How much did you get paid for your Distribution Deal?

[jls4]

Hey,

Yeah... well I think it's very important for a director to drum up enthusiasm for his project, make the crew somewhat excited to be there, or if it's corporate work and maybe not the most fun, find a way to make it fun. Joke around with the crew when you can, talk to them, make them care about making you look good, basically. That's what I think anyway.

I wouldn't shoot a feature with smaller than a dozen people on the crew. I think that's super small. I mean I've shot a music video low budget with I think about 15-17 on the crew, it's hard to imagine a smaller crew for a feature! Haha.

I'm sure I could make a feature super cheap but I just wouldn't want to do it, seems like a waste of cash to me. I'd rather spend the money to get it right. I want to have a $100K feature that looks like a $1 million feature, not a $20,000 feature that looks like a $100K feature, lol.

I think you can't see it because you haven't had to do it! :grin:

I moved to Atlanta after college with a college degree in computers, not film. So no one knew me, I had no base of operations, and no one would help me because they were busy on their own projects. So I watched the 10 minute film school like 150 times and said screw it! I wrote a screenplay, did a casting call and showed up on set with a cast. The cast said "Where's the crew?" I said, "You're looking at him."

To be honest, I did have a makeup artist that saw my casting and decided she'd try her luck. So every once in a while I had her hold a light or something. My wife brought us food every day, but that was it.

The movie was made, in fact it was pretty easy because I was so ignorrant about so many things, that the shooting was almost fun. Once it was over the audio sucked and my lighting was horrid. I also didn't know about color grading later, so I tried to do it in camera and didn't do a good job. So basically, I had a good story, won - one film festival, got an offer and sold it immediately.

With the new movie, I used the connection to my first movie to lure in more people to my cause. A producer/gofer, director of photography, and someone dedicated to audio. These were my weakest areas. And I taught myself lighting, doing other people's shorts and projects. So we had everything we basically needed.

My belief is that on an indie movie project - everyone must know everything. There is no separation of lighting and dp and grip and audio. They all blend together into a soup not a stew. I did everything on this project, dp, audio, lighting, producing because many days certain people would not be there. And the show had to go on. Looking at the footage, we did the best when all 4 of us were there and sometimes when we had at least 3 people. When it got down to 2 and even 1 (yes that'd be me by myself again) most of the mistakes were made.

But trust me, I don't want to do it this way. But there's no choice for me. On this last project we raised $22K, and $7K of that is my money. So I really only raised $15K. And crew don't come cheap and it's hard to motivate them on a small set, without a lot of stuff, where points for them may not make since.

 

[jls4]

Numbers are really not the subject matter.

To be honest, if you want a feature to look like 1M know a good DP and Art Director who are well respected by their co-workers and know how to bargain. Practically become their slave / best friend for at least a year and then let them in on your project idea.

Great quote Dasher. I wish you were here, so I could hijack you for my projects. In my thread, I planned to go into all of this, but I can start a little here.

What I've learned is the same as Dasher says, the "Onscreen Dollars" they show up in production design/art direction and DP work (camera and lighting combo). If your audio is great, then you're all set. As long as you shoot at least HDV (can't shoot mini DV for this effect).

Truth is production design is easy as long as you're not trying to do some convoluted fantasy movie. If it's the easy genres, this may only be hard in Horror - depending on your set. - Basic rules: No White or Pastel Walls. Any Wall that has more than 40% white content should not be used or painted. This means pink walls, baby blue, badge, peach, etc. They need to be medium to dark colors. Red, Blue, Green, Orange, Brown, etc - Colors in the Red-Yellow spectrum look better. (there's a reason DVX is skewed toward red) Pictures are needed. Best thing to do, is what we did in "Voices" go to home depot and buy some wood, make some frames. Get some canvas material from Wal-Mart and paint some type of image. Don't try to paint a person, do geographic designs, squares and such. Nothing to pay attention to, but something that is there. throw them up on the walls. Go buy a lot of fake plants. (Don't buy real ones, cause you can use these later) throw them around the room. Shoot on location where somebody already has a lot of crap sitting around, pictures and momentos. Fill the scene with "junk" - think Applebees how they have all that crap on the walls, except do it with things that "should be" in the scene.

