Suzanne Lyons Course Is A True Master Class In Moviemaking

If you're interested in making movies, I recommend the Suzanne Lyons online film production course that is available through the Indie Film Hustle Syndicate.

Lyons is a producer with numerous credits to her name, from sci-fi movies like "Time Toys" to horror movies like "Séance." This online course is truly a master class in which Lyons breaks down every aspect of filmmaking, from pre-production to casting to finding a line producer, which is someone who outlines all the costs of a production.

An especially helpful section of the course explains how to find investors to finance your movie. Lyons tells an interesting story about how you should never judge a book by its cover. 

In the anecdote, Lyons relates how an actor friend of hers kept asking about the latest movie she was producing. Lyons assumed that the actor, who works on and off like most of his peers, didn't have any money to invest.

Fortunately, the actor was persistent and revealed that he had been making money by flipping houses and was very interested in investing in Lyons' movie. So you should leave no stone un-turned when seeking out investors, as Lyons explains.

One of the things I really like the most about Lyons' master class is that each session is broken down into bite-size chunks. Each session is only five to 15 minutes long. A few are little bit longer, up to about 30 minutes. 

I like the small session sizes, because a lot of online courses with longer sessions are tedious to sit through. If you're like me, you're a busy person who listens to podcasts, webinars and courses while multitasking. And who has the time or attention span to sit through a course or webinar that goes on for an hour or longer? 

The bite-size chunks of the Lyons master class enable you to move through the course quickly and digest the information at your own pace. It's easy to go back and find sections that you want to make notes about, since you only have to rewind through sessions that are a few minutes apiece. 

Earlier, I mentioned that the course is available through the Indie Film Hustle Syndicate. This is a company run by filmmaker Alex Ferrari ("This Is Meg") that features a website, a podcast and numerous online courses like this master class with Lyons.

Ferrari makes an appearance in Lyons' master class. He leads an informative session about post-production and "deliverables," which are the aspects of your film that are needed in order to present your movie theatrically and to release it on DVD, Blu-ray and online streaming services. Ferrari breaks  down all those costs, and it is extremely helpful.

If you haven't checked out the Indie Film Hustle website and podcast, I would highly recommend doing so by clicking this link. Many of the courses, like the Lyons film production master class, are offered at an affordable price. And many of the resources, like the articles on the website and the podcast, are totally free. The Indie Film Hustle is a treasure trove of support for us filmmakers who are forging our own path in a very competitive industry. 

I give Lyons' master class five stars out of five. The main reason that I decided to take the class is because I'm about to embark on filming a new movie. The film I wrote and plan to direct is titled "Things Are Tough All Over," a fictional story of an African-American family struggling to keep their heads above water during the Great Recession of 2008. 

Before I set out to film "Things Are Tough All Over," I figured I needed a refresher course on film production. The other full-length movie that I produced, the documentary "Lady Wrestler: The Amazing, Untold Story of African-American Women in the Ring," was filmed and edited over several years. So I needed a crash course on how to produce a film in a compressed amount of time. 

Taking Lyons' master class, combined with all the resources at the Indie Film Hustle, will absolutely help you do that. 

This Is Who I Am And Why I Do What I Do

In this post, I describe what motivates me to tell stories on the page, onscreen and onstage.

I was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, and I’ve wanted to be a writer ever since I can remember. I credit my mom, Shelly, with instilling in me a love of writing and creativity.

My mom is a writer herself and has written short stories and poems since she was a kid. As a youth, she wrote a novel titled “To a Wild Rose,” which she says is eerily similar to my novel, “The Chloe Chronicles.” 

In my mom’s novel, “To a Wild Rose,” a young woman sits down at a Parisian sidewalk cafe and begins recounting her life story to an interviewer.

My novel, “The Chloe Chronicles,” centers on a beautiful, mixed-race woman whose story begins with her upbringing in Paris.

What makes the similarity in the stories my mom and I wrote so eerie is that I never read my mom’s unpublished novel. The  only copy of the typewritten manuscript was misplaced long before I was born.

In addition to my mom’s encouragement, I draw inspiration from pop culture. Like a lot of Generation X kids, I grew up on movies and television. 

