Indie Source Magazine April 2013

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April 2013

INDIE SOURCE

Our mission is to bring you not only stories of the industry’s highly celebrated, but stories and insight from players in all areas of the media creation process.

WWW.THEINDIESOURCE.COM

Editorial Crew Christopher Parker Denise Smith Andrea Anderson

Graphic Design Tasha Parker

Photography Earl Kincade

Staff Credits Jerome Crowell Gregory Parker

Content 04

The Scoggins Report

08

Broad Comedy

11 12 17 18 20 22

Interview with Jason Scoggins.

by Jared Wynn

Private Film Investors

by Jason Brubaker

The 7-Step Film Direct...

by Peter D. Marshall

Great Tips for Filmmakers

by Tifanie Jadeh

Young and Gifted Interview with Robbie Tucker.

Muve Music & SXSW Ghost face killer and others rock SXSW.

The Crowd Is Funding

On the cover PAGE 18 Robbie Tucker is an extrodinary young actor who started his career at the tender age of six, booking a national commercial. He has since grown up in the industry and have starred with A list actors such as Kristin Chenoweth, Robert De Niro, Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Dustin Hoffman , Jessica Alba and Barbra Streisand. He sits down with us and shares his wonderful adventures in Hollywood.

by Chris Parker

Venture King Interview with Gary Delfiner

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www.theindiesource.com 3

The Scoggins Report INTERVIEW WITH JASON SCOGGINS

T

he Scoggins report is an industry standard and its creator is known as “Mr. Spec”. Jason Scoggins is not only the creator of the widely used spec script repository dubbed “SpecScout.com”, but he also knows every script sale that occurs each week in Hollywood. However, Jason’s success didn’t come easy; this agent, manager and entrepreneur once left Hollywood behind only to find his way back. He sat down with us to discuss what prompted his decisions (to leave and return to Hollywood).

ISM: At what age did you decide that you wanted to be involved in the entertainment industry?

JS: I’ve loved movies since I was pretty young, at least since seeing “Star Wars” at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood with my dad, but I didn’t start thinking about potential careers in the industry until college. One of my best friends took a course about the business side of the entertainment business, which included a breakdown of what producers, executives and agents did, and I got hooked the minute I read his notes.

ISM: Early in your entertainment career you were a TV Literary Agent for Gersh and Writers & Artists Agency. What valuable lessons did you learn from these positions?

JS: Actually, I learned the most valuable lessons one notch earlier, as an assistant to Nancy Josephson at ICM. Nancy ran the agency’s Worldwide Television Department at the time (she later became Co-President of ICM and is now a partner at WME). I’d already developed a fairly good work ethic by the time I got to ICM, but I think it’s fair to say I hadn’t really challenged myself in any serious way up to that point. The first couple of months were like going from running 10k’s to running ultra-marathons overnight. The pace and volume and quality required to work for Nancy was shattering; she used to burn through crops of new assistants within weeks until she found someone who could hang for a year or so. I ended up working for her for a year and a half, getting promoted from 2nd assistant to 1st, and then off her desk to TV Literary Departmental Assistant (a coordinator-level position).

by CHRIS PARKER

Fact • Creator of the weekly Scoggins Report • Owner/Creator of SpecScout. com

PROFESSION • Manager • Entrepreneur

PROFILE Name: Jason Scoggins Gender: Male Ethnicity: Caucasian

The key takeaways from working for Nancy have stayed with me ever since: How to operate with integrity in a business that frequently rewards bad behavior; how to move heaven and earth to get things done for colleagues and

CAREERTIMELINE FilmFunds (CEO) - April 2012 July 2012

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ItsontheGrid.com (Founder/General Manager) - July 2009 - April 2012 The Wrap News, Inc. (Chief Product

Officer) - Jan. 2011 - Feb. 2012 Protocol (Partner/Literary Manager) - April 2007 - June 2010

“Man, it would be so great if there really were thousands of writing deals made every week!” clients; and how to stay even-keeled when people around you are panicking.

The single most important thing I learned once I became an agent was how important one’s taste is in the entertainment business. As fundamental as personal relationships are, it’s your taste that truly defines you.

So being literate (in the broad sense of that term) is crucial, as is developing a reputation for having good taste.

ISM: You left Hollywood for over six years, holding various executive level positions in corporate America. What prompted the change of career?

JS: There were a number of factors, but the biggest thing was that I had an itch to go out and build something myself. The internet was shifting into high gear and my friend Mark Hoebich had just left his job at Fox to launch TVTracker.com (which is now owned by Variety). I’d had a similar idea when I was maintaining TV Lit grids at ICM, but at the time I didn’t know what I needed to know to turn that into a business. (Looking back, that’s an understatement.) A year or so later, a friend had launched a web development company and asked me to come do business development for him. My timing wasn’t excellent; the Internet bubble was about to burst, but at the time it seemed like a great opportunity to broaden my knowledge base and skillset and make myself more valuable down the line.

In truth, I’d always intended to keep one foot in the entertainment business. The six years in the wilderness thing was a fluke. That business development job ended after a year, just as my now-wife graduated from the Culinary Institute of America as a pastry chef, and when she immediately got a job working at Deer Valley Resort in Park City, Utah, there was nothing concrete keeping me from tagging along.

ISM: You resurfaced as a Literary Manager and Partner of the management firm “Protocol.” What brought

IGCN (Director of Sales) - May 2005 - Sept. 2008

you back to Hollywood and managing writers?

JS: The day my daughter was born in 2005, I suddenly found I had the ability to think in terms of a 25-year horizon, both personally and professionally. (I think a lot of new fathers have a similar experience.) I had just finished a year-long consulting assignment, and when I thought about what I wanted to do next in the context of a 25 year time frame, the clear answer was to get back into the entertainment business.

That was far easier said than done; breaking in once is hard enough, but most people who leave the business don’t circle back to it, and I couldn’t stomach the idea of being an assistant again at 35. With only a couple of exceptions, the noncreative side of Hollywood is not very entrepreneurial. You can’t just show up and call yourself a development executive or an agent, for example, you have to get hired into those jobs, and I’d let my industry relationships lapse to the point where neither was an option. Producing is an exception, but to succeed as an independent producer with no track record you need a briefcase full of either money or material you control, and I had neither.

Managing is another exception, especially compared to agenting, and as luck would have it one of my best friends had started Protocol, a literary management and production company, a couple of years previously. I asked him if I came back to LA, whether I could build a book of business under his banner. I don’t think he thought I was serious, but when he said “sure” I hung up the phone before he could think it all the way through and got busy making it happen.

That was somewhere around the summer of 2005, and by July the following year we’d sold our house in Park City and bought a tear-down in Playa del Rey. I’d convinced my thenboss that moving to LA would make it easier, not harder, to do my day job,

AWARDSCONTACT Website - www.scogginsreport. com

and I focused on that for the first 9 months or so. But by the spring of 2007 I’d started to moonlight as a Lit Manager at Protocol (just in time for the writers’ strike).

ISM: In 2009 you created the first “Scoggins Report.” How did the idea for this bi-weekly spec market analysis come about?

JS: At the start of 2009 the business was still reeling from the combined blows of the WGA strike, the SAG not-a-strike, and the Great Recession.

I’d been systematically tracking spec activity since the end of the strike in February 2008, so when someone on one of my tracking boards in early April 2009 asked whether anyone knew how many specs had sold so far that year, I had the answers at my fingertips. I tallied up all the numbers, wrote a quick response and hit “send.”

That post was shared fairly widely around town via email and got reposted to a number of other tracking boards. One of the people who saw it was Marvin Acuna, a producer who was launching a newsletter for aspiring screenwriters. He asked me to write a regular piece about the spec market for it, I agreed, he named my column “The Scoggins Report,” and I started writing it bi-weekly.

By the end of the year I’d begun sending it out to my own mailing list in addition to publishing it in Marvin’s newsletter, which I still do today, and the list has grown to over 4400 industry pros and aspiring pros.

The core product is pretty much the same as when I started: At the beginning of the month I do a “Roundup” of the previous month’s spec activity, including the details of each spec sold, and then mid-month I do the “Scorecard,” a rolling year-to-date tally of who’s sold how many projects to whom.

Two changes worth noting are that Cindy Kaplan, my former assistant, started writing the Report with me in 2011 after we joined The Wrap, and we started tracking pitch sales along-

Website - www.specscout.com

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side spec sales in 2012. Actually, we started tracking pitch sales at the beginning of 2011, but that year we just did quarterly Pitch Sale Scorecards as special editions of the newsletter. We switched to publishing the newsletter on a weekly basis in January 2012 so we could do separate Roundups and Scorecards for pitches every other week as well.

ISM: How do you achieve such accuracy with the hundreds of managers and agents, and thousands of writers who are making deals every week?

JS: Man, it would be so great if there really were thousands of writing deals made every week! In reality, the amount of material that goes to market every week is fairly manageable, if you average it out without adjusting for the holidays or other factors, only 7 or 8 scripts hit the market each week, and 2.5 or so get set up with buyers.

But to answer your question, we track specs that hit the market from agents and managers on a daily basis by paying close attention to private and semi-private tracking boards; articles in the trades, including Deadline.com and few other key sites; and through phone calls and emails with the reps themselves. As the credibility of the newsletter has grown, that last element has become more and more important; agents and managers really like to make sure their sales are accurately reflected in our numbers.

