Our Humble Beginnings
It was the summer of 1989 and my father was working for the state of West Virginia as a videographer and editor. Like me, he was a huge fan of movies and had a desire to be a part of that industry. I will never forget the weekend my dad showed up with a large shoulder mounted device that looked like a science fiction weapon straight out of a James Cameron flick. It was a camera. But not just any old camera. It had the capability to shoot on S-VHS, the latest
craze!
My old man said to me, “sonny boy this weekend we are going to make a movie”.
So we loaded up on Triple-H Drive In ice cream and set off to the local cemetery where a bunch of zombies awaited. It was there we made our very first movie. It was actually the first of many straight to home VHS movies.
Sure, they were worse than B-grade but for me they were amazing. They had credits, crazy music and cheesy special effects. This was awesome for a kid and especially for one that had a dream of becoming an actor and filmmaker.
With that said, there was one thing stood out to me while watching these movies.
At the beginning, there was no awesome looking Universal Pictures or cool Warner Brothers
icon. The title on the screen simply said Ten Dollar Movie Company.
I asked my dad why he called it that. He looked at me and literally said, “Because it probably took about $10 bucks to make this thing.”
That’s it. That is the story of how we got our fantastic name. A name I am proud of. A name that will forever live on in the annals of film company history.
Now you know so let’s go make some movies!