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As a filmmaker, Film Connection mentor Zef Cota has learned to keep plenty of irons in the fire. In addition to heading up his own narrative film production company, Alphabet City Films, he regularly does film work for IBM, as well as shooting commercial projects and film videos under his commercial company, Filmtek.
In addition to all this, Zef is passionate about helping his students succeed. He’s known for tailoring the curriculum to each of his students’ needs, and going the extra mile to help them achieve their goals—as he recently did for Film student Dylan Rothbein, who was featured in last week’s newsletter.
RRFC newsletter writer Jeff McQ recently had the chance to talk with Zef in person at his studio in The Bronx, New York, where Zef talked about the power of gaining real-world experience and how he tries to adapt to the needs of each of his externs. Enjoy!
As a filmmaker, Film Connection mentor Zef Cota has learned to keep plenty of irons in the fire. In addition to heading up his own narrative film production company, Alphabet City Films, he regularly does film work for IBM, as well as shooting commercial projects and film videos under his commercial company, Filmtek.
In addition to all this, Zef is passionate about helping his students succeed. He’s known for tailoring the curriculum to each of his students’ needs, and going the extra mile to help them achieve their goals—as he recently did for Film student Dylan Rothbein, who was featured in last week’s newsletter.
RRFC newsletter writer Jeff McQ recently had the chance to talk with Zef in person at his studio in The Bronx, New York, where Zef talked about the power of gaining real-world experience and how he tries to adapt to the needs of each of his externs. Enjoy!
Zef Cota: Well, it’s a story of an interesting trajectory because it’s very unusual. I’ve always had a very deep interest in cinema, but I came from this sort of Albanian immigrant, working class-minded family and it seemed like filmmaking and cinema was a pipe dream. They never said, “That’s not for us,” but it just kind of seemed like I’m not going to go to film school because it didn’t seem like the appropriate path. I didn’t have any Hollywood connections, wasn’t born with a silver spoon, that sort of thing. So I went to school for business. I started a welding iron work business when I was 22 years old…I started making money, started doing really well with it, but I realized that this thing that I thought I was chasing, which is financial success and material success or whatever, that wasn’t the thing that was fulfilling me. Then, I had this epiphany where I put the brakes on my life and said, “If I could do anything that I would want to do for the rest of my life, what would it be?” Then my answer was definitely to become a filmmaker. So I gravitated toward that direction.
Zef: I was self-taught…Actually, at the time I wished that something like Film Connection existed because I was really weighing out the options of whether, should I go to film school…I decided to take my money and just self-produce all my first short films. I sold my welding iron work business, sold all the equipment. I turned my welding shop into a film studio…I guess other people saw it coming before I did, but I do wish such a program existed because I would have loved somebody to help me kind of expedite some of the knowledge that I had to learn through trial and error…I had to really struggle with learning the nuts and bolts of a lot of these things on my own.
Zef: Absolutely, real-world experience. I should add though, even though I didn’t go to a traditional film school, I still immersed myself into film theory, and I had a voracious appetite for books about filmmaking and watching DVD’s with the film commentary. So I still did take my self-education part of the process extremely seriously and am still pretty rigorous about always learning, because I think cinema is a lifelong learning thing. I think the moment you think you have it all figured out, it’s kind of the wrong approach…there’s always room to grow and improve and evolve.
Zef: I look for somebody that takes it seriously, somebody that is in it for the right reasons…I think if somebody has a deep and meaningful connection to cinema, it doesn’t matter their skill level. If some people are more advanced, some people are totally new, that part is way less important to me because I’ll tailor the curriculum based off the individual student. That’s what’s amazing about Film Connection, is they give you the freedom to do that.
Zef: I’ve been a mentor for over a year and a half…A friend of mine is a mentor out in L.A. His name is Daniel Lir. He first told me about the program…Daniel’s a really close friend of mine—[and ]Bayou, they’re really great friends of mine. So Daniel first told me about the program…I just thought it sounded amazing. I’ve known Daniel for years. So that’s how I first got introduced, and I’m so glad that I did because it’s such a rewarding experience.
Zef: I like for them to list their goals—what are their goals for the next six weeks, for the next six months, for the next year. And then I use that as a benchmark to tailor their hands-on curriculum where it’s very individualized to the student. For instance, Dylan [Rothbein] had very specific goals, and some of those goals we crafted together, but he had a very good idea of, “Here’s what I want to accomplish. I want to do a short film, I want to write my feature length film, I want to get that into development,” and he’s reached all those things. Our hands-on experience has been based off that customized curriculum that we set, based off his actual goals.
And if somebody doesn’t have those things, I’ll help them too. I will help them kind of figure out where they should be…I see my role as helping facilitate that, helping them get to that point. But that also is on them, too, how driven they are. The more driven they are, the more I can help them.