ISM: At what point did you realize the gap between “The Studio System” and “IMDB” was growing and needed to be filled?

JS: Shortly after I started The Scoggins Report in 2009, actually. The newsletter is free and always will be, but once it gained a bit of traction I started thinking about entertainment data that people would be willing to pay for. Separately, I was also looking for ways to share the tracking information I was collecting as a Lit Manager, specifically the details of the specs that hit the market, as well as open writing and directing assignments around town. (To this day, neither of those two sites include that data.) Those two sets of thoughts converged with ItsontheGrid.com, which I started working on at the beginning of Summer 2009 and launched a few months later, in November.

ISM: You built “Its On The Grid” from the ground up, ran the company and

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sold it to The Wrap all within two years. Why did you decide to sell your baby?

JS: It was even shorter than that. IOTG launched on November 2, 2009, and I had agreed to the framework of the deal with The Wrap just over a year later, by mid-December 2010.

With the first iteration of IOTG, I just wanted to prove the concept and see if the site was viable. I raised just enough money to get the site built and off the ground. We had enough paying subscribers within two or three months that “viability” was no longer a question. So then the question became, “Can we bootstrap our way to the next level, or will we need additional capital to expand quickly enough to take advantage of the market opportunity?”

Then, at the beginning of Summer 2010, a couple of my seed investors and I came up with the concept of the PowerGrid (it’s a ranking system that uses IOTG’s data to rank every person, project and company in Hollywood, based on the artistic and commercial success of their movies). If I wanted to pursue that, and I did, then I was going to have to sell some portion of IOTG to raise capital.

I never intended to sell the entire company at that point, but I was open to it. The Wrap conversation started shortly thereafter, and though I was talking to other investors, ultimately the idea of partnering up with entertainment news site like them made the most sense, especially since they promised to invest in both IOTG and the PowerGrid.

As you may have read, my relationship with The Wrap didn’t end as I’d hoped.

But it sure seemed like a good idea at the time.

ISM: What exactly is Eureka Canyon?

JS: Eureka Canyon is the management company I started when I left Protocol in 2010. I had pared down my client list as IOTG started to expand, but I was still managing and needed to hang a shingle. I haven’t focused on Lit Management in any real way since I joined The Wrap in 2011, though.

These days Eureka Canyon is primarily the vehicle for my consulting and entrepreneurial work.

ISM: You recently launched Spec Scout; can you give us more insight to this new venture?

JS: Sure! Here’s the concept, in a nutshell: SpecScout.com is a coverage library with an integrated scoring system that allows readers to rate eleven individual attributes of a given script and applies an algorithm that crunches those ratings down into a single “Spec Scout Score,” which is on a scale of 1 to 100. I started the site last Fall with two partners, Tim Lambert and Greg Gertmenian.

To talk about the background for a minute, the project is kind of an outgrowth of The Scoggins Report and the approach I took to building the PowerGrid. After I left The Wrap and IOTG last year, I started playing with the idea of a scoring system for screenplays. My observation was that everyone in Hollywood assesses scripts more or less along the same lines; we think about whether we like the script overall (often boiled down to the “Pass/Consider/Recommend” spectrum), as well as how good it is in a number of specific areas, such as Dialogue, Structure, Character Development and so on.

I’d also been thinking about social recommendation systems, and I noticed that while assessing screenplays is an inherently subjective activity, there is definitely a kind of “wisdom of the crowd” aspect at work in the marketplace. The more people who read and review a given piece of material, the closer you get to a consensus opinion of its quality, if not its likelihood of selling. (That’s sort of the premise behind the annual best-of lists like the Black List and the Hit List, for example.) I thought it would be cool to build a site that captured multiple readers’ opinions of a script and produced a single score that would indicate its overall quality.

Meanwhile, Tim and Greg had built this great coverage management platform called Literary Engine, which makes it super easy for production companies, agencies and management companies to manage big sets of readers and coverage and projects.

It turned out to be the perfect engine for what I had in mind.

We soft launched SpecScout.com at the beginning of December 2012, and its growth has been very gratifying.

It’s already way more successful than IOTG was at this stage.

ISM: So what is Spec Scout’s business model?

JS: There are three basic components of the site: - We’re tracking the spec market on a daily basis, and basic project information is visible for free to anyone who comes to the site. It’s the same data I’m collecting for The Scoggins Report, but it’s searchable. Which is awesome.

- We’re doing coverage on scripts that hit the spec market, which includes our Spec Scout Score, and all of that coverage goes in our library, which is accessible only to agents, managers, executives and producers for a monthly fee. Scores and coverage comments for scripts that score below 68 on our 100 point scale are suppressed. We want to promote good material, not hang a lantern on projects that need a lot of work.

- We’re providing a paid coverage service to writers using the same rubric and scoring system we apply to spec market scripts. Our writer clients whose scripts score above a 68 are invited to be included in the coverage library for no additional fee.

Each script we cover is read and reviewed by three readers who, in addition to having significant experience doing coverage before they start working with us, we’ve trained by having them read and cover dozens of scripts before their work is available on our site or through our paid service. They use a very lengthy (45+ page) and very granular rubric we developed in order to make sure they’re

all reviewing material the same way.

As I outlined above, in addition to providing an overall Pass/Consider/Recommend-style rating, they evaluate 10 individual attributes of the script and provide ratings for each on a 1 to 5 scale. Our algorithm calculates those scores into a single number on a 1 to 100 scale, and the Spec Scout Score is the average of the three readers’ scores.

Practically speaking, any script that scores above 60 is quite good. It means that each of our three readers have given it an overall “Consider” rating along with solid scores in the individual categories. That being said, a score of 68 turns out to be the point at which negative comments in our coverage disappear, replaced by constructive comments about ways to make an already good script better.

So that’s what’s visible on the site.

ISM: With the vast number of manager and agent connects you have, will scripts from young screenwriters land on the desks of some of these power players?

JS: Absolutely. That’s the most exciting aspect of this venture. The whole point of the site is to promote writers, both by helping buyers discover great material by existing pros that slipped through the cracks of the spec market, and also by promoting new writers to agents and managers (and buyers, for that matter).

ISM: What is next for “The Scoggins Report”?

JS: Now that SpecScout.com has launched, I’m probably going to tie The Scoggins Report to it a bit more closely than we’ve done so far. We publish weekly at the moment, and as we move forward this year I’ll probably add another weekly recommendation email to the mix. I want to make sure we publish often enough to be helpful to our subscribers, but not so frequently that we start to be noise in the system.

ISM: Do you see yourself venturing back into managing writers?

JS: That’s a possibility, yes, especially now that SpecScout.com is off the ground and has momentum. I really miss working with writer clients on a day-to-day basis. The business model for managers is pretty tough, but we’ll see what happens.

ISM: What advice would you give would be writers looking to break in the industry?

JS: My best advice is very basic: Put your head down and do the work.

Writing is a skill, and the more you practice it, the better at it you become. So embrace the fact that your first half dozen scripts or so are going to suck, learn from the mistakes you make in each of them and apply those lessons to each subsequent project.

And even after you get through that period, keep doing the work. If you want a writing career (as opposed to just selling a piece of material every once in a while) you’re going to need an arsenal of great material; one awesome script isn’t enough. So keep writing.

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BROAD COMEDY by: Jared Wynn http://www.linkedin.com/in/jaredwynn

A

broad walks into a bar. The bartender says “hey, did you know there’s an entire subgenre of comedy named after you?” “Really?” asks the broad. “There’s a subgenre named Linda?”

Genre is one of my favorite topics in screenwriting because writers and genres are like nerds and Star Trek trivia: you just know you’re opening up a can of worms the second you start talking about it. So I thought about naming and defining all the various genres in an article, but this is Indie Source Magazine; if we cover everything it’ll be too long for publication, and anything less than everything won’t be nearly enough. That said, here’s my oversimplification of genre, if only for the sake of argument: every movie is a drama, by which I mean to say that every movie is a conflict between two characters who both want one thing that can only be had by one or the other. Sci-fi is merely drama based on a scientific or technological premise. Fantasy is drama that takes place in another world or reality. Action is drama expressed through physical violence. Crime is about the investigation into the consequences or aftermath of action.

Thriller is a crime story where the protagonist must solve the case and catch the criminal before becoming the next victim. Horror is where we watch crimes taking place without all the intellectual bother of an investigation.

And comedy is what makes people laugh. Now if only we knew how to make people laugh…

Actually, theories on what makes people laugh are like buttocks: everyone has a pair, and no one wants to see yours. Without further ado, here’s mine: if you can surprise an audience, you’ve got half the laugh formula down pat. That’s the entire formula in a nutshell if you can really surprise your audience. But it’s hard to surprise people by drawing on normal, everyday topics, which is why standup comedians use “blue” humor so often; bedroom and bathroom material is surprising because these are topics that people don’t talk about around the water

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cooler, at least not at most jobs. But finding a surprising angle in everyday matters, that takes skill.

Because it’s so hard to do, clean writers tend to make more money than blue writers, at least in television. Ever notice how Andrew Dice Clay and Lisa Lampanelli never got their own show? If it’s because they didn’t work for a broad audience, then what’s the difference between them and people like Dave Chappelle or Mindy Kaling? And just what the hell is a broad audience, anyway?

