I feel like I'm suffocating. Maybe a heart attack. Like my chest is one unit that I can rip out and put on a shelf. Stress, anxiety. A friend mentioned the other day about Robin and I fulfilling our dreams. A pair of months like the past, I wonder if its all worth it. With all that dream fulfilling, there is an equal amount of gut wrenching stress that goes along with it. Is there a way to have one and not the other? I honestly think there is. And I think that is my next goal, my next dream.
My main problem is that with all of the mistakes I make, I personally learn what not to do. Which is great, but that just means that next time, I personally have to do everything myself (the right way). This is a dilemma because I cannot possibly go though another distribution process on another film mostly by myself. This is no way to live. At all. I feel like if I have to endure one more of these, one more Champion, something's gotta give. I cannot possibly do it again. Period. I have told many people and now I will tell you. I have worked on our most recent film Champion every single day for the past 1 1/2 years. Except for about 12 days of inner mingled weekend vacations. ONE AND A HALF YEARS. I am tired of it. Please take this cup from me.
Again I ask, is it worth it? The answer is no. No, not if I continue on the present course. So how do I make it worth it? I can start by hiring experienced people in a few of the offending positions to do most of this stuff I am doing now. All of the stuff I have been doing for the past 2 months should have been done during production, not by me but by the person I hired to do the job originally. This sounds so easy, but it costs money. More money that we usually spend on films. That's how we can make films so inexpensively, you wear all the hats you can.
Friday, August 30, 2013
Thursday, August 15, 2013
My life up to now. Part 15: OK. So we reached the top of the proverbial mountain, now what?
OK. So we reached the top of the proverbial mountain (distribution), now what? When Robin and I got up there (the mountain), we took off our packs, found a nice shady spot to sit and rest. A nice breeze came over us flipping the leaves out of their stems and sprinkling them down onto our heads. We looked up towards the sky and low and behold, there was more mountain. After you get your first distribution deal, the next step in the life of being a filmmaker is to get a "better" distribution deal. There is an unwritten rule (until now) that the first deal you make should always be your worst. The rest of this blog post will be hugely constructive for you filmmaker types and probably mildly interesting to those who do not make movies. I'd like to talk about stuff we did wrong and will never get wrong again. See, constructive!
What the heck is a QC Report? What is a deliverable? E & O Insurance? At the time, we had no idea. Here is how we learned and here is how we eventually succeeded. Google. We would have a meeting with our distributor and be googling the entire time he was talking to us, pretending to be intelligent and business savvy. I felt like I was an international spy on a mission and I had my 'tech' guy on a laptop, sitting outside in the incognito van, rattling off secret codes in my ear piece. Robin and I knew how to make films. What we didn't realize is that we were expected to do all of this business stuff on top of it. Put me on set with a camera in my hand, I'm good. Put me in a room with a bunch of suits to talk about Errors and Omissions Insurance, Title Reports, Actor riders, Certified Statements with Contractual Obligations, Chain of Title Summary, Copyright Registrations? I can think of about 1209374365 things I would rather do. But guess what? That's part of the film business!
The QC Report. This stands for Quality Control. Basically, a lab hooks a bunch of scopes, software and monitors up to your movie and they go through it frame by frame with surgical instruments looking for imperfections in the picture and sound. It costs about $1500 per report and trust me, on your first time out, you'll need 2 of them. You'll fix the first wave of problems and then they will test it all again. So that's 3 grand right there you'll need to add to your budget to cover the cost. Oh, you didn't know about QC Reports and you spent your entire budget on Pre-Production, Production and Post Production (Naturally of course!)? Well, you'll just have to pay for that out of pocket. Next, there is Errors and Omissions Insurance. That will be $4500. Didn't budget for that? Well, go ahead and pay that out of your lunch money too. Creation of all the masters? $5000. Did you get two distributors, one for foreign and one for domestic? Double that 5 grand to 10 grand. Next, you'll need an attorney to broker the distribution contracts. Didn't budget for that? Oh, well you can just do it yourself. Be your own attorney! Attorneys are overrated anyway! A distributor has 3 different filing cabinets where they get your deal's paperwork:
1st Filing Cabinet is labeled: 1st Time Filmmaker With No Representation
2nd Filing Cabinet is labeled: Filmmaker With Representation
3rd Filing Cabinet is labeled: Filmmaker With Good Representation
We grossly under budgeted and quickly drummed up $20,000 in expenses and that didn't include all the normal expenses that the distributor takes out of your cut. Because we were out of money, we structured our deal so that the distribution company took care of all these expenses and they just took it all out of our profits. Smart right? Eh, not really. Not really because that change made it so that they would have no expense cap. And what happens when you give a kid mom's no limit credit card? A rain of destruction, mayhem and misfortune, Lou Pearlman style.
All of this said, I have no regrets. I feel wonderfully lucky that we got a distribution deal to begin with. I feel lucky because now that I have two movies in distribution (sorry, jumping into the future here), I realize that it's a stepping stone process. We made it through "distribution school" as it were, came out on the other side better for it… more prepared. In order to get a good distribution deal, you first have to most certainly get a bad one.
