Act Two - Heartbreak Hill.

Today we continue Act Two of our little movie venture. 

Wait! What was Act One? 

Alfred Hitchcock,  when asked what makes up a good story said, "It has a beginning and a middle and an end." Now, in an era where there are at least two hundred books on screenwriting including a dog's version, is Mr. Hitchcock simplifying it too much?  Don't we need the plot points or the inciting incident, or my favorite "the character arc". Don't we need to take expensive courses from teachers who more often than not have EVER SOLD A SCREENPLAY!

Because I think Mr. Hitchcock knew more about story and structure than any of those self-appointed experts, I used his simple formula when I taught extension classes in screenwriting at UCLA. 

Act One is where you set up the story. You introduce the main characters and the situation and some obstacles in their way.  This was back in August, when I introduced Shirley and myself to all of you, then began to explain the situation; we are going to try to make a movie and we're going to let you see exactly how we do it.

Then I introduced the obstacle. In Die Hard, Bruce Willis suddenly faced terrorists who held his wife and her whole office hostage. In Juno, she discovered she was pregnant. In Star Wars, Darth Vader was introduced.

For me it was... the Budget.

I don't have $900,000 US in my bank.  I don't know anyone who has $900,000 in their bank either. In fact all of my friends put together don't have $900,000 in their banks, mattresses or socks. Maybe I need new friends.

There you have it -- Act One.

Act Two, the middle, in writing, is always the hardest act to write. Because somewhere around Page 50-60, you reach the Heartbreak Hill of screenwriting. Act One is easy, Act Three is just resolving what you set up in Act One.

But Act Two is a mother... because you can't keep the same idea and hold an audience as no idea is that good. Well, maybe now and then, but very rare. And that's where you've been for the last five months. Shirley and I produced the proposal and I began sending it around by email and postage as well as emailing and calling everyone on my list to help me find money.

We had a good start with a strong indication of at least $400,000 based on the premise I find the first $500,000. Very few producers get that kind of commitment from the get-go. But now it seems to be unsteady.

I have continued to contact people and court the ones who have an interest and look for references to other potential money. Some weeks were good, some were just downright bleak. It was up and down and sometimes more down, until we finally reached Heartbreak Hill, that place in marathon runners' minds when many simply give up.

But I had been prepared for Heartbreak Hill.

Part 2 of Act Two came in the form of the American Film Market.  AFM.

Because I was waiting for it to come along to give us the momentum to continue after Heartbreak Hill. And it did. Now I can introduce TD to at least 50 potential investors and or distributors and even maybe even presales. It's not easy, but it sure hasn't been easy up to now, and it's never easy.

Take into consideration that many producers look for money for years, my own Emperor of Mars project has been around for 20 years!  Dustin Hoffman's D-boy told me Hoffman had a project that he wanted to do for 15 years and it still hasn't been made. Juno was around for a couple of years before someone made it. There are countless stories of projects taking years at every level of this business, from A-List to Z-List.

We went this far in 6 months.

Not that I'm bragging. Anything but bragging. It was a combination of luck, timing, 2 Academy nominated actresses and meeting Shirley.  All three of these women wanted to make my screenplay. This is a package. Much better than me running around with a script in my hand and nothing else. You need validation and I sure the hell had it. Enough to encourage me to go ahead.

So now we crest on the hill, and look ahead to where another hill looms. But we have help. The Manitoba producer Dane is beginning to bring his participation in, another money source has appeared, and we move ahead again towards Act Three. Then we have that Christmas thing where everyone goes to Aspen.

Well, some of them go to Aspen.

I go to Swan River, Manitoba. Who needs Aspen when there's a Tim Horton's less than a block away from my mom's house.  And I'm stopping by in Winnipeg to see the Manitoba guy, Dane, and Rachel, the Eh Channel exec.  I get back in early January as does Shirley from NYC (which has considerably more stoplights than Swan River's 5) and we start looking at preproduction if all works out.