Zef: Perhaps because of my background doing welding and ironwork I have a very pragmatic approach. What I would say to a young filmmaker is, “Before you consider yourself an artist, you have to treat the craft very seriously.” It’s like if you were a welder, before you build this amazing piece of wrought ironwork, you have to build a railing that’s not going to break when you put your hands on it. So I think the same thing is true with the craft of storytelling. You have to learn the craft of telling a story before you actually could consider yourself an artist…I think young filmmakers should really and truly focus on the craft of cinema and respect the cinema that came before them and the evolution of the whole medium.
As a filmmaker, Film Connection mentor Zef Cota (South Bronx, New York) is an exemplar of keeping plenty of irons in the fire. In addition to heading up his own narrative film production company, Alphabet City Films, he regularly does film work for various clients, shooting commercial projects and film videos under his commercial company, Filmtek.
We recently caught up with Zef to talk about his indie feature The Trouble which premiered at the 2018 Action on Film Festival in Las Vegas and where Zef won “Best Director” in the feature film category. Along with being nominated eight times, the film also won the Hollywood Dreamz Award for “Best Cinematography” (shot by Alex Gray, DP).
“The full title is The Trouble: Once Upon a Time in The Bronx. I co-wrote it with Mark Marini. We’ve written a bunch of our short films together…It centers on four main characters: Billy, who’s a geek, his girlfriend, Marisol, who is this beautiful Latina girl who is kind of unexpected…Then there’s the thug, named Enzo, and the hitman, named Pit. It centers on this guy named Billy who plays online poker. Then when all of his favorite websites get shut down, he starts playing at these in-person poker games, and he gets extorted by this thug, named Enzo.
When that happens, Billy reaches out to this guy Pit who’s this part hitman, part ‘private investigator of the streets’ type of character…Billy deceives Pit into taking on his case, into helping him out, and that leads him into more hot water…I would say the underlying theme of the story is don’t judge a book by its cover.”
“Definitely. The South Bronx happens to be where my production studio Alphabet City Films is located. It’s right outside of Manhattan. Although we did shoot part of the movie in the northern Bronx, particularly the cemetery scene we shot outside of St. Raymond’s. The South Bronx was just sort of the epicenter of our base of operations…That’s how I was able to keep my budget down, [by] thinking, ‘Hey, how could we have as many things take place around here as possible?’”
“When I was first thinking about the idea, I would walk around this landscape in the Bronx and get inspired by spending a lot of time in that area, almost like location scouting before I even had quite a story. I was just trying to let the story come to me, and the first idea, the first spark of a story was ‘geek versus thug.’ I was just thinking, ‘Whoa, that’s something you don’t always see,’ just the juxtaposition of the geek and thug and, like, ‘What would that situation look like? How would it play out in a movie?’
When I had my first meeting with Mark Marini and was pitching him on the idea. He was like, ‘Oh, that’s a great idea. What if we make it sort of like a Western?’…We know the filmians, the guys that did the original score for our movie, and I think that’s a major part of the film. Actually, these guys are Bronx-based filmians, Andrew Marinaccio and Michael Stephens, known as DATA 91. We worked with them on a couple of our short films, and so early on I knew that they wanted to be involved, and I knew it was always their dream to write a score for a Western. Even just thinking about the film and the landscapes, I feel like it helped with the writing, to form the characters, the plot, and everything.”
“He was very eager to get to the next level and was really excited about the story. When I screened the rough cut while I was working with him as a mentor, he just really had a lot of enthusiasm and what seemed to be a good attitude and good work ethic. Then I ended up getting him involved as the assistant editor. He just seemed eager to do more, and we needed somebody to do that. It just worked out…Now Jason’s traveling and just working nonstop on productions.”
“It was kind of nerve-wracking because you’re like, are you going to win, are you not going to win? Everybody always says it’s an honor being nominated, but I’ve been in that situation when you’re at the table and they don’t call your name. It feels like you’re getting punched right in the gut…Even a couple days later, I was checking the list, like, ‘Did this really happen?’ I have the award. It seems too good to be true…They showed over 100 films at the festival, and I won for Best Director.”
“Give yourself a deadline, because a goal is just a wish unless you have a deadline. Give yourself a definitive day that you don’t back out of when you say, ‘Okay, I’m going to have this script ready by this date. We’re going to have our start date on production this date.’
That sounds like a really simple idea, but if you do that, you’re way more likely to get something done than if you don’t have those hard deadlines. And the other thing is embracing the fact that filmmaking is about problem-solving. Problems are going to happen. You’re going to lose a location, an actor’s going to drop out, something is going to happen that’s going to feel like, ‘Oh, God, why is this happening to me? This is going to derail the whole production.’ But you just have to figure out how to keep that ship moving forward because filmmaking is about problem-solving. If you embrace the fact that it’s about problem-solving, then I feel like you’re more equipped to handle those problems if they spring up.”
Learn more about Film Connection for filmmaking and writing for the screen.
The Trouble is having its world premiere at the Action on Film Festival in Las Vegas and it has been nominated for awards in 9 categories, including Best Picture, Best Director and Outstanding Cast Performance.
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