Anyway, I don't think 100% disclosure is possible. I mean, you have a list of all the risks? I wanna see!
You speak a lot about insurance, but you must not have seen any of those lengthy disclosures written by lawyers... "including, but not limited to" blah, blah, blah. And in plain language you say: "anything and everything can happen, beyond what I or anybody has seen or can imagine". Legally, there are ways around everything. I keep this book with me at all times: "The Pocket Lawyer for Filmmakers: A Legal Toolkit for Independent Producers"
Anyhow, this is one of those things where you take a risk - one of many. You don't want to. Fine, you get to pay and do things differently. But nobody has to do it your way, and you don't have to do it anybody else's way. Everyone has to work to their tolerance level for risk - for me, as I have mentioned in another thread, it's necessary to set up an LLC for the production ($800/year in CA), for someone else it'll be something different. There are always levels of risk to everything you do. For you, the costs don't allow for a $10K feature. For someone else, it does - if they are lucky, they they win, if not, they lose. Measure your risk.
A lot of people don't want to take risks. To me, it is absolutely worth it. I know I'll lose my $10K, but it's worth it to make a feature - for me. Why?
Simple illustration - Quentin Tarantino - "My Best Friend's Birthday":
"My Best Friend's Birthday is a black and white amateur film written by Craig Hamann and Quentin Tarantino and directed by Quentin Tarantino,[1] while he was working at the now shuttered Video Archives in Manhattan Beach, California. The project started in 1984, when Hamann wrote a short 30-40 page script about a young man who continually tries to do something nice for his friend's birthday, only to have his efforts backfire.
Tarantino became attached to the project as co-writer and director, and he and Hamann expanded the short script into an 80 page script. On an estimated budget of $5,000, they shot the film on 16mm over the course of the next four years. Hamann and Tarantino starred in the film, along with several video store and acting class buddies, and worked on the crew, which included fellow Video Archives employees Rand Vossler and Roger Avary."
"The original cut was about 70 minutes long but due to a fire only 36 minutes of the film survived. The 36 minute cut has been shown at several film festivals. It has never been officially released. Several actors in this film later appeared in Tarantino's other films Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Kill Bill. Tarantino has referred to this film as his "film school". Although the film was by his own admission very poorly directed, the experience gained from the film helped him in directing future films."
And that, friends is it, in a nutshell. It was $5K - back in the day. 70 minutes, of which only 36 survived. A total failure artistically, and a complete loss financially. A lot of the debbie downers on this board would say: don't do it, why do it, do you have insurance (bwahahaha!), you'll lose everything, IT CANNOT BE DONE, IT'LL BE WORTHLESS, blah, blah, blabbety blah".
I imagine that QT would look at you as if you were from a different planet if you started babbling about insurance - he wanted to make a film, period. And even though it was both a commercial and artistic bomb of 100% loss, it was his film school, and it led to a huge career.
Meanwhile, the wise guys and the debbie downers, would have instead been sitting around waiting to raise $X. And trying to discourage anyone from going ahead with their $10K feature.
Your choice. Insurance... comedy gold! Actually, to think of it, it would be a great comedy line:
GUERILLA FILMMAKER: and, then this character rushed in with a gun and--
DEBBIE DOWNER: wait, wait, do you have insurance on your production?
CUT TO: reaction shot on GUERILLA FILMMAKER
GUERILLA FILMMAKER: ok, I'll be going now. See ya!
You speak a lot about insurance, but you must not have seen any of those lengthy disclosures written by lawyers... "including, but not limited to" blah, blah, blah. And in plain language you say: "anything and everything can happen, beyond what I or anybody has seen or can imagine". Legally, there are ways around everything. I keep this book with me at all times: "The Pocket Lawyer for Filmmakers: A Legal Toolkit for Independent Producers"
Anyhow, this is one of those things where you take a risk - one of many. You don't want to. Fine, you get to pay and do things differently. But nobody has to do it your way, and you don't have to do it anybody else's way. Everyone has to work to their tolerance level for risk - for me, as I have mentioned in another thread, it's necessary to set up an LLC for the production ($800/year in CA), for someone else it'll be something different. There are always levels of risk to everything you do. For you, the costs don't allow for a $10K feature. For someone else, it does - if they are lucky, they they win, if not, they lose. Measure your risk.
A lot of people don't want to take risks. To me, it is absolutely worth it. I know I'll lose my $10K, but it's worth it to make a feature - for me. Why?
Simple illustration - Quentin Tarantino - "My Best Friend's Birthday":
"My Best Friend's Birthday is a black and white amateur film written by Craig Hamann and Quentin Tarantino and directed by Quentin Tarantino,[1] while he was working at the now shuttered Video Archives in Manhattan Beach, California. The project started in 1984, when Hamann wrote a short 30-40 page script about a young man who continually tries to do something nice for his friend's birthday, only to have his efforts backfire.
Tarantino became attached to the project as co-writer and director, and he and Hamann expanded the short script into an 80 page script. On an estimated budget of $5,000, they shot the film on 16mm over the course of the next four years. Hamann and Tarantino starred in the film, along with several video store and acting class buddies, and worked on the crew, which included fellow Video Archives employees Rand Vossler and Roger Avary."
"The original cut was about 70 minutes long but due to a fire only 36 minutes of the film survived. The 36 minute cut has been shown at several film festivals. It has never been officially released. Several actors in this film later appeared in Tarantino's other films Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Kill Bill. Tarantino has referred to this film as his "film school". Although the film was by his own admission very poorly directed, the experience gained from the film helped him in directing future films."
And that, friends is it, in a nutshell. It was $5K - back in the day. 70 minutes, of which only 36 survived. A total failure artistically, and a complete loss financially. A lot of the debbie downers on this board would say: don't do it, why do it, do you have insurance (bwahahaha!), you'll lose everything, IT CANNOT BE DONE, IT'LL BE WORTHLESS, blah, blah, blabbety blah".
I imagine that QT would look at you as if you were from a different planet if you started babbling about insurance - he wanted to make a film, period. And even though it was both a commercial and artistic bomb of 100% loss, it was his film school, and it led to a huge career.
Meanwhile, the wise guys and the debbie downers, would have instead been sitting around waiting to raise $X. And trying to discourage anyone from going ahead with their $10K feature.
Your choice. Insurance... comedy gold! Actually, to think of it, it would be a great comedy line:
GUERILLA FILMMAKER: and, then this character rushed in with a gun and--
DEBBIE DOWNER: wait, wait, do you have insurance on your production?
CUT TO: reaction shot on GUERILLA FILMMAKER
GUERILLA FILMMAKER: ok, I'll be going now. See ya!
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