SHE LOVES ME NOT #6 (the year of the movie)

So here I am, nearing Christmas, all alone in my house on a Friday night.  Well, not totally alone.  My son's little doggie, Vannie, is with me.  We call her our granddoggie because we don't have any grandkids yet, and so little Vannie is working out nicely as a placeholder.  Anyway, me and my little furry buddy are hangin' on this chilly Friday.  My wife is in Japan visiting my son, who is studying Asian Studies in school.  This will be the first Christmas in 30 years that my wife and I will not spend together.  It's only been a couple of days since she left, and I'm already starting to act a little weird - talking to myself and what have you.  I don't know what to do with myself.  My acting classes are on hold for a week, and I don't have any production work at the moment, which is typical for this time of year, so it feels like I have a lot of free time.  I do actually have a big production job coming up in January that I'm preparing for - I bought a new computer and the new Final Cut Pro X that I'll use to edit, and I've been going through all the YouTube tutorials in my attempt to reduce the severity of the learning curve, so that's been occupying some of my time.  I'm also trying to be productive in other, more domestic ways as well.  I put in a new ceiling light in one of the upstairs bedrooms, and I changed the oil on my wife's car.  I even cleaned out all the tiny little dead bugs inside our porch lights.  It's the evenings that seem to pass slowly - the time when my wife and I are usually seated on our couches in the family room - first having cocktails and discussing the events of the day, and then shortly thereafter, getting mad at the evening news as we eat dinner.  As a feeble attempt to fill that void, I re-activated Netflix the day my wife left for Japan, so I've watched a few movies.  Watching new indie films inspires me to push forward with mine.  The business plan is finally completed, and it looks impressive.  The next big step is getting a name actor to sign on, or at least provide a letter of intent.  Apparently this is the magic elixir that will boil and bubble down the throats of all the monsters out there trying to thwart my plans and turn them into harmless toads and pussycats.  Without a name, according to the consensus, no one is going to be interested in my film (even though no one heard of Jennifer Lawrence in the Academy Award nominated WINTER'S BONE, and there are no "names" in the highly successful PARANORMAL ACTIVITY franchise, and I can cite countless other films without name talent that were quite successful as well, so once again, the consensus is not necessarily the definitive.)  Nevertheless, I do want to use a recognizable actor because I do believe it will greatly improve investor interest and marketability.  I have several actors in mind, and after the holidays, my attorney is going to start making phone calls to agents.  In addition to the talent quest, I must engage and consume the next two servings on my proverbial plate.  The author of the business plan is recommending that I employ the services of a Producer's Rep who can, according to said author, help immensely with procuring distribution outlets both home and abroad, but according to my research, it seems not all Producer's Reps are on the level!  Some of them are greedy, self-serving-con-men-sons-a-bitches!  Imagine that!  Unscrupulous people in the motion picture industry!  And with the advent of non-traditional distribution platforms, many indie-minded opinions I've read suggest you don't need someone else to peddle your film!  You can avoid the pitfalls of going with a Producer's Rep!  You can DIY!  Sell dvd's from your own website!  Make your own deals with digital download companies!  So now I have even more conflicting opinions to sort through before I can make a decision.  But the more I read about the arguments for and against Producer's Reps, the more I keep reading about the second item on my plate - completion bonds.  A completion bond would of course be attractive to an investor involved with the risky business of indie filmmaking.  With a completion bond, the investor is guaranteed the film will be completed - not that it will make money and their investment returned, mind you, but simply that the film will be completed as proposed in the plan.  The problem I have with a completion bond (other than the expense) is the fact that if you happen to fall behind in the schedule, or begin to go over budget, the bond company can fire the Producers and Director and take over the film!  Now, I've spent countless hours putting this package together!  I wrote the script (based on Jean's book) and I broke it down into a detailed shooting schedule with a detailed shot list for every single day, and from that I calculated a detailed budget.  Things always go wrong with productions - there's always obstacles to overcome, and I will be prepared to deal with them.  I will know what scenes or lines of dialog can be replaced or reworked or eliminated in order to pick up time.   I will know where and how to leap-frog from one location to another if we are forced to do so.  No matter what detours in schedule or budget may occur, I will be prepared to improvise, adapt, overcome (thank you, Clint) not some completion bond Director.   This is my baby, and the only way I would give up my own flesh and blood is over my dead body!  Goodness.  I didn't mean to get so carried away.  Tis the season to be jolly, right? Check back after the holidays, after my wife returns from Japan, and things return to normal.  I look forward to the new year - 2013 is the Year of the Movie.

