HVX200 feature sold to lionsgate!

HDkilledFILM.

HDkilledFILM.

Burnin' down the House
Hey all just wanted to finally be able to break the great news, a feature I shot on the HVX200 in 2007 will be released by lionsgate 04/08/08! You can find out more about it on these boards here:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=55632

Cover art and Preorders can be viewed/made here:

http://www.fangoria.com/news_article.php?id=5855

http://turnerclassic.moviesunlimited.com/product.asp?sku=D55135++

http://www.moviesunlimited.com/musite/product.asp?sku=D55135

and Check out my newest movie here:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=96627&highlight=SIGHT

I just want to thank all the DVXusers and mods who've helped me, I wouldn't of been able to make sight without you guys! Rock!-Adam
 
Somebody please point the "anything-less-than-RED-won't-do" naysayers to this thread. Please.

Adam, congratulations. LionsGate will take good care of you. They've got some really great "independent-minded" folks over there.

e
 
i'd like to hear the story on how you sold it to them, if you don't mind. i'm sure others would be interested as well.

edit: oh, and congratulations, as well! :)
 
Thnaks guys! I can't say the specs on the moolah because of contracts but I will talk about the process because thats whats these boards are all about and these boards helped a good deal with my getting the film made.

Sight started as a responce to the failed development of another project with another company. My business partner and I had just experianced the most crushing low in our film lives by the abandonment of an optioned screenplay which had been in development for one year. We had meetings with investors, re-wrights galore, all for the sum of 100$ (which was the terms of the option). My partner and I were both looking to do something that we thought we could pull off and sell. That was the bottom line, as it always is: Make a film that you already have a market for so you can recoup your investment (or at least gain some of your investment back... in this industry who knows what will sell). So I started by writing a screenplay about a topic I knew in great detail: horror movies. I've been making them since I was 7 and all through out film school and my early music video stages I've tended to flock towards them as a rule. I was working nights at a morgue and had alot of down time so I began to write for around an hour or two a night and within I'd say four months had a pretty solid screenplay.

Now came the really hard part for me: Where in the ***K was I going to come up with the money to pay for the film for the project? At that point the only real possession I had was an Aaton Minima Super 16mm camera package which i had been using to shoot music video with ( www.austinenterprise.com/DVD.html ). I was in a bad seperation with my ex, sleeping on a friends basement floor, or in my car, eating ramen noodles and PB+J's. Life sucked! Life really, really sucked.

Then I stumbled upon these boards while I was searching for info on a non-HDV soon to be realeased prosumer camera: the HVX. I asked questions (Lots and lots of questions), PM'd mods, scoured the boards and finally ended up pre-ordering the HVX after I sold my Aaton Minima (For 2g's more than I paid!!!!! Luck finally was on my side.). I used the money from the sale to pay for all of Sight's production and within a month I had wrapped shooting.

Now came the fun part: Post.

When your a young kid who thinks that they know alot about production because you've done a bunch of music videos and had limited sucess you think that post on a feature should run you what? A month?

:laugh:

I budgeted a month for post and even after editing every day I still was NOWHERE near finished. I never thought: Oh, I'm going to have to score the entire movie myself. I'm going to have to do all the Rotoscoping and titles myself. I can't pay anyone so I have to do everything except put up the website and sound design by MYSELF...

Wow...

A feature can really kick your *ss.

One year later I finished what I though was post on the film and began submitting it to fests...

The film gained notice from a sales agent at a local PA film fest we won and we began negotiations with LionsGate in about a month. (Note to the wise: a sales agent does not mean a sale will be made, I have a friend with a very, very good film who has sales representation and still after a year has no deals in place or offers on the table.)

Then came the thing which I dare say I totally was blindsided by:

The deliverables...

When you sell a film the sale is contingent on your being able to provide the film to the buyer in several different forms ie... PAL, PAL Anamorphic, PAL pan and scan... and with certain materials isolated ie... Score, Music and Effects... from the film to give the buyer so that they can over dub, cut a trailer, etc...

Let me just say I've never in my life done so much work as when I had to pass a QC (For the un-enlightened this is a Quality Control report which is basicly someone picking your film apart frame per frame.) I must of watched my film litterly frame per frame three times when I pan and scanned it. Yeah, that sucked.

Isolating the audio was no walk in the park either...

But now thats over and here I sit. Since Sight I got the itch to shoot again and wound up writing The Burnt House. Which has been no walk in the park either, talk about hardest things I've ever had to do...

But I love it, I really truly do... I love it and I couldn't live if I wasn't making movies (Which BTW is not my full time job, not even close. Most of my film making is done in sperts on nights and weekends, I've got a Daughter and another on the way after all :laugh:).

My advice to those out there who want to make a film (I mean really want to make a film, because you have to really want it.) is: Work hard. Re-Write your scripts and tighten them untill your sick to death of them. Spend a ton of time planning in pre-production because it won't cost you a dime and in the middle of shooting is no time to have the old warning light in your head fire up a big: You forgot something!!!! Stick with your vision and shoot as many takes as it takes, remember if your not happy with it neither will the audience be...

And for gods sake ask questions when you get lost, don't think that it's stupid to ask a question, it's even more stupid to not ask the question!

And don't ever, ever, ever say these words to yourself: I'll fix it in post.

BECAUSE YOU WON'T!!!!!

-Rock-Adam
 
HDkilledFILM. said:
My advice to those out there who want to make a film (I mean really want to make a film, because you have to really want it.) is: Work hard. Re-Write your scripts and tighten them untill your sick to death of them. Spend a ton of time planning in pre-production because it won't cost you a dime and in the middle of shooting is no time to have the old warning light in your head fire up a big: You forgot something!!!! Stick with your vision and shoot as many takes as it takes, remember if your not happy with it neither will the audience be...

And for gods sake ask questions when you get lost, don't think that it's stupid to ask a question, it's even more stupid to not ask the question!

And don't ever, ever, ever say these words to yourself: I'll fix it in post.

BECAUSE YOU WON'T!!!!!

-Rock-Adam
Click to expand...

Can I get a hell yeah?

Congrats, Adam!!!
 
Congratulations man! That was a great post and VERY insightful. Inspires me to REALLY get my ass in gear!

-Kegan
 
I will say this, when I finally got the call from my business partner telling me that the film had sold, I went down into my basement and screamed myself horse......................

It was like christmas, only without the fat guy.
 
HDkilledFILM. said:
I will say this, when I finally got the call from my business partner telling me that the film had sold, I went down into my basement and screamed myself horse......................

It was like christmas, only without the fat guy.
Click to expand...

Now is time to think BIG. What's next? :)
 
I've wrapped shooting on my second feature and am in the process of editing it. I'm going to be heading out to LA to have a meeting with some possiable reps for my sorry no agent having *ss. All in all I think that I might just keep making indie films though, I've been through the process of having someone else funding my work and I have to say, I don't really like it too much. If I do make a larger budget production I would most likely want total creative control and who's going to give that to a guy like me :laugh:?
 
HDkilledFILM. said:
If I do make a larger budget production I would most likely want total creative control and who's going to give that to a guy like me :laugh:?
Click to expand...


Hey, you already got your film distributed! What's stopping you from going to the next level? :)

Go for it, man!
 
Thats awesome.

Good to see another PA guy make it!

Just goes to show the amount of dedication and work it takes to make it in this industry.

Anyone can buy the gear. It takes an insane amount of all-encompassing absorption of yourself into your project. You have to believe that no one could have made this project but you. You have to make sacrifices most normal people wouldn't even want to think about, must less actually undertake.

You can't buy that. ****, you can't even rent it for a while.
 
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