I spent a lot of time over my maternal grandparents’ house as a kid. My Daddy Bob and Nanaugh Pearl were ahead of their time. In the early 1980s ‒ it may have  even been the late ‘70s ‒ they got cable television. Growing up, I spent countless hours glued to the floor-model TV in their finished basement watching movies on HBO,  Showtime and The Movie Channel. I did so much channel-surfing that I wore out several remote controls. 

The stories that really spoke to me were movies like “La Bamba,” “Flashdance” and “Purple Rain” about young people of color pursuing dreams in the arts. “Purple Rain” struck such a chord (pun intended) in me as a preteen that Prince continues to be my favorite musical artist of all time.

I was always inspired by multifaceted, creative people like Prince, Quincy Jones, Debbie Allen and Maya Angelou ‒ innovators who would jump from medium to medium and genre to genre.

I never understood why artists are supposed to limit themselves to just one “category.” Prince was a musical genius who became a movie star. Jones is a composer, but he also produced movies and founded the magazine Vibe. Allen is a dancer/choreographer, but she also became a director and producer. Angelou is famous for her poetry and memoirs like “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," but she made the leap into movie directing later in life. 

I remember seeing Angelou's directorial debut, 1998’s “Down in the Delta,” at the Drexel Theatre, a popular arthouse cinema in my hometown. I was inspired that a writer could successfully segue into filmmaking. I continue to be inspired by multidimensional artists who transcend genres.

Conventional wisdom would tell me to stick to one project in a specific genre, but I have so many stories that I want to tell that take the form of various media.

The major projects I’m working on this year are stories in different formats: the documentary “Lady Wrestler: TheAmazing, Untold Story of African-American Women in the Ring” and a re-release of my novel “The Chloe Chronicles” with some juicy new plot twists. 

I am also working on a new, fictional movie titled “Things Are Tough All Over” about a middle-class African-American family struggling to keep their heads above water during the Great Recession of 2008.

I have dozens of concepts for stage productions as well. At some point, I plan to revive my 2013 play, "The Springtime of Our Lives." In the urban drama, teen lovers Gary and Denise cope with an unexpected pregnancy while battling class differences and family instability. 

I hope you will join me on this journey to tell stories, whether on film, in print or on the stage. And I hope you find these stories inspiring.

For updates on my projects, please visit my website, Chrisbournea.com, and leave me your email address so we can stay in touch. 

New Book Explains 'Crowdsourcing'

If you're a writer and filmmaker like me, you absolutely have to read Richard Botto's "Crowdsourcing for Filmmakers: Indie Film and the Power of the Crowd." This book should be required reading not only for filmmakers and writers, but for any creative type.

Richard Botto is himself a writer screenwriter and actor. He is also the founder of Stage 32, which is basically the LinkedIn for creative types.

Crowdsourcing, as Botto explains, has a long history that goes back before the Internet and other modern technology existed. A lot of people confuse crowdsourcing with crowdfunding, as Botto describes in the book. Crowdfunding ‒ using platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo to raise money for projects ‒ is simply one form of crowdsourcing. 

So what is the definition of crowdsourcing? Crowdsourcing is identifying your audience and finding ways to engage with them.

We creative types tend to make a lot of mistakes because a lot of what we do is trial and error. "Crowdsourcing for Filmmakers" will show you the mistakes you've been making and how to learn from them, especially in some of the case studies that Botto includes.

For example, there is a case study about the documentary "Mile... Mile & a Half" about a group of friends who happen to be filmmakers who got together to hike a 200-mile trail in California's Sierra Mountains. The filmmakers did everything right: they researched their target audience and identified dozens of groups of people who could be interested in the subject. 

The "Mile... Mile & a Half" crew consciously decided to zero in on just three groups of people who would be interested in the documentary's subject matter. They systematically engaged these groups through social media and on Kickstarter to raise nearly $100,000 to complete the documentary.

The really cool thing about "Crowdsourcing for Filmmakers" is that it includes tons of research about effective ways to engage audiences. The book explains how to use crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter, Indiegogo and Seed and Spark, and more traditional crowdsourcing methods like networking in person and doing speaking engagements. 

If you're just starting out as a filmmaker ‒ maybe you're still in film school or you're just learning on your own how to make films ‒ or you're an actor or some other creative type, you should definitely read "Crowdsourcing for Filmmakers." You can learn how to build an audience and a network of professional contacts. 