What the heck is a QC Report? What is a deliverable? E & O Insurance? At the time, we had no idea. Here is how we learned and here is how we eventually succeeded. Google. We would have a meeting with our distributor and be googling the entire time he was talking to us, pretending to be intelligent and business savvy. I felt like I was an international spy on a mission and I had my 'tech' guy on a laptop, sitting outside in the incognito van, rattling off secret codes in my ear piece. Robin and I knew how to make films. What we didn't realize is that we were expected to do all of this business stuff on top of it. Put me on set with a camera in my hand, I'm good. Put me in a room with a bunch of suits to talk about Errors and Omissions Insurance, Title Reports, Actor riders, Certified Statements with Contractual Obligations, Chain of Title Summary, Copyright Registrations? I can think of about 1209374365 things I would rather do. But guess what? That's part of the film business!
The QC Report. This stands for Quality Control. Basically, a lab hooks a bunch of scopes, software and monitors up to your movie and they go through it frame by frame with surgical instruments looking for imperfections in the picture and sound. It costs about $1500 per report and trust me, on your first time out, you'll need 2 of them. You'll fix the first wave of problems and then they will test it all again. So that's 3 grand right there you'll need to add to your budget to cover the cost. Oh, you didn't know about QC Reports and you spent your entire budget on Pre-Production, Production and Post Production (Naturally of course!)? Well, you'll just have to pay for that out of pocket. Next, there is Errors and Omissions Insurance. That will be $4500. Didn't budget for that? Well, go ahead and pay that out of your lunch money too. Creation of all the masters? $5000. Did you get two distributors, one for foreign and one for domestic? Double that 5 grand to 10 grand. Next, you'll need an attorney to broker the distribution contracts. Didn't budget for that? Oh, well you can just do it yourself. Be your own attorney! Attorneys are overrated anyway! A distributor has 3 different filing cabinets where they get your deal's paperwork:
1st Filing Cabinet is labeled: 1st Time Filmmaker With No Representation
2nd Filing Cabinet is labeled: Filmmaker With Representation
3rd Filing Cabinet is labeled: Filmmaker With Good Representation
We grossly under budgeted and quickly drummed up $20,000 in expenses and that didn't include all the normal expenses that the distributor takes out of your cut. Because we were out of money, we structured our deal so that the distribution company took care of all these expenses and they just took it all out of our profits. Smart right? Eh, not really. Not really because that change made it so that they would have no expense cap. And what happens when you give a kid mom's no limit credit card? A rain of destruction, mayhem and misfortune, Lou Pearlman style.
All of this said, I have no regrets. I feel wonderfully lucky that we got a distribution deal to begin with. I feel lucky because now that I have two movies in distribution (sorry, jumping into the future here), I realize that it's a stepping stone process. We made it through "distribution school" as it were, came out on the other side better for it… more prepared. In order to get a good distribution deal, you first have to most certainly get a bad one.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
My life up to now. Part 14: This all seems like roses doesn't it
Robin Nations and I returned back to San Antonio with our phones blowing up. Word got around about our film and we had 3 or 4 more distributors wanting it. After a week or two of weighing all of the options, we ended up choosing the distributor that promised the most, had the biggest numbers. We were super nervous and never really knew if we were making the right decision but felt this one was as good as any. On April 19th 2011, we inked a world wide distribution deal. We were the most excited people on earth and couldn't believe it was actually happening. Surely we missed something, surely it wasn't this easy. We thought for sure that there was more struggling to do. How on earth could we work so hard and so long for something and it actually come true? These kinds of things happen to other people, not us. People you read about in the news or on some TV show but the fact that it was happening to us just didn't make sense. To re-iterate something I said before, getting distribution for one of our films was the holy grail for us. That was it, top of the chart… It's like getting a record deal as a musician, or signing a publishing contract as a writer. And when Robin and I ran over the projected numbers for our foreign sales? Mind blown. Have you ever had one of those "out of body" experiences? You know, where you are sitting in a chair and your body goes numb. Your face and arms start to become very heavy and then suddenly you feel like you're hovering above yourself, looking down at whatever it is you are doing at the time. I felt like that while we were on our conference call with our distributor. Robin and I huddled around my macbook pro with our foreign ask/take projections full screen. I whipped out my calculator and added up the numbers 5 times… Each time coming up with the same unbelievable number. How is this happening?
One week later, our distributor called and said he had an offer from not a domestic buyer, but a domestic distributor that we should really look at. This is where it got even more interesting. This distributor offered that if we sign with them, they would pay us an MG of the entire budget of our movie. Wait a minute, are you telling me that we sign with these guys, they will cut me a check right then and there? Pretty much. We did have to wait until the movie was "Officially Released" which was a month or two but that is how it went down. MG stands for Minimum Guarantee. When you strike a domestic deal, you will get one of these (hopefully).
This all seems like roses doesn't it. I am painting it as such. That is exactly how it felt at the time. Roses. Bright red, highly contrasted with the greenery around it. Supple petals, resistant from the rain, fragrant and wonderful. Nothing could touch us, we were finally there and it was awesome. Soon, we will continue this journey and realize that our journey has just begun and with achieved goals, there were new goals. Many new obstacles, trials and problems to overcome. We learn from our mistakes every day and boy oh boy we realized soon after, that during this time, we made a lot of them.