Picture a two-sided spectrum: on one end you’ve got the sort of stuff that makes six-year-olds giggle, while on the other you have jokes that are so appallingly awful people have to leave the room. Basically, it’s Disney’s “The Aristocats” on one side of the spectrum and Lionsgate’s “The Aristocrats” on the other. Then somewhere in the middle you have movies like “Ace Ventura, Pet Detective,” and “Due Date,” movies that appeal more to the middle range of people on this imaginary line. Now as a writer, you want to write something that’ll sell a lot of tickets. So if you have kids on one end of this spectrum and adults on the other, the trick is to come up with material that works for the teenagers in the middle, right?

Wrong! Although the FCC would have you think otherwise, the spectrum doesn’t measure age, it measures offensiveness - meaning it doesn’t go from young to old, but rather from easily-offended to thick-skinned. And the trick in appealing to as many people on that spectrum as possible is to be as offensive as possible without offending the audience. This is worth repeating: broad comedy isn’t about age or gender or ethnicity, it’s about appealing to as many people as possible. And this is accomplished by being as offensive as possible, while being careful to not offend the audience.

Bear with me while I attempt to explain this little paradox: Sigmund Freud observed that, while some comedy is

I pick one character, starting with the antagonist, and I study that character’s bio.

based on cleverness, people tend to laugh harder when a joke takes place at somebody else’s expense. He realized that hostility is the most important part of successful comedy because it creates tension, and people laugh harder when tension is released. So jokes work better when they’re at someone else’s expense because the audience can release tension more easily when they’re imagining the offense, not experiencing it. This is why comics use self-deprecating humor on stage, and this is why we laugh so hard when Jim Carrey talks out of his butt in “Ace Ventura, Pet Detective,” or when Zach Galifianakis masturbates in the car in “Due Date.” These acts would be weird or gross by themselves, but when they happen in front of Robert Downey Jr. or Tone Loc, the audience howls with laughter!

So the trick, in a nutshell, is to be offensive toward someone who isn’t in the audience. But remember that the audience is going to identify with some of the characters in your script, so pick on characters who represent things we all love to hate, like bureaucracies, immaturity, and stupid people (no one in the audience is going to identify with stupid people no matter how stupid they are), and for crying out loud, don’t even bother with racism. Or sexism, for that matter; you should never refer to a character in your story as a “broad” unless you’re going to let that character deliver the punch line.

Also, since theaters don’t allow kids under 18 into R-rated shows, you’re losing half your audience when you write R-rated material. You’re probably also alienating AARP members, fans of Fox News and the Amish, but this goes without saying, and I’m only mentioning it here because my hobbies include arguing about genre, contradicting

myself and stating the obvious.

A writer told me recently that broad comedy has nothing to do with reaching a broad audience range but that it rather refers to comedy that is over-the-top or outrageous. I’m going to have to agree to disagree with him on this one; over-the-topness to comedy is what gore is to horror, super strength is to fantasy, or girls in bikinis are to summer tent-poles: it’s just part of a genre formula that sells tickets. But like I said before, everyone has an opinion in this business. So if you don’t like mine, here are some others: My understanding is that there is no “official” definition, but people use in different ways. To me, broad comedy means appeals to a wide (or broad) audience. Not limited by age or any kind of group. Also, has international appeal. These movies often have physical comedy because that is universal. --Claire V. Riley, writer of “The Perfect Family” Broad Comedy is not typically a term I would use to describe what I’m looking for. The term itself is, well, broad. Too general for me. If I was looking for a specific sub-genre in the comedic world I might say ‘Buddy Comedy,’ ‘Road Trip Comedy,’ or ‘Fish Out of Water Comedy.’

I imagine the term Broad Comedy to be equated with an over the top or farcical piece like Airplane or Young Frankenstein. But even then, there are clearer and better ways to categorize those films. –Griff Furst, Actor, Writer and Producer cont. pg. 32

Jared Wynn has interviewed over a thousand producers, agents and managers about what they’re looking for in a script or writer, he oversees the Membership Department at InkTip, and he performs standup comedy in the LA area.

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PRIVATE FILMstarting INVESTORS I pick one character, with the antagonist, and As you pitch your movie to pro- I study that characspective investors, ter’s bio.you will experience enthusiasm, gain traction and then suffer defeat.

S

o you’re trying to woo some private film investors? Maybe you are gaining traction and you feel a deal a close – yet despite the great conversations, something feels elusive – the money!

As a filmmaker, know this. It does not matter how much you want to make a movie. Prospective investors do not care. What they care about is how your movie will benefit them. If you find yourself getting rejected, it is probably because you forgot this point.

Some private film investors just want to feel significant. Some movie investors want to be famous. And still others want to know that investing in your movie will offer a financial return.

by: Jason Brubaker http://www.FilmmakingStuff.com

portant to remember that persistence coupled with the belief in your project is everything. Until the money is in the bank, you must continually push forward in the face of adversity. You must pitch your project to multiple prospective investors and always work to expand your network. Never settle until you achieve your goal. If you aren’t being rejected daily, you are not working hard enough.

But by pushing yourself beyond your current self will make the movie possible. In the Indie Producer’s Guide to Film Funding (www.GetMovieMoney. com), you will discover specific tactics for actually finding and building relationships with powerful people and private film investors.

As you pitch your movie to prospective investors, you will experience enthusiasm, gain traction and then suffer defeat. It is not uncommon for calls to go unanswered or your prospect to be perpetually “in a meeting” and unable to talk. Do not take this personally. In every business, deals fall apart.

Strengthening your resolve and overcoming rejection will be one of the tougher parts of the process. It is im-

Jason Brubaker is a Hollywood based Independent Motion Picture Producer and an expert in internet movie distribution. He is focused on helping YOU make, market and sell movies more easily by growing your fan base, building buzz and creating community around your title.

Jason is a contributing author of The Independent’s Guide to Film Distributors, he is the founder of Filmmaking Stuff, a professional resource for independent filmmakers, and his articles on independent movie marketing and distribution have been featured in Film Slate, The Independent and Movie Maker Magazine.

Brubaker helps filmmaker’s make market and sell their movie. To find out more about his filmmaker services, visit: www.FilmmakingStuff.com

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THE 7-STEP FILM DIRECTING FORMULA by: Peter D. Marshall https://www.facebook.com/FilmDirectingCoach

As a filmmaker, I’ve been working professionally in the film and TV business for over 39 years, primarily as a Director and a 1st AD. During that time, I’ve had the opportunity to work on a variety of productions: industrial films, educational films, documentaries, commercials, music videos, short films, episodic TV shows, TV movies, TV pilots, indie films and Hollywood features.

I’ve worked with dozens of good directors and not-sogood directors - as well as hundred’s of good actors and not-so-good actors.

I’ve read hundred’s of film scripts: some of which were so terrible I couldn’t get past the first 10 pages - to scripts that hooked me from page 1 and went on to win Academy Awards.

As a film directing instructor at the Vancouver Film School for over 6 years, I’ve had the opportunity to teach and mentor hundreds of film students as they write, prep and shoot their own short films.

And as a film directing coach, I’ve spend countless hours mentoring filmmakers from around the world - showing them how to conduct proper script analysis to helping them understand the techniques of working with actors on the set.

I believe that all the years I’ve spent in the “film production trenches” has given me a unique insight into finding an answer to the question: “Is there a formula, or guide, or check-list, that film directors anywhere in the world can follow, that will help them make a successful film?

(My definition of a good dramatic film (or a documentary) is “The art of visually telling a compelling story with believable characters who make us feel something.”)

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Now we all know there is no 100% guarantee of anything being successful in our business, but I believe I have found a basic “formula” that any filmmaker can use as a guide to help them create “compelling movies with believable characters.”

In my opinion, most inexperienced, (or experienced but lazy) film directors spend the majority of their time figuring out how to shoot the film first (cool visual effects, creative shots and camera angles etc.) before they understand a) what the story is about and b) what the characters really want.

So I’m going to be bold here and state publicly that this is the wrong way to direct a film!

Why? Because I strongly believe that to successfully direct a “visually compelling story with believable characters”, you need to first understand and follow this “7-Step Film Directing Formula.”

STEP 1: THE STUDY OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR “Human nature is the concept that there is a set of inherent distinguishing characteristics, including ways of thinking, feeling and acting, that humans tend to have.”

Human behavior (or how we act) is based on different factors in our lives, such as our attitudes, character traits, social norms and core faith.

1. Human behavior is greatly influenced by the attitudes we use on a daily basis that reflect the behavior we will portray in specific situations.

2. Human behavior is impacted by individual traits (genetics) that vary from person to person that can produce different actions or behavior from each person.

The good thing about human behavior is that it is observable, and as storytellers, we must first observe the way people react to different situations 3. Human behavior is greatly influenced by social norms, the rules that govern behavior in groups and societies, which conditions the way people behave.

4. Human behavior is also affected by each individual’s core faith (religion and philosophy) that results in different human behaviors.

their daily needs, you will have the knowledge to better understand the story you are telling, and you will feel more confident helping your actors achieve believable performances.

STEP 2: STORY (1) The Classic Three Act Structure

(2) As writers, directors and actors, we are all artists - and as artists, we must observe and report on our version of the human condition. Therefore, as artists, we must understand human emotions and feelings so we know: 1. What makes us tick?

