Warning: The Money Hunt to Make Movies has been written after a long night during the holiday season. It rambles and rolls if you stick reading it. Thanks.
The indie movie producers I know are always on the money hunt to make movies. It’s mentally frustrating and emotionally thrilling at the same time. Pitching to film investors gives you a shot of anxious excitement. You believe in the movie and now your job is to get other people to believe in it too. Enough that they put money up to finance your movie based on your pitch and passion to see your creative idea bared to viewers.
The money hunt to make movies will bring you in contact with all sorts of colorful characters from different backgrounds. I once had to pitch to a film investor in an Inland Empire strip club. Pitching with music playing, DJ’s booming voice announcing the next exotic dancer named Heaven or Star and my potential film investor getting VIP room dances was interesting.
Another time I was in a real estate developer’s plush office in Newport Beach with their attorney and it was me sitting across from them in a stuffy conference room. These were two entirely different pitch meetings all together. It was funny to me because I was pitching the exact same entertainment project to two completely different characters.
The film investor I pitched at the strip club passed on the project, but the night was his treat and gave me some cool memories. The real estate developer cut a check to finance part of the total budget and put in me contact with a few other people he thought might be interested. I’ve learned people with money usually like to split risks on entertainment business investments.
I ended up with a few film investors splitting the risk on this reality video venture. This had been my very first money hunt to make movies. I had been shot down by a dozen other movie investors I pitched to. That sense of failure faded when the check cleared and the funds were made available to start production. That’s a producer’s rush. Now I knew this was going to be the first of many money hunts to make movies.
Slice of Americana Films has wrapped Psoro with U.K. based LiarDice Films and Graphic Delusions. Psoro is currently in post-production under the creative eye of director Wayne Daniells. This transcontinental indie film venture has been an amazing experience for me.
Not just the part of making a movie with some talented U.K. creative souls, but filmmaker Wayne Danielles and I have forged a new friendship that will have us working on projects in the U.K. and here in the U.S.
Psoro also brought me in contact with Albanian Loco Gjergji Cicani who oversaw filming of a scene in Albania for the production. If Slice of Americana Films has a project shooting in the summer of 2012 “ALGC” has a job on the production crew when he visits the Southern California.
Now Slice of Americana Films coproducer and business partner Tim “Timbo” Beachum and I are shifting money around to finance our next indie movie. This is one of the rare times as indie filmmakers we’re not the money hunt to make movies. Through the kindness of the universe we have money in-house to fund our next project without outside film investors.
Making movies and producing entertainment is highly addictive. It’s a big gamble when it comes to spending money to make money off the creative sweat you have to put in from script to post-production.
Slice of Americana Films has a locked script and secured locations for our next feature film that will be shot in West Virginia. The movie budget is very lean like most indie produced projects. Timbo has family and friends that will make each production dollar spend bigger.
The only hiccup is I want to take part of the movie budget to make an erotic cinema title. The reason being is financially the turn around on seeing money from a movie is slower than say a reality video or erotic title.
Reality series America’s Wildest Bachelor Parties was filmed in a few days and Fantasy Striptease Private Shows was filmed in two days. They both made real money relatively fast once we got out of post-production that did take a few weeks.
I’m telling Timbo I think we shoot an erotic cinema title first, sell it and add the profit to the movie budget for the West Virginia shoot.
Getting feedback from other indie film producers nowadays movie distributors want a name attached to a movie. I’m thinking with added erotica film cash infusion we hire an actor with some kind of name that movie distributors that release indie cinema like.
Time for a little bit of hair of the dog. V8 Juice, Miller Lite and lemon juice to bite back what bit me last night on my travels.
On the last two features Slice of Americana Films shot in the Inland Empire we had great grassroots support from Ruben “Smiles” Navarro, who is like a brother to me, and Big Mike Guerrero, Oscar “KEO” Vargas, Liquid Smoke, Shilo Sutton and other really good friends that helped save production money by lending a hand for free and opening up locations.
One of the key producers of Consignment and In with Thieves is Steve Rusich who runs Triple Crown Fighter and is part owner of Valley Auto Center with his brothers. Steve has been a big supporter of the Inland Empire film scene (funny as it sounds to LA based filmmakers, there is one growing out here). Slice of Americana Films greatly appreciated him stepping up to help us.
His house was used as the production office and provided a great location with a killer view overlooking the Inland Empire. Opening up your home to a film crew is never easy, but Steve smiled and let us get the movie done without a complaint.
Fight Management and Contract Negotiations
TCF aggressively seeks to keep its athletes busy fighting. Utilizing relationships with MMA and Kickboxing promoters from all around the world TCF constantly books its fighters in top promotions from US, Canada, Europe and Asia.
Upon securing a fight, TCF will take care of all aspects of negotiations and finalize contract to our athlete’s acceptance.
TCF is with our athletes along the way from travel arrangements, to medical requirements to licensing and other logistics TCF will take care of all fight related tasks to make sure that our athletes can concentrate on nothing but fighting.
Marketing & Endorsements
TCF has developed great relationships with companies interested in sponsoring MMA athletes. TCF will work diligently to maximize our athlete’s sponsorship revenues.
Media & Public Relations
TCF not only advises our athletes on Media and PR strategies but also creates many Media and PR opportunities for its athletes through national interviews as well as appearances and signings.
Seminars
TCF has great connections with marital arts schools and studios all around the world. We have organized training seminars for many of our athletes further maximizing their income potential in non-fight related affairs.
Whenever you can shoot where you have close friends and family you’re production dollars will stretch. This is indie filmmaker Sid Kali typing FADE OUT