One week later, our distributor called and said he had an offer from not a domestic buyer, but a domestic distributor that we should really look at. This is where it got even more interesting. This distributor offered that if we sign with them, they would pay us an MG of the entire budget of our movie. Wait a minute, are you telling me that we sign with these guys, they will cut me a check right then and there? Pretty much. We did have to wait until the movie was "Officially Released" which was a month or two but that is how it went down. MG stands for Minimum Guarantee. When you strike a domestic deal, you will get one of these (hopefully).
This all seems like roses doesn't it. I am painting it as such. That is exactly how it felt at the time. Roses. Bright red, highly contrasted with the greenery around it. Supple petals, resistant from the rain, fragrant and wonderful. Nothing could touch us, we were finally there and it was awesome. Soon, we will continue this journey and realize that our journey has just begun and with achieved goals, there were new goals. Many new obstacles, trials and problems to overcome. We learn from our mistakes every day and boy oh boy we realized soon after, that during this time, we made a lot of them.
Thursday, July 25, 2013
My life up to now. Part 13: A cutscene out of the TV show "Scrubs"
I am a pretty big fan of Nathan Fillion. Robin and I loved Firefly. Loved Serenity. Big fan of Capt. Mal. I never really got into Castle though, not sure why. I think I probably need to give it another try. I saw Nathan Fillion round the corner and walk into the small outdoor cafe at Raleigh Studios Hollywood, the back part behind the sound stages. He and the crew of Castle stepped in for a lunch break and Nathan sat 4 feet away from me as Robin and I nibbled at a meager appetizer waiting on our first Cooper distributor meeting. Apparently, they shoot the show there, Castle. What amazed me was that Mr. Fillion sat with the crew. The camera crew, grips, the production assistants. That's different, I thought. He went on talking with them like he was part of the crew, getting to know them personally, talking about cats and flip flops… you know, the ushe.
Our first appointment shows up. I won't disclose the distribution company in this blog to protect the guilty but what I will do is go ahead and blow your mind right now and let you know that it's the exact same guy that crushed our spirit years ago with the freight train of Truth and Exactitude. I swear, the moment he sat down and started talking my life switched to a cutscene out of the TV show "Scrubs".
Scrubs cut scene -----
12 INT. Distribution Office - DAY
A man in his late 30's, dark sandy hair, cheap suit and a slight gut sits at cherry wood desk. His desk is littered with stacks and stacks of DVD screeners and his trashcan has twice that amount inside. ECU on phone to mouth as he spatters out words and spit equally.
DISTRIBUTOR
No one wants to watch a bunch of women sit around and talk about their feelings.
End Scrubs cut scene -----
Yeah, I am not kidding. We met his lovely assistant the night before, at the screening and never put it together. Luckily for us, the guy had no idea who we were and that we had spoke those years ago because I am sure we were just a number to him. He seemed head-over-heels interested in our movie this time though and wanted to close a deal right then and there. We told him we do have a few more meetings and that we would be giving him a call.
Our next meeting was really great. A lovely girl who really had it together. The first thing out of her mouth was, "Where did you have your pitch packages made?". She told us straight up that the reason she is talking to us now is because of that pitch package… that her company had already made the decision to speak to us before our film ever screened. She spoke frankly with us, "Filmmaking is one of the only businesses I know where there is a lot of people making their product before they know how they will sell their product. It looks like you guys made a product directly for the market. Good for you. If you're not going to have a named actor in the cast, an equally essential thing is to have a cute dog on the cover. Look at this", she holds up our fly card artwork. "We can definitely work with this", she said. We told her that we would be in touch sometime next week.
And our next meeting. Man, this guy was really interesting too. He was a straight-shooter, a no BS kind of guy and told it how it is. "First of all, great pitch package. Best I've ever seen. Most people send us screeners, burned DVD, title scribbled on them…-- kerplink#@# -- straight in the trash. Who do these people think they are? They spend all this time and energy on their film and erase it with a cheap DVD and Sharpie. It's like they are using the shotgun approach and just firing spindles of crappy plastic out the post, I don't want to watch that crap. I got your box, yeah.. that box. Opened it up, had a cute little doggie tag keychain I gave to my daughter. Yeah, I remembered that one", he said. This dude was a fast talking New Yorker, a real Jonah Jameson kind of guy (J.K. Simmons version from original Spider-Man movie). I swear, the guy was not privy to small talk and really just got down to brass tacks. "I tell ya, Here is what I can do for you. I can do X, Y and Z. I cannot do D, E, F. Your film will make between 145-150k domestically and I do not handle foreign territories so you'll need to sign some someone else for that. DVD is dead and you won't likely make much money there. We can make money through VOD and some television deals. Your movie is great but it's got one fatal flaw… the same flaw that Hitchcock made in the worst Hitchcock movie that nobody has ever seen… you killed a kid. Yeah, make another dog movie but this time don't kill a kid and you'll make twice as much money. Also, if you can add in a scene where the guy holds up a Bible or says a prayer, that'll get you a few extra bucks right there." All we could do is listen, the guy was a machine. Robin grabbed my knee under the table and gave it a squeeze. When he was finished, he flicked us his card and told us to call him Monday morning and we would go over all the deal paperwork. He was closing the deal before we were ready to close the deal!
