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
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