SHE LOVES ME #5 (birth of a salesman)

Goodness - it's been quite awhile, and much life has passed since the last entry.  I don't even know where to begin to pick up the thread.  Well - first of all, the attempt at crowdfunding via Indiegogo did not succeed.  Although it was an interesting experiment, we fell way short of our budgetary needs - I mean way short - by the hundreds of thousands.  I'm certain I followed the guidelines, I just didn't get the response I was hoping for.  Some people - friends, family, business associates - did contribute, and my first inclination was to simply return the money, (even though it was not required,) but as the days passed after the campaign ended, I realized I wasn't quite ready to give up on the whole thing.  I had spent many hours, days, weeks breaking down the script and assembling the production package.  I still believed I had a viable project - a great, colorful story that would make a great indie film - if I could only get the money.  It's always been about the money.  Some people, I suppose, are naturally gifted at acquiring vast sums of money from perfect strangers in order to realize their cinematic dreams, but I am not.  I am not a natural born salesman like my father was - God Rest His Soul.  But I am a damn hard worker, and I know I have the skills to pull this off, so I became determined to find a way to get the money.  I had to go back to the traditional film funding concept of approaching investors, so I turned to the information flow - the cyberspacial conduit to the solution to my challenge.  Many paths and approaches are offered in cyberspace, but they all seem to converge at a singular point - the key to success in attracting investors is to present them with a solid business plan.  During my Indiegogo campaign, I had drawn the attention and support of many friends and associates (and some, as aforementioned, contributed) and one dear old friend mentioned a relation to a man out in Portland, Oregon (coincidentally, the hometown of SHE LOVES ME novel author, Jean Erhardt) who creates business plans for a living.  His name is Jeffrey, and he was gracious enough to give me some advice free of charge.  I kept Jeffrey's contact info in my mental rolodex, and after the paradigm shift in my game plan occurred, and I came to the aforementioned conclusion about the business plan, I went back to him.  As I mentioned, Jeffrey creates business plans for a living, and his services are not inexpensive, and justifiably so.  A solid business plan can make or break the project.  I couldn't think of a more practical use for the money I received from the Indiegogo campaign.  Jeffrey and his assistant have been working on my business plan for several weeks now, and I believe it's close to completion.  After it's received, once again it will be up to me to go out and pound the pavement, and although I'm not a natural born salesman, I will at least have a very effective marketing tool that will help build my confidence as I venture out past my comfort zone.    

SHE LOVES ME NOT #4 (shaky start)

 

