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Hey Paul,

 

That's the guy I met with the old VistaVision camera and projector movements. He told me he paid 80k to have the camera movement made. True? I have no idea, but that's a lot of extremely precise custom machine work. No idea what camera it was made for- his VV camera looked nothing like a Mitchell, it had 2 vertical mags on the top. He used to have a special effects company that did front projection stuff, hence the need for the big negative backround plates and high speed VV camera movements for exploding miniatures. Unfortunately blue and green screen and CGI pretty much put him out of business.

 

Bruce

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Hey Paul,

 

That's the guy I met with the old VistaVision camera and projector movements. He told me he paid 80k to have the camera movement made. True? I have no idea, but that's a lot of extremely precise custom machine work. No idea what camera it was made for- his VV camera looked nothing like a Mitchell, it had 2 vertical mags on the top. He used to have a special effects company that did front projection stuff, hence the need for the big negative backround plates and high speed VV camera movements for exploding miniatures. Unfortunately blue and green screen and CGI pretty much put him out of business.

 

Bruce

And here I am doing my own front-projection for my feature...

 

(and the true secret as to why I bought the 70mm comes out)

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80K in. 3K back. Ouch! It hurts me to think of it. I wish I had the cheese for this movement. But, there's still the costs of building a body around it

 

Nate,

 

Can you divulge what you're doing without giving away any trade or production secrets? If everyone else is going CGI, GS and DI, why are you working optically. I'm not asking you with any smart-ass implications. I am genuinely curious.

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Nate,

 

Can you divulge what you're doing without giving away any trade or production secrets? If everyone else is going CGI, GS and DI, why are you working optically. I'm not asking you with any smart-ass implications. I am genuinely curious.

Simple reason, cost. DI costs over $500/minute just for the negative alone. While if I use older equipment, it costs me a fraction of the cost. It is just the cost of time in most cases. And, frankly, the digital stages don't *look* right. They're too, well, perfect. Perfection is dull and uninteresting.

 

Give me lovingly made modelwork, claymation, and front-projection anyday!

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Well.... I just went back through my budget and I definately cut it in half... Would any know an average of what Natalie Portman makes?

 

Oh, so now you only need $10,000,000? What does it matter what she makes, you don't deal with SAG, remember?

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I have 500k in the budget (+ whatever % of profits) for her right now... I'm sure it should be higher.

Depends on her role, but roughly $250k per-day is what I've heard, not counting her perks which can add up to another $50k-$100k per day.

 

Yes, Will's idea of posting your budget might be the best one. Your idea is interesting, altho I've seen a lot of beginner mistakes that we all have done.

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Hello fellas,

 

I've been following this thread for a while. If you have that kind of money, Andrew, you should be consulting with bigger players than us. Sure, we know things. But we know cheap things. 10 mil puts you in a different ball park. This is very rude of me to ask, but... Do you have financing or is this still in the speculative phase?

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Hello fellas,

 

I've been following this thread for a while. If you have that kind of money, Andrew, you should be consulting with bigger players than us. Sure, we know things. But we know cheap things. 10 mil puts you in a different ball park. This is very rude of me to ask, but... Do you have financing or is this project in the speculative phase?

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I guess Paul thought this was good enough to say twice!

 

I agree Paul, he should consult people who are used to dealing with more money than us. I personally have never funded a feature and my max short was around 1,500 USD. That wouldn't get Natalie Portman for 15 minutes.

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The double posting thing has happened a few times to me over the last four years or so. I don't know what that is.

 

Actually, my ego is so monstrously huge that I need more room on the forum.

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hey everybody,

 

I just wanted to drop in and say thank you all who have posted here, this has actually been very enlightening. I've secured about $3,000.00 USD to shoot a feature with unpaid crew, actors, etc...We got a script and we're just combing through pre-production to make everything more manageable, cheaper, more interesting.

 

Here's the deal. I'm not looking for studio funding (yet), right now its about forging that trail that will inevitably become a small demo reel. I'm 23 years old, I've made about a dozen shorts, I've got a whole group of independent producers, financiers, audio people (a real ragtag team of hard working folk), locations and sets are secured and what I'd like to do now is set up a production company entity.

