"Corrado" - A production blog

Status
Not open for further replies.
Adam, thanks. I've been reading raptly since the low 100's, and the breadth of your work really is fun to read. I haven't seen one question answered, though I may have missed it:

Is your wife still pissed about the big white truck in the driveway? Is it still there?

Cheers,
Dana
(who has a storage room full of cruft, lacking the reason to buy a big white truck)
 
Ha! Yes it is still there. It sits empty now, forlorn, waiting to be sold. And she hates the "eyesore" as she calls it.
 
Thank you Adam to take the time to answer my questions. Much appreciation!!!

taormina said:
You do not make multiple offers for the same role to multiple actors. This is rude, inconsiderate, and God help you get two actors who respond favorably to your offer.....you've instantly painted yourself as a douche bag.
Click to expand...


Right that was my point, but i read in the beginning that some agents where dicking you around while at the same time you had locked dates with Tom boked and paid for. So what i am asking is, when you make the initial offer do you specifically name a deadline for your offer. Is that standard and did that not come across as arrogant for a "nobody" to say? How did you protect your self in case they would turn you down or string you along for to long?


Also as far as having nothing to offer, you said you had a couple of shorts and a TV pilot, did you at any point show those to agents to "qualify" as a legit director. Would you in some circumstances not show it?
 
HVX2006 said:
How do you go about laying out worst and best case scenario? Where do you find the data to back that up? I totally agree with you that using Blairwhich and such examples is nothing less than misleading and will come to bite you in the ass later? So what do you base your estimated profit on?
Click to expand...

Could you elaborate on this?
 
taormina said:
As to the value of my contribution, I'm fairly low key about that - for my next film my compensation besides back end will be scale - WGA scale for the script (37K) and DGA scale to direct (about $75K) plus some slush money to produce. Think about 150K.
Click to expand...


So since you produced, edited, cast, location scouted, supplied equipment.......your film, you could fairly say that you provide services and work worth at least close to what the initial budget was 350k. Thus making the 50/50 split pretty fair. Did you pay your self a salary for the months its taking you to make the film? Did that come out of the budget?

Did you raise as much money as you needed or as much as you could get for Corado? As in did you target the genera and estimated profits and said, well the film can only cost this much if i want to be pretty sure to turn a profit? Or where you simply trying to make the biggest film you could?
 
HVX2006 said:
Thank you Adam to take the time to answer my questions. Much appreciation!!!




Right that was my point, but i read in the beginning that some agents where dicking you around while at the same time you had locked dates with Tom boked and paid for. So what i am asking is, when you make the initial offer do you specifically name a deadline for your offer. Is that standard and did that not come across as arrogant for a "nobody" to say? How did you protect your self in case they would turn you down or string you along for to long?


Also as far as having nothing to offer, you said you had a couple of shorts and a TV pilot, did you at any point show those to agents to "qualify" as a legit director. Would you in some circumstances not show it?
Click to expand...


No, you usually don't name a deadline. Some people did dick me around, but they were probably working two simultaneous deals for the same dates - I don't know.


As far as protecting yourself, give yourself a time period and then stick to it. If you feel like you're being played, respectfully retract the offer and move on.


__________________________________________________________________________________


As far as the rest, a couple shorts and a TV pilot does NOT qualify you as a legit director. No one cares. Even if you won the festival circuit with your shorts, until you've made a feature you don't get to sit at the big boy table.*

Instead, deflect all issues as to your credibility by getting that first actor. As soon as the sheeple (agents) realize another name is on your project, they assume you are capable. Which is why you should pay the going rate for your first guy...he will never admit it to you but deep in his heart he will say "How bad can he be? Who cares - I'm getting my rate so I might as well do it"


* I know of only one case where an award for a short film actually meant something and launched a director into a feature film...his name is Ruairi Robinson (sp?). He made a clever little animated short, got an oscar nom, and was hired to helm the animated feature Akira. Everyone else, stop making shorts....;-)
 
Last edited:
I hope i am not asking questions beyond what you are confortable with, if yes just tell me to piss of:Drogar-Love(DBG):
 
HVX2006 said:
Could you elaborate on this?
Click to expand...


Okay, I'm going to say it. I hate business plans. I think they're bullshit. I told my people I could make a movie, I convinced them to front me some money, and I told them we would make some. That's essentially it.

I did not have statistics, bar graphs, powerpoint presentations, or venn diagrams to convince anyone.

I've made a career selling things to people and sales is rarely about facts and data. Sorry to disappoint, I can elaborate no further.
 
taormina said:
If you feel like you're being played, respectfully retract the offer and move on.
Click to expand...