We left California with a lot of options!
Our first appointment shows up. I won't disclose the distribution company in this blog to protect the guilty but what I will do is go ahead and blow your mind right now and let you know that it's the exact same guy that crushed our spirit years ago with the freight train of Truth and Exactitude. I swear, the moment he sat down and started talking my life switched to a cutscene out of the TV show "Scrubs".
Scrubs cut scene -----
12 INT. Distribution Office - DAY
A man in his late 30's, dark sandy hair, cheap suit and a slight gut sits at cherry wood desk. His desk is littered with stacks and stacks of DVD screeners and his trashcan has twice that amount inside. ECU on phone to mouth as he spatters out words and spit equally.
End Scrubs cut scene -----
Yeah, I am not kidding. We met his lovely assistant the night before, at the screening and never put it together. Luckily for us, the guy had no idea who we were and that we had spoke those years ago because I am sure we were just a number to him. He seemed head-over-heels interested in our movie this time though and wanted to close a deal right then and there. We told him we do have a few more meetings and that we would be giving him a call.
Our next meeting was really great. A lovely girl who really had it together. The first thing out of her mouth was, "Where did you have your pitch packages made?". She told us straight up that the reason she is talking to us now is because of that pitch package… that her company had already made the decision to speak to us before our film ever screened. She spoke frankly with us, "Filmmaking is one of the only businesses I know where there is a lot of people making their product before they know how they will sell their product. It looks like you guys made a product directly for the market. Good for you. If you're not going to have a named actor in the cast, an equally essential thing is to have a cute dog on the cover. Look at this", she holds up our fly card artwork. "We can definitely work with this", she said. We told her that we would be in touch sometime next week.
And our next meeting. Man, this guy was really interesting too. He was a straight-shooter, a no BS kind of guy and told it how it is. "First of all, great pitch package. Best I've ever seen. Most people send us screeners, burned DVD, title scribbled on them…-- kerplink#@# -- straight in the trash. Who do these people think they are? They spend all this time and energy on their film and erase it with a cheap DVD and Sharpie. It's like they are using the shotgun approach and just firing spindles of crappy plastic out the post, I don't want to watch that crap. I got your box, yeah.. that box. Opened it up, had a cute little doggie tag keychain I gave to my daughter. Yeah, I remembered that one", he said. This dude was a fast talking New Yorker, a real Jonah Jameson kind of guy (J.K. Simmons version from original Spider-Man movie). I swear, the guy was not privy to small talk and really just got down to brass tacks. "I tell ya, Here is what I can do for you. I can do X, Y and Z. I cannot do D, E, F. Your film will make between 145-150k domestically and I do not handle foreign territories so you'll need to sign some someone else for that. DVD is dead and you won't likely make much money there. We can make money through VOD and some television deals. Your movie is great but it's got one fatal flaw… the same flaw that Hitchcock made in the worst Hitchcock movie that nobody has ever seen… you killed a kid. Yeah, make another dog movie but this time don't kill a kid and you'll make twice as much money. Also, if you can add in a scene where the guy holds up a Bible or says a prayer, that'll get you a few extra bucks right there." All we could do is listen, the guy was a machine. Robin grabbed my knee under the table and gave it a squeeze. When he was finished, he flicked us his card and told us to call him Monday morning and we would go over all the deal paperwork. He was closing the deal before we were ready to close the deal!
We left California with a lot of options!
Friday, July 19, 2013
My life up to now. Part 12: So. Meanwhile in Hollywood
It was an early spring morning in 2011. Robin and I boarded a plane for Los Angeles to screen our film Cooper, which would soon be called Angel Dog, at the International Family Film Festival. The fact that we were an Official Selection at this particular festival (IFFF) was no act of chance but a very targeted festival entry for us. Remember all that planning and research we did earlier before we started shooting? Well, another thing we researched was which film festivals we needed to win if we wanted to get distribution. There's that word again. The holy grail of the independent movie producer right? More on answering that particular question later. Our best chances of getting this movie distributed was to win this festival. Even if we could screen there, we would have a pretty good shot at selling this thing.
While trying to sell our film Leftovers, Robin and I did a really good job mastering the art of the "pitch package". A pitch package is a book or sometimes even a 'kit' that presents your movie to someone. It explains what your movie is, what it will look like, what it will feel like, who made it and why they should consider watching it. By the time we got to this movie Cooper, we were really good at making these things. Because my day job at the time was designing things for NewTek, I was no stranger to this kind of work. The Cooper pitch package was amazing. It was a small black box with a matte finish round emblem border collie logo on the top lid. When set on the desk and opened, it contained a beautifully crafted photo booklet with full bleed still frames from the film and descriptions of the story, wonderful bios of our key cast and crew. Also contained in the box was an engraved dog tag keychain which had our film's name and url. Also inside, was a double pack Blu-Ray and DVD screener of the film. Robin and I spent a lot of time particularly exploring good "Out of Box Experience" designs. How does a customer feel about opening this package? What are their first thoughts seeing the package, once they start, does it invite them to explore more? How do the placement of materials inside the package "question" and "answer" their experience and flow? How long does it take them to explore the entire thing? When we first heard the news that we were an Official Selection at IFFF, we researched and found out which distributors would be there and sent them all this box. "See you at the festival", we said.
