Books by Rick Schmidt

No-budget feature filmmaker Rick Schmidt has written a fascinating memoir, TWELVE DEAD FROGS AND OTHER STORIES, which, he hopes, will "fill in the blanks" on how he learned the tools of the trade and shared them in his seminal how-to, Feature Filmmaking at Used-Car Prices (Viking Penguin, 1988, 1995, 2000). Schmidt's outside the box approach has resulted in the launch of countless moviemaking careers, for those who put his ideas into practice. Some notables include writer/director and action-star Vin Diesel (THE FAST AND FURIOUS, PITCH BLACK, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY), Edward Sanchez (THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT), Tom DeCillo (LIVING IN OBLIVION). Academy Award¿ winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond declared, "I wish I could have had this book thirty-five years ago, before I made my first low-budget features." And writer/director Kevin Smith (CLERKS, CHASING AMY, DOGMA), presented Schmidt with a Lifetime Achievement Award at Rome international film Festival, which should help explain the book's and Schmidt's wide appeal: https://vimeo.com/161243386 But Schmidt's path to filmmaking was anything but easy or smooth. After his first marriage fails, his artworks, like the large cast aluminum and painted kinetic piece, "I Can't Get it Up For You," reflect his personal life and help kick-start his 'real-life' narratives. The final transition occurs in 1970 when California author ("Ghosts") and videographer Phillip Makanna, invites him, along with Schmidt's future roommate/collaborator Wayne Wang (JOY LUCK CLUB, SMOKE), writer/director William Farley (OF MEN AND ANGELS), actor/producer Willie Boy Walker (THE FIFTH WALL) others, to take his video class. Using the new Sony Porta-Pac camera, Schmidt does work that immediately gains attention. Don't miss chapters on Schmidt's eight-day cross-country hitchhike trip, Joe's Sandwiches, plus his three-year struggle to produce SHOWBOAT 1988-THE REMAKE. Ironies abound, in this touching and informative indie page-turner

No-budget feature filmmaker Rick Schmidt has written a fascinating memoir, TWELVE DEAD FROGS AND OTHER STORIES, which, he hopes, will "fill in the blanks" on how he learned the tools of the trade and shared them in his seminal how-to, Feature Filmmaking at Used-Car Prices (Viking Penguin, 1988, 1995, 2000). Schmidt's outside the box approach has resulted in the launch of countless moviemaking careers, for those who put his ideas into practice. Some notables include writer/director and action-star Vin Diesel (THE FAST AND FURIOUS, PITCH BLACK, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY), Edward Sanchez (THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT), Tom DeCillo (LIVING IN OBLIVION). Academy Award¿ winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond declared, "I wish I could have had this book thirty-five years ago, before I made my first low-budget features." And writer/director Kevin Smith (CLERKS, CHASING AMY, DOGMA), presented Schmidt with a Lifetime Achievement Award at Rome international film Festival, which should help explain the book's and Schmidt's wide appeal: https://vimeo.com/161243386 But Schmidt's path to filmmaking was anything but easy or smooth. After his first marriage fails, his artworks, like the large cast aluminum and painted kinetic piece, "I Can't Get it Up For You," reflect his personal life and help kick-start his 'real-life' narratives. The final transition occurs in 1970 when California author ("Ghosts") and videographer Phillip Makanna, invites him, along with Schmidt's future roommate/collaborator Wayne Wang (JOY LUCK CLUB, SMOKE), writer/director William Farley (OF MEN AND ANGELS), actor/producer Willie Boy Walker (THE FIFTH WALL) others, to take his video class. Using the new Sony Porta-Pac camera, Schmidt does work that immediately gains attention. Don't miss chapters on Schmidt's eight-day cross-country hitchhike trip, Joe's Sandwiches, plus his three-year struggle to produce SHOWBOAT 1988-THE REMAKE. Ironies abound, in this touching and informative indie page-turner.