And moving towards a February 2010 start date for filming.

God willing and the river don't rise.

Blog 13: Financing the movie, where do you start?

You're looking at the cover of our proposal for Travel Day. It's also called a business plan as well as an investment circular, or a private offering. Some of these names require legal work, some don't but they're all the same thing...

A plea for money. 

Now that Shirley and I survived through the script notes and changes we now have to figure out how someone will give us nearly a million dollars to make Travel Day.  But first, a recommendation to anyone who tries this. 

Find someone to help you. 

It can be a lawyer or a friend, anyone who will be committed to the cause,  someone you trust and have faith in because they're gonna need it. In my case it was Shirley. Between us we had a writer, a producer,  a director, a graphic artist,  web techie, savvy movie software techie and many more incarnations.

And that's just between the two of us. Multiple talents come in handy when you have little money and big ambitions.

From the very beginning, Shirley and I decided we would be partners on this project. Whatever we do, it has to be approved by both of us, at least to the extent that we are still working alone. Once financing partners come in, it'll be a little harder, but we will remain partners on every decision we have to make.  It will be tested in the days and months to come, we both know that.

I have tried several times to get a film going with producers, but most of them fell out for one reason or another. Some producers make 5 or 6 calls and get rejected and drop the project, other producers make 20 calls and get nowhere.  And then there's the producer who doesn't quit until they get a positive call, or even a possibly positive call. 

That's the one you need to be, or need to find. If a producer has a day job, forget it, he or she doesn't need to find money, they get a paycheck every week.  And stay away from the big talkers with their 5-picture deals and promises to have the money in a month. Usually they've had a revolving table of scripts over a period of 20 years.

You need someone who's hungry, either for money or because they  want to make a movie they think will change the world. This isn't for  part-timers or slackers.

As you can imagine, it's a lonely job, as lonely as writing the screenplay.  As my friend, director Paul Lynch says, "what you want is a guy with a pocket full of quarters and a rolodex". Translation for the digital agers: Someone who has  names and phone numbers. I have been around long enough to know some of those guys with quarters in their pockets and who lament the loss of payphones. They were characters, some still exist, some of them still try to raise money for my other scripts.  But I'm not holding my breath. 

And that's why Shirley and I are partners, because from the beginning we both believed we could do what we said we could. Well, on the best days - don't approach me on a bad day. Seriously, if you want to get money for a movie from strangers, you have to dedicate yourself to the job, take the rejections, take the hang-ups and unreturned emails and just keep at it. We help each other and we push each other. Shirley can ask 5 questions in a minute and it keeps me on my feet, an answer to her is an answer to an investor. 

You need someone to believe in you because if you don't, it isn't going to be fun. And it has to be honest, you don't partner with someone who does what you do, you partner with someone who does things you can't or won't do. Besides screenwriting, directing, producing and camera work, I can do budgets and schedules on standard movie industry software like MM Budgeting and MM Scheduling. And I can come pretty damn close to a final budget. Even up to the muffins.

Hey, Mick Jagger counts the jelly beans backstage! 

Through the years I managed to learn how to write a proposal as good as anyone.  This includes business plans, proposals and even private offering prospectuses that passed the Securities Commission.  

Shirley brings an strong artistic quality to our work as well as computer expertise beyond mine.  She brought this blog into being instantly and then added elements I suggested.  We both laid out the pages of the proposal, incorporating the images with my text and her images in two versions, one hard copy for handout and one pdf  for email. And they were updated 7 times to date.  And she also has created, directed, filmed and edited short films that are festival quality. 

That's why I stress having someone who complements you (not compliments), someone who fills in for the things you can't do as well as you can fill in for them for the things they can't do. 

Belief in yourself is one thing, but others believing in you makes a commitment practically signed in blood.

And we haven't even started the proposal. Stay with us.


(next: Proposal Part 2: What's in the proposal?)