So. Meanwhile, in Hollywood. Cooper was to be screened at Raleigh Studios in 3 days. Robin and I woke up early and drove our rental car all over LA posting 11 x 17 Cooper movie posters at every single vet clinic, pet shop and pet grooming establishment in the city. At the bottom of the poster, there was a spot to list the time and location of the screening. We really wanted to fill the seats because we knew this was going to be a big shot for us. We were going to make this night the one we had been working for. The night we had been dreaming about.
SIDE BAR------
Something interesting Robin and I did during pre-production on this film was that we shot 'pre-visualization' footage for the entire movie. Yeah, we tend to take planning and pre-production to the max… some say too far and over the top but we like it that way. We took a DSLR out to all of the locations, used our kids and relatives as stand ins and shot the movie before we actually shot the movie. This helped a lot because it let us spend all the time we needed to work out exactly what we wanted. This way, when we got on set for real, we could almost hit the ground running. When you are making a movie on a tight budget, it's nice to have everything figured out before you get your paid actors and crew there. I pulled a few of these 'pre-vis' shots, matched them up with the real film footage and play them side-by-side. You can see how closely stuffed matched. At the bottom of this blog post, look for the link and check it out. It's a decent way to plan if you have access to your locations early like we did.
END SIDE BAR------
The night came and we both were super nervous. I still get nervous even today watching my own movie with people. In fact, I always sit in the wings of the theater! When the movie finished, we had distributors lined up to talk to us. Robin and I couldn't believe this was actually happening. We gave out our business cards and set up 3 meetings to talk about Cooper that very next day! Wow!
That night Robin and I laid in our quaint little hotel room in Hollywood. It was raining that night and I could hear the rain drops thumping the window and racing down the glass. I slinked out of bed and spread the curtains back. Looked out at the city of angels then turned back around to see all of the lights painting our otherwise dark room with color and light. With this, Robin sat up, indian style, and we just stared at each other. "Are we finally on our way?" she said. That was the question wasn't it. What does it all mean? Are we just going to instantly be rich? Can I quit my day job and buy a really cool house in the Texas hill country? We both didn't know the answer to that question. It was seriously all new territory we were traversing, we were completely and utterly lost in a game we had never played. Didn't sleep well that night… can't imagine why.
Click to watch the Pre-Vis VS Real Footage stuff
While trying to sell our film Leftovers, Robin and I did a really good job mastering the art of the "pitch package". A pitch package is a book or sometimes even a 'kit' that presents your movie to someone. It explains what your movie is, what it will look like, what it will feel like, who made it and why they should consider watching it. By the time we got to this movie Cooper, we were really good at making these things. Because my day job at the time was designing things for NewTek, I was no stranger to this kind of work. The Cooper pitch package was amazing. It was a small black box with a matte finish round emblem border collie logo on the top lid. When set on the desk and opened, it contained a beautifully crafted photo booklet with full bleed still frames from the film and descriptions of the story, wonderful bios of our key cast and crew. Also contained in the box was an engraved dog tag keychain which had our film's name and url. Also inside, was a double pack Blu-Ray and DVD screener of the film. Robin and I spent a lot of time particularly exploring good "Out of Box Experience" designs. How does a customer feel about opening this package? What are their first thoughts seeing the package, once they start, does it invite them to explore more? How do the placement of materials inside the package "question" and "answer" their experience and flow? How long does it take them to explore the entire thing? When we first heard the news that we were an Official Selection at IFFF, we researched and found out which distributors would be there and sent them all this box. "See you at the festival", we said.
So. Meanwhile, in Hollywood. Cooper was to be screened at Raleigh Studios in 3 days. Robin and I woke up early and drove our rental car all over LA posting 11 x 17 Cooper movie posters at every single vet clinic, pet shop and pet grooming establishment in the city. At the bottom of the poster, there was a spot to list the time and location of the screening. We really wanted to fill the seats because we knew this was going to be a big shot for us. We were going to make this night the one we had been working for. The night we had been dreaming about.
SIDE BAR------
Something interesting Robin and I did during pre-production on this film was that we shot 'pre-visualization' footage for the entire movie. Yeah, we tend to take planning and pre-production to the max… some say too far and over the top but we like it that way. We took a DSLR out to all of the locations, used our kids and relatives as stand ins and shot the movie before we actually shot the movie. This helped a lot because it let us spend all the time we needed to work out exactly what we wanted. This way, when we got on set for real, we could almost hit the ground running. When you are making a movie on a tight budget, it's nice to have everything figured out before you get your paid actors and crew there. I pulled a few of these 'pre-vis' shots, matched them up with the real film footage and play them side-by-side. You can see how closely stuffed matched. At the bottom of this blog post, look for the link and check it out. It's a decent way to plan if you have access to your locations early like we did.
