FILM PRODUCER | WRITER | HUSBAND | FATHER
The canvas theory (or “Canvas Strategy”) is a concept Ryan Holiday wrote about in his book Ego is the Enemy. The concept is simple: when you want to work with someone, offer to hold a canvas for them to paint on. You can take that as face value, but it tends to limit you to …
Frustration around traffic – or anything else in life that is out of your control – stems from the difference between your expectations and reality. The higher your expectations of your commute being smooth and traffic free, the more frustrated you will get when it doesn’t work out that way. The longer your commute, the …
Can you actually create demand? Can you inject a desire into another person to the point of taking action, such as buying your art, coming to your show, investing in your movie, or signing you as a client? No. I don’t think you can. You can only respond to demand. That goes for you as …
Come on, you know you’ve googled that before.
I have.
I’ve got a great personal example for you from the last two weeks. Adding it all up, I’m guessing I spent 50+ hours working on rebuilding and relaunching my wife’s photography website from scratch. I mean COMPLETE redesign.
When you’re raising money, you often find yourself doing a lot of waiting. Waiting for an email. A phone call. A text.
It’s freakin’ excruciating.
We spent New Years weekend down in San Diego this year, which happens to be where my trainer/nutritionist of the last 5 months lives and works.
I’ve been raising money to make a movie for the last 18+ months now, and I’ve tried to be methodical and process-driven in my approach, hoping to one day be able to write a post JUST LIKE THIS ONE.
I joined Slated in 2014 after attending a producer breakout session at the American Film Market in early November. The speaker was the co-founder and CEO of slated.com, Steph Paternot.
He was compelling, confident, and it felt like I was hearing the answer to my prayers! They had created a site who’s sole intention was to connect independent producers and filmmakers with financing and distribution.
As we’ve used the site over the last year and a half, I wanted to write about our experience, why our expectations haven’t yet been met, and what I think both the users of the site and those running it could do to make it more valuable.
In around February of this year, my business partner and I at Telekinesis Entertainment set out to do the impossible: raise money to make movies.
Every day for the last 10 months, we failed. It’s a harsh reality. Raising money to make movies is a zero sum game; you either have raised money or you haven’t.
Until this week, that is. We’ve officially succeeded at raising money to make a movie. Here’s a few things I’ve learned along the way in hopes of helping anyone starting out on a similar journey.
A few weeks ago I attended the American Film Market for the second year in a row.
It’s an annual film market where Sales Agents are selling the films they represent to foreign distributors and buyers.
Producers, like myself, will often attend to try and meet with these Sales Agents and find one to represent their films, but it’s also a great place to learn as they have great conferences and workshops centered around every aspect of the filmmaking process.
Here are my notes from the week. Hoping something is useful as you go out to make your own films in the future. To see last years notes, check out this post.