billy LAx – Introductory Document
I’m billy LAx! I started my career as a screenplay writer then I found the wonderful world of web development. Made a full circle back to the movie business with Espresso Films
© moviesbyespresso
“It was exciting growing up, back in the 60s. I watched my nervous parents with their unrelenting belief that they would “hit gold” hit no gold at all.”
Brief about billy LAx
I was born in Hollywood and my parents were a couple of want-to-be actors that had come here from Michigan to “make-it-big” in the “City of the Starts.” Eventually dad went into real estate and mom became a waitress. They divorced when I was twelve and the divorce hit me hard. I was into heavy rock at the time and got into drugs and selling them for a while, getting into trouble and spent some time in Juvie. My grandparents, all four of them, rushed to my aide and I spent time in Michigan where they got me straightened out. I did not think it was good having a grandpa strong enough to wrestle an ox, in charge of me, and knew when to be tough and when to have the kindness of a swan, but now I look back and say thank you grandpa and grandma on both sides. Anyway, I joined the Navy when I was eighteen, became a Navy Nuclear Reactor Oporator which surprised everyone because they all thought I did not have it in me, got out of the Navy and moved back to Hollywood. My dad and mom had some connections in the movie business, and I wrote my first screenplay. It was called Servus Rx and was techo-thriller involving real life research about a cure for sugar diabetes. Funny thing is, in 2021, that very cure is being highly researched. I got the idea from a friend of my dad’s who was a professor at Cal Tech.
It took me six months to write about it while listening to my dad tell me to “get it out of my system.” I endured the, what seemed to me, lack of support and finished it. Guess what dad? I sold it to a TV producer in Burbank. Then I wrote three more movie screenplays, none of which I managed to sell. Buzz LaBou which was a movie about an over-the-hill hockey player in Michigan which was akin to a Rocky on ice; The Class Reunion, an art-house film about a twenty-year class reunion about a bunch of insecure classmates; and Country Love which was a movie about a Country Artist in Branson Missouri who was fighting his way through the country music networks to make it big. Since I was an ex-Navy Nuclear Operator, and the screenplays were not bringing money into the cash register, I decided to go get a real job at SONGS nuclear plant in San Onofre. After working at San Onofre, for ten years, I decided to be a PHP programmer building websites for customers. It was a happy medium between screenplay writing and working at SONGS, as it brought in some money and it was not working, I really did not like. In about 2015, I started looking at the excitement of the new age of making money online with Digital Marketing and soon, moved from a PHP programmer to Digital Marketing specializing in the Film and Movie Independent business.
Back in the 80s, when I was a screenplay writer, I ran across a friend of mine who was directing movies. We decided that we would make a series of Art-House movies and sell them in coffee houses across the country. The name of the business was “Espresso Films and Coffee Company.” Unfortunately, the business would have taken well more resources than either Howard or I had, and it faded out. The transformation from the Navy to screenplay writing to SONGS to PHP programming to Digital Marketing as brought me to a full circle back the movie and film business. It certainly is exciting to be secure where I am and still making a living off the Independent Film and Movie business.
As a person who watches the evolution of the Movie business, I could see an opening for a significant business model using both film and my newly acquired Digital Media experience. Films, especially lower budget Indies, are highly dependent on internet marketing to get their advertising out. They must be on a successful YouTube channel and have a social media presence. Perfect for billyLAx. I employed a long time PHP associate Zalak, to be my digital creative head. Zalak is an expert at three important things: she is an excellent UI/UX Word Press developer; she is a great digital graphics person; and last but certainly not least, I trust her. She is an excellent business partner.
After finding an investor, I then was able to hire CC bel and Maxx TEE. Both of these young film and movie talents knew and understood the importance of digital marketing in the film and movie Indie world and since Digital Marketing is a tool that is hard to get and once you get it, you must trust the entity you get it from, they were happy to join. It now gives them the biggest weapon they have in their efforts to put together their movies.
