José Eugenio Gómez Rodríguez via Compfight
Getting a film project off the ground is an ambitious task, unless you are fabulously wealthy or a Hollywood studio. Since neither of those descriptions apply to us, we have spent a lot of time trying to figure out what it will take to make it happen.
Of course the first thing you need is an excellent script. We are very lucky that our talented writer Mark is on the production team, and he has delivered a very shootable and gripping script. And we’re also lucky that because Mark is one of our producers, we didn’t have to pay him a small fortune upfront.
But it comes down to more than just luck. Most treatises on filmmaking advise you to put the majority of your effort into your script, because it’s something that’s under your control. We’re there. We have. It was no simple feat, but it’s already done. And the experts agree that a great script (not just a good one) is one of the biggest deciding factors in the success of your film.
From there, however, it gets really tricky. We need three things to make the film happen:
Money – The backers, the brave and smart people who assume a significant part of the risk, and have the greatest potential rewards.
A star – The name, the charisma, the personality who has a loyal following and will generate enough interest that people flock to the theatres.
A distributor – The company with the connections, the entity that gets the film in theatres across the country, and around the world.
Simple, right? Yes and no. Everything triggers everything else. A star won’t look at the script until there’s money, investors won’t commit until there’s a star and the distributor won’t answer our calls until there is a star and money.
Bit of a chicken/egg situation, in a sense.
So here we are, trying to create the perfect storm. With investors, a star and a distributor, this great story can be shared with the world. Each of the ingredients requires the other ingredients to be present first. How do you get all three things to the table? How do you combine all the ingredients to make the magic happen?
No problem, you just have to make everything happen at once. And that’s what we’re doing. As you can imagine we’ve been a bit busy…
The clouds are gathering…