And if you're like me, a filmmaker and writer who has already released several projects, the book will teach you new techniques and reinforce tried-and-true strategies to propel yourself forward. 

"Crowdsourcing for Filmmakers" should be required reading for every film school, drama school and even business school in the country. It's a must-read textbook and guide that you should have at your disposal, and I highly recommend it.

This Is Why Black Female Wrestlers Are Missing From History Books

I directed the new documentary "Lady Wrestler: The Amazing, Untold Story of African-American Women in the Ring." The 80-minute movie chronicles the little-known story of black female professional wrestlers who were internationally famous in the 1950s, '60s and '70s.

Wrestling legends Ethel Johnson (left) and 

her older sister Babs Wingo during

a match in the 1950s.

During question-and-answer sessions after screenings and in press interviews, people often ask me what I found most fascinating about these phenomenal women's stories. One thing I continue to find fascinating is that the reason why this story has been little-known for so long ‒ until now ‒ is that the women were often reluctant to talk about the wrestling business. The lady wrestlers were secretive even when they were in the business, but especially after they left the business.

In the documentary, I interviewed wrestling legends Ethel Johnson and Ramon Isbell as well as the children of the late Marva Scott. Interestingly enough, both Ethel and Ramona chose not to really talk about the fact they were wrestlers when they were in the business.

Ethel even shares that she made a conscious decision to not even tell her children that she was a wrestler. In the documentary, Ethel's daughter Shelly talks about how for the longest time, she didn't know her mother was a wrestler. She just assumed that her mother did some kind of work that required her to go away for a couple weeks at a time.

One day when Shelly was a kid, she and her friends were playing with the TV on in the background and her mother came on TV in a wrestling match. And of course Shelly and her friends started jumping up and down and screaming in excitement.

Ramona also was reluctant to talk about the fact that she was a wrestler, although her children did ultimately find out. 

Wrestling legends Ramona Isbell (left) and Ethel Johnson

reminisce over old times during an interview shoot 

for the documentary "Lady Wrestler."

However, Marva Scott not only told her children about the fact that she was a wrestler, she involved them in her training routine. In the documentary, Marva's adult children Kim Martin and James Black talk about how their mother would ride their bikes and Marva would wrestle with James to help her get ready for her matches in Japan and Australia and faraway places like that. 

Marva Scott is pictured on the bottom right in 

this vintage press clipping.

Marva would put a mattress in the basement and throw James around like a sparring partner. Kim talks about helping her mom make her elaborate costumes.

I found it really interesting that many of the African-American female wrestlers ‒ like Wonder Woman with her double identity Diana Prince ‒ kept their globe-trotting adventures a secret from the people in their everyday lives. 

But Marva was one of the few lady wrestlers who decided to be vocal about the fact that she was a wrestler and to involve her children in her training routine. 

If you want to find out more about "Lady Wrestler," upcoming screenings and the forthcoming DVD and streaming releases, visit Ladywrestlermovie.com. To watch the trailer, click here.

Before The Civil Rights Movement, Black Women Blazed A Trail In Sports

Before the civil rights movement, a group of African-American women paved the way for female athletes in an arena that has typically been associated with men. Brave women such as Babs Wingo, Ethel Johnson, Marva Scott and Ramona Isbell blazed a trail in professional wrestling back in the 1950s and '60s.

The little-known story of these women is finally coming to light in the new documentary “LadyWrestler: The Amazing, Untold Story of African-American Women in the Ring.” The 80-minute film will debut on Thursday, March 29, at 7 p.m. at the Wexner Center for the Arts on the campus of The Ohio State University, 1871 N. High St. in Columbus.

In their heyday, the lady wrestlers traveled all over the world and were hailed as superstars in places as far-flung as Japan, Latin America and Australia.  But when they returned home to the U.S. and wrestled in the Deep South, they were forced to stay in segregated boarding houses, enter in the back door of restaurants and drink from “Colored” water fountains.

But interestingly enough, wrestling promoters and fans of all races received the women enthusiastically. The women’s appearances in Southern towns were often heralded by advertisements with enthusiastic messages such as, “Negro Girls Here Tonight!”

In the documentary, Johnson and Isbell describe how they found the strength to endure and overcome racism and sexism at the height of their fame when they were in their teens and 20s.

For tickets and more information about “Lady Wrestler,” click here.  