2. Why do we do certain things?

Once you know the answers to these questions, you will have a better idea of how the characters in your script should interact with each other, as well as having the proper “psychological tools” to direct actors on the set. (re: motivation!)

The good thing about human behavior is that it is observable, and as storytellers, we must first observe the way people react to different situations and circumstances in order to understand “How and Why” their behavior changes.

As a film director, you must be a “witness” to human behavior. You need to get into the habit of observing people going about their daily lives, so you can find out what motivates them to take action.

Joseph Campbell, the American mythologist and writer, used the term “The Hero’s Journey” to refer to a basic, universal pattern found in stories from around the world.

“A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”

Campbell’s “hero’s journey” model is also used in modern storytelling and divides a fictional narrative into a 3-act structure: the Setup; the Confrontation; the Resolution.

ACT ONE (Set Up) EXAMPLE: “Boy meets girl” 1. What is the story plot and the story theme?

2. What is the “dramatic question”to be answered?

3. Who is the main character and what are their needs and goals?

ACT TWO (Confrontation)

Once you know what motivates a person to achieve

Peter D. Marshall is a filmmaker and film directing coach from Vancouver, Canada.

Peter has Directed over 30 episodes of Television Drama such as “John Woo’s Once a Thief”, “Wiseguy”, “21 Jumpstreet”, “Neon Rider”, “The Black Stallion”, “Scene of the Crime”, “Big Wolf on Campus” and “Largo Winch.”

He has written, directed or produced over 50 hours of documentary and educational programs and his documentaries and dramas have won, or been nominated for, 14 International film awards.

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EXAMPLE: “Boy loses girl and fights against impossible odds to get her back”

directing actors can be explained in these three words: MOTIVE DETERMINES BEHAVIOR

1. What is the dramatic “rising” action?

2. What are the obstacles in the main character’s way?

3. How does the main character overcome each obstacle?

When we break these words down, we see that:

ACT THREE (Resolution)

MOTIVE (Our inner world) DETERMINES (Controls) BEHAVIOR (Our outer world)

EXAMPLE: “Boy gets girl an lives happily ever after” And if we break them down even further, we see that: 1. How does the story end?

2. What happens to the main character?

3. Is the dramatic question answered?

What our needs are (MOTIVE) Will decide (DETERMINES) What actions we take to fulfill our needs (BEHAVIOR)

(2) The Director and the Story And if we break this down into Text and Subtext: There are many facets of a Director’s prep on any film or TV show, but the first, and most important part of your job, is to understand every detail about the story: where it takes place; who the characters are; and what happens to them.

MOTIVE (The Character Subtext) DETERMINES (Will decide how an actor plays) BEHAVIOR (The Script Text)

When you first read a script, here are some of the many questions you will need to answer to help identify and solve potential script problems:

(2) One of the main responsibilities of a Director is to help actors achieve a realistic performance, and a good director does this by “listening for the truth” and by asking:

a. What is the story about? b. Does the story make sense? c. What problem is to be resolved? d. What event hooks the audience? e. What is the plot? (the action) f. What is the subplot? (the theme)

a. Do I believe them? b. Do the words make sense? c. Are the characters believable?

Understanding the story requires a lot of work on your part because you then need to dig deeper into the story and it’s structure by analyzing each individual scene in the script to find out what the story is about, what works and what doesn’t.

And you do this by asking questions like: a. What is the intention of the scene? b. What are the story points? c. Where are the scene beats? d. Where is the climax? e. What is the resolution? f. What are the important lines of dialogue?

Remember, your script analysis will be a never-ending process. Each time you read the script, you will find something else you didn’t know about the story or the characters.

And the script will also constantly evolve. It will change because of your creative notes, writer changes, actor changes, producer changes, studio changes and location availability. But as long as you know what the story is about, and where the story is going, you will be able to adjust to all the changes.

STEP 3: PERFORMANCE (1) I believe that almost everything you need to know about

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And the key to getting a realistic performance from an actor, is by first understanding the character’s objectives - what the character wants in a scene.

How to choose objectives: a. Ask yourself “What does the character want in this situation?” b. A character’s objective should create obstacles for the character. c. Look at what the character does (his behavior) rather than what he says. d. Look at what happens in the scene, and how it ends.

(3) On the set, actors want to work with directors who understand their vulnerability, so it’s incredibly important to create a good relationship with every actor on your film.

And what do actors want more than anything from this relationship with the director? TRUST! Actors begin by trusting the director - and it’s the director’s trust to lose. If actors feel they cannot trust the director to know a good performance from a bad performance, they will begin to monitor their own performances and start to direct themselves. They will become “Director Proof!”

Remember, to find the character they are playing, actors must surrender completely to feelings and impulses, and a good director understands an actor’s vulnerability and creates a safe place for them to perform.

STEP 4: THE PRINCIPLES OF MONTAGE Film editing is the only art that is unique to cinema and it separates filmmaking from all other art forms (such as photography, theater, dance and writing.)

One of the key elements of being a good director is to understand the “principles of montage” which is a film editing technique where shots (images) are juxtaposed to tell a story.

In 1918, a Russian filmmaker called Lev Kuleshov conducted an experiment where he shot and edited a short film in which the face of a famous Russian matinee idol was intercut with three other shots: a plate of soup; a girl playing ball; an old woman in a coffin.

So as a director, when you are planning your shots, you want to ask yourself: “What do I want the audience to feel at this particular moment?”

For example: Here are six camera choices a director can use to enhance viewer emotion: 1. The Lens Lenses expand or compress space, so when you choose a lens, you are choosing the “space” a shot takes place in. So before you choose a lens for your shot, ask yourself: “How intimate do I want to be with the character and how do I represent that visually?”

2. Depth

And Kuleshov made sure that the shot of the actor was identical (and expressionless) every time he cut back to him.

The film was then shown to audiences who totally believed that the expression on the actor’s face was different each time he appeared - depending on whether he was “looking at” the plate of soup, the little girl, or the old woman’s coffin; showing an expression of hunger, happiness or grief respectively.

So what does this experiment tell us?

By carefully using the principles of montage (the juxtaposition of images to tell a story,) filmmakers are able to produce certain emotions from the audience (laughter, fear, crying, shock) by manipulating an actor’s performance.

Understanding how to use Montage is also essential for every filmmaker because it’s not just about the scene you are filming now - you also need to think about the scenes that come before and after. In other words, you need to think about the transitions between the scenes.

As a film director, understanding the principles of montage will help you: to create a more visual script; to decide your camera placement; to block your scenes; and to get layered performances from actors.

The illusion of depth is a part of visual storytelling. To get this illusion of depth in a 2 dimensional medium you want to block your scenes with an eye for depth. In other words, you want to arrange your shots in 3 layers or planes: Foreground, Midground and Background.

3. Focus One of the main jobs of a director is to direct the attention of the audience while telling a visual story. So where you place the focus in a shot is determined by what is important in the frame.

4. Angle The distance from a character’s eyeline affects the identification of the character with the audience. For example: there are three angles of view for the camera: a. Objective: The audience point of view. (Camera is placed outside the action.) b. Subjective: The camera acts as the viewer’s eyes. (Camera is placed inside the action.) c. Point of View: What the character is seeing. (Camera is the action.)

5. Frame

STEP 5: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CAMERA What I mean by the “Psychology of the Camera” are the visual meanings of shots and angles. In other words, where you put the camera can either enhance or detract the audience’s understanding of what the scene is really about, and what the characters are feeling.

Because composition makes an emotional statement, the framing, emotion and meaning of the composition comes from detailed script analysis by the director. In other words, before framing the shot, he needs to know “What is the shot about?”

6. Motion

Audiences will assume that every shot or word of dialogue in a film is there to further the central idea, therefore, each shot you use should contribute to the story or the idea you are trying to convey.

Since viewer emotion is the ultimate goal of each scene, where you place the camera involves knowing what emotion you want the audience to experience at any given moment in the scene.

Motion can apply to screen direction. If we use North American conventions (or the way any map is drawn with South at the bottom) if someone is traveling from New York to London, they will be traveling from “Left to Right.”

Motion is also about camera movement. So ask yourself: “Why is the camera moving?” Is it to follow the action; to reveal information; to re-position for a better frame?

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STEP 6: BASIC BLOCKING AND STAGING TECHNIQUES “Cinema is a matter of what’s in the frame and what’s out.”

Martin Scorsese

process into one category, but without understanding the first 6 steps of this formula, you are setting yourself up for “Filmmaker Mediocrity”: writing unimaginative scripts with unbelievable characters that create predictable films.

Blocking is simply the relationship of the camera to the actors. Essentially, it is the physical movement of the actors relative to the position of the camera.

To be a good film director, you need to know what is expected of you when you begin pre-production; when you step on the set; and when you are in the editing room.

However, when a director starts to plan the blocking of a film scene, he is thinking not only about his shots and camera positions, but he also needs to take into consideration other items affecting the scene such as lighting, window placement, vehicle movement, extras, stunts, special effects and of course, time and budget.

And to do this successfully, you must:

Because viewer emotion is the ultimate goal of each scene, where you place the camera involves knowing what emotion you want the audience to experience at any given moment and that is determined by: a) What’s important in the scene; b) What the scene about (scene objective); c) What the characters want (character objectives.)