END SIDE BAR------
The night came and we both were super nervous. I still get nervous even today watching my own movie with people. In fact, I always sit in the wings of the theater! When the movie finished, we had distributors lined up to talk to us. Robin and I couldn't believe this was actually happening. We gave out our business cards and set up 3 meetings to talk about Cooper that very next day! Wow!
That night Robin and I laid in our quaint little hotel room in Hollywood. It was raining that night and I could hear the rain drops thumping the window and racing down the glass. I slinked out of bed and spread the curtains back. Looked out at the city of angels then turned back around to see all of the lights painting our otherwise dark room with color and light. With this, Robin sat up, indian style, and we just stared at each other. "Are we finally on our way?" she said. That was the question wasn't it. What does it all mean? Are we just going to instantly be rich? Can I quit my day job and buy a really cool house in the Texas hill country? We both didn't know the answer to that question. It was seriously all new territory we were traversing, we were completely and utterly lost in a game we had never played. Didn't sleep well that night… can't imagine why.
Click to watch the Pre-Vis VS Real Footage stuff
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
My life up to now. Part 11: "Nah. I'm done with that. Can you pass the salsa?"
Because I was free from filmmaking, I had a lot of extra time to think and even more time to continue my self-misery depression. I decided to get on medication to help with all that, and it seemed to work but one of the big side effects was that it blew my creativity. Since my job at NewTek paid me to sit and be creative all day, that was a huge no-go. So I just took it day by day. Finally one day, in all seriousness, Robin sat me down and told me that I should think about being happy again. I thought, yeah… I could probably do that, so I did. Was it that simple? Strangely enough, I think it was. I dunno, but it seemed like the push I needed so it ended up working out.
Not long after that, the CEO of NewTek called me and said that he wanted to take me out to lunch. Jim Plant had been a friend of mine for quite a while. He had also been following my films, being a fan of The Water's Edge and Leftovers. We sat down at one of my favorite Mexican restaurants at the time, ordered, and started some small talk. We finally got our food, and that's when the real conversation began.
"I think you should do another movie", said Jim.
"Nah. I'm done with that. Can you pass the salsa?". "No really. I see an upwards trend with your films. The Water's Edge was OK, good but had problems. You fixed those problems with your next film… Night and day difference. I'm betting your next one will be night and day difference again." Jim passes the salsa. "Thanks. But I'm happy now. I've got a really good thing going here. Really. I'm helping my church with their video stuff, doing some visual effects on the side. It's really rewarding. No really. I'm good."
"What if I pay for it?", said Jim.
I stopped chewing my Jalapeño Enchiladas and my eyes became locked on the specular edge of my cheap porcelain dinner wear. After several beats I looked up at him and said, "I'm listening". "You've got another one in you. I know it.", he said. "And I believe this one is going to be 100 x better than the last."
When I got home that evening, I had a long talk with Robin. Do we want to do this? Do we want to jump back into this game? Yes. Of course we do! But how can we adapt and do it differently? Robin and I remembered our conversation with Mr. Distributor, "No one wants to watch a bunch of women sit around and talk about their feelings". Ok, but what do people want to watch? Wait a minute. Are you telling me that we actually make movies for people to watch? It's not just movies for ourselves? Not just stories that we feel like telling?
SIDE BAR------
At a party, someone asked me advice once. They told me they had a great script idea and they were going to write it and spend the next year developing and producing their movie. They asked if there was any advice I could give them before they got started. The first thing I said to them was, "Awesome! That's quite an undertaking and to make a commitment like that has to be commended!" The next thing i said went something like this. "Before you start writing your script, you need to make a decision on what path you will take. There are three paths, each are very different from one another:
Path one: Your passion project. The movie you've always wanted to make. You know, that movie you've been kicking around in your head for years and never got around to doing. That movie you've dreamed about in your Oscar speech dreams. The movie that will define you as a director or producer.
Path two: Your fun project. The movie that you make because you love making movies. You know, the movie that you invite all of your friends to act and crew in. You all have a blast doing it and after post production, you buy out a theater at the Alamo Drafthouse and you show up with your friends, friend's friends, relatives and neighbors to all drink beer and reminisce the awesome times you had during production. You probably even have a 10 minute behind the scenes reel that runs after the credits showing how silly everyone can be.
Path three: Your sellable project. The movie that you spend months researching hot genres. Is Action in? Horror? Family? Western? Which independent films have the best DVD/VOD numbers and what genre were they? Which independent films have the best Theatrical numbers? Which actors are hot in the UK? Latin America? France?
In a perfect world, we could all make movies that incorporate ALL THREE paths. It does happen. But who wants to risk their investors money on that? Not me. Someone has offered to fund my movie and the last thing I want to do is let them down by not being able to pay them back. I want them to fund my next movie… and my next movie… and my next one. See a trend there? When you've made a name for yourself and people throw money at you because everything you touch is gold, then it's a good idea to tackle that passion project.