 

I've got the business plan, but I need to articulate it in the proper, professional way. I've never seen on paper how somebody does this. I've seen budgets, and I've been working that out, as for the bigger picture, it needs to evolve from enthusiastic conversation to a document.

 

I live in Portland, Oregon, and I've seen how production companies run their offices here, and it is strange to me. The biggest player in town, who makes high-end commercials and music videos for a lot of the trendier Portland bands, has this office space that seems like a big video gaming lounge. Dudes in skateboarder clothes with tattooes lay around reading magazines and playing X Box, and this is the whole office space. Oh, and somebody has their own cubicle for doing something slightly more serious.

 

This is not the operation I want. I'm ready to sacrifice it all, folks...happiness, ego, love, harmony, I will go to hell and back to make a feature for less than $5k. I want every inch of the office floor to be working like a factory to turn out all of the different kinds of product we have in mind, including commercials, event photography, film development (not alot of folks deal with film in Portland anymore). I don't want to solve any problems by throwing money at it. I love storytelling to a degree that is possibly dangerous to other areas of life, but I've accepted that since I wanted to be a filmmaker at the age of 6. As for the production company operation, I'm just looking for a good way to structure it so a group of six people show up at 6 in the morning, stay until 10 at night, and make thorough use of our office space throughout.

 

This may all sound vague, but I have the people I need to make this thing happen. The next step is to structure the plan so there is something guiding our micro-budget exploits. I'm a film student, yes, a possibly typical college boy but I'll tell you right now...I'm not in it for the money, the ladies, the drugs...I love working. I have patience that has outlasted every single person on a 10-hour outdoor shoot around Goat Mountian. I love this work to the point of self-torture. My backers have faith in the idea, they love the script, the (unknown) actors are tried and true...what needs to happen now is a well-structured business plan, which would motivate the backers to invest a little extra cash in a small production office space.

 

I'm thinking of an entity not unlike the Wu Tang Clan. Before you laugh or say this is ridiculous, hear me out. Every member has their trade, or an already-operating business in line (a graphic designer who engineers shirts and logos, for example) so we are thinking of centralizing operation for each member to bring their project to the table for everyone to put in their two cents, but still retain our individual projects, like the individual members of the Wu Tang do. I won't bore you with specifics unless you ask me. This post is getting long enough.

 

I'm ready for the wise fellows to offer anything you've got. I don't want niceness or politeness, you guys are straight up with the advice here and I love you for it. Any recommended texts or DVD commentaries are a plus.

 

With love,

Tony

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hey everybody,

 

I just wanted to drop in and say thank you all who have posted here, this has actually been very enlightening. I've secured about $3,000.00 USD to shoot a feature with unpaid crew, actors, etc...We got a script and we're just combing through pre-production to make everything more manageable, cheaper, more interesting.

 

Here's the deal. I'm not looking for studio funding (yet), right now its about forging that trail that will inevitably become a small demo reel. I'm 23 years old, I've made about a dozen shorts, I've got a whole group of independent producers, financiers, audio people (a real ragtag team of hard working folk), locations and sets are secured and what I'd like to do now is set up a production company entity.

 

...

 

I'm ready for the wise fellows to offer anything you've got. I don't want niceness or politeness, you guys are straight up with the advice here and I love you for it. Any recommended texts or DVD commentaries are a plus.

 

With love,

Tony

 

Once you have your demo reel in place, you probably are going to want to look into the following path; A business plan is just that. It describes the market conditions and how you believe your product will fair in the marketplace. It can't really be used as an investment vehicle, unless you have a coupe of active investors deeply involved in the project. If you are looking for multiple passive investors (those who have nothing to do with production side of things), then you'll probably want to prepare a PPM securities disclosure agreement. Which basically details where the money will go and how the individual investors will get paid. These are regulated by the SEC and sometimes state governing agencies, so you'll want to consult with an entertainment lawyer. You will probably want to setup your business as an LLC to limit your liability as an individual, as well...

 

Sorry if I really didn't address the question at hand, but I think this may be the direction you are going...

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