by
Peter John Ross
One
of the most common stories in Indie Filmmaking, especially
in the feature length genre, is that of the “Promise
of funding that turns out to be a dead end” scenario.
How many of us have been approached by someone that claims
to have access to investors and capital that will fund
your movie, and after months of working, for free I might
add, find that it all turns out to not be true? Or worse,
someone has a unique way of raising money, that you come
to find out is either illegal, immoral or at the least
unethical.
Where
to begin? In 5 years I’ve dealt with all kinds of
delusions, lies, and cheats: Let’s begin with the
annoying old man with delusions of grandeur. I won’t
use real names because it’s rude and it doesn’t
help that it’s also legally liable. These are all
true stories, but I won’t be giving up the names
any time soon.
ANNOYING
OLD MAN WITH DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR
I
got a call one day, shortly after a small film festival
screening, from an older man who saw my name in the paper
and called me up. He said he had a business proposition
for me. So I met this gentleman in his mid 60’s at
the Tim Horton’s donut place on the corner where
he proceeded to tell me about this new revolution –
Digital Video. He tells me that unlike shooting on film,
DV is cheap and affordable. Phase Two of his amazing insight
was all about the new emerging digital projection market.
I guess deductive reasoning wasn’t his strong suit
because he got my name & phone number from an article
on a film festival where several of my DV movies just
played on a digital projector.
Phase
Three of his plan is where things were starting to go
awry. He wanted to setup up digital video theaters all
over the state and sell tickets to these Digital Video
features. He assures me that they will sell out 75-100
tickets every show at over 50 theaters and starts to show
me his figures.
Now
for Phase Four, which is where the van with rubber walls,
a sweater with really, really long arms, and two guys
in white outfits and a net are needed. He wants to build
a studio, as in full breakaway sets, sound stages, and
houses and condos for the actors and crews to live. Somehow,
doing the math, I don’t see the homemade movie theaters
and these screenings of DV features adding up to the costs
of building and running a real studio, especially one
with everyone living there rent free.
At
this point, I ask him a crucial question. What does he
want from me? He has already told me that his son
is the director. He replies that he needs a right hand
man, someone with technical knowledge who can guide them
and work with the team. Well, I’ve already spent,
at this time ove, 3 hours listening to this old man talk,
and I didn’t even get a free bagel out of it, so
I ask how much the job is paying. The response is that
it’s about the art, and shouldn’t be about the
money, which as you read on will be a recurring theme
for people who want something for free.
Working
for Free?
Now,
I believe in working for free for art’s sake. I’ve
done Indie film shoots in every capacity known to man,
whether it be PA, coffee getter (AKA Production Assistant,
too), lighting, grip, boom operator, cameraman, producer,
and everything else – all for free, for the sake
of art. I don’t mind. These same people have done
the jobs for me, too, so it works out. That’s the
balance, or you find other ways to balance the scales,
at least you should. We’ve all seen the guys that
ask people to work for them, and they never return the
favor. Pretty soon, no one wants to work with them.
That
being said, why in the hell do I want to work full time
for free for years on a project that has little or no
chance of being a reality? I got the impression that he
was less interested in me and more interested in just
having someone to talk to, as if the old folks home just
wasn’t exciting enough to hold his interest. I thanked
the old man for his time, and said that if he can get
me a salary, that I would consider working with him on
this studio of his dreams. I still get epic phone calls
regurgitating this idea once every six months. I literally
have to screen calls because of this old man.
THE
WEDDING VIDEOGRAPHER WHO CHARGES ACTORS
TO BE IN HIS MOVIE
There
was a local [filmmaking] group here in town that met once
a month. At the meetings, we’d do a meet & greet
and introduce ourselves. It was clearly stated, say your
name, and what you do, I.E. actor, writer, or director.
When we got to the guy that wore shades at 9:PM and had
a hat that said “director”, he droned on for
over 20 minutes about his life, his passions, the love
he lost and how it inspired him to fulfill his dream of
making a feature film. I guess the sunglasses blocked
his vision of everyone twitching in their seats, sighing,
and generally being bored. We were off to a bad start
for this guy holding people’s attention in a storytelling
medium.
He
was a full time wedding videographer that was going to
make the movie of the decade utilizing wedding videography
equipment to make feature films. He then handed out a
stack of business cards (wedding videography) saying that
he was looking for actors and that he already had distribution
and funding, which turned a lot of heads, my own included.
Already having any distribution and funding impresses
people because it’s hard to get.
Let’s
call him WEDDINGMAN.
After
the meeting, I was talking to a few people, and WEDDINGMAN
rudely just interrupts someone else speaking mid-sentence
and says, “I need to talk to you.” I stare at
him, and then say, “Then you’ll have to wait
your turn, someone else is talking.” An hour or so
later, when most of the meeting is just a handful of people
chatting and being purely social, I get to talk to WEDDINGMAN,
who’s eyes must really be sensitive because he’s
still wearing sunglasses at 9:30PM.
He
opened with, “I’ve got the best script you’re
ever gonna hear about…”, which in some variation
or other, I’ve heard from virtually everyone who’s
ever contemplated writing a script. Much to my dismay,
he told he could not tell me about the story "because
it’s that good." I tried to say that I didn’t
want to hear it but he cut me off and said he would tell
me anyway because he had a sense that he could trust me.
His
story revolved around a wedding videographer who’s
a single parent. It’s a horror story about a haunted
house, because around Halloween there are a bunch of haunted
houses that operate. But the uniqueness is that "this
house is actually haunted." He went on and
on, but by that time I was replaying Dazed & Confused
in my head and I got all the way to the hazing scene
when he finished his story. What I do vaguely remember
is that he was the writer/director/producer AND the Star.
There is a name for this kind of movie – a “Vanity
piece”.
Here’s
the capper – the “Financing” and “Distribution”
of which he spoke to everyone before "is the true
genius" [his words] of the plan. He planned on charging
all of the actors to be in the movie, even the extras.
And the “distribution” is that each person would
sign a contract that says that they are required to buy
from him DVD copies of the movie, and then they could
sell them for a profit, or keep them as a souvenir. As
he described this to me, I guess my look of shock didn’t
register.
As
will always be the case, I asked what he wanted from me.
He said he needed a right hand man, someone with experience
to be his "copilot on this highly profitable and
exciting adventure." It’s so exciting because
there is, of course, no pay. Again, I ain’t about
the money, but gouging amateur actors and raping people’s
dreams doesn’t sound like something I really wanted
to do.
He
then said I could be a cameraman if I didn’t want
to be an assistant director. I told him I didn’t
have much experience as a camera operator, and he said
experience really didn’t matter. So, good camera
work doesn’t matter, but getting aspiring actors
to pay for a movie he’s writing about himself, directing,
and starring in IS important. I politely declined.
