My first feature and its production and distribution

C

Can Scanner

Well-known member
My first feature, Remote Control Grandpa, was produced for $15,000 in 2005/2006. I shot it with a DVX100A (24pa 16:9), edited it on Premiere Pro 1.5.1 and After Effects 6.5 Pro, and authored the DVD with Encore 1.5. It's now available for sale on www.filmbaby.com

My father Rick, and our friend and fellow commercial producer Brad set off to write the screenplay in August 2005. We had a polished final draft a few months later, and shooting started on December 17th of that year. Most of our cast and crew had school or work, so we shot when we could. I had a 9-5, and after a month of shooting (mostly weekends, some nights), we knew the movie would never get finished unless I quit. So I did! It was a big risk, but I took Napoleon Hill's advice- burn all bridges behind you in your quest to reach your goal. And by golly, we reached it! (I've been happily freelancing ever since, so it really worked out!)
Shooting and post took about 9 months (and we aptly referred to the movie as "our baby"). We used 32 miniDV tapes, and only had one instance of dropout (which was fixed in AE). Since we were basically doing all the editing in between the sparse shooting schedule, the movie was pretty much done by the time we wrapped. I don't recommend this- one reason being the hair-growth situation.
All the audio was recorded with a shotgun (on a homemade boom pole). We never had to loop afterwards- almost all the audio was sweetened with audition.
We kept the lighting as natural as possible, using a dual-500 watt light from a hardware store. A good portion of the movie involves the main character Forest in his dark room playing videogames. I wanted to use a 500 watt light to simulate the TV screen, but it was too bright to look at, so we used a 250. I shot with a 1/24th shutter for many scenes, which makes for a nice rich, vibrant look, but not too crisp. A good lesson learned- use more light! (Except in the case of the "TV" light. Maybe if the actor wore shaded contact lenses?)

Once it was in the can, we started shopping it around. We pursued several indie-friendly distribution places, and got a few nibbles, but... no one bit. We submitted to several festivals, and got accepted to a couple small ones, but pulled out when we learned about Sundance favoring the "premiere." SIGH. (We didn't get in to Sundance.)

Through a friend-of-a-friend connection, we were able to hook up with a big time Hollywood director. We worked with him for awhile, and he was a great help. He took us in a slightly different direction though- revising the script to accommodate a $30,000,000 budget. So we added car chases, huge crowd scenes, a dream sequence with a mansion decked out with big screen tvs and CG characters, and a helicopter crashing into a water tower. It's still a work in progress, and I'd love to keep working on it. It could work out similarly to Sam Raimi's Evil Dead 1 and 2, and Rodriguez' El Mariachi and Desperado.

After about a year of shopping it around, we decided to self-distribute.
I don't want to think we gave up on the festival circuit, getting a deal with a distributer, releasing it theatrically, on cable, overseas, etc. I think this really is the best thing for it, and I'm having fun getting it out there on my own.
I love having total creative control over everything, and we make a big chunk of each copy we sell. Going through DiscMakers and FilmBaby was a blessing- DM makes the retail-ready packages, we send them to FilmBaby, and FB sells them, cutting us a check every monday, and only keeping $4. We're selling it for $18.99, so we make $15 from every copy. Nice!
With this system, we can sit on it the rest of our lives and always make money on it. (Fingers crossed.) Of course, the more we put into it, advertising and PR and such, the more we'll get out of it.

I'm still intimidated by the business end of things. I'm a creative guy, not a smooth-talking salesman! Sometimes I think the only part of my brain that works is the left side. (Or is it the right?) I kept reading about the film fest game- how expensive it can be, assembling all the promo materials, and flying out to the fest and crashing parties and networking and interviews and on and on... UGH! I just want to make movies! It wasn't so much about the money as it was getting our movie out there for the world. We didn't have the money to do the festival thing, but since FilmBaby is non-exclusive, who knows? Maybe we'll get around to it. Since the movie's so topical though (there's a war theme), we really wanted it to be available now.

Anyway! I had a blast making this movie. It was probably the biggest, most significant event of my life. I made a lot of friends and great contacts during production. It was a completely rewarding, totally exhilarating roller coaster ride.

The biggest lessons I learned were: obtaining chain of title and music clearance.
There are a lot of posters and t-shirt logos and food companies in the movie. Never shown in a derogatory way, but we learned afterwards that this can be a dealbreaker with a distributor or festival.


