Thursday, April 16, 2009

Screenwriting Contest


On a whim, I decided to throw my hat in the ring on an upcoming screenwriting contest, along with my partners over at Brothers' Ink. This should be interesting. The contest is in two phases: Round One goes from April 17- 25 and the winners of that round are chosen to compete in a Second Round starting in June. I've never participated in a writing contest, so this should be interesting to say the least...of course I've already said that.
More to come.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

INVESTING SERIES - #1 Financing Movies

At the start of this blog, I mentioned I would cover a variety of topics including screenwriting, producing and investing. This is the first in a series of topics on financing and investing in movies.

The Gist
Filmmaking is only made possible by those that invest in it. As a filmmaker, I can tell you, I'm really in the fundraising business. Investing in film can be fun and exciting, profitable, and simple...not always easy. There are so many ways to structure a project or package that it could make your head spin. I'll keep this pretty simple to start with.

Investing in film can be just like investing in any other product, security, commodity, or private investment. There are rules involved with those that want to invest. So, you can't just start asking everyone out there to invest in your film. Since there are rules and regulations, you need to consult an attorney (preferrably an ENTERTAINMENT attorney). A good Attorney will make your life a lot easier by helping you set up all of the forms (see PPM) needed to register your investment. The following are a (short) list of the essentials in any investor packet:

PPM
What is it? PPM stands for Private Placement Memorandum and it will be your friend when you are talking with potential investors.

Business Plan or Prospectus
The Business Plan is just as important as the PPM to help get your investors. Fact is, the PPM has all of the legal mumbo jumbo, while the Biz Plan has all the glitz and glam of a marketing slick. That's the intent. You want them to want to invest in you and your film....so you add all the frills such as the projections of the film, comparables of other films like yours, your marketing strategy, and a cashflow projection (how you'll spend their money).

There is a lot more involved in this, but I won't go into it just yet. Check back soon for the next post.




"MOVING DAY" COLOR CONTEST




We put together a contest for those that got a MOVING DAY "Chair" at last week's Phx Film Festival (right). This figurine is the first marketing piece we've created for the film. The contest is for people to paint their chair, take 3 photos of it, and email back to us at contest@karmacreek.com.




Here's an example from one of our resident artists, Duane (left), just to get the motors running.



Below is another example from one of my partners in crime at Brothers' Ink, Adam Devaney. He took a stab at this, and here's what he came up with:

So, now it's your turn to come up with something special. The winner gets a very special reward. Stay tuned for more details.








Tuesday, April 7, 2009

2009 Phoenix Film Festival Recap


Well, the '09 PFF is in the books and I have to say that this year's festival was not that good. This year, more than ever, it seemed disorganized, frenzied, and lacking in a lot of areas. With that, I place the blame for the slide in quality squarely on the Festival Directors. For starters, this year, there seemed to be less space allocated for the fest. They got rid of what I thought was the gem of this Festival, and what seperated it from a lot of those "wannabe" festivals, and that's the tent. They settled on a "Party Lounge" across the parking lot. It was loud, cramped, and lacked a lot of seats. Finally, it seemed that they were more interested in keeping their sponsors happy than the festival goers.
They also missed the boat on bringing in top flight talent. They need a real shot in the arm that only an A-lister (or a high B-lister) can bring. Not that I didn't appreciate the talent that did show up. They brought in funnyman Bill Engval, Lisa Simpson (Yeardley Smith), and Virginia Madsen. Sadly, though, that's just not enough to elevate the PFF to an elite Film Festival. So I implore Chris and Jason to "bring it" next year, so the PFF doesn't continue it's slide into obscurity.