'To succeed in this world, you have to take chances."

Roger Corman spoke those words as part of his Oscar acceptance speech in November 2009 when he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Oscar for his many contributions to the film industry. Although he did not get to take the podium at the Oscar show March 7, he was in the audience and was acknowledged. A short clip of his acceptance speech was shown as well.

He has practiced what he preached throughout his long career in Hollywood. He does what you never do by financing his own movies. He is keeping low budget, independent films alive. In addition, hes given some of the biggest names in Hollywood their introductions to filmmaking. Actors Sylvester Stallone, Jack Nicholson and Dennis Hopper all worked in Rogers pictures. Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese and James Cameron learned about making movies from him.

Last Friday, it was my good fortune to speak by telephone with Roger (he immediately told me to call him by his first name) about his career, his involvement with the Syfy, and a few other odds and ends.

When I asked how he got his start, his reply showed why he is the success that he is. He not only takes chances but he thinks in terms of cause and effect.

His first producing gig was not long after he graduated from college with an engineering degree. He sold a script for a film and offered to work on the movie for only a co-producer credit. He said he knew that in Hollywood credits are everything. After working on that film, he could go out and get work elsewhere because he was a credited producer.

His first movie was It Stalked the Ocean Floor which was later renamed Monster from the Ocean Floor. He liked his title best but others thought it was too artsy. The movie cost him about $30,000 to make and when he sold the distribution rights, he got $60,000. He didnt think double his cost was too bad a deal.

His involvement with Syfy came about when he sold his Dinocroc concept to Syfy. It turned out to be the highest-rated movie of the year for the cable channel and they knew that they wanted more of what Roger was doing. Their audience wanted more.

I mentioned to him that a couple of Saturdays ago when Syfy was running a marathon of creature features, I was ill and decided to get some distraction by watching Supergator. I didnt realize it was one of his films but he commented that it was and that his son Roger Martin has filmed the sequel Dinocroc vs. Supergator.

Dinoshark is his most recent Syfy feature airing March 13. It stars Eric Balfour whom many of you will recognize from 24 and "Six Feet Under." It was filmed on location in Mexico, which adds a lot of cultural elements to the setting.

When I asked Roger if he created the story for Dinoshark himself, that led to him giving me his philosophy of storytelling.

He begins his movies with what he calls a logical illogical premise from which the story then follows logically. He says you dont cheat the audience. You dont suddenly decide that Dinoshark can fly over the Rocky Mountains unless you gave a clue that he could do that from the beginning. Ill tell you now that Dinoshark can jump really high but he cant fly.

Roger says that his logical illogic gives you the reason for the all-important suspension of disbelief. When you watch his movies, you dont have trouble believing the creatures or situations exist because you know what caused them to come to be.

Scriptwriters Frances Doel and Guy Prevost took the premise for Dinoshark and told the whole story.

Gary Morgenstein of Syfy kindly sent me a review copy of Dinoshark so I watched it the other night. Near the end, there was a pun in the movie that had us all laughing. When I commented about this, Roger said that it was important to him that the movies have a little bit of humor. They are supposed to be fun.

I was curious about how the budget for Dinoshark compared with the budgets for the movies Roger finances himself. He told me that the budgets for pictures he makes are usually $1 million. Dinoshark had a budget of about $1.7 million.

You have probably seen the title Sharktopus all over the place. It's the name of Roger's next project. The programming powers-that-be at Syfy liked the idea of a creature that was half shark and half octopus. They gave Roger the name Sharktopus, which he wasnt too certain was a good one, and asked him to come up with the details about the creature and the story.

Now that Sharktopus has become legend on Twitter, sung about in a video on YouTube, and has gotten mention on Craig Fergusons television show, he guesses he was wrong about the name.

According to Roger, I wont be spoiling Sharktopus for you if I tell you that its going to star Eric Roberts and will involve the U.S. Navy and modern-day pirates. Sounds like a winning combination to me.

I imagine that the body count for Sharktopus will rival that of Dinoshark.

Because I talked about comparing the body count in Dinoshark to that in Supergator, Roger suggested that someone should do a study on how body count relates to ratings.

You know that is going to happen now and when it does, it should be credited to Roger Corman.

Many people call Roger Corman the king of B-movies. Depending on the source, this can be a sort of condemnation or a title that should be accepted with pride. In an interview with ABC News that I watched on the Internet, Roger said in France he has been called the Pope of Pop Culture and he likes that title.

I like that one, too.