on Twitter and Facebook. I'd be much obliged!

• Angry Asian Man | Angry Reader of the Week: Mynette Louie (6/4/10)
• Forward Marsh | Meet the Producer: Mynette Louie (6/4/10)
• Indiewire | Futures: “Children of Invention” Producer Mynette Louie (4/23/10)
• Truly Free Film | “Children of Invention”: Why They Are Glad They Went DIY (3/12/10)
• Truly Free Film | “Children of Invention”: Why They Turned Down 8 Distribution Offers (3/11/10)
• The Harvard Crimson - Fifteen Minutes | 15 Questions with Mynette Louie (3/4/10)
• Harvard Magazine | Indie Film Blues: Interview with Mynette Louie (Mar-Apr 2010)
• Filmmaker Magazine | Mynette Louie on Big Art, Little Debt (2/3/10)
• Filmmaker Magazine | Blogging From the Sundance Creative Producing Lab: Mynette Louie, Part 2 (7/28/09)
• Filmmaker Magazine | Blogging From the Sundance Creative Producing Lab: Mynette Louie, Part 1 (7/16/09)