Layer the shots. Every shot should have something in the far background. So the wall should be at least 4 feet or more behind your actor, not right on it. The background should catch DOF (Depth of Field).

As far as lighting, you'll need at least 4 light sources. (although they can be bounced)
1: Key on actor
2: Side light on actor (can be bounced)
3: Rim/highlight on actor OR backlight on wall
4: A light to give the wall some kind of change in gradiation. Basically a blue wall should go from light blue to blue to dark blue. This is why you don't use pastel colors, white is white. And greys don't look good in movies.

I'm writing too much here- no one will read my thread. hahaha :2vrolijk_08:

 

[JonathanLB]

Nice...

Yeah I had to serve as several positions on my music video shoot even with a crew of 15+. I had to supervise wardrobe, because I didn't want to pay for a wardrobe person, and while there are actually TWO wardrobe mistakes in the finished video, nobody cares, even me, even though I'm a perfectionist, because they're not actually "mistakes" as much as it is like, "Oh, crud, we have 5 minutes and not enough time to change wardrobe before we shoot this next little part in the same location, so it's either don't shoot that part at all, or shoot it but live with the fact he's wearing the same shirt in two different scenes in the same location." Because those scenes are far enough apart in the video, I didn't really care, to be honest, and it's not a "mistake" in the sense that real people do wear shirts twice over the period of a month when this story would take place, LOL, I certainly do anyway! But it was one of those things where I wish of course that we had the time. The irony is if we had a wardrobe person NEITHER error would be fixed, because they weren't problems with the wardrobe -- they were problems with how little time we had to do so much. Since the 1st A.D. was great, and we were actually ahead of schedule most of the time, it sure wasn't his fault we couldn't afford a wardrobe change.

I also served as production designer, and we did have a few set decorators, I just couldn't afford to hire a pro production designer because I figured of all the jobs I can do on set besides directing, that's certainly one of them. Of course I wish I had a pro in that position because a few things might have been a little bit better, not even because a pro is better than I am at that (honestly with what we were designing it's not a matter of being "better" or a "pro" it was just a matter of having TIME to do that), but just because focusing on everything was so tough. I was producing until 9 days before the shoot, when I became a co-producer with the UPM.

So even with a fairly large crew and a decent budget, still I had to be producer, director, wardrobe selector, production designer, and PA in picking up the equipment on the Friday before the shoot and returning that Monday, haha. We had PAs only for the shoot day.

I admire your ambition jls4, that's for sure, you have a go-get-'em attitude that I definitely prefer to people who want to wait 5 years, 3 in film school, a few more in the real world, before they take ANY risks whatsoever.

That being said I couldn't do what you did just because once you start working in a professional atmosphere, I mean, there's only so much indie stuff you can really do and feel good about. I'm fine with being somewhat indie, but I can't take a project seriously of my own if I don't have it at least somewhat properly crewed. I'm willing to ignore stuff like script supervisor (though that is an important position that, if I had one on my last shoot, I wouldn't have to go reshoot one scene, grrr), sometimes even 1st A.D. (as much as I love having one), heck quite a few positions, but I want to have a crew decent enough to accomplish professional results.

I also am not as much of a one-man crew as many indie people are, because you guys started off doing it all on your own. I did that a bit, back in high school, and a little bit in college I suppose, but when I started getting into film seriously I knew that to be a true pro as quick as I wanted to be, and making pro work, I'd need to hire professionals on my shoots and do the one job I could do without the technical skills -- directing and producing. Not to say those aren't tough jobs with lots of stress that require tons of skill, because of course they are, but if you have a clear vision, and can communicate effectively, and you're good at budgeting, etc., you can figure out how to do those on small projects as you learn. Now I'm a pretty decent grip actually! I can assemble a porta-jib quickly, work with my dolly tracks easily, flag c-stands, run power to lights (on the electric side), figure out some basic lighting setups, know how and when to use a litedisc, etc. I have fairly decent indie skills now, but they need more improvement still.