Just to clarify for business nobs, is an offer like this not legally binding? And if no, why is the offer needed? How much time would you give it before mowing on, lets say when courting Tom?

Also if i remember you said that you had just called up and said, i need Tom for x dates, is he available. At what point did you ask about his rate? Did you have a ball park figure to begin with?
 
HVX2006 said:
So since you produced, edited, cast, location scouted, supplied equipment.......your film, you could fairly say that you provide services and work worth at least close to what the initial budget was 350k. Thus making the 50/50 split pretty fair. Did you pay your self a salary for the months its taking you to make the film? Did that come out of the budget?

Did you raise as much money as you needed or as much as you could get for Corado? As in did you target the genera and estimated profits and said, well the film can only cost this much if i want to be pretty sure to turn a profit? Or where you simply trying to make the biggest film you could?
Click to expand...


I think so, that's pretty fair. I was not paid a nickel to make Corrado. In fact, I paid into it to the tune of probably 100K if you count equipment and miscellaneous costs. I hesitate to add these to the tab however, because some of them (New computer to edit - 3K) are not just for THIS movie.

I raised as much as I think I needed. I could have obtained more, much more. I wanted to stick to that budget for twofold reasons 1) I felt like it was easily "raisable" and 2) I felt I could make a tidy profit with that number.
 
HVX2006 said:
Just to clarify for business nobs, is an offer like this not legally binding? And if no, why is the offer needed? How much time would you give it before mowing on, lets say when courting Tom?

Also if i remember you said that you had just called up and said, i need Tom for x dates, is he available. At what point did you ask about his rate? Did you have a ball park figure to begin with?
Click to expand...

No, it is not really binding, but here is a tip:

I worked for a decade as a broker where I was a middleman between buyer and seller. Verbal offers were the norm, and you just laughed at those. Once it was on paper though, the room got quiet...now I had a legal, binding, fiduciary responsibility to my client to present the offer.

Same with agents. An agent who is in the APA (i.e. all of them in CA) is registered with the state and has a....hold on for $5 word....fiduciary responsibility to present ALL written offers to their client. They must.

Give 'em two weeks and move on unless the guy is on set in Outer Subobia and can't make it to a phone.

Does it work that way in reality, no, not really...Agents like to speak for their clients instead of letting their clients speak for themselves. Just know the law and remind them of it once in a while.

I asked for Tom's rate in the first 10 minutes. I had no idea what it was going to be.
 
And how on earth do you stall or evade the question of - "So what film have you made before?" That must be like the 3rd question they ask you. Or do they really not care once they see you gona pay the going rate for there actor?


Business plans may suck, but even when you sell someone a boat, they are going to want to know if it has one or two sleeping places and at least you as the seller are gona want to know what the boat is worth? Did you really just go on a vim and say, i have no idea why, but im going to make more than the 350K budget. You just seem to smart and logic for that to sound credible. I mean i agree that in your specific case as you offer to pay back in case it bombed it may not really apply, but now on your second feature you are going to have to know at least a ball park figure of what the movie could make, best and worst case scenario. I think basically and maybe you don't know the answer i am asking how does one find out aprox what the product one is creating is worth? There is plenty of data on 20million + movies, but for films below 1 million???

How much are you guys expecting to spend on promotion and advertising for Corado?
 
taormina said:
No, it is not really binding, but here is a tip:

I worked for a decade as a broker where I was a middleman between buyer and seller. Verbal offers were the norm, and you just laughed at those. Once it was on paper though, the room got quiet...now I had a legal, binding, fiduciary responsibility to my client to present the offer.

Same with agents. An agent who is in the APA (i.e. all of them in CA) is registered with the state and has a....hold on for $5 word....fiduciary responsibility to present ALL written offers to their client. They must.

Give 'em two weeks and move on unless the guy is on set in Outer Subobia and can't make it to a phone.

Does it work that way in reality, no, not really...Agents like to speak for their clients instead of letting their clients speak for themselves. Just know the law and remind them of it once in a while.

I asked for Tom's rate in the first 10 minutes. I had no idea what it was going to be.
Click to expand...

Very important information. Thanks!!!
 
It seems to me that you played quite hard ball with the agents and i heard you many times mention things like "you dont believe for a minute they did X from the goodness of your hart". Is the world of Agents really a cut trout business like this, did you ever try the, well we are a start up, trying to make an interesting film, bla, bla, bla....hoping they would be interested, maybe show pity. Or is it a all out numbers game and you just got to come out swinging.

