Still interested

So far - so good.  The potential Manitoba producer, Dane, and I have spoken.  He does exist, he is real. He has a relatively new company in Manitoba and has several movies to his credit, some are Canadian and as such, rarely ever seen beyond a domestic release and a few service jobs by which a lot of Canadian producers survive by. 

These are similar to what TD could be, but more emphasis on the service as usually the movies, primarily American, have their full budget going in. Unlike me, who will have partial funding with my side bringing in 50% or so, maybe a little more and Dane coming in with 40% which includes tax credits and equity, as explained in the October 15th post.  

We had a good conversation and I reminded him that I was born and raised till the age of 12 in Manitoba and spend a lot of time there now, knowing Winnipeg quite well, having friends and cousins. 

I also wrote and worked on three movies there in 1998 with producer Steve White, one of the best producers I've ever worked with. Two of the scripts were mine, the Roswell Project (later named Roswell- Aliens Attack,( definitely not my title) and a remake of a movie I had made 12 years before which was dreadfully bad, but the new one was a little better, called Dream House, a science fiction thriller.

Dane sent me a preliminary budget, much more basic than mine (which you can see by viewing our proposal available under the Materials box) and included the potential tax credits. Out of a $1.1 cdn budget.  It's tied to the exchange rate and at present, the US dollar is taking a slam, resulting in the Canadian budget lowering.

I'm hoping that the the US dollar picks up after the first of the year and that the Canadian dollar lowers to a respectable 10-12% rate. This exchange rate can make it easier or harder for us to make our movie in Winnipeg. I offer my thoughts and then email his budget back and we decide to talk again in a week. 

Things here in LA however, seem to be less stable than before. my initial Investor who would commit the 2nd half of the budget once I found the first half, does not answer my emails. This isn't the first time as those of you who follow this blog know. He could be waiting for the actual finalization of Dane's commitment. This is normal in these partnership investments. Basically, nobody wants to dive into the pool first.  And everyone wants to see just what I can do on my own. 

It's a test.

So what do I did I do on my own?

I reached out to at least 100 different people and companies. Most of course passed, about 15 were interested and of them, 5 were interested enough to consider doing business. But I am not stopping there. While it looks good at the moment, I don't like surprises, as Initial Investor deciding on not carrying through his earlier investment. And not because of the project, but maybe he's stretched himself too far on other projects or a hundred other reasons, none of which I know. 

And all of this work is basically for free, as I am not taking a producer fee, probably a "deferred" fee, or as we in the film business call it "nothing".  Deferments are common in the film industry where the budget is so low that taking a fee would hurt the production. And since I am taking a Writer's Guild Minimum fee for low budget films, approximatly $42,000, I am one of the top money earners on our low budget of $900k US. 

So just when I think we have a good chance at getting all the money, one of our pieces seems to be falling out and I continue to search for investors. Do I know this for sure? No, but that's no reason to sit back and wait.  

AFM (American Film Market) is approaching,  1st week of November in Santa Monica. It's where distributors who buy and sell meet at a hotel on the beach and wine and dine and every room is taken up by companies as big as Paramount and Universal taking huge suites down to tiny foreign distributors in single rooms plastered with horror films and copies of American action films with Michael Madsen in them. 

Shirley and I are preparing some material to hand out to these people although I really don't like going there, it's like being at a meat convention, with movies reduced to their lowest common denominator.

But they also can help fund our movie.

"I am interested..."

 
It was an email that read simply:      

"I am interested and I would estimate we can provide through the Manitoba tax credits, and equity programs, approx 40% plus of the budget.  If you like, we can talk early next week and go the details. "

Short and sweet as they say.  Seconds before the email appeared I saw the sender's name and realized it was one of the Canadian producers who might be considering working with us.  My first feeling was that it was good. But my skepticism crept in. 

He's passing.

But something told me different.  Most companies don't bother to tell you they're passing on your project these days, they just stop communicating.  Maybe he was one of the nice ones who still has some class and wanted to tell you in person that he is passing.  I clicked on the email and as it opened I scanned the sentences for one good word, it took all of 2 seconds. 

"I am interested."