When I do my first feature, though, it's something I'm really going to work my way up to, so that I know the result will be the professional product I expect. I want to make money on it but I'm willing to take the risk. If I spend $100,000 and make back $50,000, but it was a really good movie that I'm proud of and think it will help me in the future, to me that will still have been worth it. I won't see it as much of a setback if anything.

 

[jls4]

Nice...

...

When I do my first feature, though, it's something I'm really going to work my way up to, so that I know the result will be the professional product I expect. I want to make money on it but I'm willing to take the risk. If I spend $100,000 and make back $50,000, but it was a really good movie that I'm proud of and think it will help me in the future, to me that will still have been worth it. I won't see it as much of a setback if anything.

Thanks...

Hey I understand. I just like doing movies. I've done music videos (small stuff), wedding videos, corp videos, etc. I just like doing movies and don't care for much else. So at least I know what I want right?... I just hope I can withstand the lashing I'm taking to get there. I wish you all the luck. Get the money if you can, doing it alone and semi-alone is hard. :thumbsup:

 

[AAS2]

If any of you every want to consider something in Asia, we are located in Manila, Philippines. Can offer great city scenes and jungle scenes. We also have an array of equipment and editing capability. Cameras are HVX200s and HPX500s. Editing is on Mac's with FCP. We also have an assortment of aircraft, helicopters and hot air balloons available. Local talent is available at reasonable rates.

We mostly do tourism and aviation videos but would be interested in working on other types of projects. Our web site is www.asianairsafari.com and our second season trailer can be seen on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp32yHt_sgc

Steve

 

[dasher]

i read your posts

My main problem with Rodriguez's advice is that he didn't take a few things into example.

For one, he made a foreign film that could target Latin US and South American citizens. Before its theatrical release, people were looking for films w/ Res Dogs buzz in a year that Redford wasn't looking to have sundance become an action orientated festival.

Columbia invested a ton of money into color correction and even more in sound looping.

If you want a near perfect movie to take examples off of for today's marketplace look at Once. It was under 1 million to make and finish in post.

 

[jls4]

i read your posts

My main problem with Rodriguez's advice is that he didn't take a few things into example.

For one, he made a foreign film that could target Latin US and South American citizens. Before its theatrical release, people were looking for films w/ Res Dogs buzz in a year that Redford wasn't looking to have sundance become an action orientated festival.

If you want a near perfect movie to take examples off of for today's marketplace look at Once. It was under 1 million to make and finish in post.

I agree with you, I was going to get more into depth about it, but I'm thinking of doing a video type post instead. but anyway to comment and stir up trouble.

2 years ago in ATL (Atlanta) Pop Films created the movie "The Signal" shot on a Canon XL-H1 claiming a $50,000 budget. At least that's what a few reports have showed online. After watching the movie, that's an impossibility unless every single person was on points AND a few people donated some key items. I would guess the movie was more like $200,000 before things were said and sent to Sundance. At least that's the worth. Oh, BTW "The Signal" sold at Sundance for 2 Million.

The main thing I wanted to bring out about RRodriguez is "the plan" not what he did or what was done in post. What he did do was find a niche market and drive home a movie directly into that market. It's like right now, I'm not a huge fan of Horror films - I'm more of an action person. But I don't have an action budget, so I'm planning on shooting a horror film in the next few months.

Horror is just easy sell. But in my "plan" the hope is not really for a 2 million dollar sale at Sundance - which everyone wants - It's more to expand my personal knowledge, aquire more equipment, and to build up a name for myself so I can go after larger budgets.

I'm 1 third into my plan now, the horror film is the second stage and after that at least one other movie will be shot. All back to back, all with no "real breaks" and all with no "wait and see."

Wait and See - is what I say hurt me the most from my 2nd movie until now. I "waited" to "see" if I would make my money back. And ended up waiting 3 years. So now I'm just about keep going - get the momentum up and never stop. Each movie will sell in it's own time and when you ride a wave, everyone wants to jump on your bandwagon.

My hope is that after all 3 movies are finished, I'll have almost all of the equipment I need for small projects. And I'll have enough money to quit my day job for 1 to 3 years to focus more on my craft.