As a director, your job is to reveal a character’s thoughts or emotions through actions -because actions reveal more of a character than dialogue. (Think Real Life!) Actor movement must have a precise purpose and goal, and a director needs to make sure that every move actors make has to have a specific purpose.

Your blocking choices can either enhance or detract the audience’s understanding of what the scene is really about and what the characters are feeling. So when blocking actors for movement and for the camera, you want to drive the blocking emotionally so no actor movement is done aimlessly.

1. Have complete confidence in yourself and faith in your talent and ability 2. Have the courage and tenacity to stick it out “no matter what” 3. Have a relentless focus on what is possible rather than what is not possible 4. Never stop searching for your unique voice, style and expression 5. Stay true to yourself: it will guide you to the right people and the right choices From what I have witnessed over the past 39 years, I believe that if you follow this 7-step film directing formula, you will see how any director, even someone with very little experience, could create a visually, compelling movie with believable characters.

We must always remember that filmmaking is a universal language - and no matter where we live in the world, we all have our own stories to tell.

So if you have a compelling story built upon Universal Themes, you should be able to tell this story, in your own language, and audiences around the world will watch it.

It’s your choice!

You accomplish this by determining: - Why the actor moves - Where the actor moves - When the actor moves - How the actor moves Audiences will assume that every shot or word of dialogue in a film is there to further the central idea. Therefore, each shot you use should contribute to the story or the idea you are trying to convey.

Remember, there is never one interpretation of how a scene should be blocked. Blocking is like a puzzle - keep working at it until the whole scene falls into place.

STEP 7: CINEMATICS The dictionary defines Cinematics as “the art or principles of making motion pictures.” For the purpose of this article, I define Cinematics as “everything else it takes to make a movie!” (Locations, Sound, Cinematography, Set Dressing, Props, Visual FX, Costumes, Stunts…)

Yes, I know I’m putting the majority of the filmmaking

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GREAT TIPS FOR FILMMAKERS WHO I pick oneARE character, starting with the USING SOCIAL MEDIA antagonist, and I study that character’s bio.

As you pitch your movie to prospective investors, you will experience enthusiasm, gain traction and then suffer defeat.

S

ocial media is perhaps the most effective form of advertisement that you can do for your business in today’s environment. Not only is it cost-effective, it is also effective in reaching your audience in the way that you want. Although it can be incredibly helpful in generating leads, it has to be done the right way. One must put a lot of attention into their social media presence to ensure that they are obtaining the intended results. Just because it is free does not mean that you can let it coast on its own.

1. Find Your Target Audience The greatest thing about using social media for marketing is you can choose to advertise to your target audience. A lot of times, people want to simply gain followers on their social media platforms but some of this work is done in vain if your audience does not want what you provide. It is better to have 5,000 followers on Twitter that will actually click-through to your product or read your posts than to have 100,000 followers that are only following you for a follow back 2. Be Sociable Most people on social networking sites are there for one reason... to socialize. Your audience is not going to be any different in that respect than any other. I have seen people gain a social media presence time and time again only to fail because they were all about business. While it is important to keep your presence professional, you can also “let loose” a little and engage with your followers on a personal level. Building rapport with your online audi-

by: Tifanie Jodeh

http://www.entlawpartners.com/attorneys.html

ence is the same as doing it with your clients in person.

Use the same techniques that you would if this audience walked into your office.

3. Keep Your Audience Engaged Once again, most people use social media to socialize.

Think of your online presence as a cocktail party and you are the host. If you are a bad host and do not keep your audience engaged, then they might leave the party or not RSVP your next invitation. Keeping your followers engaged should go beyond regular posts or updates. You should respond to comments and facilitate conversation.

In addition, although you are the expert, it doesn’t hurt to get advice from your audience from time to time. Start a discussion thread on your Facebook page that everyone can respond to.

4. Social Media Advocates Finding people that will spread the word about your social media presence is word of mouth marketing online.

It is huge! Not only do you have a great product or service that the customer will want, but it is being recommended by a mutual friend. People will trust you more because they know you through a personal connection. The easiest way to do this is to use your friends and family. Most people will be happy to share your posts and recommend your page; especially if you have created something they can be proud of. Use your current personal Facebook and Twitter account to ask people to help you out. cont. pg. 32

Tifanie Jodeh is Partner at Entertainment Law Partners dedicated to corporate, business and entertainment affairs.

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Young and Gifted INTERVIEW WITH ROBBIE TUCKER

R

obbie Tucker is an extraordinary young actor who started his career at the tender age of six, booking a national commercial. He has since grown up in the industry and have starred with A list actors such as Kristin Chenoweth, Robert De Niro, Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Dustin Hoffman , Jessica Alba and Barbra Streisand. He sits down with us and shares his wonderful adventures in Hollywood.

ISM: At what age did you know you wanted to pursue acting, and were you introduced to it by your older sister Jillian?

RT: Since I was a baby I remember going with my parents to take my sister Jillian to all her theater rehearsals, performances, dance classes and auditions. When I was just four years old, we started to commute to L.A. for Jillian’s career, so I actually grew up all around the industry. When I was about six, Jillian’s manager asked me if I wanted to audition for a national commercial for Tracfone. I ended up booking the job and had a fun time working on it. I tried a couple more auditions and landed a couple more jobs, so I decided to try auditioning for TV and film. I was signed by an agent and have been working hard ever since. Jillian has always encouraged and supported me. She helps coach me for auditions too.

ISM: You have done a fair amount of commercials; do you find them to be just as difficult as small roles on a television series?

RT: They are pretty similar. TV, no matter how small the role is, takes more time because the scenes usually have to be turned so many times on the different actors in that scene. One episode of a show can take a week from rehearsal time through filming.

ISM: You played Kyle Murphy on episode eighty-six of “Criminal Minds”. At such a young age, how did you handle working on such an intense set/show?

RT: My parents are really involved, and my mom worked with me on the script.

She’s always good at explaining what’s happening in the projects I audition for and work on. I was almost nine when I filmed “Criminal Minds”, so I was able to understand that what I was doing was only acting. It was such a great time and I worked with such great people, so off-screen it wasn’t so intense.

by Denise Smith

Fact • Actor since age six.

• Younger brother of actress Jillian Rose Reed.

PROFESSION • Actor

PROFILE Name: Robbie Tucker Gender: Male Ethnicity: Caucasian

ISM: “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” is a hilarious show; did you feel any

CAREERTIMELINE Family Weekend (Feature) 2013

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Awkward (TV) - 2012 The Young and the Restless (TV) 2012

Pack of Wolves (TV Movie) - 2012 The League (TV) - 2011 Shuffle (Feature) - 2011

“TV, no matter how small the role is, takes more time because the scenes usually have to be turned so many times be turned so many times” pressure to bring the funny while on set?

RT: I don’t feel too much pressure when the role is ‘right’ for me. Playing young Charlie Day was a perfect fit, so the funny I brought to the role came naturally. Charlie and the director Fred Savage made it fun, so it was pretty easy to bring the comedy to such a funny show!

ISM: How difficult was the audition for “The Young and the Restless” role?

RT: It was another role that was a good match for me, so the audition came easy, but like any audition there’s always a little bit of nervousness….it’s really more like excitement at the opportunity. The most difficult part was the casting process because of how long it took. There was the pre-read, then a couple of callbacks with the producers. Finally, I had to do a chemistry read with Christian and Tracy to make sure I was a good fit to play their son Fenmore, and that they liked me!

ISM: During the shooting of “The Young and the Restless”, how did you handle your school responsibilities?

RT: I usually found out my filming days a week or so before I was actually scheduled to work. My mom would contact the teachers with enough time for them to give me all the work and homework that I would miss. I had two regular studio teachers who worked with me during the three years I was on the show, so they knew my school routine really well. I did my three hours of school between filming my scenes.

ISM: Your first movie role was the incredibly successful studio feature “Little Fockers”. Could you tell us about your experience on set with “A-List” veterans?

RT: My scene in the school playground with Ben Stiller was really great. I filmed that scene and a couple of smaller ones on the playground with him. He was really quiet during breaks when he wasn’t filming…he sat and read. Probably because our scene had like 50 kids in

Little Fockers (Feature) - 2010 It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (TV) - 2009

it on the playground and it was crazy! He was cool and a great role model for me.

He was very professional and really funny. He acted just like a regular guy even though he is a huge actor!

ISM: Tell us about your newest film “Family Weekend” and the character you play?

RT: “Family Weekend” is about four kids who try to convince their parents how important it is to spend more time with their family and to stop forgetting about all their kids’ activities. The parents are so wrapped up in their jobs that their family is falling apart. After our parents miss an important event, my big sister takes them hostage to get them to listen. It’s a very funny comedy. I play Mickey, the youngest child, and I have a form of Autism. I remember things that no one else can, and repeat things really fast when I am asked by my family during arguments. I am fascinated by reptiles and the Animal Planet. I am very smart and always repeat animal facts that I hear on TV. I don’t talk very much at first, but I have a breakthrough in the movie….that’s all I can say. I hope you see the movie!

ISM: What are the toughest challenges you have faced as a young actor?

RT: Getting through the really large audition scripts with usually only one night to prepare, and having homework at the same time. Also, balancing school and my acting career can get really crazy. During my football season it’s even crazier, but I’m used to it so it’s not that bad!

