Posts tagged "Sid Kali"

The Underbelly of Indie Movie Production, Exotic Dancers and Hard Money Lenders

The Underbelly of Indie Movie Production, Exotic Dancers and Hard Money Lenders

The underbelly of indie movie production in my experience is unavoidable unless you’re making and distributing movies in a bubble as an independent wealthy indie film producer, or funding a movie through donations of outstanding film fans that support the spirit of indie cinema.

A toast to those film fans that support indie movie production through crowd funding. Many entertaining indie movies would not be made without that kind support. It’s awesome!

The Underbelly of Indie Movie Production, Exotic Dancers and Hard Money Lenders

Making indie movies with film investor money is not clean and neat where people always behave kindly or honestly, at least from my own filmmaking experiences. I’ve dealt with the underbelly of indie movie production.

I’m completely removing the creative side of producing entertainment. From time to time I get nasty emails from people that don’t like that I stress the business side of producing indie entertainment as much as the creative side.

I feel you can’t have one without the other unless you’re producing movies for free and giving your work away for free. That’s a film post for another day on indie movie production.

My first experience dealing with the underbelly of indie movie production was hitting up investors for production money. Most indie movie producers don’t have access to money from established production companies and producers.

It’s a tight money circle most people are shut out from when it comes to securing indie movie production money. That’s a big reason for the explosion of crowd funded indie movies. It’s easier to get a donation nowadays compared to getting film investor money.

It’s becoming clearer to indie movie producers that finding money to produce entertainment is getting harder and harder. It’s too risky an investment for people that want a rate of return. Indie movie production is really not fueled to feed the hunger of money investors.

When I was starting out my background was industrial and corporate videos. I had a tiny small no frills office in the sticks of the Inland Empire.

My partners and I had one room with an editing suite, one room with a couch and desk and reception area with no receptionist.

The clients and people we dealt with had ZERO interest in financing indie movie productions. I had a screenplay I was itching to make. Industrial and corporate videos were killing me mentally.

I did what a few filmmaking books told me to do. I contacted production companies to see if I could submit my screenplay for production consideration.

I sent out lots of requests using the contact info in The Hollywood Creative Directory and only got a few invites to submit the screenplay. Two biggest chances were Andrew Stevens Entertainment and Steven Seagal’s  Steamroller Productions (name at the time I think).

The screenplay gets passed on and film investors are not banging down my door to produce this indie driven action story. I don’t want to sit on my hands, so a friend tells me he knows a group of guys that have money to spend.

They’re pissing away money at strip clubs, casinos and generally acting like money is meant to be spent fast as it’s made. I’ve been around a little in life and knew I was going into the underbelly of indie movie production.

My friend takes them hard copies of the screenplay, simple top-sheet budget and we set a meet for a week later.

Straight out of a Slice of Americana I meet this group of potential movie investors at their office. They’re nothing like the free-spending party animals my friend described he had partied with.

They were serious faced and not very friendly people. I’m sitting in an office in the underbelly of indie movie production smiling with hat in hand to get my movie funded.

A nervous smile at best is what I had on my face. My mind was racing and heart pounding because I want to get money to make a movie so damn bad.

I have never pitched for film financing in person before and was green. These guys were as far removed a money source from the entertainment business as you could get.

I didn’t ask what their business was and didn’t want to know and they didn’t have business cards or a name on their office door. All they gave me were their first names.

I was in a shabby industrial park office that was too stuffy and smelled old. Last place I thought I would be looking for indie movie production cash to bankroll a project.

The king of the room turned out to be a guy from Russia who had been in United States for 5 years. The rest of the group was born in the United States. The shot-caller flipped the script on me.

I thought I was in the underbelly of the indie movie production to get money from film investors not to get pitched a hard money loan. It was like a fly in a spider’s web type of situation. I did have to smile seeing how they tried to do it smooth.

I was proposing the normal no guarantee that they would see a return on their money, if the movie made money they would get their film investment back first before I ever made a dollar.

Then they would get a certain percent of any profits I would get. I thought I made a fair offer since I would not a make a single dime until I had paid back the original movie budget.

The guy controlling the room basically pissed on my film financing pitch. Funding an indie movie production was too risky with not enough profit. He called indie movies, “foolish spending of money” or something like that.

Or maybe he was just calling me a fool in his own way. Years have passed since the meeting, but I still remember it because you never forget your first film financing meeting.

The reason for the meeting wasn’t about the movie like I thought, but to get me on the line for a hard money loan.

I was offered a hard money loan without a credit check. My friend’s endorsement was enough for them. Hard money loans can work in real estate development, but for indie films it doesn’t in my opinion.

You’re on the hook for the principal money borrowed at super high interest. Lenders like these expect to be paid back in full and not with excuses. They’re not loan sharks, but legally close as the United States law will allow.

No way that I was going to take a hard money loan to produce an indie movie from these people. But hearing this let me know they did have money and weren’t puffers.

Remembering what my friend said about these guys I decided to pass on the hard money loan and pitch them a racy reality program that had exotic dancers and nudity I wanted to produce called “America’s Wildest Bachelor Parties.”

(Quick update: America’s Wildest Bachelor Parties 2 is in post production for a Summer release on PPV. It’s hot and funny!)

The mood in the room changed when I was done telling them about the project and how much I think it would cost to make. It got less tense and these guys lightened up. They liked what I said.

We ended up going to a dive bar in the area and they agreed to invest money in “America’s Wildest Bachelor Parties” with the deal points I had pitched for the indie movie they shot down.