Two weeks into the campaign, and my high hopes have been somewhat diminished.  It began inauspiciously when on the day of the launch, and after I had signed up for Facebook, and had been navigating about for an hour or so, I was sent a message informing me that my password had been compromised and my account had been locked.  FB also advised me to change the password if it was being used for any other accounts, and it was - for several.  It took me hours to resolve.  I then realized that the campaign announcement message I had sent to my sphere of friends, family, and colleagues via Facebook and Linkedin was not clear.  I've never been comfortable with the prospect of directly asking people for money for film budgets, so with my initial message, I was trying to lure people into the SHE LOVES ME website where I was hoping they would click on the Indiegogo button, go to the campaign page, learn what "crowdfunding" was all about, and donate, but they didn't.  It was too complicated.  I had to step out of my comfort zone and be more direct with my solicitation.  I sent a second message explaining that I was trying to raise money for a film through Indiegogo, and I included a brief explanation of what Indiegogo is all about, and this time I also included a link to the campaign page.  This seemed to work.  I started getting donations and encouraging messages, and I was thrilled!  The campaign was under way!  The next step was to send out the press release.  Following the advice of an experienced crowdfunder I was following on the internet, I chose PRWeb to distribute the release.  The press release was supposed to be the marketing tool that was to draw the most attention to the project.  So far I haven't received any email or donations from anyone outside of my personal connections, so I'm not sure the press release was all that effective.  What I do know is that after two weeks into the campaign, I find myself way short of the funding goal.  Of course it's still relatively early, and I'm certainly not giving up on it by any means, but I am considering alternate plans.  If I can raise enough money to shoot the first scene of the script - say $15,000 - $20,000 - I will change the format of the project into a webisode series, shoot the first episode, and take it from there.  I've also been open to the idea of switching the project over to an investment scenario.  After a phone conversation on the subject with an old friend of the family who happens to be a successful businessman, that notion became reinforced with his confirmation that an investment scenario would be more appealing to him, as it would be, he surmised, for other people with larger amounts of money available for speculation.  But then I'm back to the dilemma of asking strangers to invest money in a high-risk venture.  Not my forte.  Thank God I have an attorney who is willing to perform that task for me, and I intend to ask him to expand the phone list if things don't work out with the donation scenario.  So although it's been one heck of a learning curve to deal with, and I'm slightly disappointed with the donation numbers at this point, I'm still pumped about the campaign overall, and excited to see how it evolves! 

Mike Bizzarri

http://www.shelovesmefilm.com

      

SHE LOVES ME #3 (the making of a murder mystery)

 Just to give you some idea of the process and bring you up to date:  After weeks of writing the screenplay adaptation, I broke it down into scenes and numbered each scene and each line of dialog.  Each scene was then printed and grouped into its own individual stack of papers and paper-clipped.  I then separated each scene stack by location.  I then went through each scene stack and devised a shot list - establishing shots, wide, medium, tights, cutaways - everything I needed to cover the scene, and within each shot, I also noted what lines of dialog would be covered.  I then went through and (based on my experience, and this is where it gets tricky) tried to estimate how long it would take to shoot each scene.  I then grouped scene stacks together based on my estimate for one 10-hour day of shooting.  I ended up with 35 scene stacks, which translates to 35 days of shooting.  That whole process took several weeks.  (There's probably software that helps expedite the whole process, but I've always performed this task on legal pads and with word processors, and it's just the way I do it.)  From there I started working on the budget - the official AICP spreadsheet.  It has preproduction expenses, location scouting expenses, crew, equipment, talent, post production expenses - everything is categorized and itemized - all you have to do is fill in the blanks.  I was hoping to contain the budget within $200,000, but it quickly blossomed to over $400,000.  O.K. so be it.  The show must go on!  The next step was to obtain an entertainment attorney to help me with the legal stuff.  A friend of mine gave me a reference, I met with the lawyer, and I was very impressed with his expertise and enthusiasm.  Game on.  Then I went to an old friend of mine who works for an Ad Agency.  He agreed to design the website and the title and all the branding, and he did a fantastic job.  I continued with my research into crowdfunding sites and picked up a few tips from people who've already been through it.  I began to expand my network.  I joined Twitter and started Tweeting, and I expanded my LinkedIn connections.  All along I'm adjusting the AICP numbers - trying to be realistic.  I bring my Producer friend Dan on board and he starts making phone calls for me - gathering all the pertinent information - plugging numbers into the AICP.  The next thing to consider was name talent.  Do I want to try to get a "name?"  How much would that cost?  Who might be interested in a little independent film like this?  That consideration prompted me to determine a shooting schedule.  When can I shoot this?  This year?  Next year?  The story occurs during warm months.  If I want to shoot this year, I better hurry.  I need some preproduction time, some rehearsal time, and we need to be done shooting before the fall.  If the leaves start to change, I'm screwed.  (It's a continuity thing.  Of course you realize you don't shoot films in sequential order.  That means if I shoot some exterior scenes in August, and then for some reason we encounter some delays, and I have to shoot into the fall, and the leaves start to change - then the scenes I shot earlier in the year won't match!)  So much to plan!  So many contingencies!  The budget keeps growing!  I move on to the crowdfunding rewards, and this is where it gets very tricky.  I check out some other Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns to get some idea of how to proceed.  I start the list and begin the pricing.  What kind of rewards?  At what donation level?  How much will it cost to produce and ship?  I spent hours on this process because it's so very obviously crucial to the campaign.  And all this is going on in between day jobs here and there and all of my other responsibilities as a husband, father, homeowner, dog owner - yardwork, dogwalking, cooking meals, cleaning the house.  O.K. so it's not brain surgery, rocket science, military service in a war zone, or any other life and death scenario you want to mention, but for me in my own little world it was stressful.  Still is!  (I keep chanting - where there's a will, there's a way!)  Then my research brought me to another critical point.  I had to shoot a promo video!  I sat down and came up with a simple concept - me talking about the project with the murderer lurking in the background.  I wrote the script and figured out a couple of simple shots.  I called my friend Alex (who is booked to shoot the feature) to shoot it on his 5D - a good test for the real deal.  I didn't have time to memorize my own script, so I got another good old friend of mine (Rose) to run teleprompter.  I also needed a knife-wielding murderer for the background, but I came up short.  Finally my younger son agreed to do it in the eleventh hour, and we managed to shoot the promo on a very chilly April evening.  I was ready to start building my campaign page.  As aforementioned, I decided to go with Indiegogo, and I've been working on that ever since.