List of things to nail in the next feature:

1.Name actor(s)
2.Chain of title (all those posters in the background? logos on shirts? that can of coke? yeah, they can screw you.)
3.Production insurance
4.M&E (I learned about this in a sticky on this site, good stuff!) Music and Effects track, for dubbing other languages.
5.Shoot in HD.
6.Have a target audience in mind.

Click here to pick a trailer, in either QT or WMV formats. (Some coarse language, not work safe!)

Any questions or comments will be greatly appreciated! This site was a great boon for me when I was making this movie! (Jarred and dvxuser are both in the credits.)
 
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Can Scanner said:
It was probably the biggest, most significant event of my life.
Click to expand...

WoW, great post all the way around... I particularly like that line. Stuff like this really makes me want to go out and shoot a feature...

Congrats on the film, I checked out the trailer and it looks interesting. Keep us posted on how everything turns out:thumbsup:

-peace

p.s. may want to add a disclaimer to your post stated the trailer is "not safe for work" for language.
 
Definitely seems like a great experience. I remember seeing the trailer for this a while back and it looks really good especially for what you did it with. I might be jumping into the same scenario with a friend from film school. He wrote a pretty good script and were thinking about trying to just go out and shoot it once we get some actors together and revise the script.
 
Nice work. I went through the same experiences making a feature film and staring down the world of film festivals. I would advise most to forget Sundance and focus on other festivals. Sundance is all about who you know to get in and the "low budget" features that play there are still 6-7 figure budgets. Getting a good collection of laurels from other festivals looks better than just the "Official Sundance Selection".

Good advise on the tips on what you learned.

If you would like some constructive critiques of the trailer here it is. Hearing royalty free classical music at the beginning gave me a first impression that generic overplayed music from a box automatically screams low budget low production value. I would say get a local musician to write something original. There will be someone out there who will do it free or cheap and most important, do it well.

Also, not having actors speak early on gives the impression the acting may be weak. I'm not saying it is, it's just something I see often in indie trailers. There's focus on the composition not the acting in a trailer and that's a big red flag. Getting a chance to hear the actual audio in the film gives a big sign as to the quality of the production. Which in yours sounds decent so why not use more of it?

I would like to see more on the plot. I, as a first time viewer, get the set up (a remote control controls our over bearing militant Grandpa!) Good concept. But where does it go? I saw something go down but didn't really get what it was. (A sting operation or something criminal?) I would show some hilarious hijinx of the situation then show the problem that occurs (your act plot points). I would cut it shorter leaving speaking parts, jokes, and original music. Short and sweet and keep the viewer wanting more.

Cinematography looked good. I agree with your director friend some action shots (not cut away from actions like window breaks and such) and grand scenes with extras not just houses would show a bigger production value.

Good work and I hope you find the critique helpful. Hope I don't sound like a pompous jerk here.
 
of the $15,000 you've spent, how much have you gotten back? have you seen a monthly increase or decrease based on advertising?
 
Valibus, fantastic input, thank you! Not pompous at all. I might just have to cut together another trailer!

ugafan, since we just started selling on our own a few days ago, we've only made a couple dozen sales (mostly from family/friends/cast/crew). For our actors who still have money coming from deferred payment contracts, we offered copies of the movie instead (at $20 a pop). This works out nicely for everyone, since they can turn around and sell them, and we don't have to pay them. (The first 1000 copies cost us about $2.70 each after paying for music and replication.)

We haven't done any advertising yet. We just sent out copies to several sites that review indie movies, so hopefully we'll get some good publicity from that! And we should start submitting to festivals to earn some laurels.

Self-distribution is really hard, but we're going to stick with it and make it!
It's such a great feeling being able to get our movie out there now. After we finished the movie, there was an incredible sense of achievement. But now that we have 1000 copies of our movie- in 10 boxes- each weighing 24 pounds, our efforts are so much more tangible compared to a digital copy on a harddrive (or a single burned DVD-R). Holding those cases in my hands is like gold. I wanted to dump them out and roll in them, but I was able to restrain myself. :)
 
hey can - you sound so gratiified.way to go!

was production insurance an issue with the distributors you mentioned? can you
say more about what you learned about prod insu?

cheers
 
Well, last I checked, production insurance costs about $1000/month for $1,000,000 coverage, which is the way to go I've been told. The downside is that you have to get all your shooting done in a set 30 day period- you can't split up your 30 days over the course of a year (or 9 months, as the case may be).
A producer friend of mine has always urged me to "shoot first and ask questions later. Actually don't bother asking questions."
 
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