I really love this quote from Ray Carney’s book, Cassavetes on Cassavetes, when John Cassavetes in 1963 came up with the idea (out of frustration with the movie industry) to shoot a film paid for out of his own pocket:

… when Cassavetes consulted a high-level entertainment lawyer about the legalities of the project with respect to contracts, unions, and a future release of whatever was created, the lawyer heard him out, and rather than responding to his questions, simply said ‘What you have in mind to do, cannot be done. Forget it.’ You cannot build a rocket that will fly to the moon in your garage.

I look at the landscape of filmmaking today and what that lawyer said seems so preposterous. But the mentality remains especially in the movie industry: what hasn’t been proven before can’t work in the future.

The film Cassavetes made is Faces.