That's the "plan". I think indie's need to stop dreaming of being the next RR and focus on saying hey "I can make straight to video movies and make a living." Btu if you have a million dollar budget then I'm not really talking to that person. I'm talking to the shoebox indie's that work with budgets of $15K or so.

Anyone with a $250K budget or above is very lucky to say the least. It's very difficult to make a $20K movie look like something that cost 10 to 100 times as much. 1 million is so much money to me, I'm not even sure how I would spend it all - in a movie that is!

 

[lhmaloney]

Horror sells the highest, then action / urban , then teen sex/comedy, then maybe drama (which is usually nothing).

I don't like sounding like a broken record but you can sell horror movies to foreign markets. The dialogue doesn't matter in those films so they generally sell well. Plus you don't need to have name actors / actresses on the cover to sell anything. Career wise, though, if you're hoping to direct out of that genre you might be digging yourself a hole that you don't want to be in for quick cash now.


It always depends on the movie, but i've see a good amount of slasher flicks get picked up by Lionsgate from 50 - 350 k. With the DVD market dying, I think the market for films is collapsing a bit too. If you're offered 50k - 70k for domestic DVD today take it and don't look back.

There are many types of distribution deals, and I would recommend hiring at least a consultant if not an entertainment lawyer to make sure that you are getting money out of everything. Working on the other end, I know a lot of people who took serious advantage over filmmakers in these situations.

IF you can, always try to see if you can sell your foreign rights yourself (with horror) or with an agent. That is where independent money has really come from for the last 20 years.

Also try to make sure that you protect your foreign and domestic internet rights.

The film markets that do really well are AFM / AFI, Berlin, and Cannes. SXSW might be opening up their market soon as well.

http://www.ifta-online.org/afm/home.asp

http://www.berlinale.de/en/HomePage.html

https://www.marchedufilm.com/

http://sxsw.com/ - no news yet, but i expect it to be announced this year

Where can you find this statistical information. Because I know and I have heard it, however for business plan references, where is a link so I can accurately quote this/

 

[filmman]

I'd appreciate some info also. The AFM is getting really expensive to attend and the prospects are getting worse for indie filmmakers, I believe. We need to think about finding a better way to network and market our movies.

Do you know any agents and film reps who are interested in looking at completed movies for the AFM or other markets?

 

[tunejunkE]

All good points. Very good points. I don't have anything to say against them. I just wanted to comment on that I think what you said is right.

I think I have a pretty good story, but who doesn't think their story is good! My philosophy on stories is this - all ideas are both good and bad - but how you tell the story is going to make the difference. Like I said in another post - "4 childlike old people find an evil ring and decide to throw it in a lake of fire while an evil eye watches them." - Sounds like a sucky movie/story but it's basically "part of the plot" for "The Lord of the Rings." All ideas sound both cool and stupid. But it's how the filmmakers craft the final story that matters.

What i'm trying to do right now, is not make some artsy fartsy film. I'm all about the money. And while I'd like to get 1.5 to 2 mill, I'll be happy with $200K. If I go in and make my movie for $90K with half of that for equipment (buy not rent) and the other half to pay off cast and crew. Then sell for $200K with $15 to $20K going for insurance and any other crap the dist company throws at me, then all of my execs walk away with a nice profit and I get a good amount to use for the next movie.

My philosophy (as I'm talking about) here http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=137087

is to build yourself up through a series of movies. Make 3 to 4 back to back. build equipment, experiences and resources. And within 2 to 3 years you may be able to quit your day job (for many of us that work 9 to 5s).

I've seen people do it, and I decided to write about it and talk about what I'm trying to accomplish so maybe it can help somebody else.
:engel017:

Thanks Jls4, that is the same strategy I am going to use. Start small and build your name while perfecting your craft is the way to go! Alex

 

[JonathanLB]

I agree with you, I was going to get more into depth about it, but I'm thinking of doing a video type post instead. but anyway to comment and stir up trouble.

2 years ago in ATL (Atlanta) Pop Films created the movie "The Signal" shot on a Canon XL-H1 claiming a $50,000 budget. At least that's what a few reports have showed online. After watching the movie, that's an impossibility unless every single person was on points AND a few people donated some key items. I would guess the movie was more like $200,000 before things were said and sent to Sundance. At least that's the worth. Oh, BTW "The Signal" sold at Sundance for 2 Million.

