Hyperactive Studios (What Matt and Mark are up to)

Matt Sconce

Matt Sconce

Veteran
Hello Everyone!
Mark Aro, Jennifer Tadlock, Troy Ruff and I (Matt Sconce) have been working extremely hard developing a spec-trailer for our ten movie slate that is in review for investment. Through amazing providence (and a lot of sweat, blood and tears), we spent the last several months approaching investors and after a lot of leg work, we had an opportunity to meet with a major investor in L.A. who was excited about our slate of ten films, beginning with Stricken, then moving onto the others (in no particular order): Dark Pool, [Flight of the] Golden Umbrella, Sleeper, Freak, Fish Bomb, Once in a Blue Moon, Stormbreaker, Bright One, and Nodes. For our initial face to face with him, we delivered a poster and synopsis representing each project. After our that meeting He requested a trailer or video of some kind that would represent all ten films so we launched into production and have been working 20 hour days (including our day jobs) for close to 5 weeks straight. The deadline for the Trailer is this Friday. Everything was shot in a green screen studio here in Fresno, aside from a few minor practical locations.

During this time of investment seeking, we formed Hyperactive Studios, which is a combination of Mark's company Visual Cranium LLC and my company Aftershock Studios, and is in association with the Executive Producer Dr. Asad Farr's company Farrland Films. We were recently on the KMPH Fox 26 Morning show "Great Day" and will be on KSEE 24 the NBC affiliate's morning show tomorrow where some of our footage will be shown.
Hyperactive Studios will be a physical studio based in the Fresno Area that will accommodate all aspects of the film process from Pre-Production all the way through completion.

We are currently planning on working with Barry Green and Timur Civan with the RED ONE for the Stricken shoot, which will happen approximately three months from the time funding dropping. While we will not go into the amount of funding, suffice it to say that it would remove all current financial woes and would allow us to fulfill the dream and make large scale movies with industry competitive budgets.

Here is our website in progress. We have the video we use for our looping DVD menu up on the page for now. It shows little snippets of what we have done this month for our rough spec trailer. We hope you enjoy! We hope to share more in the future. Below are some before and after images to show the current effects pipeline.

Sincerely, Mark, Matt and Jennifer

See Spec DVD menu Loop on website:

http://hyperactive-studios.com (Watch Short Video Clip)




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WOW!!! Matt, GREAT news and GREAT grabs!!!

Congrats to you all! I was wondering what you were up to!

Going to check out the clip now!

-Ted
 
Hey thanks Ted! Mark, Jen, Troy, and I share a passion for these types of movies and work exceptionally well as a team. It is exciting to see the dreams we all share a bit closer. We have worked 1000-1500 man hours over the last 5 weeks to get this project completed by this Friday. My wife is supposed to go into labor any day for our first baby, and Mark had three children with birthdays this month. It has been CRAZY, and we have loved every minute of it.
 
Matt,

It's really great when people share biz-related postings here and many props to you and your team for getting out there and hustling.

I think a lot of us would be grateful for some more info if you care to share it. A few things that come to my mind are:

1) What was the philosophy behind coming up with a 10-movie pitch? Was the pitch as a package or as a "pick the ones you want" approach?

2) I appreciate your not wishing to talk dollars, but can you give us some idea of the scope of the projects? Are these all features or 1-hour t.v. episodes, etc.?

3) If you are cutting a deal for production of 10 full films how do you protect yourselves (and the converse for your investor) if the realities of the marketplace change dramatically in time? What if an early one goes through the roof? In such a case the later properties would be MUCH more valuable in theory. Or, God forbid, you produce something that is less than happily received in the marketplace. I'm just really curious how you can set up a 10-picture deal and have everybody happy through the full run. Obviously, you don't need to share any details with us, but we sure would appreciate any nuggets you can sow from this experience.

Thanks again.

Mark
 
Ted Arabian said:
OMG. THAT CLIP ROCKED! I love you vision and execution! WOW. :thumbsup:
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Hey Ted... thanks a ton! We have been burning the midnight oil and then some! We have had a little more help this time around... that has been a big plus, but we are still wiped! We ARE in the home stretch now and it is looking good so far.

There of course is a ton that we could tweak, but we need let it go for now at least and get it into the hands of the investment group. IMHO, our samples look as good if not a little better than the samples that the investor showed us when we met with him a month ago. They funded those projects so hopefully that is a good sign.

Once we catch our breath, we will post more stuff to look at.

Thanks again for the kind words.

Mark- :2vrolijk_08:
 
(from: Mark Johnson)

Hey Mark J., Mark A. here!

It's really great when people share biz-related postings here and many props to you and your team for getting out there and hustling.

I think a lot of us would be grateful for some more info if you care to share it. A few things that come to my mind are:

1) What was the philosophy behind coming up with a 10-movie pitch? Was the pitch as a package or as a "pick the ones you want" approach?

Well to be honest, we didn't even know what a slate was until we went down to LA and on the trip down, our co-producer (Jennifer Tadlock) talked a lot about slates. We did however put a list of movies together and created posters and synopsis for each. We did this with the intent of showing that we are not a one trick pony and we have been pitching Stricken (the movie) since last fall and finally started to get some movement on it. We have another completed feature script that we took with to really just show that we have a plan.

