The biggest challenge every actor will ever face is the ability to create a believable character.

Anyone can memorize lines while others use creative costumes, props or special effects to bring their characters to life. The truly great actors, however, separate themselves from the pack by going the extra yard and creating their characters from the inside out.

Following our “Generation X in Film” article, which analyzed the generation’s touchstone movies, we wanted to examine the most influential directors from Gen X. It was hard to keep the list down to ten. To make our list, a director had to be born between 1965 and 1980; had to be best known for directing, rather than acting, writing or producing; and had to be well-branded through a unique and identifiable style.

As you’re thinking about getting ready to try and sell your script, you should be asking yourself, is it really ready? The business of screenwriting is hard enough without jumping into the market unprepared. Besides the actual writing, which is a sometimes torturous process in itself, there is everything else that goes into getting your finished work into the hands of a script reader, then possibly an agent or producer.

Micro-budget filmmaking is no joke. You have to stretch every single dollar you spend, and utilize every single minute you have, and wear plenty of creative hats.

First, you must know the rules before you break them. It’s something that most film professors, from introductory classes to the graduate level, will tell their students. It’s well worn advice, to be sure, but there is truth in it, and many novice filmmakers find it out the hard way.

It all started with a little pill.  In 1957, G.D. Searle & Company released Enovid, a medicine that treated menstrual disorders.  Shortly thereafter, an epidemic of these disorders broke out as women determined that the drug’s side effect – prevention of pregnancy – might not be so bad.  Approved for contraception just as children of the 1946–1964 Baby Boom were coming of age, the Pill gave Baby Boomers a power no prior generation had ever known: the power to control whether to have children, how many to have, and when to have them.

“9,000 Needles” could have been a lot of things. It could have been an indictment of the American health and insurance industries. It also could have been a behind the scenes look into the “mysteries” of traditional Chinese medicine, told from the viewpoint of a cautious family struggling with the recovery of a loved one.

Finally, I’ve just finished my third and final complete rewrite of my script. Lately, I haven't referred to my writing as "writing,” but rather simply as “rewriting,” because I've spent more time rewriting my script than anything else.

A huge part of the development process is making sure that the script is up to snuff. I'm lucky, because I'm writing it for little ol' me; however this latest rewrite was based largely on notes from my other producers. The beauty of being a screenwriter is that your work is constantly critiqued and everyone from the director (in this case, me) to the actors will have input.

A true artiste may argue that in the end it does not matter how successful a film is, so long as the story is told. But if the true purpose of filmmaking is to tell a story, is it really a story if no one is watching? 

Finally, you have completed your script. After countless drafts, workshops, and merciless editing sessions, you now have a correctly formatted, workable manuscript. Of course, even though there are multiple steps in completing this process, this was only phase one. While writing for yourself is a sometimes enjoyable, cathartic outlet, presumably, you’re in this to make money, while bestowing your art (notice the priorities, here) upon the world.

Everything about the filmmaking process is hard. But fundraising is not only hard--it’s where things can get tricky.

Yes, there are endless hours of planning in pre-production, and hardly any sleep during production. Then there’s staring at a monitor in an edit suite until your eyeballs hurt. Every phase of making a film has its own version of “hard work."

Philadelphia has long been a destination for filmmakers. The gritty exteriors, the iconic landmarks and the everyday people of the city that often find their way into productions make for great location shooting.

Creating memorable, sympathetic characters is something every screenwriter has struggled with at one point or another. Every writer approaches their screenplay from a different angle, whether they come up with the plot first, certain scenes that will serve as the lynchpin of the story, or even the third act that they will eventually have to build towards.

Terry Hitchcock was compelled to run. Tim VandeSteeg and Mark Castaldo were compelled to tell his story. It may sound simple, but the end result, the documentary “My Run,” is about how decent people are affected by cancer, how a single, widowed father wanted to raise awareness for families like his, and how most journeys don’t end up the way you think they will.

So you want to work in the industry but don’t have a clue where to begin or how to get that first job that will lead you to other jobs and so on. What do you do?

Simple. You need a film credit.

Screenwriting is hard. If you’re thinking of becoming a screenwriter, the sooner you realize this the better. I don’t make this announcement to dissuade anyone from fulfilling their dream of writing a screenplay. By all means, write away. But if you want your screenplay to have a chance of ever getting made, then do your homework and be prepared to work hard.

The main sticking point with dialogue in a screenplay, and something that tortures most beginning writers is how to make the words sound believable, even realistic, without sounding forced or too perfect. It’s a fine line to walk between what real world speech sounds like as opposed to what movie dialogue sounds like, and how to blend the two.

The term “indie film” first came to prominence in the mid 1990s. Once Kevin Smith’s “Clerks” (produced on a budget of $27,000) hit theaters and proved that a low dollar film—with a good script and decent enough actors—could score with audiences, the major studios took notice.