Spot,

I understand all that you say. I firmly believe my determination will be the deciding factor in this. I have no choice but to share the script with potential investors.

The only reason I mentioned shooting on HDV was from advice for easier transferring to film that was given to me. Personally, the DVC30 performs extremely well in low light conditions.

The actress I have is not well know but she can act well. The act of terror is much different than reciting some clever lines. Shes perfect for the part. Further more, an established actress would be devastating to my storyline. I have basically five people including myself willing to donate their time for credit. Its not unheard of. Two people loved the idea and begged to be a part of it. The other main character understood when I said I couldnt pay her. She read the script and wants to be a part of it.

I dont need a fancy dinner. Id settle for a hot dog and handshake. :)

Pardon the derailment, I believe Napolean Dynamite cost ~$400,000. to make, box office receipts are ~$45 mil. I could be wrong. I was at the HBO comedy film festival, (where Napolean won). It reminded me of The Big Picture ;^) This from IMDB:

Fox Searchlight is going to re-release the film with nationwide distribution and add a 5 minute epilogue at the end of the film. This epilogue, which was filmed after the initial theatrical run, apparently features a surprise "wedding scene". And cost about half of what the entire feature cost to make.


Features one of the longest credited cast lists in movie history; all 181 student extras' names are listed in the closing credits.


The movie was edited in producer Jeremy Coon's apartment using a $6,000 Macintosh with Final Cut Pro.


Behind-the-scenes at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, Fox Searchlight engaged in a bidding war with Warner Independent Pictures over the distribution rights to this movie, until Fox Searchlight put in a last-minute bid of over $3 million, and won. They would later join forces with Paramount Pictures and MTV Films to distribute the film, a mere 17 days before its release

Pmasters, "Main location, a rundown basement, provided at NO cost especially since I own it. No crew needed, minimally lighting which goes with the dark subject theme." This is the problem Spot, farss, and I are talking about. There no dark, minimally lighting shot. A rundown basement stills needs proper lighting for the shots, low cieling adds complexity to bringing proper lighting to the scene. Sound is going to another serious problem.
The "blair witch" project was actually far more complex of a shoot that one person with a video camera, done in one night.
Everyone whats you to do well and the project to make it. But you must dot the i and cross the t's.

I agree with that. What I am saying is I dont need a $10k set up for something like this. Sound is my only major concern. Seriously though, I dont know if I have given the impression that I havent given this much thought or if everyone's impression is I woke up this morning and said I m gonna shoot this and cut corners, now pay me. I didnt.

This has been something I have thought long and hard about and something that I have working on since I wrote my first script. I already have a lot of my angles laid out and know exactly how I want the shots to come across. I know exactly how much lighting the basement needs and have worked through some tests with it.

I will be fine.

Pmasters, " I guarrantee I can do $10-20k in sales from the web alone. Not a bad profit for something that costs very little to produce." as a businessman, I have to ask what assests are you pledging to secure the quarantee of 10k+ sales.

Without giving too much info away, lets just say I am working on a few deals if internet distribution becomes my only outlet. Whether it be DVD or a downloaded DRM file, I have two places that have guarranteed to move a thousand units combined. Again, thats if internet distribution is my only outlet. I prefer to wait it out a bit and see if I can do better than settling for the net deal.

Napoleon Dynamite was made by some guys who just came out of film school and had resources and worked other dramatic production. Coming out of film school gives you contacts with folks who know how do sound and hold a boom pole and do location scouting and other niceities. The genesis of that movie took years. They also had directed other smaller films and no doubt worked on others. They also had won an award at Slamdance and surely made some contacts there. Napoleon was based on that early award-winning film. Here's a quote from Jeremy Coon.

“We spent about a year assembling our crew — 95% were friends from the BYU post department — and we went into production.”

So it would seem that the makers of that movie had a fairly extensive and knowledgeable support team.

pmasters, I don't think any one here is trying to discourage you, but trying to make you sure you go into this with eyes wide open.

Only by knowing the technical aspects of filmmaking and all the complexities and limitations will a filmmaker be able to surpass them.

pmasters, in addition to "Spike, Mike, Slackers and Dykes" you should read From Reel to Deal.