ISM: What advice would you give aspiring young performers?

RT: Keep studying hard….stay in acting class and work with different coaches. This is a hard business to be in, but never give up!

ISM: How have your parents helped

AWARDSCONTACT Best Performance in a Daytime TV Series - Won - 2012

manage your career, school, and life as a kid?

RT: I have an agent and a manager in the business, but my mom oversees everything I do in my career and in school. She has a good relationship with my management, my teachers, and even my school principal, because they need to be kept up to date on what I’m doing. Our family is always busy with my career, my sister’s career, and all the regular family stuff.

Outside of acting, my life is like any other kid, I go to school, have friends, play organized flag-football, and do normal kid stuff! My mom keeps our family organized and makes sure I do everything the other kids do!

ISM: Any upcoming projects you would like to share with us?

RT: Well, I had a really busy pilot season! I auditioned every day and I even went to network testing for a pilot which is a really huge deal for an actor. I booked a guest star role on an episode of Nickelodeon’s “SEE DAD RUN”, which I filmed all last week, and today I met with the director and writer of a new studio movie for the lead role. Now, I cross my fingers and wait!

Agent: Brad Diffley Phone: 323.931.555

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Muve

Music @ SXSW Ghost Face Killer and others rock SXSW.

http://www.mycricket.com/muve-music

Subscriber Influence With more than 1.4 million subscribers and 10 million tracks, Muve’s influence on the music industry is clearing growing.

Exclusive Content Subscribers get exclusive tracks, album commentary, meet & greets, and chances to win artist merchandise. Unique monthly artist programs help people discover up-andcoming and established artists, from indies to major labels.

Understanding Hip-Hop Muve understands the hip-hop community and has a good ear to know who will break it hot in the next few months. Artists like Big Sean and Wiz Kahlifa all scored incredible followings – in large part thanks to Muve

THE CROWD IS FUNDING B y now we all have heard of crowd funding, and every entrepreneur around the world has either tried to raise funds through the crowd, or they have thought about doing it. No idea can be brought to market without the financial backing needed to help it succeed. The idea of the crowd isn’t new, many of today’s Fortune 1000 companies started with an entrepreneur asking his/her friends and family for money to get their idea off the ground. A perfect example of this would be John Mackey and Rene Lawson Hardy who started Whole Foods with money borrowed from friends and family. As you shop at one of these stores, consider this would not be possible if it wasn’t for Mr. Mackey’s and Mrs. Lawson Hardy’s devoted crowd-funding tactics.

The entertainment industry is no different, many independent films are made possible with the help of crowd funding similar to Whole Foods. Every director or producer worth their salt started their careers on films where they had to ask friends and family for funds.

With the invention of the internet a connected world became possible. We all now have friends and family in distant corners of our city, country and world that we communicate with daily, in ways that were not possible 20 years ago. The whole world is now connected to one another, and entrepreneurs are taking advantage. According to the World Internet Users 2012 Statistical Report, over thirty-four percent of the world’s population used the internet in 2011. This allows entrepreneurs the ability to pitch their ideas for funding to over two billion people!

The Present The state of independent film finance is at a weird place. It has always been hard to find millions of dollars of someone else’s hard earned money to create a film, and with the economic down turn indie film has yet to fully recover.

With the studios all but shutting out any originality that doesn’t come with a pre-built audience, these great films with off-beat subject matter have found it hard to get their spots before the camera.

Currently, two companies have built platforms of choice when raising funds for a film production. These platforms, Kickstarter and Indiegogo have become a staple in the minds of filmmakers and the crowds that follow them.

Kickerstarter has seen over 9600 film and video projects successfully funded.

Reward-based funding has proven to be the most suc-

22

cessful form of funding used by filmmakers. Within this system, filmmakers give crowd funders a gift (reward) in exchange for their money. While investors are looking for the next Facebook or Groupon, film crowd funders are looking to help create the next great indie, possibly with subject matter Hollywood executives won’t touch. However, by looking at the statistics, most have funded nothing more than an amateur’s dream of becoming a professional, or as I’ve heard it said before, funding Hollywood’s minor league system.

A review of the data provided by Kickstarter shows us that while over 9,600 films and video projects have been funded, more than fifty percent of those projects have raised less than $10,000. A star driven Hollywood feature film can easily cost over a hundred times that. This brings us to one of the main reasons Hollywood has mostly ignored crowd funding. In the minds of people within the industry, the crowd can’t come together to the magnitude that is needed for them to bring their product to market.

More on this later!

If the crowd isn’t funding, then who is? That is the real question. There are a few ways to finance a film, but the most popular way is pre-sales, and/or the good old fashion accredited investor. Regardless of crowd momentum in any industry, accredited investors are the way things are done. I doubt if a studio could crowd fund a film slate to the tune of $500,000,000, which takes established investors.

Making Old Better

Every celebrity from the “D” to “A” Lists have personal projects they can’t find funding for. Take the indie film “Celeste and Jesse Forever”, starring Adam Samberg and Rashida Jones. Ultimately, the movie was made for a budget of around $9,000(USD), far lower than most movies the stars were use to working on. Yet, for a labor of love, every star is willing to take lower rates to make a great indie film.

With so many stars and producers forced to look for funding outside the studio system, only two players have evolved to fill the void. Slated, launched in 2012, is the brain child of Stephan Paternot and Duncan Cork to connect accredited investors with real Hollywood independent filmmakers and stars to finance great indie films we all can enjoy. “Through my past, I experienced firsthand the challenges of raising funds, so we wanted to build an internet solution that would connect filmmakers with financi-

ers” says Stephan.

While this may seem like the same old model, and in fact it is, Slated has packaged together, in one intuitive website, a large number of Hollywood professionals along with their passion projects, and made them easily accessible to investors. Beforehand, an investor would have to be introduced to stars and producers through middlemen who may or may not be, let’s just say totally forthcoming. Investors can browse Slated and make contact only if they choose to, helping to ease their worries. By quickly browsing of their site, you will find projects with stars attached, such as Steve Carell, Maya Rudolph, Thomas Haden Church, Kevin Costner, Anthony Mackie and many more.

Packaging films into slates has been a popular way of attracting financing, as it reduces the risk across a number of films. There is an age-old saying that one hit film can pay for nine flops. SecondMarket is one of the largest platforms for investing in such markets as Fixed Income, Private Company Stock, Bankruptcy and Community Banking.

Recently, SecondMarket commissioned a series of white papers on independent film investments for their pool of investors that is available on their site and to Slated members. Speaking with Executive Vice President of Investor Engagement, Jeremy Smith, he explains their approach.

“We wanted to fully understand what would be the best way for our investors to engage in this type of investment safely and with the best possibility of making a profit”. Per the fourth released white paper, titled “The Advantages of a Managed Fund”, individual investors should turn to films that are financed outside of the studio system, yet are still able to secure distribution. “You must find independent films that are star driven, but at a price point that makes sense if you have a chance of making a profit” says Jeremy.

SecondMarket has decided to build a film-financing instrument that will pool financing from their investors into a fund, and invest in films they find through Slated. In our opinion this is a logical fit; Slated has the only internet based funding platform that is exclusive to film.

The Game Changer During our research on film financing and where crowd funding fits, we initially came to the conclusion that crowd funding just couldn’t support a motion picture and television series. That was until Rob Thomas literally changed the game with the rebirth of a popular yet short-lived series “Veronica Mars”; Rob’s vision was to create a feature film version of the television show. “Why not, “Entourage” is doing it?” you might ask yourself. While arguably “Entourage” is more popular, and it certainly lasted longer, “Veronica Mars” has a group of die-hard friends.

With permission from Warner Brothers, Rob placed an ad on Kickstarter and let the world know of his dream and passion for the project. The crowd responded to the tune of $5.7 million dollars by the end of its funding run. This far exceeds anything anyone realized was possible from the crowd. In less than sixty days this move broke funding records and created an indie film fund that has more than 90,000 stakeholders.

With anything that extraordinary, comes criticism. Most of the criticism centers on the word greed and the question “Why should we help fund millionaires?” The criticism holds zero merit as we all fund millionaires on a daily basis with our purchases. The clerk at your Starbucks isn’t

getting rich with every coffee purchase you make, but the owners and executives are. Every time you go to a film and purchase your ticket you are helping to make some existing millionaire richer. If you live in a city that has a professional sports team, you are probably paying for a stadium or arena through a creative increase in some tax you may not even realize.

What this example proves is that fans will pay for what they truly want to see. Since Veronica Mars’ character isn’t a tent pole, Warner Brothers didn’t think there was a big enough market to put up the budget amount; a miscalculation that studios are making a lot now. This Kickerstarter campaign is no different than Rob taking this project to American Film Market (AFM) and pre-selling to foreign territories. They are buying a product before it’s finished and the crowd did the same thing. This is far from greed; it’s good business.

Crowd funding experts are posed to reap the benefits as well, with a whole new list of clientele. David Marlett, Executive Director of the National Crowdfunding Association, Founder and Chairman of the Board of the World Crowdfund Federation and Founder of crowd funding consulting firm BlueRun Media, is one such person. Mr. Marlett has the expertise to help star clients navigate the crowd funding waters and not drown. “You can’t just go out and ask for money, just like with anything you have to put a plan in place and execute it correctly to maximize your exposure and dollars raised.” A whole sub industry is being born to support this growing industry as it matures. “My job is to help my clients rise above the log jam of projects out there and bring the crowds dollars to them, it’s what I know and it’s what I’m good at” adds David.

