Lessons From Failure Of Burning Barn Productions Unlock Success Rules That Drive You Forward (Part II)

As revealed previously, (see “Lessons From Failure Of Burning Barn Productions Unlock Success Rules That Drive You Forward (Part I),” Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel, April 10, 2025), we couldn’t move forward towards success without understanding the initial lesson. After learning our first success rule—get one ally before rallying the group—we were ready to turn dreams into movies. Convincing your peers to jump into the unknown isn’t easy. That’s what my brother Kenny and I faced when our neighborhood film making ambitions took off.

With my brother backing me, it was easy to convince the other boys to go along.

Hmm, maybe not that easy. There were initially too many objections. Remember, we were barely teenagers. We all knew how to watch movies. No one had any experience making movies. “It’s never been done before” is the go-to response of every naysayer throughout history. And our friends loved playing that role.

How did my brother and I overcome this obstacle?

Well, we had two aces up our sleeves, and those aces became the next two rules from the successful era of Burning Barn Productions.

Success Rule 2: Proof Beats Doubt—Show them how they did it before.

I said “show,” but I could have easily said, “Prove to them they’ve already done it.” You see, they used the same “we’ve never done it before” argument when we first discussed hosting a carnival. We made them remember that. Then, we made them remember how successful it was (we earned an amazing total of $7.21!) and how much fun we all had. That satisfied them. It was on to the next phase and the next rule.

Success Rule 3: Feed Their Imagination—Give them what they want.

We all liked war movies, especially The Battle of the Bulge. Using the father’s real-life tank story as inspiration, Kenny and I asked them to imagine, if they could do it, what would it look like? The “if they could do it” part allowed them to ignore the burden of “how” and focus on the easier “what.” Once you let someone’s imagination run wild, they can convince themselves of almost anything.

Success Rule 4: Ask Big Or Go Home—You’ll never get what you don’t ask for.

Now for the greatest challenge. It’s one thing to imagine doing something, but sooner or later, you have to get to the “how.” Here, the biggest impediment was technology. We needed a film camera. It was the summer of 1973. Few people had that kind of equipment. Luck was on our side, as my father had bought one shortly after I was born. He had endured a contentious relationship with it for some time. Thus, it was no surprise when he gladly agreed to let me use that 8mm devil that sat idle on a dusty closet shelf. “Don’t worry if you break it,” he smiled, as if that’s exactly what he wanted me to do.

Success Rule 5: Novelty Excites—It’s fun to do something new and completely different.

Now came the easy part. With all the convincing done, now it was a matter of motivating the team. What do boys like doing? Mostly anything involving tools and dirt. Oh, yeah, and pyrotechnics, too.

We built a six-foot-square sandbox, placed it on a picnic table, and landscaped it with sand and tree-like weeds. We needed some structures, so we built a “truss bridge” consisting of a flat piece of wood and toothpick trusses on the side.

We also added a cardboard barn. Using stop-action filming (all done without a tripod), we told a story using plastic army men, their vehicles, and model tanks. For explosions, we used firecrackers. During the movie’s climax, the barn burned.

Operation Sandtrap opened to a packed house of 14 (that was all the chairs we had). The kids who watched the film loved it. It was five minutes long. They didn’t leave our “theater.” They wanted to see it multiple times. We were so proud of our accomplishment that we kept projecting it again and again without charging for the additional showings.

This propelled us into the second film, The Battle of Dortmund Circle. It would be bigger, better, and more explosive. Our scenes were more developed. We knew exactly what we wanted to see in the film. We built a new set to accommodate this. Gone was the tabletop diorama. In its place, we secured a dry, desolate corner of our next-door neighbor’s backyard. His son was our special effects expert, specifically in the field of explosives. This made things especially tricky because it sat right on the property line that separated Dortmund Circle from Chili Avenue’s cranky old-timers.

This new “lot” offered a topography better suited for the action we imagined. In this film, we built two bridges, including a high “suspension” bridge (again, just a flat piece of wood). The truss bridge featured popsicle sticks instead of toothpicks. In addition to the ubiquitous barn, we added a toothpick-framed headquarters with paper walls. Everything was painted to avoid making the cheap construction too obvious.