Mike Bizzarri

http://shelovesmefilm.com 

SHE LOVES ME NOT #2 (crowdfunding solves murder?)

 

So the problem for many people with big ideas is coming up with the money to implement the plan, to build the invention, to stock the merchandise for the business, to get the financing for the film.  For filmmakers you had to find investors willing to take a great risk, and that process is not only daunting in terms of salesmanship, it is also strictly governed by the SEC and it all gets very legally complicated.  I managed to dodge that bullet with my first feature, THE GREATER GOOD, because the concept was designed to dodge that bullet.  The bulk of the story occurs in one interior location - it's a tabletop discussion amongst mafiosi - and it reads like a play.  With two cameras, I was able to cover the entire feature-length script over the course of a long weekend.  I was working for a production company at the time, and they supplied a lot of the camera and lighting gear.  The D.P., and quite a few people from the production community - mostly friends of mine - were also willing to donate a few days of their time and energy.  I bought some donuts and coffee and a few pizzas and we got it done.  No investment required, just a little out-of-pocket stuff. 

SHE LOVES ME is a different story on several levels.  The production is scheduled for 35 days shooting at 17 locations with 13 crew members and 25 cast members and a helicopter and a SWAT team, and I figure I'm going to need about $450,000, which is still very low budget, but quite a chunk of change for me.  I don't happen to have that amount of money just laying around.  So based on the aforementioned funding challenges, why bother? 

 

Because I heard about a new website called Kickstarter.com.  It's a place where creative people go to get funding for their projects, and for people interested in funding projects to donate their money.  DONATE their money - there's the gamechanger right there.  It's not an investment scenario and therefore not subject to the complicated rules of the SEC - at least not yet.  There are high level governmental forces working to get in on the action, but nothing has been implemented yet, so I'm going to try to sneak in before it all gets mucked up.

Now Kickstarter does have a few of its own requirements, as it rightfully should.  People asking for funding are required to set donation levels at various amounts and are to provide rewards for donors based on their level of contribution, and that all gets a bit complicated as well in terms of what kind of rewards to offer and how to expense it.  Kickstarter also takes a cut of the budget, but only if the project reaches its funding goal.  If the project does not reach its funding goal, the project is scrapped and the donors get their money back.  I must admit this caused some concern, because my budget was really high compared to other projects on the site, but I still regarded the whole Kickstarter concept as a wonderful opportunity and my best option to obtain financing.

