Wearing the Producer's Hat
or
How to beg borrow steal
Arriving home from work today, I felt it was time to bite on the bullet I've been dodging for the past week and make some calls. Armed with a few cups of coffee (does decaf count as coffee?), a bottle of water (still roasting hot days here), a list of numbers and an ever trusty pad and pen, I sought to call all these places that follow these strange business hours of closing at 5.
The first few calls were all the regular boring ones, seeking council permissions, getting some public liability insurance and all the rest. Actually, I did get some nice feedback from the other end of the insurance company phone, when she asked me what the short film was about, I replied 'Zombies and coffee'. She thought that sounded like a good match. I heartily agree.
It was only then that I removed my hat, inverted it, tilted my head forward and opened up my eyes as wide as they would go.
Oh yes, it was time to muster some funding.
I decided to start my calls in the order it originally occurred to me which calls I needed to make (I'm pretty sure that sentence may not make sense to anyone else bar myself - sorry). They were both on behalf of Untitled Horror Feature, the first one landing the local tourism board on the phone. Now, I know tourism boards and horror film investment shouldn't go in the same sentence, after all, it took some time for people to travel to central Australia after the release of Wolf Creek. (I have nothing in the slightest to base that on).
However I did point out that we would be shooting with high definition, in some picturesque locations, with talent already on hand, and that we could actually shoot some stuff for them specifically. To be honest, she was a lot more receptive to the idea than I initially thought she would be. So over the weekend I'll now be putting my little proposal together to shoot some stock footage for them, in return for a little production investment. Mmm....
The next call was to our big independent local cinema. I had made a brief call to them earlier in the week, and I thought I'd hit a stone wall. The lady didn't sound keen at all, but did tell me to email my proposal to her and she'd send it on to the GM. So I finally wrote that up today and have been informed it has been forwarded. Um, yes, I guess that means I didn't actually call them today.
Then it was onto the list of numbers for Gun Barista. I spent maybe half an hour waiting on the phone for two companies that make home espresso machines. And sadly, it really got me no further than an answering machine. But still I persisted, moving onto the next number.
This one was a biggy, in that the whole film is about two guys making coffee. Oh, and some zombies are in there too. So I thought if there is one company that really should be involved with this, it's gotta be a coffee company. So of my two choices, I only had to make one call (so far).
The lady at the other end of the call sure understood where I was coming from, except maybe that I forgot to say I was doing all these things for their company for some funding. Oh well, it has opened up communication and I've emailed her a proposal (Oh yes, the third of the day!). Hopefully will hear back about it next week.
By the way, all this calling around is not nearly as easy as it may sound. You've gotta be able to take 'No' for an answer, and probably often, and you've really gotta know how the conversation may go, ie, be prepared. Thankfully, being a barista and knowing who my cast is and how I plan to shoot it, as well as name dropping someone who also works for this coffee company that I happened to have in a video from a few years ago, I was prepared with all the answers for that company.
Actually, you don't have to be able to take no for an answer, you have to be able to take 'Maybe' for an answer. An answer that says 'Probably not but I really don't want to put you down over the phone so send me an email and I'll let you down that way.' Only time will tell on that one.
Recently, a well known Aussie actor took over a local pub in the area, and for some reason I figured I should give him a call and see if he wanted to have a walk on role as a zombie. So I called the pub, thinking how brilliant I was for coming up with such a devious way to locate him, only to be told by the reception that she's taken heaps of calls like this over the past year. Hmmm... But do you know what was required next? Oh yes, I've already emailed her my proposal. Four proposals today! (Yep, I've not sent the tourism board one yet, but I did send one off to a contact lens company, with no luck unfortunately).
Fingers crossed, and I'm hoping to hear back from at least two of those proposals over the next week or two.
Wearing the Creative Hat
The first three pages of storyboards have been drawn up for Gun Barista, totaling about 30 seconds of footage. I was going to post a few shots here, but damn my drawing ability has degraded since I was 5!
Also started putting a book together about the production cycle of Gun Barista. It's going to be a large(ish) hard cover book with a dust jacket, filled with production photos and notes, location shoots, make up tests and how-tos, as well as some edited stuff from this blog. The hope is to get it out not long after shooting, and try to raise funds from it to go towards Untitled Horror Feature.
Be sure to keep your eye out for more info on that in the weeks ahead.
Unfortunately it won't be out for Christmas.
0 Yorumlar