From the Funding Front...

From the funding front…

It’s the only logical way to go, don’t you think?

Step 1) Get idea for short film.
Step 2) Design line of T-shirts.

OK, it’s boggling, I agree, but we all are constantly looking for ways to fund the unfundable. Believe it or not, I think this would be easier if I were making a limited release feature, because at least there, I can make an argument that someone, somewhere will get some of his/her money back. But noooo. I have to make a short film.

Anyways, even though I had a lot of fun penny pinching on “Proposal” (hey, that’s alliterative!) , I made the early decision that “Look Forward” had to be well capitalized. Now don’t get me wrong, the cast and crew for “Proposal” were damn fun to work with, did damn good work and did it for free. I also got some bad-ass sponsorship from my dear friends at (plug) Tokyo Joe’s, Strings Restaurant, The Skylark Lounge, Centex Homes, Educational Sales Management and The Karma Company (Oh, and for Alan’s 48-hour project, Noodles & Co. hooked us up too!). I love you all!

It’s a question of production value. I am sometimes humbled by the work I see coming out of film schools – but then again I’m not. I went to film school – they have equipment! CFS has a freakin’ $62k Fisher – of course they have smooth shots! We scraped together a Matthews Doorway (untracked), some 300W studio hot lamps and mic’d into the camera…the SteadiCam-mounted camera! I considered going back to school just to get my hands on some equipment, but when I thought back on all the forms and ass kissing you had to do, and the limits…grr! It’s a state-funded school, they probably won’t be too pleased with the nude scenes in “Look Forward”.

Anyway, I’m not knocking film school. They rock. I wish I were in a financial position that would allow me to go to undergrad full time (I blew my degree on Marketing). I’m also not knocking the technical aspects of “Proposal” – fact was we had a tight crew. My boy Cris and Alan Dague-Greene, probably the best Steadi-Op in Denver, gave me some sweet shots, and everyone was blown away by the performances (Ah, thank you – years of Theatre directors are calling out to me from the tomb!)…but we could do more. We could do better. I want a proper post that won’t force me to chop up my script. I want real costumes, real makeup. I want decent depth of field without having to set my little HVX200 twenty feet away for a damn MCU. I…I…I…

Kind of selfish, huh?

Well, that’s the me part. But I’ve always said, I think the real gift with filmmaking is not what I, the director, can take from it, but what you can give with it. I recently blasted through Dale Carnegie again, he makes the excellent point that (paraphrasing here) – you need to be genuinely interested in other people. You can’t fake it, you can’t force a smile. If you want people to love you, you have to love them. Hokey, right? Maybe not.

Truth is, I like the people I meet, the people I choose to work with. Granted, I want something from them, and they from me, so professional relationships must come first. But knowing that they are taking something from the film, be it good reel footage (check out Cris and Alan’s reels, they both use “Proposal” footage!), friendships, relationships or even a good time…then the project was a success.

Gotta love people. Gotta respect people. If you don’t respect them, why did you hire them? If you don’t love them, why are you working with them?

And yes, that translates to the audience. It really, really translates to the audience. More on that later.

But back to fundraising…so it was an interesting week. Step one, I decided, when figuring the cost of doing this film properly, was to raise money. I have several different plans I’ve got in motion right now, but the most exciting is FMG. Having spent a couple of years designing for The Karma Company, I realized that for as much as filmmakers love their craft, there really aren’t many good filmmaker t-shirts out there. Oh, sure…there are single-font text prints like “Director”, or “Grips Do It All”. Which are funny, but a little too simple for my tastes. So I bought a bunch of nice clip art and took my own reel of photos and got to work on Filmmaker Gear, my own line of t-shirts for filmmakers, by filmmakers.

Well, it’s been slow going…the first gen Website didn’t really blow me away, and truth be told, Web design is not my specialty…but I’m learning. So I had to scrap that and go back to a blank page. In the meantime, I uploaded the first set of designs to Zazzle. Check out this neat little gallery they gave me!



Well, no sooner had I posted those than one actually sold! C-47’s…guess they use that term all over! Well whoever you are who bought my shirt, THANKS! You’ve out my fundraising drive into the black and I have barely just begun!

Truth be told, this is kind of an experiment…I don’t know what kind of volume to expect from a niche brand like this. Also, I don’t know if I should tell customers why I am doing this. Yes, I want to raise money for my film, but I don’t see why I should have nothing to give back when you contribute…then again, it might cheapen the brand to say “this is a fundraiser”.

The good news is I’ve already received an offer for the copyright on one of the designs. Only sold one shirt as of today, but the site isn’t up yet and I haven’t even begun to promote yet, so I think I’ll hold off.

So check us out if you get the chance…you’ll be feeding hungry filmmakers, and with WGA seeming to have no end, they need it!

(Oh, and the shirts are badass!)