The only problem I had was not having connections to exotic dancers. The casting for “America’s Wildest Bachelor Parties” took me deeper into the underbelly of indie movie production.

I wanted to keep my money backers as far removed from production as possible, so when they told me they could handle the casting of exotic dancers I said thanks, but no thanks I would handle it.

I met some very shady talent managers that represented exotic dancers willing to appear on camera in this realty program. It’s harder to get exotic dancers to agree to sign a release form to appear on camera than you might expect.

One talent manager I met with at his office for a casting call gave me the creeps right off the rip. I’m not a prude and am not against nudity in entertainment as my movies show on Mr. Skin. But something about the guy just made me feel uneasy.

His total control over talent was odd to me. He carried himself very professional in a slick office that was nice, but two women talked to me privately they wanted to cut a side deal with me outside of him.

That’s not my way of doing business. It told me there was something funny going on with this talent agency. Casting went well as far as talent that auditioned.

He definitely represented many beautiful exotic dancers comfortable appearing on camera nude and signing a release form and nudity rider.

I knew a big chunk of the production budget would be dedicated to hiring exotic dancers that viewers would love. I was going to pay top-dollar to get the best talent the budget could afford.

In the back of my mind I already knew through a friend we had a meeting set with Playboy TV when the program was done. They were interested in turning “America’s Wildest Bachelor Parties” into a series.

I wanted to make sure we had quality talent that would appeal to Playboy TV.

After we had it done we were slated to meet with Eric Deutsch, Vice President of Production, Playboy TV. I think he left Playboy to go with Girl’s Gone Wild. Really cool guy that knows his business. I learned at that meeting.

(Quick update: At meeting we wanted to keep “America’s Wildest Bachelor Parties” funny with only nudity. Playboy TV wanted it more hardcore with on camera sex. No deal could be made.)

Let’s shoot back to the talent manager meeting. We were negotiating where I would pay his talent agency a flat fee for 8 exotic dancers represented by him to appear in “America’s Wildest Bachelor Parties.”

Then he got shady, power hungry and greedy on me. He wanted to be added as a producer for an additional fee and be at all the bachelor parties we were going to film. Deal breaker.

He wanted too much control for being a talent manager. He over played his hand just because he was in control of the on camera talent appearing. He even tried to strong-arm me a little bit with veiled threats about he’s not to be screwed with.

He got more worked up about how I wasted his time and he wanted a fee to be paid for the casting right now.

I’m not going to go into details what I said politely, but after we spoke honestly we both understood I was not going to pay any type casting fee he made up out of thin air to hustle me. It was a bad experience for sure I will never forget.

I closed the book on his talent agency and moved on. Luckily I ended up meeting a fitness model on my casting journey that liked that “America’s Wildest Bachelor Parties” was going to be funny with nudity and not hardcore.

She brought a girlfriend of hers to the first shoot and they had a blast. The bachelor party was fun. Word of mouth spread that we paid cash on the set and everything was ran professional. No games or bullshit.

We treated talent with respect in a safe environment. I started getting contacted by other models, exotic dancers and porn actresses wanting to appear in the series. You treat people right and good things happen.

I met some really cool people that had vibrant personalities and kind spirits. Narrow thinking about people that are comfortable in their own skin to get nude on camera I will never understand.

We finished “America’s Wildest Bachelor Parties” and secured a distribution deal with a company that was also releasing Girl’s Gone Wild videos, so it was a good fit.

Things were looking up, but dealing with the underbelly of indie movie production is always a fight. My investors kind of came at me hard about money. They didn’t like that distribution companies only pay producers quarterly.

They wanted me to start paying out of my pocket until our first royalty payment came. They also wanted to own a piece of the entire “America’s Wildest Bachelor Parties” franchise series.

I was specific in the contract we signed this was a one-time investment for them. That I would legally own the rights to the “America’s Wildest Bachelor Parties” name and all future programs related to it.

I knew the program was going to make money, but they had no patience to deal with being paid quarterly. I had to cut myself free from these investors or we end up in some kind of problem. Even though this was a reality TV style program I approached like an indie movie production on camera and off.

Then the situation changed for no apparent reason. I get a call inviting me to go with them to a Sam’s Hofbrau on 1751 E. Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles, CA. I left address in here because it reminded of a Slice of Americana type of place you would like.

Dodgers were playing that night and we ended buying tickets from one of the scalpers. After that night we weren’t friends, but were more social. Russian investor agreed to relax until we got paid from the film distributor.

They were going to stick to our original deal and “America’s Wildest Bachelor Parties” was to remain mine. I would love this to be a happy ending, but at the end of it the film investors made more than I did off the release.

The video sold really well and royalty payments were good, but even the accountant who was doing my taxes said everyone else is making more than you from this.

Turned out I gave away too high of a percentage to my investors. I should have known better. Their rate of return was damn good on their money. So good they wanted to do it again, but I said no go.

After the distributor took their cut and film investors took their cut I was left with what was left on the plate. I was green back then and too eager to get financing to produce something. So, I gave away too much to get the money.

It stung to go the bank with healthy royalty payment checks and then have to see lots of it gobbled up by my investors. It’s never easy, but you have to honor your agreements.

The bright side is I would never have been able to produce “America’s Wildest Bachelor Parties” without visiting the underbelly of indie movie production.

I did take the money I did make from the program to help launch Slice of Americana Films and set the stage for the movies we have produced and sold since.

I look at experiencing the underbelly of indie movie production as a creative and business blessing. This is indie filmmaker Sid Kali typing FADE TO BLACK