Filmmaking-Focus.com celebrates the joy of filmmaking. Each week we tell the story of a different filmmaker.
Donald L. Vasicek: Filmmaking is a Constant Learning Process
Monday, January 8th, 2007
Before he found his niche in filmmaking, Donald L. Vasicek held a slew of jobs that varied greatly including liquor store clerk, mortuary attendant, paralegal, brewery worker, milk man and limo driver among others. Apparently something just wasn’t clicking for Vasicek career-wise and it wasn’t until a client asked him to work on a documentary project that he found his true calling.
Vasicek was working as a writing consultant and screenwriter at the time when a nuclear physicist, who was also a lesbian, asked him to help her create a documentary film about who gays and lesbians really are. The film, Faces, took one year and $72,000 to complete and by the end of it, Vasicek was smitten with the industry. Today, this Colorado resident has 16 years experience and is making great strides.
His list of films that he has had the opportunity to work on and direct is quite impressive and includes multi-million dollar features like Warriors of Virtue and Born to Win. He also has worked on quite a few documentaries including an eight phase multi-million dollar project called Sand Creek Massacre that is based on the slaughter of more than 450 Cheyenne and Arapaho people that occurred in 1864 in his home state. Vasicek has also worked as an extra/actor in well-known films such as Die Hard 2 and Mystery of Flight 1501 among others.
Even with tons of experience, Vasicek says that he still feels like a novice at the beginning of each project. “The technology, the story, and the characters, the crew, the human beings involved in the making of a film, are new each time a project is launched,” explained Vasicek. “So, I have considerable learning and growing to do as I am shooting the film. The longer the shoot goes, the more I feel like I know something about filmmaking, and the more confidence I get.”
Vasicek prides himself on using a lot of movement in his films. “The more boring the theme is to be, the more dynamic I make it through movement. Movement helps develop characters and the story. Without it, the characters and story are dependent upon dialogue. If I want my films to be dependent on dialogue, then I probably should write, direct, and produce stage plays instead of film. It has to be that way for me.”
While Vasicek boasts of being a strong storyteller and writer, he admits that he could use some improvement in the technical aspects of filmmaking and that he has even been the victim of gossip on some of his sets because of his shortcomings.
“I’m more of a creative type,” said Vasicek. “I can visualize the characters, the story, and the scenes and how they should be shot complete with lighting and sound. I simply need technical help in getting that on film. The reality of this is that it is also my job to be as technically adept as possible. So, it’s a constant learning process, sometimes embarrassing when I show how technically inept I am to the crew or a crew person. This distracts me and it is very frustrating and annoying.”
Award-Winning Writer/Filmmaker Donald L. Vasicek on the left at Booth Western Art Museum Screening of his award-winning Sand Creek Massacre film
Making films has not always been easy for Vasicek and he stresses the importance of being mentally and physically fit to meet the challenges that are inherent with the filmmaking process. “You have to have the ability to take risks and to live through those risks: financial risks, production risks, creative risks, human interaction risks, lighting risks, sound risks, camera risks, editing risks. The list of risks is infinite. You need to be able to visualize end results, the rewards, for the risks you take to be successful in this business.”
About Donald L. Vasicek
Award-winning writer/filmmaker Donald L. Vasicek studied producing, directing and line producing at the Hollywood Film Institute under the acclaimed Dov Simens and at Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute. He studied screenwriting at The Complete Screenplay, Inc., with Sally Merlin, daughter of the famed Hollywood Merlin family of screenwriters and writers, as his mentor.
Don has taught, mentored, and is a script consultant for over 300 writers, directors, producers, actors and production companies.
He has also acted in NBC’s “Mystery of Flight 1501”, ABC’s Father Dowling starring Thomas Bosley, and Red-Handed Productions’ “Summer Reunion.” These activities have resulted in his involvement in over 100 movies during the past 23 years, from major studios to independent films including MGM’s $56 million “Warriors of Virtue”, Paramount Classic’s “Racing Lucifer”, American Picture’s “The Lost Heart” and “Born To Kill” starring the Charles Bronson of Korea, Bobby Kim, and his internationally-known brother, Richard, who directed, Incline Productions, Inc.’s “Born To Win”, 20th Century Fox’s “Die Hard II” starring Bruce Willis with Rennie Harlan as director, and Joel Silver as producer, Olympus Films+, LLC’s “Haunted World” with Emmy-nominated PBS Producer Alison Hill, and Olympus Films+, LLC’s “Faces”, “Oh, The Places You Can Go” and the award-winning “The Sand Creek Massacre” documentary film.
Don also has written and published over 500 books, short stories and articles. His books include “How To Write, Sell, And Get Your Screenplays Produced” and “The Write Focus.” He has been a guest screenwriting and filmmaking columnist for Hollywood Lit. Sales, Moondance International Film Festival’s e-zine, Screenwriter’s Forum, Screenplace, Screenplayers.Net, Screenwriters.Net, Screenwriters Utopia, Spraka & Kinsla (Swedish), Inkwell Watch, and Ink On the Brain. Writing recognition includes Houston’s WorldFest International Film Festival, Chesterfield’s Writer’s Film Project, Writer’s Digest, The Sundance Institute, The Writer’s Network, and the Rocky Mountain Writer’s Guild, Inc.
Don completed producing “The Sand Creek Massacre”, a documentary film project that includes the completed and award-winning documentary short, a book, a classroom video, Interactive Media, a study guide, and a lesson plans. The film is being distributed by Films Media Group.
Don is on the board of directors of the American Indian Genocide Museum in Houston. He is the founder and owner of Olympus Films+, LLC, a global writing and filmmaking company and a screenwriting volunteer on AllExperts.com.
Don’s screenwriting agent is Robin Kaver of the Robert Freedman Dramatic Agency, Inc., 1501 Broadway, Suite 2301
New York, NY 10036, 212-840-5751.