The Future Rob’s story is incredible and looks to be duplicated again soon. In late April, Zach Braff, of “Scrubs” and “Garden State” fame, has launched his own Kickstarter campaign.

In just over twenty-four hours he raised $1.5 million dollars (USD), quickly approaching his goal of $2 million dollars. This ballsy act by an even more visible personality proves that the crowd is willing to fund. “Crowd funding is here to stay, it isn’t going any where any time soon.” says David Marlett. My personal belief is that we have not seen the full power of the crowd yet.

With the passing of the JOBS ACT in 2012 and the coming rule changes, that are no more than a year away, the game will change. JOBS ACT is designed to let the average American into a game that has historically been played by the rich, allowing them to get richer. The dream of allowing every American the opportunity to invest in the new Facebook or Groupon is not only groundbreaking, but also fair.

This game changer will grow crowd funding from teenagers to adults. Imagine “Veronica Mars” being offered to those 90,000 fans at equity and not a reward. The crowd will opt to take a stake in the movies they want to see, not just standing by and waiting for studios and producers to predict what they want to see. This will indeed create a new Hollywood. Netflix and Hulu have helped to change the way we view TV, we no longer have to wait on the Network to decide when we can watch a show. Crowd funding cont. pg. 32

23

Venture King INTERVIEW WITH GARY DELFINER

G

ary Delfiner is an industry veteran with over twenty years of experience, ranging from producer, director, writer and executive. Currently, he is the Head of Digital Distribution at one of the largest distributors in the world.

ISM: Tell us a little bit about who you are?

GD: I come from the traditional movie business. I helped create Arron Spelling’s home video company in the 90’s, and I ran the production division of Republic Pictures over at 5000 Wilshire, so I’ve produced 20-25 pictures in my career, and about five years ago I started working at Screen Media Ventures, (you can think of us as a mini Warner Bros). We are one of the largest independents; we own a library of over two thousand titles. Two years ago, I went to the digital piece of the business and created Popcorn Flix. Like all studios, we distribute all of our individual properties to about thirty-five platforms worldwide.

ISM: What does your President of Digital Distribution job entail?

GD: Expanding the footprint is a big part of my job, along with marketing and promoting Popcorn Flix and our other channels.

ISM: What types of media outlets does Screen Media Ventures distribute to?

GD: We distribute directly to every outlet you can think of, all the usual outlets.

We have a division that sells to cable; a syndication division, and a very robust home entertainment division. We are on about thirty-five platforms worldwide, both analog and digital, and lastly we have a theatrical division.

ISM: In the market place, which types of properties are selling the best domestically, and which types foreign?

GD: Very good question. The models are changing in terms of the digital business; I would say males 18-34. Call it the gaming crowd. That’s because the biggest platforms out there are the gaming platforms. Domestically, comedy and families are the big sellers. As the baby boomers go on and new families come up, all of these people have grown up on digital. Action is a big seller as well. I’m not an expert in overseas, but horror always sells well overseas.

There is a reason why “Hangover” was a huge seller; it spoke directly to the demographic.

CAREERTIMELINE Director of Digital Distribution (Executive) - Present

24

Escape from Wildcat Canyon (Feature) - 1998 Teach Me (Feature) - 1998

by CHRIS PARKER

Fact • Over 20 years of experience.

• Creator of Popcornflix.

PROFESSION • Producer • Director • Writer • Executive

PROFILE Name: Gary Delfiner Gender: Male Ethnicity: Caucasian

Borrowed Hearts (TV Feature) 1997 Crackerjack (Feature) - 1994

“We showcase at all the major markets, such as AFM, Berlin, MipCom, etc.”

ISM: Have you seen growth in the digital platforms when it comes to distribution?

GD: Not only have I seen growth, but exponential growth, especially in set top boxes and smart TV’s.

Those are the biggest growth areas in the business as far as I’m concerned. People are used to watching television; you come out the womb watching TV. Now, we also have iPads and thousands of Apps that deliver content. Even our pets have content, my cat has her own app and she goes crazy for it when I put it in front of her. What I’m saying is things have changed, so you don’t need a lot of connected boxes to watch your content. Roku has hundreds of channels, so connected TV is a growth area.

ISM: What markets do you showcase your catalog for purchases?

GD: We showcase at all the major markets, such as AFM, Berlin, MipCom, etc. I go to and speak at a lot of digital conferences and panels. In the terms of licensing our product, we definitely show up at all the major markets.

ISM: Can you tell us the challenges you face when selling feature films and television series?

GD: I don’t think there are any challenges. We have solved a lot of problems, including taking all of our encoding and taking it in-house.

Those can be big challenges for a distributor, but we are all self-contained.

So we have no barriers, and my job is to wake up every day and think about where we can distribute our digital assets.

ISM: How do you ensure your filmmaker partners see a profit when they choose to sell their properties to screen media ventures?

GD: No one can guarantee if a filmmaker will make a profit, we don’t have control over that. We do however have control over working hard to maximize their revenue opportunities. Again, we are in the business of distributing properties to every place we can, and for the most revenue we can. The only thing we can ensure

Killer (Feature) - 1994 The Velveteen Rabbit (Feature) - 1988

is that we use our best efforts to distribute properties optimally. We do try to get our producers the most money we can get them. Remember, we make money when they do, so it’s in our best interest to try our best.

ISM: In your opinion what is the future of digital distribution?

GD: Well, you have to be a little more specific. The future of digital business in general is unlimited. I have been in this business for over twenty years and I have never seen any part of the business grow as much as the digital space. It’s growing exponentially and it’s unlimited. It’s only constrained by what the next technology is, or whatever the next demand is by the consumer.

Think about it, Facebook has over a billion people; that’s unimaginable. That’s all digital!

Everything digital is so fast, the velocity in which digital can travel is amazing, practically instant.

ISM: How did you create Popcorn Flix, and what was your motivation behind making a free movie service?

GD: Screen Media Ventures owns such a huge library of high profile films. So, we had the assets. We understood distribution, and we decided to make the investment. It’s not small, but starting a new digital platform is not for the weak at heart.

It’s very expensive to build apps, encode movies, and things like that.

We saw a lot of growth in the free streaming business, especially being a supplier to all the major outlets.

We thought we had a great shot at taking part of our destiny in our own hands and creating additional revenue streams for our producers and ourselves.

ISM: What type of process does a filmmaker face when submitting a finished product to Screen Media Ventures?

GD: It’s not really hard. You can find names of people on our websites.

You can submit directly, or through agents. It’s not very different from other distribution companies, and we are always looking for great movies.

ISM: With the studios focusing on a smaller number of large budget films, often called tent poles, have you found the state of independent film to be better or worse at this time?

GD: You are right; studios are focusing on tent poles.

Indie status is very good right now. You might have to make your movie for less money, however the technology is so great right now and so affordable that you can make great films for less.

The outlets are also so great right now. Again, it always comes down to the same thing; you have to have a film people want to see. I always tell filmmakers, if you are going to make money, you must know who your audience is. Things like Pay-Per-View are becoming larger, downloads are gaining large growths, so in the near future I am hoping the new model surpasses the old model.

ISM: Crowd funding has become very popular with the amateur filmmaker, and a small group of professionals cont. pg. 32

AWARDSCONTACT Website - http://www.screenmedia.net/popcornflix.html

25

Fashionista

by CHRIS PARKER

INTERVIEW WITH SOPHIA BANKS-COLOMA

T

his British and Austrian born Fashionista started her career at the tender age of seven. With the innate ability to predict fashion trends as much as six months in advanced, she owns her on clothing line, has connections we all would die for and the ability to make any independent movie look like a hundred million dollars.

ISM: Tell us a little bit about who you are?

SBC: I’m a stylist and a mother of one. I am half British and Australian, and was raised in Australia. I moved to America about eight years ago, married an American, and I have loved fashion since I was ten years old.

ISM: When did you know you wanted to be in the fashion industry?

SBC: When I was seven I knew I wanted to be in film or fashion. So, I asked my mom to take me to a sketching class for fashion and I loved it. Fashion publications like Vogue were hard to find in Australia at the time.

ISM: How did you become a costume designer for feature film and television?

SBC: I had studied fashion as a designer and worked on design for some music videos. I opened my own boutique and designed my own label. A friend of mine was talking to a director that needed someone to design costumes, but wanted someone who understood fashion. I got the opportunity to pitch to him twice, and he really liked the idea. That was my first movie, shortly after I was signed by an agent and booked more films.

ISM: When did you first hear about the film “Syrup”?

SBC: I heard about it through a friend, so I met with the director. I loved the script and really wanted to do this movie. I pursued it hard and got the job.

ISM: You had an incredible two million dollar budget for your department. That is larger than the total of most independent film budgets. How did such a large budget change the way you did your job?

SBC: Our department budget was only thirty thousand dollars, but I was able to obtain over two million dollars’ worth of clothing, such as Dior. Labels loved the movie idea and they loved Amber, and they wanted to give us clothes. Amber’s beautiful, and they wanted to see their clothes on her.

CAREERTIMELINE I, Lucifer (Feature) - 2013 Syrup (Feature) - 2013

26

Shannen Says (TV) - 2012

Fact • Partners with Satine Boutique in Los Angeles.

