kholi,
I am no expert but I'll would like to share one thing, even though you directed your question to Adam. Films like Tiny Furniture, which won SXSW, will have access to some manner of disty because of the festival exposure. Last years Sundance, for instance, was a boon and a lot of deals got done. New media is helping as well and deals are getting cut left and right for On Demand, web etc. Making a plan around getting into Sundance, SXSW, Toronto, Tribeca, Berlin, Caan and maybe one or two others seems like a poor plan A. (which you aren't saying)
other films that are genre based, and less festival darling worthy (action, sci-fi, horror) have a better chance at selling, at least foreign sales and it helps to put a star on the box (stacy parks and other sales agents will attest to this). It is cynical but it's true. If I was putting serious money into a film, I definitely would have name actors in the cast. Even then, a producer recently was lamenting the inability to get a completion bond for the 2-3 million range for first time filmmakers, i'll see if I can find the article.
Regardless of the above, I think you make the best film you can make ...I would make a seriously lousy horror film for instance, and keep the budget as low as possible the first go around. which looks like is what you are doing so kudos to you.
The one thing many of the indy thinkers have been recommending lately, and a major mistake that indy filmmakers are making that don't do it, is to not raise money for a distribution plan. You can't swing a dead cat at Sundance and alike, without hitting a panel that will tell you to raise a dist budget that is 30-50% of your production budget.
Why the disty budget, it's a long haul when you are doing it alone and it takes time to learn how, you need to build audience etc ... yet no one does it. "Lets just make the damn film and it will all get sorted out." This is as much a reason for the 99% failure, if that's the number, then not reading Sid Field or making ten shorts.
I would say the distribution lesson Adam learned making Corrado was worth any money the film might have lost, if it in fact it did lose money which Adam just said it didn't.
I am no expert but I'll would like to share one thing, even though you directed your question to Adam. Films like Tiny Furniture, which won SXSW, will have access to some manner of disty because of the festival exposure. Last years Sundance, for instance, was a boon and a lot of deals got done. New media is helping as well and deals are getting cut left and right for On Demand, web etc. Making a plan around getting into Sundance, SXSW, Toronto, Tribeca, Berlin, Caan and maybe one or two others seems like a poor plan A. (which you aren't saying)
other films that are genre based, and less festival darling worthy (action, sci-fi, horror) have a better chance at selling, at least foreign sales and it helps to put a star on the box (stacy parks and other sales agents will attest to this). It is cynical but it's true. If I was putting serious money into a film, I definitely would have name actors in the cast. Even then, a producer recently was lamenting the inability to get a completion bond for the 2-3 million range for first time filmmakers, i'll see if I can find the article.
Regardless of the above, I think you make the best film you can make ...I would make a seriously lousy horror film for instance, and keep the budget as low as possible the first go around. which looks like is what you are doing so kudos to you.
The one thing many of the indy thinkers have been recommending lately, and a major mistake that indy filmmakers are making that don't do it, is to not raise money for a distribution plan. You can't swing a dead cat at Sundance and alike, without hitting a panel that will tell you to raise a dist budget that is 30-50% of your production budget.
Why the disty budget, it's a long haul when you are doing it alone and it takes time to learn how, you need to build audience etc ... yet no one does it. "Lets just make the damn film and it will all get sorted out." This is as much a reason for the 99% failure, if that's the number, then not reading Sid Field or making ten shorts.
I would say the distribution lesson Adam learned making Corrado was worth any money the film might have lost, if it in fact it did lose money which Adam just said it didn't.
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), and I'll never meet him, so I don't care about being "nice". I gave him credit, because he deserves it, period, not to be "nice". I tell you what makes me think this guy is going places. It's not only what I said before - that he actually completed a movie, and got it distributed, and got another one going. That's hard enough - very, very hard. It's the fact that he's not blind to the faults of his first film (which I have not seen). Because I've seen guys who got a movie made by hook or by crook, and yet had no career afterward... and all of them, down to the man, were dicks about it - refusing to see any faults, and thinking they're perfect... when you can't see the faults in your work, you will never grow artistically, period. But this guy sounds like he's totally willing to own up to mistakes - so he's going places.