Here's What 'Rowdy' Roddy Piper Really Thought Of Women Wrestlers

Throughout a phenomenal 42-year career in professional wrestling, the  late "Rowdy" Roddy Piper was known for displaying his trademark Scottish rage and male aggression when taking apart opponents. However, his views on gender relations were surprisingly progressive.

I interviewed "Rowdy" Roddy Piper in July 2013

at a convention in Indianapolis. 

Never shy about expressing himself, Piper spoke out about the status of women in the industry during an interview for the new documentary, "Lady Wrestler: The Amazing, Untold Story of African-American Women in the Ring." I directed the documentary, which will screen on Thursday, March 29, at the Wexner Center for the Arts on the campus of The Ohio State University. For tickets and more information, click here. 

"Lady Wrestler" chronicles courageous black female athletes like Ethel Johnson, Babs Wingo, Marva Scott and Ramona Isbell. These phenomenal women braved racism and sexism to excel in the male-dominated world of professional wrestling in the 1950s and '60s – before many of the gains of the civil rights and feminist movements had been won.

Piper knew several of the women featured in "Lady Wrestler." While making the documentary, I interviewed Piper in July 2013 at "Days of the Dead," an annual horror convention in Indianapolis. He was there to greet fans of the 1988 sci-fi/horror movie "They Live." The cult classic was directed by the legendary John Carpenter of "Thriller" fame and starred none other than Piper himself.

When I approached Piper, he was outspoken about the obstacles faced by Black women ‒ and women, in general ‒ in the wrestling industry.

"They had a hard, hard time," Piper said. "It was so competitive that, back then, I think it may have been very difficult for a Black lady." 

Piper acknowledged that, just as in many other industries, women ‒ and Black women, in particular ‒ had to work twice as hard to be acknowledged in the wrestling business.

"When they got on the mat, they had to perform and hit harder and they were rougher on each other than we [the male wrestlers] were," Piper said. "There was so much male dominance and they were always treated as just, you know, flash."

Piper said he had enormous respect for the African-American lady wrestlers' work ethic and all that they achieved in spite of the odds.

"These women were really trying to get over," he said, "as the guys were."

And just like the guys, he added, the lady wrestlers aspired to "being a world champion." 

My interview with Rowdy Roddy Piper took place two years before his untimely death from a heart attack in July 2015. He was very cool and approachable. And unlike his tough-guy image, he seemed like a really nice, sensitive man. Rest in peace. 

How Black Women Wrestlers Succeeded Against The Odds

Black History Month is a time to reflect on African Americans' accomplishments and countless contributions to United States. These accomplishments are all the more remarkable, considering the nearly insurmountable obstacles of racism and segregation that Black Americans have historically had to overcome.

The stories of African-American women who succeeded against the odds are chronicled in the new documentary I directed, "Lady Wrestler: The Amazing, Untold Story of African-American Women in the Ring." The 83-minute movie will debut on Thursday, March 29, at the Wexner Center for the Arts, 1871 N. High St. on the campus of The Ohio State University in Columbus.

In the documentary, courageous Black women like Ethel Johnson and Ramona Isbell and the children of the late Babs Wingo and Marva Scott talk about excelling in the male-dominated field of professional wrestling in the 1950s, '60s and '70s. They competed in matches all over the world and were celebrated as heroes in Japan, Australia, Latin America, Canada and other many other places all over the world.

But back home in the United States, the women endured Jim Crow segregation. When wrestling in venues in the Deep South, they often had to go in the back door of restaurants, drink from "Colored" water fountains and stay in segregated hotels.

However, instead of being defeated by discrimination, the women used their circumstances to form lasting bonds with other African-American athletes and entertainers. 

In "Lady Wrestler," Ethel Johnson shares her experience of befriending boxing legend Joe Louis. In fact, Louis refereed some of the ladies' wrestling matches, as Ethel relates.

Ramona Isbell recounts running into famous Black celebrities who stayed in the same segregated hotels – legends such as Ike and Tina Turner, Ray Charles, and the Harlem Globetrotters.

As African Americans have done throughout history, the lady wrestlers and their peers survived and prospered through the power of unity, found strength in numbers and turned tragedy into triumph.

For tickets and more information about the March 29 screening of "Lady Wrestler," visit Wexarts.org.