END SIDE BAR------
Anyway. So back to Mr. Distributor and his advice which sparked a revelation. Because Jim Plant believed in us, we owed it to him to do our homework. Research led to the realization that Family movies were hot sellers in the independent film world that year. We were delighted to find this out because Robin and I have two young children and this meant that our kids could finally watch our movies!
It was nearing Christmas time, 2009. Robin and I loaded up the family truckster and headed to Louisiana for the holidays. We end up doing a lot of quality thinking on road trips. While driving, Robin told me of a day dream she had the other day. She was driving the kids and the dogs to the dog park. She had a crazy terrible day dream and thought, what if we got into a wreck and were all killed! Even the dogs! Morbid yes, but her real thought exploration was if the dogs weren't along for the ride then I would have them to help me through the terrible tragedy. Animals, dogs in particular, help tremendously in times of extreme loss.
We arrived at my parent's house. After about 30 minutes of hugging and chatting, Robin took her laptop into our bedroom, shut the door, and didn't come out for 4 days. On that 4th day, she emerged with with the first draft of what was to be our very next film and very first family movie, Angel Dog.
Not long after that, the CEO of NewTek called me and said that he wanted to take me out to lunch. Jim Plant had been a friend of mine for quite a while. He had also been following my films, being a fan of The Water's Edge and Leftovers. We sat down at one of my favorite Mexican restaurants at the time, ordered, and started some small talk. We finally got our food, and that's when the real conversation began.
"Nah. I'm done with that. Can you pass the salsa?". "No really. I see an upwards trend with your films. The Water's Edge was OK, good but had problems. You fixed those problems with your next film… Night and day difference. I'm betting your next one will be night and day difference again." Jim passes the salsa. "Thanks. But I'm happy now. I've got a really good thing going here. Really. I'm helping my church with their video stuff, doing some visual effects on the side. It's really rewarding. No really. I'm good."
I stopped chewing my Jalapeño Enchiladas and my eyes became locked on the specular edge of my cheap porcelain dinner wear. After several beats I looked up at him and said, "I'm listening". "You've got another one in you. I know it.", he said. "And I believe this one is going to be 100 x better than the last."
When I got home that evening, I had a long talk with Robin. Do we want to do this? Do we want to jump back into this game? Yes. Of course we do! But how can we adapt and do it differently? Robin and I remembered our conversation with Mr. Distributor, "No one wants to watch a bunch of women sit around and talk about their feelings". Ok, but what do people want to watch? Wait a minute. Are you telling me that we actually make movies for people to watch? It's not just movies for ourselves? Not just stories that we feel like telling?
SIDE BAR------
At a party, someone asked me advice once. They told me they had a great script idea and they were going to write it and spend the next year developing and producing their movie. They asked if there was any advice I could give them before they got started. The first thing I said to them was, "Awesome! That's quite an undertaking and to make a commitment like that has to be commended!" The next thing i said went something like this. "Before you start writing your script, you need to make a decision on what path you will take. There are three paths, each are very different from one another:
Path one: Your passion project. The movie you've always wanted to make. You know, that movie you've been kicking around in your head for years and never got around to doing. That movie you've dreamed about in your Oscar speech dreams. The movie that will define you as a director or producer.
Path two: Your fun project. The movie that you make because you love making movies. You know, the movie that you invite all of your friends to act and crew in. You all have a blast doing it and after post production, you buy out a theater at the Alamo Drafthouse and you show up with your friends, friend's friends, relatives and neighbors to all drink beer and reminisce the awesome times you had during production. You probably even have a 10 minute behind the scenes reel that runs after the credits showing how silly everyone can be.
Path three: Your sellable project. The movie that you spend months researching hot genres. Is Action in? Horror? Family? Western? Which independent films have the best DVD/VOD numbers and what genre were they? Which independent films have the best Theatrical numbers? Which actors are hot in the UK? Latin America? France?
In a perfect world, we could all make movies that incorporate ALL THREE paths. It does happen. But who wants to risk their investors money on that? Not me. Someone has offered to fund my movie and the last thing I want to do is let them down by not being able to pay them back. I want them to fund my next movie… and my next movie… and my next one. See a trend there? When you've made a name for yourself and people throw money at you because everything you touch is gold, then it's a good idea to tackle that passion project.
END SIDE BAR------
Anyway. So back to Mr. Distributor and his advice which sparked a revelation. Because Jim Plant believed in us, we owed it to him to do our homework. Research led to the realization that Family movies were hot sellers in the independent film world that year. We were delighted to find this out because Robin and I have two young children and this meant that our kids could finally watch our movies!
It was nearing Christmas time, 2009. Robin and I loaded up the family truckster and headed to Louisiana for the holidays. We end up doing a lot of quality thinking on road trips. While driving, Robin told me of a day dream she had the other day. She was driving the kids and the dogs to the dog park. She had a crazy terrible day dream and thought, what if we got into a wreck and were all killed! Even the dogs! Morbid yes, but her real thought exploration was if the dogs weren't along for the ride then I would have them to help me through the terrible tragedy. Animals, dogs in particular, help tremendously in times of extreme loss.
