New Year's Eve with Dezso Magyar

People say that how you spend New Year's Eve dictates how you will spend the rest of the year. I hope this is true.

So I walk in to a New Year's Eve party, and the first person I'm introduced to is Dezso Magyar, the Hungarian filmmaker and CAO of Chapman University's film school. Of course, we first discussed Hungarian food, our favorite hotels in Budapest (Dezso's is the Four Seasons), how Hungarians have influenced the film industry (Fox, Zukor, Foreman), and Greystone Mansion where I was married and where Dezso ran AFI for many years.

Turning to our shared passion, independent film making, Dezso correctly stated that the problem isn't that films are not getting made. In fact, in 2009, Sundance had more than 6,092 short entries alone and thousands of features, most of which will never get a distribution deal. The problem is that many of these films lack quality material and a quality cast. It may sound obvious to start with quality material, but if it's so easy, why isn't everybody doing it? It's a sin to waste celluloid. So, before picking up the camera in the New Year, get a piece of material as sharp as a scissors' edge and attract actors that can wickedly inhabit the role. Make 2010 the year of your dreams!