The main thing I wanted to bring out about RRodriguez is "the plan" not what he did or what was done in post. What he did do was find a niche market and drive home a movie directly into that market. It's like right now, I'm not a huge fan of Horror films - I'm more of an action person. But I don't have an action budget, so I'm planning on shooting a horror film in the next few months.

Horror is just easy sell. But in my "plan" the hope is not really for a 2 million dollar sale at Sundance - which everyone wants - It's more to expand my personal knowledge, aquire more equipment, and to build up a name for myself so I can go after larger budgets.

I'm 1 third into my plan now, the horror film is the second stage and after that at least one other movie will be shot. All back to back, all with no "real breaks" and all with no "wait and see."

Wait and See - is what I say hurt me the most from my 2nd movie until now. I "waited" to "see" if I would make my money back. And ended up waiting 3 years. So now I'm just about keep going - get the momentum up and never stop. Each movie will sell in it's own time and when you ride a wave, everyone wants to jump on your bandwagon.

My hope is that after all 3 movies are finished, I'll have almost all of the equipment I need for small projects. And I'll have enough money to quit my day job for 1 to 3 years to focus more on my craft.

That's the "plan". I think indie's need to stop dreaming of being the next RR and focus on saying hey "I can make straight to video movies and make a living." Btu if you have a million dollar budget then I'm not really talking to that person. I'm talking to the shoebox indie's that work with budgets of $15K or so.

Anyone with a $250K budget or above is very lucky to say the least. It's very difficult to make a $20K movie look like something that cost 10 to 100 times as much. 1 million is so much money to me, I'm not even sure how I would spend it all - in a movie that is!

I never responded to this, I must have lost track of the thread.

In any case, I think that's a great plan. I think if you can make a living doing what you love, you win. Already. It's not like you have to turn into a powerful billionaire to be a winner. MOST people don't love their jobs. They may tolerate their jobs. They may even get some occasional amusement out of them. But the vast majority of people don't like what they do all that much. Or if they do, nobody really cares about what they do. I mean ok so you love accounting, good for you, who cares? Nobody. If you go to a party and say, "Yeah I'm an accountant!" "Oh wow... that's really... cool." If someone asks what you do and you say, "I'm a filmmaker," there's nobody who is going to be bored by that response. They want to know what you've done, what type of work you do, if you've met anyone famous, etc. So if you can make a living doing film-related work, that's fantastic.

For me, I'm not trying for anything too ambitious right now, just trying to learn and build a good reel, and meanwhile do corporate work to make money. I know corporate work isn't really "industry" work, but it's money made on film skills and using my equipment so it's still much more fun to me than most anything else I can think of.

 

[jls4]

I never responded to this, I must have lost track of the thread.

In any case, I think that's a great plan. I think if you can make a living doing what you love, you win. Already. It's not like you have to turn into a powerful billionaire to be a winner. MOST people don't love their jobs. They may tolerate their jobs. They may even get some occasional amusement out of them. But the vast majority of people don't like what they do all that much. Or if they do, nobody really cares about what they do. I mean ok so you love accounting, good for you, who cares? Nobody. If you go to a party and say, "Yeah I'm an accountant!" "Oh wow... that's really... cool." If someone asks what you do and you say, "I'm a filmmaker," there's nobody who is going to be bored by that response. They want to know what you've done, what type of work you do, if you've met anyone famous, etc. So if you can make a living doing film-related work, that's fantastic.

For me, I'm not trying for anything too ambitious right now, just trying to learn and build a good reel, and meanwhile do corporate work to make money. I know corporate work isn't really "industry" work, but it's money made on film skills and using my equipment so it's still much more fun to me than most anything else I can think of.

I figured you've been busy. But I understand. We all have our own personal paths. sometimes I wish I could be an accountant. Even though it's "boring" as you say... but at least it's easy and stable. I couldn't do it if I wanted to. I think I'd jump off a building at 45 if I couldn't move into making something creative. It's so embedded within me. It's not a choice for me, it's a more of a addiction. rogar-Love(DBG):