We arrived at my parent's house. After about 30 minutes of hugging and chatting, Robin took her laptop into our bedroom, shut the door, and didn't come out for 4 days. On that 4th day, she emerged with with the first draft of what was to be our very next film and very first family movie, Angel Dog.
Monday, July 15, 2013
My life up to now. Part 10: A Big Purple Book of Possibilities
Leftovers won Best Feature at the Woman's Image Network Festival in Los Angeles in 2009. Official Selection at LA Women's International Film Festival 2010 (this one happened later). We were well on our way. With our 2nd movie in hand, we bought some big purple book that listed all distributors and buyers that were active that year. For the life of me, I can't remember what the book was called but it was a serious piece of literature. Robin and I started cold calling distributors and even buyers. Buyers that loved the genre… Lifetime, WE, Fox Family… you know, all of those guys. A few of them called us back asking for screeners. I remember Lifetime in particular. We sent them a screener and never heard back from them. And then, a few weeks after our last communication with anyone, we got a call from one of the distributors we sent a screener to.
I remember standing out on my back porch, on the phone. I remember this conversation perfectly. It was 7:42pm on a Tuesday. The sun was falling just under my fence line in my backyard spreading a golden glow across my entire neighborhood. I didn't have shoes on… barefoot, playing with the grass between my toes I mulled over the incredible news that gave us a great revelation that would one day change us. Honesty and truth were in the air and it had changed Robin and I's outlook forever. You see, moments ago… that phone call from the distributor, would eventually send us in a new direction, reset our course and blow up our spirits all at the same time. The man was not interested in our movie. In fact, no one was. Not Lifetime, not WE, Fox Family, no distributors from A-Z in the big purple book possibilities. But that night we were given something better. We were given advice. And sometimes that is the push we need to send us to our next level. Unfortunately, we were too hurt, tired and angry to see it. You see, we weren't ready for distribution. What we did not realize until much later is that the advice he gave us would have set a new plan in motion, a roadmap to show us where we were supposed to go and how we were going to get there.
It was 7:41pm when Mr. Distributor said, "No one wants to watch a bunch of women sit around and talk about their feelings". Instead of arguing with him, I couldn't. I couldn't because I knew exactly what he was talking about. If I hadn't made the movie myself, I would never actually go and see this movie at the theater. Ever. I just always thought that someone would but I neglected to listen to my most trusted critic, Me. We hung up with Mr. Distributor and that's when it happened.
It's over. I vowed never to make another film again. I told Robin I was finished. I had a great job at NewTek designing products that I believed in… that I had childhood dreams and memories of. Why the heck do I need more than that? I am done. After years and years of rejection, heart-ache, going broke, in debt up to my eyeballs, being lied to, being pushed around, being the brunt of broken promises, I just didn't have it in me anymore.
I fell off the edge of the world.
I sold all of my film gear. I took a sledge hammer to the sheetrock and demolished the $8000 sound studio addition on our house. I stayed in the pit of depression for a year. Robin kept working on scripts. She was the trooper amongst the devastation.
I remember standing out on my back porch, on the phone. I remember this conversation perfectly. It was 7:42pm on a Tuesday. The sun was falling just under my fence line in my backyard spreading a golden glow across my entire neighborhood. I didn't have shoes on… barefoot, playing with the grass between my toes I mulled over the incredible news that gave us a great revelation that would one day change us. Honesty and truth were in the air and it had changed Robin and I's outlook forever. You see, moments ago… that phone call from the distributor, would eventually send us in a new direction, reset our course and blow up our spirits all at the same time. The man was not interested in our movie. In fact, no one was. Not Lifetime, not WE, Fox Family, no distributors from A-Z in the big purple book possibilities. But that night we were given something better. We were given advice. And sometimes that is the push we need to send us to our next level. Unfortunately, we were too hurt, tired and angry to see it. You see, we weren't ready for distribution. What we did not realize until much later is that the advice he gave us would have set a new plan in motion, a roadmap to show us where we were supposed to go and how we were going to get there.
It was 7:41pm when Mr. Distributor said, "No one wants to watch a bunch of women sit around and talk about their feelings". Instead of arguing with him, I couldn't. I couldn't because I knew exactly what he was talking about. If I hadn't made the movie myself, I would never actually go and see this movie at the theater. Ever. I just always thought that someone would but I neglected to listen to my most trusted critic, Me. We hung up with Mr. Distributor and that's when it happened.
It's over. I vowed never to make another film again. I told Robin I was finished. I had a great job at NewTek designing products that I believed in… that I had childhood dreams and memories of. Why the heck do I need more than that? I am done. After years and years of rejection, heart-ache, going broke, in debt up to my eyeballs, being lied to, being pushed around, being the brunt of broken promises, I just didn't have it in me anymore.
I sold all of my film gear. I took a sledge hammer to the sheetrock and demolished the $8000 sound studio addition on our house. I stayed in the pit of depression for a year. Robin kept working on scripts. She was the trooper amongst the devastation.
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