EDIT: Deleted this post because the Sony boards duplicated it - Yes I made this post (Now deleted) and, according to the time on the next post, almost a minute later posted again. Which I didn't. GIitch in the system?

I did not read all of this thread - thusly some of what I am going to say may have already been said.

Something I learned a long time ago was that what most people think is reality and what is reality can vary a lot. Before Sundance became the DIY film makers holy grail everyone wanted to make a film that was put out by a major studio, become the next big thing. Now that seems to still be true however Sundance is the key word tossed around here a *lot*. Hundreds of films are made each year in this country - and I am talking about non-shorts, non-documentarys and only talking about features. I have no doubt that since the DV revolution the number of features may be in the thousands. And this is my point - each year films are made and most of them never ever are heard of. In the US many of these films are made with foreign markets in mind and many of the "fee" and no-name actors are *huge* is other markets. One film I did production sound for was the second biggest grossing film ever in Beruit. An actor I have worked with on several films was one of the biggest action starts in places like Thailand and his films are, for the most part, huge successes over there.

So here is the question - for any filmmaker, is your goal to make lots of money and be famous in America? Or are you a film maker who just wants people to see your work...no matter where? If your goal is Sundance and being a major minor so to speak you have your work cut out for you anymore...because it is so "trendy" now. For example I don't consider The Butterfly Effect to be a small indy film but that was a buzz film last year (or was it the year before?) . But that is just my opinion. Fact is that if you have a small indy film, shot on video or otherwise, there are many outlets in the US, and overseas, for it.

AFM is one of the "biggest" in this country as far a markets go. And since many indy video distributors started to produce films many of them have expanded and now attend AFM. Many of them are niche distributors however. About 10 -15 years ago there was huge shot on video, direct to video store craze. At first these films, and studios that put them out, did very well. But when the market got flooded with them the stores stopped buying them because many of them were plain crap. So than if you made a direct to video film, and you weren't Disney or Mary-Kate and Ashely, you were SOL. Now this is sort of turning again because there are more quality films coming out that were shot on video. But again - this is a domestic thing, domestic being the US. Overseas many of the sales resulted in video only releases, it isn't any big thing - but the "film look" is. One producer discovered that he could shoot feature on S-VHS for around $5,000. If he didn't add the film look these wouldn't sell at all - because they were shot on video. They looked cheap. So he added film look and could sell these shot on video films to foreign buyers and make his money back very easy. His average sale was between $2,000 - $3,000, which does not sound like much, but it adds up easy and is affordable to smaller territories. (And yes the films were poorly shot but the point is they *made* money and allowed for more films to be made)

Each territpry has its own price. You may only be able to sell rights for $3,000 to one country and to another for $20,000. Rights also depend on what rights - video only, theatrical only, all rights and so on. As far as back end money - forget about it. These are outright sales and you have no control over how the film is marketed. Also keep in mind many countries have restrictions with things like violence, blood, nudity and language. In many cases simply having the "F" word could result in a film being not sold, or causing you to go back in and take out that word, or the scene. Even here in the US there is always the joke on set about "ok, now we are going to shoot the Canadian version of the scene."

This topic can be so in depth, and should be if you are serious about DIY, but I would suggest just deprogramming yourself a bit for the whole Sundance thing and look around at the many other options. Find someone who is a member of AFM and who attends each year - as it has an actual room - see if they will pick up your film for representation or at least let you "test the waters" with a promo shown to buyers. If you want US video distribution look around at what other companies put out the same type of film(s) that you are making and approach them. But if your goal is to see some sort of ROI than you will have a lot harder time. Don't expect any sort of real control past how much you sell your film for.

FWIW - I was in Wal-Mart the other day getting some pictures developed. I happen to look over at this new display they had set up - DVD's for 3 bucks. At first I didn't register what I saw but it sank in - there on one of the "shelves" was a film I directed. For years I have been trying to get Wal-Mart to pick up the film and about 3 years ago the studio sold off the domestic rights to another company, now this compnany has some sort of "exclusive" deal with Wal-Mart. My point is though - this film hit Wal-Mart shelves over 10 years after it was done. Also beyond what I got paid for doing it I see no money at all from the sales of it. This is just how it is, it goes back to bands and artists who sell out major arenas and still say they make no money. There is a money chain and 90 - 95% of us are not on the top of that chain.