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April 21 2011
Caution Tape: Competing against Macro Budgets with Nano Cash pt 1
Off the top of my skull, even reading the title immediately makes me think “Yeah right.” I think it’s a fitting (if controversial) title for the topic that’s to be talked about here. Before I begin, please, allow me to post a disclaimer:
None of this is fact, nor is it gospel. This is what my experience is at the current time of writing.
I want to share a few thoughts about what I’m trying to do with my first feature film and the reasons why I lightly heeded the warnings of a wall of Caution Tape and ducked under it to attempt to walk right into the front door. It’s a very ambitious project, the aspirations of which can be summed up with the pitch.
It’s superbad with super powers, or Harold and Kumar go High(er) concept.
To go a slight bit further, Avery and Pete: Superseeds is a gamer-generation adventure soaked in the batter that 90’s Saturday Morning cartoons were poured from. Set in Los Angeles, following slacker best-friends on a mission to stop their buddies–and enemies–from using their newfound superpowers for bad.
Right away, we’re talking about some very key elements here but, primarily, visual effects. So, not only did I have to juggle fifteen or so key cast members, ten locations that I can count off of the top of my head, and everything else that comes with the territory of a nano budget production I now have to deal with getting believable post visual effects done, something that’s worth seeing on a big screen at the very least.
I’ve failed to mention the budget, but the Kickstarter for Superseeds (which can be easily found by a google search–it was successful) reflects more than half of it, so now we’re talking sheer lunacy.
I’m literally moving away from the traditional nano budget motto, where it’s mostly one location, two to three people, a dramatic situation, etc.
I’ll spare everyone the details on production itself until a later episode, and go into the mentality behind it in bullet points:
A. There are too many nano budgets that take place in one location, with a few actors (some are good, some are not), relying on horror gimmicks or other very similar (even though well done) storylines. And, I swore I would never make a feature that opens with someone tied to a chair and bloody, no matter how easy it was.
B. I wanted to make my first one count for something serious. It needed to at least smell like I tried to play a big boys game, and competently. Aside from getting lost in the sea, it was a test for myself to see if I was worth the criticism I dished out to big Hollywood features. I’ve walked away with a newfound respect for a lot of directors and movies I hammered, regardless of if they are bad or not.
C. Even at this nano-budget, with the five years of experience here in Los Angeles, I knew I could pull it off. And, by knew, it was a gut feeling that I could make this happen one way or another. Thankfully, a lot of the key elements began to fall into place the second I made the decision to not wait for hundreds of thousands of dollars and just do it.
D. I wanted to make sure that it was worthwhile for everyone involved, from cast to crew. Form the onset, it was destined to be a small crew, a skeleton crew. The skeleton of a badger. I was going to shoot in tight spaces with a big camera(s), there was enough money to either feed a lot of people bad food or a few people decent food, and with the crew being so small I wanted each person to get a very prominent credit.
The actors needed to benefit too, and they will regardless of if I move forward. They’ll have footage on their reel of themselves as tasteful superheroes (no spandex suits here), and the production quality was going to look several hundreds of thousands times more than what the budget really was.
People needed to benefit as much as I wanted to myself, take care of everyone. This is why, after this first article, the I becomes we
E. And, most importantly, I wanted to at least break even. I didn’t hear enough stories of nano budgets getting advances,didn’t see enough of them getting into the trades like Gareth’s did or Lena’s Tiny Furniture. When I began to look at them, I noticed what the trend was.
It wasn’t necessarily that they had no star power, they just lacked a certain entertainment cog that a mass audience is looking for. Or, better yet, pays for. Production quality AND value ride along with this as well. Not a lot of people were attempting to compete with Hollywood on their own ground, with a fraction of the money. Probably for very good reason, as well. So, there is no fault or blame, I know why and I respect why.
But, I’m going to go where fewer fish school.
Rest assured, though, it doesn’t mean that it was any easier or harder for me. I am sure I experienced a lot of the blood bath that other filmmakers have, do, will. It’s just another path I wanted to take.
With the investment that’s been made (Kickstarter, My own pocket–I’m so broke right now it’s a crime, and through the gracious dollars of private investors), I knew that if it didn’t happen with a distribution deal, there was a world of self distro opening up that I could recoup the small dividends with and then open up a profit as well. Again, this goes back to having content that’s at least competently “mimicking” what Hollywood tends to churn out.
This post isn’t to tell you that I’ve been successful by doing it, it’s to bring some awareness to the project. A Case Study of something that’s not exactly mumblecore (I respect it, trust me), definitely not a star vehicle, absolutely not well-budgeted enough for what’s going on, hopefully something that inspires the other Little Macs who are afraid to jump in the ring with the Bald Bulls and Sodapopinski’s of the Film World. Ten points if you get the classic 8-bit video game reference.
Stay tuned to the New Breed for updates on progress of Avery and Pete: Superseeds. I’ll spoon-feed you info from my experience at simply trying to entertain the way the Big H-Wood does, successful or not, and what I plan to do with the property beyond simply creating a single feature film.
July 01 2010
Building a Better Request Tool
Recently, I’ve been keeping a close eye on tools for audience building. Several months ago I was very excited about a project, being funding through Kickstarter, called Openindie – if you’re not following Kieran Masterton on twitter already, then you should be. The site is still in beta, and what is exciting about Openindie is that it’s still finding and building it’s community: it is open to ideas and able to adapt quickly to what the filmmaking community needs.
A few nights ago I was in night-owl mode, with a moleskine and pen in hand, as I was pouring over some of the most-requested films on Openindie. Among them: Heart of Now, We Live in Public, and What’s Up Lovely. I was sketching out site designs that made use of an integrated Openindie request button. Researching which of these top-requested films on Openindie were heavily using Openindie on their film’s main site, the answer: none of them.