But the best was the special effects. We graduated from firecrackers to Estes rocket engines. OK, we still used firecrackers, but that Estes rocket engine blew the lid off the enemy headquarters building. (Funny how a $2 engine felt like NASA in our hands.)

And the barn was bigger this time, for a bigger fire.

As before, our small (in size and stature) audiences loved this movie. This leads us to our final success side rule.

Success Rule 6: Bigger Better Be Better—If you’re going to make a new and improved product, it better be new and improved.

Now comes the bad part. Cocky from our little Hollywood high, we strutted straight into the abyss only pride can take you to. We decided to make our most ambitious movie ever. It would be a live-action science fiction movie about a robot gone rogue in deep space, with us as the actors. Mind you, this was before Alien, although that’s not to say Alien was the first sci-fi flick to feature a rogue robot.

We didn’t see it then, but the cracks were already spidering through our grand plan. It was a disaster from the very beginning. We built a set in the walk-in basement that served as our movie theater. That was the fun part. We created a “working” computer by putting twinkling Christmas lights inside Styrofoam egg cartons covered with wax paper. But the lights didn’t blink the way we wanted them to. We wrapped aluminum foil around boxes to create our robot suit. But the costume looked more like stacked boxes wrapped in aluminum foil than a robot. At least we had a great-looking captain’s chair.

We stalled after that initial burst of excitement. Actually, it didn’t quite stall as much as it imploded. We couldn’t agree on a script. This lengthened the number of filming days before we began filming. Since we had little money, we couldn’t afford to buy extra camera film. It was one take and done. We had to get it right the first time. We rehearsed what little script we had.

Then we hit a brick wall. We couldn’t act. No, that wasn’t the brick wall. The brick wall was that we couldn’t agree on who the director was. Everything ground to a halt. We pictured our sci-fi epic buried under a cosmic avalanche of tinsel and foil.

Time, that cruel editor, had already cut our reel short. The set sat unused for a long time. Without warning, the father who made the treehouse—the tank veteran who lost two fingers and owner of the basement where our set resided—succumbed to a heart attack. Out of respect, the basement grew quiet after that, a silence heavier than our half-built robot.

We left the ladder raised on that final project, pulling up behind us the lessons we’d learned—perhaps to protect them, perhaps just because we weren’t ready to climb back down and face what came next.

The movie never got made.

Success Rule 7: Stick to Your Strengths—If you’re going to make a new and improved product, stick to a variation on a theme, don’t create something completely different.

Now, this might sound like it contradicts Rule 5—but there’s a big difference between a bold new idea and stretching an old one beyond its limits. Rule 5 applies specifically to completely new ventures. Rule 7 applies to the expansion of an existing product line. Rule 7 cautions against diluting successful products or ideas by stretching them beyond their core appeal. In the end, no one ends up liking it. Not the original audience. Not the market research tested, expanded audience. Nobody.

This failure occurs because many businesses hold the false assumption that the growth of a successful product will continue indefinitely. The first few years of growth can come about without any fundamental change in the nature of the product. Soon, though, the natural market becomes saturated. In order to grow further, companies take on greater risk. They venture beyond their skill set and into the Twilight Zone of the Peter Principle.

They’ve grown beyond the scope of their expertise. It’s here where the lack of discipline will push the company into failure. Clint Eastwood once said, “A man’s got to know his limitations.” The same holds true for businesses.

Burning Barn Productions didn’t know its limitations. It was our Icarus moment. We’d soared too high, and the wax melted fast.

Whatever you do, whatever organization you’re in, whatever activity you pursue, you’re bound to be successful if you’re passionate about it and have fun doing it.

That’s precisely when all the trouble starts.

Watch The Movies!

Operation Sandtrap

Operation Sandtrap was a surprise hit when it was release in the summer of 1973. And you’ll be surprised it was a hit after watching this five-minute film. Still, every mistake taught us what not to do in the next movie.

The Battle of Dortmund Circle (Remastered)

You can see a vast improvement in the cinematography in 1974’s The Battle of Dortmund Circle. Sure, there remain a slip-ups here and there, but stop-action without a tripod will only get you so far. Unfortunately, our imaginations proved far greater than our production skills, and the next venture never even made it to the cutting room floor. Decades later, with the help of Peter, I added music, graphics, and sound effects. That’s the version you see here. It stands as definitive proof why the silent era is long gone.