 That's all I needed, and I reread it to get the entire message.  Then I read it a third time.  We did it.  Shirley and I did it. 

We have a movie. 

With Manitoba's minimum of 40% and our initial investor's 50% it suddenly became a reality. I waited for awhile before I would tell Shirley, I wanted to be absolutely certain of what he was saying.  I remembered that Rachel the movie channel exec (Eh Channel)  had asked the producer to look at my screenplay.  I sent a package of both the proposal and the screenplay as I have done to at least 50 other people of whom some never responded and some liked it but weren't interested and some just weren't interested.  Now we had someone who was. 

I knew what he would be doing, using tax credits in Manitoba which can be as high as 65% tax credit on labor from Manitoba.  For every crewmember, actor, driver, caterer, virtually everyone  except Shirley and an American actor, we got back 65 cents on the dollar. 

I think I must have read that message a half dozen times, putting different interpretations ton it, stepping away and walking outside my place, then back again. I knew where he would get his equity, it would come from one or more of those various private and government funding agencies that abound in Canada.  I took an early lunch at Carney's, a railroad car where I would celebrate minor victories with a split &  grilled red hot and a side of chili fries, best in the valley. 

Remember one of my rules;  reward yourself often.


This changed everything. We now, in theory, had the budget for Travel Day.  And if the exchange rate favored the U.S., it could conceivably mean our American money would be worth maybe 14 cents more on the dollar.  Which meant that $400,000 US would be worth $464,000, almost half a million if the U.S. dollar doesn't fall anymore.  

If we still had that $400k.

After my excitement died down I began to analyze exactly where we were.  On paper it looked damn good.  But I had emailed my $400k man a few weeks ago and he had not returned our email. My friend who knows him said he sometimes does that.  Privately it worried me.  I never told Shirley or anyone.  I fell into that mode of "better no news than bad news" when it came to the $400k man.   I re-read his email, particularly one phrase;  "I can probably find the rest". 

What did that imply; will he do it? 
Will he consider it? Is he going to DO IT??

You're probably wondering why I so quickly left behind the good news to dwell more on the possibility of bad news.  Well, I'm not one to play with pop psychology and thinking positive or visualizing my goals, I'm a realist mixed in with a dreamer and an eternal optimist, although sometimes I use pessimism as a cover for optimism. Expect the worst and you won't be disappointed.


I majored in Psychology (encouraged by the lovely Crystal, a grad student four years older than me)  at Henry Ford College and was set to transfer to U. of Detroit.  But I dropped out and into the world of television but always joked that I knew enough about psychology to tell everyone else what their problem was.  So while everything sounded spectacular, there was just one hitch...

One word: experience. 

This is almost exactly what happened with my producer on Emperor of Mars after nearly one year of waiting to fund that movie for $5 million.  Since I was writer and director I was not directly involved in the financing of Emperor.  Like Shirley is now, I was the one who waited for the good news that we have our funding.  We had a similar deal, the majority would come from the U.S. and the balance would come from tax incentives in Alberta (Alberta is the only province to call it's credits "incentives" as it's the most American of provinces and refuses to use the word "tax" anything.)

And the funding came close until, and this is something I can only speculate on, the U.S money fell out.  And the previous year Emperor was nearly funded when the financing fell through again. In fact, Emperor had been the victim of 4 attempts;  one with an Academy winning director and three times with me.  And none of those had any involvement in the funding stage from me.  That's one of the reasons why I am producing Travel Day. 

Because I want to know everything that happens on this movie. 

Every detail from the proposal on to the release.  Now I was somewhat in the same position, except this time I was the producer,  I was the one who knew what was going on, hopefully to do what needed to be done and finally, to get this movie made.  Sensing a backup plan, I had already contacted several other potential investors and Hank, the presales producer who could presell to Italy and France, which could make up the difference. 

But at the end of the day, I was going to relax in the comfort of acceptance.  And I would definitely call Manitoba next week.  I called Shirley to tell her rather than email it.  She was totally excited and said she had a feeling we would be doing this in Canada.  And it took us less than 3 months to get here. But I didn't feel we were there yet,  that there is still a lot of work to make everything go right and that there will be bumps ahead. Big ones.

Regardless, it was a good day for us.