So then I heard about another "crowdfunding" site called IndieGoGo.  With IndieGoGo, they take a higher percentage of your budget, but you get to keep as much money as you can raise.  This has greater appeal to me, because I've worked so hard on the development of this project that I'd hate to scrap it all in the event that I don't reach my funding goal by a few dollars - which is what could possibly happen with Kickstarter.  Also, even if I don't get the full budget, I'll still be able to make a great film - I'll just have to cut some corners and adapt the production accordingly.  (That is as long as the budget is within reason - I can't do this one based on favors and freebies.)  So my plan is to get the word out about my IndieGoGo campaign, and see if the magic of the internet and its access to the world population will result in getting this movie made!
Mike Bizzarri
http://shelovesmefilm.com    

SHE LOVES ME #1 (the journey of an indie murder mystery)

4/16/12 Blog number one.  First blog ever in my entire life.  (I have actually been Tweeting, so now I have to get used to writing full sentences again!)  And from what I understand about blogging, I'm supposed to make it a little bit more personally revealing.  O.K.  Here we go. 

The purpose of this blog is to record the journey of my attempt to produce a $450,000 independent feature film titled SHE LOVES ME, SHE LOVES ME NOT.  The primary challenges for me at this point are as follows:

A. I don't have any money for the film.
B. I don't have any money to pay anyone to help me with the development of the film, so I'm doing (just about) everything myself.  (I do have a friend who is a producer and he is helping me with some things for which I am greatly appreciative, and a couple of other friends and family members have helped me with a promotional video and some other things as well, but still...)
C. It's a shit-load of work.
D. I'm an aging baby boomer, and a little past prime (but that doesn't really matter because creative people are ageless and their work is timeless - is my current self-help mantra.)
E. I can't quit my day job and devote all my time to this (even though I don't really have a regular day job to begin with) so I'm trying to make a living in between getting the movie together.

So, you may ask, who are you to make such a foolish attempt at so great a task?  I'm just a guy from Cincinnati, Ohio with a passion for films and a dream to make one, that's who.  Actually, another one.  SHE LOVES ME would be my second indie feature.  I produced (,wrote, and directed) my first indie feature a few years ago called THE GREATER GOOD, and it's been a hard act to follow.  I produced it while I was on staff with a local production company, and we were poised to go for another feature when the bottom fell out of the economy in 2008.  The company downsized, I lost my job, and I was back out on the street trying to compete with up-and-coming guys a lot younger than me.  I had to start from scratch and "re-invent" myself as they say, so I started my own company called Westchester Video.  I've been primarily occupied with developing and servicing my clientele, so it's taken me awhile to position myself for an attempt at another feature.  But here I am.  Better late than never!

Fast forward, or - reverse to a few months ago, I'm visiting my friend John, who is a local cinematographer, and he shows me his sister's book titled SHE LOVES ME, SHE LOVES ME NOT.  I knew he had a sister named Jean out in Portland, and he may have told me that she was an author, but I forgot.  So I take the book home and start reading it and I can't stop.  

The story is a murder mystery about Kim Claypoole, a lesbian restaurant owner who also likes to dabble in the hobby of crime-solving.  When Kim returns to her hometown of Fogerty, Ohio to help her mother with a real estate deal, she is informed of a grisly murder that has occurred outside a sleazy nightclub, and her deductive wheels begin to spin.  She hooks up with an old high school friend of hers and together they go snooping around Fogerty for clues.  They encounter a truly colorful cast of characters and a variety of creepy situations as they inadvertently maneuver themselves into a dangerous military conspiracy which attracts the attention of the murderer - a dark, hooded figure who attacks people with a hunting knife.

I'm thinking "this would make a great film" all the way through it.  So I contacted Jean and asked her if she would be interested, and she was.  I adapted her story into a screenplay, emailed it to her for approval, and she signed off on it.  We were in business!  Well not exactly.  You need money to make a movie.  A lot of money.  And I'm not independently wealthy.  But where there's a will, there's a way, and my will is pretty strong.  So for those of you who want to follow the escapades of a slightly eccentric tail-end-of-middle-aged dude from Cincinnati, Ohio try to make a film from scratch, hop on board!  You might learn something!
Mike Bizzarri
http://shelovesmefilm.com