Indie filmmaker to speak in Van Wert

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

Former Fort Wayne, Ind., resident and English professor Glenn Berggoetz was a scriptwriter wannabe who couldn’t get anyone to read his screenplays. But then he got what he thought was good advice.

“I was talking to a man who used to work for Disney and he said, ‘if you want to break in as a scriptwriter, you need to make your own films,’” said Berggoetz (pronounced ber-gets), who now lives in the Denver, Colo., area.

And that’s what he did. He banged out the script for a movie called To Die is Hard — obviously a spoof of the Die Hard action film franchise — and advertised for actors on Craigslist.

“It’s amazing how many people want to be in films,” Berggoetz said. “I was inundated.”

He also read a book on directing and at least part of the Guerrilla Filmmakers’ Handbook, the indie filmmakers’ bible.

Making fun of action films was a no-brainer for Berggoetz, who said he’s constantly laughing while watching movies of that genre. “I’ll watch them and say: ‘Gosh, if I just tweak that scene it would be really funny,’” he said.

Approximately six months after starting To Die is Hard, Berggoetz had his first film in the can and he’s been making movies ever since: actually, five of them in the past four years.

As a filmmaker who still doesn’t have much in the way of financial backing, Berggoetz’ films not only are low budget, they could define the term.

To Die is Hard cost $1,100 to make, including paying the actors and all his other expenses, while the expertise he’s gained in making films led him to write his own book on filmmaking called, The Independent Filmmakers’ Handbook: Make Your Film for $2,000.

Berggoetz is a director, writer and often acts in his films (that’s him in the poster at right for To Die is Hard). Although he has a production deal with Trillion Productions in Las Vegas, Nev., he said he still spends a lot of time as a producer trying to put together distribution deals for his films.

“I found that as a filmmaker, I have to be my film’s biggest champion,” Berggoetz said. “I just have to plug it everywhere.”

While he’s in Van Wert to speak at the Van Wert Independent Film Festival, which will be held July 8-10, and his film, The Worst Movie EVER! will be shown at the Niswonger Performing Arts Center during the festival, the indie filmmaker will also be heading to Toronto, Canada, to try to put together a television deal to show The Worst Movie EVER! in Canada.

“It’s my least favorite part of filmmaking … producing … but for now I have to do it,” he noted.

Berggoetz said two of his movies have been shown in Canada and were well received there. “I don’t know if my sense of comedy resonates a little more in Canada, but I’ve gotten a fantastic response there,” he noted.

One big disappointment, Berggoetz noted, was a deal he put together with AMG Television Productions to have To Die is Hard syndicated for television. He felt the deal was a good one, but Trillion Productions, which owns the syndication rights to that film, didn’t feel AMG was offering enough and quashed the deal.

“I can understand where they were coming from,” Berggoetz said. “Trillion is looking for really big deals.”

The indie filmmaker is still talking to AMG, though, about syndicating The Worst Movie EVER!, since he owns the distribution rights to that film. “I’m mildly excited,” he noted, but said he’s been burned in the past, so he won’t get too upbeat until the deal is finalized, which could be sometime next year.

He did note that Van Wert Cinemas is planning to air the film, as is a theater in Washington, D.C. He also commended  Van Wert Independent Film Festival organizer Len Archibald for the work he has put into the upcoming event in Van Wert. “He has really worked hard,” Berggoetz said, adding that he thinks the event will be a success.

The indie filmmaker and writing professor has a number of future projects in the works, including working on a deal to shoot a movie of a script he finished sometime back, as well as possibly shooting a documentary about a CD the two-member band he is in, Norwegian Soft Kitten, plans to record.

If he can get a production deal together for the movie script, Berggoetz said he would like to shoot it here in Van Wert. “It’s set in a rural Midwest town,” he noted, adding that the screenplay details the relationship between an elderly African-American man and a young white boy.

One of the few filmmaking jobs Berggoetz doesn’t do is edit his films, and he’s quick to admit that, while the people who do edit his films are good, they aren’t always as speedy as he’d like them to be.

“That is kind of a sticky wicket,” he said, noting that the person editing a television comedy he wants to sell hasn’t completed that job, although shooting was finished six months ago.

Berggoetz also still doesn’t have a trailer for The Worst Movie EVER!, although it’s been months since the movie edit was completed.

“I do  understand, though, since I’m definitely not their priority,” he noted.

While he will be speaking during the local film festival, Berggoetz does have some advice for budding filmmakers.

“Keep it simple and have fun,” Berggoetz said. “Keep your casts small and number of locations small.”

As a writing professor at Metropolitan State University in Denver, Berggoetz said he’s always getting students who think you have to take a year to write a script and four years to make a film.

“It’s mathematics,” he said. “You have a much better chance if you do five films in four years, instead of just one.”

Having fun is something Berggoetz definitely has when he’s making films, usually with the same few actors and crew members. “Even when we shot Evil Intent, an intense drama, we were giggling all the time,” he said.

He added that a scene in Evil Intent set in a church might have been the most fun. Berggoetz said he went to a church and asked if they could use a portion of it to shoot some scenes. Church officials wanted to charge him $225 an hour for the rental fee, an amount he thought was a little steep for the little they were going to do.

“I said ‘forget that, we’ll just sneak in,’” Berggoetz said, and that’s just what he and his small crew did, laughing about it all the time they weren’t shooting.

If those who come to hear Berggoetz speak get anything out of it, it is likely it will be his love for what he does and the fun he has doing it.

Like many filmmakers, Berggoetz said he does have a couple of elements he tries to put into most of his films. “I try to put the word ‘cripe’ in somewhere, since it’s my grandfather’s worst cuss word,” the indie filmmaker said with a laugh. “I also always like to put in the phrase, ‘believe you me’ because I just think it’s hilarious.”