If you are here just to watch the movie please skip this introduction. I am the Director and Producer George Anton and the film you are about to see, Robinson Crusoe, has a very special place in my filmmaking career.

It represents the loneliness I was experiencing in Hollywood at the time and the desire to be noticed in the film industry.

In the year 2007 after wrapping Born Into Mafia, I remember sitting with with Vitaliy Versace in my West Hollywood apartment and screening for him a Roger Corman documentary, on how he approached the movie business. I told him straight up. “Versace, no movie executives give a crap about us. They will not give us money and power to make movies unless we become a Hollywood threat. The power is in our hands. We are going to mimic what Roger Corman did in the 60’s.” Then the decision was made. “We have to Write, Produce and Direct feature length, low budget remakes. We are going to release movie after movie fast, and embrace the digital age. Look at Roger. He shot a movie in three days. We can do it.”

I was only half right. At the time, all the assholes shopping their scripts in Hollywood were stuck to shoot their movies on expensive film.

Therefore, 99% would end up just with just the dream of making a movie, going back home to Ohio or wherever they came from.

I was one of the few who believed in capturing the magic on the brand new, High Definition video camcorders.

Quentin Tarantino was calling guys like me unprofessional because I was shooting on digital.

Robinson Crusoe was indeed shot 7 days, on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, California.

Myself and Versace followed and improved on the same Born Into Mafia type of production, holding auditions, location scouting and so on but this time with table read, meetings where all the actors read the 90 pages screenplay and being told to show up on set with the lines fully memorised.

We hired only one Production Assistant named Rick Rae, who also plays the Nazi spaceship captain and we all met on El Matador Beach in Malibu.

I remember having the wheelchair carried down the cliff, along with two by fours from Home Depot, so I can roll it on the sand and get my tracking shots.

Vitaliy Versace sacrificed his small kids in the burning sun all day having the actresses acting as well as babysitters because Versace’s wife was just admitted in the hospital that day for an emergency surgical procedure and we did not want to cancel the shoot.

So whomever watches this production and thinks “Oh, anybody can make a movie like these guys did”

No, you are the insane one. You can not make a movie like we did unless you put in hard work and sweat. You think you can make a movie, because it looks easy on TV from sitting on your couch. Making a movie is a hustle. Low budget or big budget, it does not make a difference.

After we finished shooting Robinson Crusoe, I was definitely not happy with the footage as most of the scenes where shot in too much of a hurry and the sound was pretty bad. I could have done better with a bigger budget and more time.

I rented a movie studio in North Hollywood on Vineland Ave. where the video editing took me one full year as I had to also learn Maya and generate the 3D modeling and special effects scenes using the low powered rendering technology of 2008. 

Robinson Crusoe was finally released on DVD. During my adult life, I have produced and directed many movies in Hollywood that eventually generated hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Every time you make a movie let them call you crazy,

because we are filmmakers and nobody can take that away from us.

Now enjoy the science fiction adventure spectacular: ROBINSON CRUSOE

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1312242/