Was not having distribution lined up ahead of time not an issue for them?

Was the fact that Tom, a well known actor was to play in a straight to DVD film not a reason for them to worry, you would think agents where there to protect there clients from doing things that "might" hurt there carrier. I mean allot of agents supposingly turn down actors for TV show appearances, cause its gona make them look bad, or over the hill or what ever...I mean they had nothing to go by at that point.
 
HVX2006 said:
And how on earth do you stall or evade the question of - "So what film have you made before?" That must be like the 3rd question they ask you. Or do they really not care once they see you gona pay the going rate for there actor?
Click to expand...

Bing Bing! We have a winner. The true salesman manages expectations, turns arguments around, evades ugly questions, and makes people believe in what he says. That's as far as I am going to elaborate this point. I cannot teach you an art.
HVX2006 said:
Business plans may suck, but even when you sell someone a boat, they are going to want to know if it has one or two sleeping places and at least you as the seller are gona want to know what the boat is worth? Did you really just go on a vim and say, i have no idea why, but im going to make more than the 350K budget. You just seem to smart and logic for that to sound credible. I mean i agree that in your specific case as you offer to pay back in case it bombed it may not really apply, but now on your second feature you are going to have to know at least a ball park figure of what the movie could make, best and worst case scenario. I think basically and maybe you don't know the answer i am asking how does one find out aprox what the product one is creating is worth? There is plenty of data on 20million + movies, but for films below 1 million???

How much are you guys expecting to spend on promotion and advertising for Corado?
Click to expand...

Wrong again. I made a career of selling people big, expensive things they didn't need - yachts. I've probably sold $50M dollars worth in ten years. Realtors had it easy - they were selling things that people needed - shelter. We were selling things no one needed. Not one person needed a yacht.

Buying something like that is all about emotion, momentum, and impulse. Facts do not enter into decisions of the heart.

If you are coming to me for data you will not find it. Release that crutch, bump up your game, and go convince someone to lend you money to make a movie. It's not based on facts an figures. It's based on making people believe that you will do what you say you will do.

Case in point: You perceive me to be an authority on the topic of making and selling features, although I have not technically completed nor sold a single movie yet. This thread has 130,000+ visits because people are under the impression that I am going to do exactly what I said I would do. Correct?

Do you now see how perception has become reality? Make yourself an authority to your investors.
 
Last edited:
HVX2006 said:
It seems to me that you played quite hard ball with the agents and i heard you many times mention things like "you dont believe for a minute they did X from the goodness of your hart". Is the world of Agents really a cut trout business like this, did you ever try the, well we are a start up, trying to make an interesting film, bla, bla, bla....hoping they would be interested, maybe show pity. Or is it a all out numbers game and you just got to come out swinging.

Was not having distribution lined up ahead of time not an issue for them?

Was the fact that Tom, a well known actor was to play in a straight to DVD film not a reason for them to worry, you would think agents where there to protect there clients from doing things that "might" hurt there carrier. I mean allot of agents supposingly turn down actors for TV show appearances, cause its gona make them look bad, or over the hill or what ever...I mean they had nothing to go by at that point.
Click to expand...


No, by and large Agents are intersted only in money, and would eat their own children if they were hungry. They don't care about your stories. They have no pity.

No one asked about distribution. Some more interesting facts:

- No one asked what we were shooting on - film or HD
- No one asked if it was for theatrical

It's all how you carry yourself my friend. Make them nervous and they will ask all those questions plus more you don't want to have to answer.
 
Did you supply any other materials with the script, synopsis, story boards, references to other movies. What point did you stress more, that it was going to make huge business or that it was going to be the next Reservoir Dogs? What was your strongest selling point when making a 350K flick. Did you present your self as the new up and coming talent artist or the next block buster director? Did anyone care?
 
HVX2006 said:
Did you supply any other materials with the script, synopsis, story boards, references to other movies. What point did you stress more, that it was going to make huge business or that it was going to be the next Reservoir Dogs? What was your strongest selling point when making a 350K flick. Did you present your self as the new up and coming talent artist or the next block buster director? Did anyone care?
Click to expand...

All they saw was the script. I had no synopsis and no storyboards.* I never made any claims to anyone about anything other than they were going to make x dollars for x number of days. Don't you think agents have heard every tall tale in the book? They are a cynical bunch.

There was no selling point. Here's what we're paying, here's the script and here's the dates. Interested??

Read the early part of this thread. You will find the only reason they spoke to me was that the script was excellent.


*I stopped believing in storyboards at age 6. I stopped believing in Santa Claus at age 9. ;-)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top