Every day, in varied fields such as music, theatre, feature films and Youtube videos, the word IMPROV is being heard as the 'NEXT BIG THING.' But up until now, though, there has been NO BOOK that aptly describes the actual day-to-day IMPROV FILMMAKING process, where a writer/director must rely on actors to move a story ahead through the minefield of an improv production. THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CAKE - PRODUCTION SECRETS OF A $15,000 IMPROV SUNDANCE FEATURE explains this REAL-LIFE approach, as writer/director Rick Schmidt recounts each of his nine shooting days for his festival hit, MORGAN'S CAKE. With 'PRODUCTION SECRETS' you will gain trust in yourself and in the improv system, helping you take the necessary risks of creation. You will learn how to direct IMPROV PERFORMANCES, and even how to adjust for when friends drop in (incorporating them as 'extras' - real girlfriend, real best friends - to make the movie more interesting. Using SPONTANEOUS LOCATIONS will also become second-nature. You'll learn how to construct multi-idea, multi-level sequences in the very-tight ONE-TO-ONE SHOOTING RATIO, where the strict shooting ratio will actually HELP your creativity. You'll discover how to adapt the moviemaking process so it FOLLOWS A SPONTANEOUS THEME. Rick's book will give a dose of confidence that things will work out - (keep shooting! Keep editing!). You'll be discovering ways of designing cuts as part of your free-flowing process - calling 'freeze' and changing camera angles - while you consider what direction the words/ideas should take when you call 'action' again. Todays moviemaker has all the tools of production in hand, literally (iPhone!), and it only takes the INTENT OF PURPOSE to make her IMPROV moviemaking dreams finally come true. Schmidt's MORGAN'S CAKE is a deadpan, unpretentious delight. One of the most promising films of the New Directors/New Films series." - JANET MASLIN, The New York Times. https://vimeo.com/ondemand/morganscake

KENNEDY'S TWINS, the second novel in a trilogy that includes BLACK PRESIDENT (PICNIC PUBLISHING, UK ©2008), and BLACKMALE, follows the American Presidency of Jackson Little who, along with his brother John, were secretly fathered by President John F. Kennedy in 1961. When Jackson is assassinated, his identical twin John steps in, impersonating the President and taking the country in a new, radical direction. His unusual State of the Union speech, written and delivered without prior knowledge of the press, raises concerns about toxic lead levels in plumbing (still prevalent in depressed neighborhoods across America), exorbitant rents/general inflation, and the growing threat of US military buildup. The Little agenda is steadfastly anti-war, anti-Military Industrial Complex, anti-cronyism, and questions the effectiveness of the Federal Reserve banking system. With a risky speech, impostor-John attempts to alter the fatal direction in which, he believes, America is headed.

COLD, THE 1918-19 SIBERIAN ESCAPE OF CAPTAIN EWALD LOEFFLER, a novel by Rick Schmidt, follows a young German soldier, Ewald Loeffler, as he struggles to traverse 5000 km of frozen and barren land across Siberia, to finally reach Germany and his family home. After he'd been in a Siberian prison camp for four years, the guards suddenly deserted their posts to join the Russian Revolution in Moscow, leaving the prisoners to fend for themselves. Loeffler, in the minority of those who survived such extreme cold and other human dangers, tells a harrowing tale of just keeping alive, one day at a time. Later, after many years in America - Loeffler taught anthropology at a midwestern university - he manages to write his Siberian memoir of those early days. In the form of a daily log he recounts his fight against sub-zero weather, wolves and unknown enemies, both Russian and German. He also recalls his most intimate thoughts at the time, including interactions with a native woman, Nanra-naw, who saved him, loved him, and aided him physically, emotionally, psychically and spiritually before he restarts his journey home. Memories of violent combat continue to haunt Loeffler, both from past battlefields and from the ongoing, seemingly-unending trek across Siberia. He is also deeply affected by psychological wounds he received in youth, abuse from a distant, uncaring father, and his reticent mother, though specks of rare 'happier times' do occasionally surface. His day-to-day survival in the cold is mostly a mind game, dependent on him keeping his spirits up against all the ghosts of war and remembrance. Schmidt's novel ('Captain Loeffler's memoir'), is loosely based on the 1918 real-life Siberian escape of his own father, Erich F. Schmidt ("Persepolis I, II, III"), who somehow survived his two year/5000 km walk back to Germany at the end of WWI.