Which, I found very strange. But I’ll get to that below.
What I mostly wanted to talk about is: better approaches for audience building. Either for the purpose of mapping out which zipcodes have enough support + demand to schedule screening events, or for other purposes. A question I kept coming back to was “is it necessary for the audience to actually sign-up?”. Openindie does make the process quick and painless by offering Twitter Oauth and Facebook Connect – but does this benefit Openindie more than it does the film?
For example: I’ve been very interested in using twitter as the main engine behind building audience interest – asking that someone interested in FToM simply twitter the hashtag #requestFToM (for those who do not have a twitter account already, they could simply text #requestFToM to 40404). If Openindie could make use of that kind of information, I think it would be a far more powerful tool then having people navigate to a specific URL, sign-up, and then click on the request button. Any #hashtag attributed with GEO information could be mapped immediately, and any #hashtag without could be @replied back to requesting a zipcode. There is no sign-up form, there is no Oauth or Connect needed. Anyone with a cell phone that walks past your flyer on the street could immediately voice their interest.
What I would most love to see from a site like Openindie is a request tool that is 100% flexible on the filmmaker’s end. By that I mean, the request button does not change, you can grab a short piece of code and embed it anywhere you like. But from within Openindie the tool can be scaled out and adjusted in reaction to what is working best and what isn’t. As a filmmaker, what would I like to happen when the request button is clicked?
I would like the visitor to never leave the film’s site. Or if they do leave, much like Paypal, they are returned right back to where they started after the request is finished.
I would like control over what the visitor sees. Have I turned on the options for both twitter and facebook? Or am I just asking them to provide an email? Am I offering all 3 or 4 or 5 options? Does it take them straight to a pre-written twitter with the #hashtag and other important info? These should be settings that can be controlled from the Openindie dashboard without having to replace any embed script.
Once a visitor clicks the request button, that same button then reads: promote. And, of course, have 100% control from within Openindie as to what exactly happens when that is clicked. Does it take the visitor to Openindie’s list of sharing options? Or point them to a site of sharing tools still under the film’s URL? Perhaps I’m running a campaign that involves real-world action like flyers or stickers in public places and want them taken to a page walking them through that idea.
Only a tool that is 100% flexible is going to be a perfect fit for each different filmmaker.
I’m really excited about where Openindie is heading – and I’ve already pestered Kieran about some of these ideas and he seems very open to them, even more so he seems excited about talking to filmmakers and getting feedback on what tools are going to take independent film the furthest.
Building a Better Request Tool
Recently, I’ve been keeping a close eye on tools for audience building. Several months ago I was very excited about a project, being funding through Kickstarter, called Openindie – if you’re not following Kieran Masterton on twitter already, then you should be. The site is still in beta, and what is exciting about Openindie is that it’s still finding and building it’s community: it is open to ideas and able to adapt quickly to what the filmmaking community needs.
A few nights ago I was in night-owl mode, with a moleskine and pen in hand, as I was pouring over some of the most-requested films on Openindie. Among them: Heart of Now, We Live in Public, and What’s Up Lovely. I was sketching out site designs that made use of an integrated Openindie request button. Researching which of these top-requested films on Openindie were heavily using Openindie on their film’s main site, the answer: none of them.
Which, I found very strange. But I’ll get to that below.
What I mostly wanted to talk about is: better approaches for audience building. Either for the purpose of mapping out which zipcodes have enough support + demand to schedule screening events, or for other purposes. A question I kept coming back to was “is it necessary for the audience to actually sign-up?”. Openindie does make the process quick and painless by offering Twitter Oauth and Facebook Connect – but does this benefit Openindie more than it does the film?
For example: I’ve been very interested in using twitter as the main engine behind building audience interest – asking that someone interested in FToM simply twitter the hashtag #requestFToM (for those who do not have a twitter account already, they could simply text #requestFToM to 40404). If Openindie could make use of that kind of information, I think it would be a far more powerful tool then having people navigate to a specific URL, sign-up, and then click on the request button. Any #hashtag attributed with GEO information could be mapped immediately, and any #hashtag without could be @replied back to requesting a zipcode. There is no sign-up form, there is no Oauth or Connect needed. Anyone with a cell phone that walks past your flyer on the street could immediately voice their interest.
What I would most love to see from a site like Openindie is a request tool that is 100% flexible on the filmmaker’s end. By that I mean, the request button does not change, you can grab a short piece of code and embed it anywhere you like. But from within Openindie the tool can be scaled out and adjusted in reaction to what is working best and what isn’t. As a filmmaker, what would I like to happen when the request button is clicked?
I would like the visitor to never leave the film’s site. Or if they do leave, much like Paypal, they are returned right back to where they started after the request is finished.
I would like control over what the visitor sees. Have I turned on the options for both twitter and facebook? Or am I just asking them to provide an email? Am I offering all 3 or 4 or 5 options? Does it take them straight to a pre-written twitter with the #hashtag and other important info? These should be settings that can be controlled from the Openindie dashboard without having to replace any embed script.
Once a visitor clicks the request button, that same button then reads: promote. And, of course, have 100% control from within Openindie as to what exactly happens when that is clicked. Does it take the visitor to Openindie’s list of sharing options? Or point them to a site of sharing tools still under the film’s URL? Perhaps I’m running a campaign that involves real-world action like flyers or stickers in public places and want them taken to a page walking them through that idea.
Only a tool that is 100% flexible is going to be a perfect fit for each different filmmaker.
I’m really excited about where Openindie is heading – and I’ve already pestered Kieran about some of these ideas and he seems very open to them, even more so he seems excited about talking to filmmakers and getting feedback on what tools are going to take independent film the furthest.
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