Just to note, we have a completed budget, business plan and LOI's from all of the actors. We included this with Stricken when we started pitching in the fall. Fast-forward several months and we come to the meeting a month ago. Prior to the meeting we put budgets together for our other film that we have a completed script for and the only reason we did the rest is because we wanted them to see that we are not a ONE TRICK PONY and that we have more than just one thing going on. We never thought that anyone would be interested in the other films at this point. So the thing with the slate is... we were prepared and when he said to us, that the group that he is currently representing is interested in slates, not individual films, Jen said... "SLATES! Like this one..." and she handed him the nicely printed/bound packet that we finished and printed at kinkos the night before.

Just to note... it was important to him that all of these ideas are our own and that no one outside of our group has vested interest. That was a real plus for him.
2) I appreciate your not wishing to talk dollars, but can you give us some idea of the scope of the projects? Are these all features or 1-hour t.v. episodes, etc.?
Yep, we are going to keep the dollar amounts under wraps, but in short, we originally tried to pitch Stricken as a $480k film (that's indie SAG and everyone on the crew working for free). Strangely enough we got little interest until we bumped up the budget and beefed up the areas of the budget that would increase production value. Once we beefed up the budget, we started to get some interest. Just to point out... it has been close to 6 months and we are just now starting to get meetings and get some doors open. So word to all... be patient... be passionate and don't give up.

We are looking at all Feature-Length, Theatrical Releases.
 3) If you are cutting a deal for production of 10 full films how do you protect yourselves (and the converse for your investor) if the realities of the marketplace change dramatically in time? What if an early one goes through the roof? In such a case the later properties would be MUCH more valuable in theory. Or, God forbid, you produce something that is less than happily received in the marketplace. I'm just really curious how you can set up a 10-picture deal and have everybody happy through the full run. Obviously, you don't need to share any details with us, but we sure would appreciate any nuggets you can sow from this experience.

Thanks again.

Mark (Johnson)

Great question... currently, the group that we are talking to now, invest in two things... Real-estate and Films. Apparently that have been doing both for quite a while. My understanding (and I am far from an expert on this matter) is that the money for the slate goes into an account and it is secured for the duration of the aggreement. This is important for us and them. If the money stays protected then we are protected and they are protected from paying Capital Gains Taxes for at least the term of the aggreement. Which when you talk about this many films... well it is a lot of money that they are saving.

If this slate goes though there are many things that will go in place to protect the investors and us. Completion bonds, contracts and I am sure taht there will be stipulations made that certain percentages need to be met or contengencies will have to be put into play (IE: new directors, different scripts, writers, etc.).

The thing to not here is that the investors will be protecting there money for the period of the agreement. If they pull the funds, then there are penalities and things along those lines, but you can bet that when we get down to contracts, that we will be offering up a lot of freedoms, to some degree. Also it has been sugested that there will be a fund manager/Producer on the investment side that will have a lot of say.

There is so much more to say, but as I am sure you know, I have a lot to do in a few days so I have to roll for now. There are several selling points that make our slate appealing. Our team is KEY. Between Matt, Myself, Jen and Dr. Farr (our Exec. Producer) we are very versitile and we have a lot of experience from many different areas... and we work really well together. The other point is that we are doing everything we can to create films with high production value for a lower price. We are taking a lesson from Rodriguez (Troublemaker Studios) and we are creating a business that is all about working smart, cheap and creatively. This is key. We are really pushing the creative side, because post and FX are so expensive, it is to our benefit that we can do tihs so we will be able to up the value of each project more considerably and affordably! that is a big selling point. And the fact that we keep going... no matter what... that has helped a lot.

Feel free to ask anything else you want to... I hope that this information was useful.

Take care and thanks for the props!

Mark A.

:shocked:
 
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Blaine said:
Congratulations and good luck on this, guys. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:
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thanks Blaine... we will just keep pluggin away at it... the up side is that things seem to be paying off... Whether it happens with this group and the slate of just one film down the road, we will keep at it til something hits.

:grin:
 
Hey guys, again props. I am excited to see how this all turns out! We're in pre-prod on our first feature here at Coram Deo Studios, and it's cool to see you guys getting this thing going! Now, one question, who would distribute these films? Would you have to seek out a distributor after the film was completed? just curious.
 
In my understanding, the Investors have all the ties to major studios distributors and would have that wrapped up if the films are funded. :)

Congrats on the feature!
 
Last night we had the Premiere of our Trailer for our ten movies. We invited everyone who has been a part of it and they enjoyed it. We sent the DVD out to our investors yesterday so we will see what the next step is.
 
Brandon Rice said:
Cool stuff Matt, saw the news clip too!
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Thanks Brandon... Mark here... Matt's wife just had their first baby last night around 6 pm so he may be absent for a bit. So everyone Welcome Baby Girl MacKenzie to the list... it may be a few years before she comments, but before you know it she will be posting movies and competing with dad!

:happy:

On a side note... We have a meeting with our Executive Producer on Monday. He is coming up here from L.A. to discuss some good news. He just returned from the Berlin film festival and he apparently had a fruitful trip. Hate to be vague, but that is all that I can share for now. I am not holding my breath, but we are hopeful.

Hopefully more SOON!

:Drogar-Shock(DBG):
 
Congrats to Matt!

It's funny because both our producer (also Matt) and writer/director (Brad) have baby's due in the next week, and most likely will be having them this weekend!
 
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