• Able to predict what women will want to wear in six months time.

PROFESSION • Costume Designer • Fashion Expert

PROFILE Name: Sophia Banks-Coloma Gender: Female Ethnicity: Caucasian

“I had studied fashion as a designer and worked on design for music videos” ISM: How did you and director Aram Rappaport decide on the style for each character?

SBC: I pitched to him the ideas I had, and he gave me his notes/thoughts.

I then combined both of them. We sat around and brainstormed a lot, and he pretty much liked everything I proposed, other than a flower Dior dress. Amber wanted it as much as I did and we fought hard to have it, but ultimately he said no. Outside of that we pretty much agreed on everything.

ISM: Tell us your experience working directly with Amber Heard, Brittany Snow and Kellan Lutz?

SBC: Amazing! We had such a great time, it was summer and we were in New York. We were filming a stylish movie and Amber was wonderful.

She has such a great fashion eye and is very collaborative. Kellan is so funny and always wants to make you laugh. He is very genuine and sweet and his character was great. Brittany flew in and is just a sweetheart and a wonder. We all became friends, it was just great.

ISM: How do you deal with actors that disagree with the style you have created for their character?

SBC: I think you have to work with them; it is about them, not the clothes. I can’t be arrogant and think it’s just about my look, so I will suggest other things. You want to make sure they are comfortable so they are able give their best performance.

I’m there to help them feel great and make the character look wonderful.

ISM: What is the hardest part of your job?

SBC: I think finding the balance that works for the film and the actor.

Also, the administration can be very difficult, keeping track of everything behind the scenes with continuity and things like that. Of course, I have people helping with that, but it’s still a struggle.

ISM: Can you tell us a bit about your next project “I, Lucifer”?

SBC: At this point, I’ve been ap-

proached and signed to do the film, but with no actors, so I’m in a holding pattern. I’m doing other projects; I just dressed Jessica Sanchez for American Idol and her music video. I am also doing red carpet dressing as well.

ISM: What advice would you give aspiring costume designers?

SBC: I recommend getting an internship and be amazing, bright and wonderful! They will shine and get experience at the same time.

Games”, Jean-Claude Van Damme and a few others.

ISM: What is your secret to predicting fashion trends?

SBC: What’s happening in the world of art and human element in the terms of what the culture is doing and people’s moods. How a person is feeling usually dictates the coming styles.

ISM: In 2004 you partnered with Satine Boutique in Los Angeles. Does the experience of running your own boutique help you with feature film styling?

SBC: You learn about brands, and it helps you track what new stuff is coming. When you are doing movies the styles are always two years behind, so it helps to trend the new things to bring an updated look to a film.

ISM: You are a celebrity stylist, which celebrities have you worked with?

SBC: Of course Amber and Brittany, Sharon Stone, Maggie Grace, a few of the cast members from “The Hunger

AWARDSCONTACT Website - http://sophiabankscoloma.com/

27

SYRUP Title: Surup Genre: Comedy/Drama Writer: Aram Michael Rappaport & Max Barry Producers: Cameron Lamb, Barrie M. Osborne, Susan A. Stover Executive Producers: Andrew Banks, Sophia Banks-Colma, Brett Forbes, Aaron L. Gilbert, Dusty Hicks, Cole Kellogg, Baird Kellogg, Shane Mandes, Patrick Rizzotti Director: Aram Michael Rappaport Starring: Amber Heard, Shiloh Fernandez, Kellan Lutz, Brittany Snow, Rachel Dratch, Toby Hemingway Editor: Robert Hoffman Director of Photography: Music By: Peter Bateman, Andrew Holtzman Production Designer: Dina Goldman Casting Director: Julio Mascat Story: A slacker hatches a million-dollar idea. But, in order to see it through, he has to learn to trust his attractive corporate counterpart. Based on Max Barry’s novel.

MPAA Rating: R Release Date: May 2, 2013 (VOD) / June 7, 2013 (Theatrical) Runtime: 90 minutes.

Production Company: Lila 9th Productionst Distributor: Magnolia Pictures Web: http://www.magpictures.com/

Click Image Below To Play Video (Digital Versions Only)

NONPROFIT FILM FINANCING by: Jon Garon http://www.lawandinformatics.com

F

or guerrilla and digital filmmakers, nonprofit grants often go unnoticed. Many nonprofit organizations are willing to participate in independent film projects. Some invest in film as an art form regardless of content, while others support particular projects because they are interested in promoting the message of the filmmaker—this is particularly true for documentary film.

Another selling point of nonprofit investment in independent filmmaking is that the donors’ return on investment is guaranteed. Given the number of independent films that never recoup any of the investors’ principal, shrewd supporters may prefer the more general benefit provided by a charitable tax deduction than the unlikely chance that they will see an equivalent return on their investment. Moreover, the tax deduction occurs at the time of the donation, so the return is immediate and without risk. For first-time filmmakers, particularly documentary filmmakers, charitable support is a very legitimate way to enter the business.

For the filmmaker himself, a further benefit is the level of appreciation afforded by the sponsors. Nonprofits often recognize that most of the work done on an independent film is essentially volunteer time, donated to complete a worthwhile project. As a result, they may offer the filmmaker wide latitude and a great deal of respect.

A limitation on nonprofit fundraising is that the money is often quite modest. The donors may also lack any sophistication regarding the project, unlike sources connected with the film industry. When funds become available from industry sources, they may often lead to other opportunities to promote the film or to valuable connections essential to the casting or production of the project.

include the Sundance Documentary Fund, assisting the development of documentaries on social issues; the Fund for Jewish Documentary Filmmaking, focusing on Jewish history and culture; the National Black Programming Consortium, focusing on films emanating from African American communities; the Astraea National Lesbian Action Foundation, addressing issues in the lesbian community; and many geographic programs, such as the New York State Council on the Arts, the Minnesota Independent Film Fund, the Pacific Pioneer Film Fund, and the Texas Filmmakers Production Fund.

The Paul Robeson Fund is typical of the documentary funding model. Grants ranging from $2,000 to $15,000 are provided for documentaries dealing with relevant social issues. Filmmakers must complete grant applications that detail the project and provide samples of their prior work.

In many other cases, a nonprofit organization may not specifically be looking to finance a film project, but rather to provide funds for community outreach, training, or other goals. If the film being developed pro-motes those goals, the film project may become a valuable investment for the organization.

2. Fiscal Sponsorships Nonprofit organizations may raise money from private donors or from grant organizations to fund those who support their exempt charitable purpose. As charitable organizations, they do not pay federal income tax, and they allow their donors to receive a charitable deduction against personal tax obligations. These charities are often referred to by their IRS tax designation, as 501(c)(3) organizations.

1. Sources for Nonprofit Film Financing Organizations that provide resources to filmmakers

A few 501(c)(3) organizations have the development of noncommercial film and video as their charitable pur-

This is part of a series of book excerpts from The Independent Filmmaker’s Law and Business Guide: Financing, Shooting, and Distributing Independent and Digital Films designed to introduce filmmakers and others interested in creating content on the legal issues involved in the filmmaking process.

3030

The filmmaker is responsible for careful financial accounting and for compliance with all applicable tax laws.

pose. Organizations such as the Independent Film Project (IFP), Film Arts, and others accept donor funds to promote film projects. Under the typical fiscal agency relationship, a filmmaker applies for fiscal sponsorship by providing information on the film project, the filmmakers, the budget, and the distribution strategy. If approved by the fiscal agent, that charity serves as the entity that receives the donations. The charity then provides the donated fees to the filmmaker. The fiscal agent typically charges a 5 to 10 percent fee for its services.

The filmmaker is responsible for careful financial accounting and for compliance with all applicable tax laws.

For example, the donor cannot be given any financial interest in the film, because this would transform the charitable gift into a for-profit investment. Donors can be given tokens of appreciation, but if these gifts have any significant monetary value, then the donor must be informed of the value of the gift, and the donor must deduct that value from the value of the donation listed on her tax returns.

3. Partnership Projects and Agenda-Based Films Fiscal sponsorships are not limited to arts organizations. Any 501(c)(3) organization may elect to serve as a film’s fiscal agent, provided the film meets its charitable purpose. For example, a charity dedicated to promoting the elimination of a particular rare disease may find that a documentary highlighting the devastating consequences of the disease would help promote awareness and encourage pharmaceutical research to find a cure. A filmmaker hoping to make such a documentary could enter into a relationship with that charity by which it served as

the project’s fiscal agent.

The filmmaker would be responsible for attracting new donations to the charity earmarked for the documentary, and the charity would be responsible for assuring that the tax and reporting obligations were fully met. The agreement should provide for the filmmaker’s salary, whether paid up front or deferred, and also stipulate that any donations in excess of the production and distribution costs be retained by the charity. The charity may charge a small fee to cover the expenses it incurs. The filmmaker retains the ownership of the film and its copyright, and all revenue from the film.

Even without becoming a fiscal agent, a nonprofit may serve as a conduit for additional funds donated by supporters of the film project. For example, if a church were willing to sponsor a production based on the life of one of its former pastors, the church would probably provide a modest grant toward the production costs (and perhaps provide the use of the church without charge as a shooting location). In addition, the church could collect funds for the film project from other donors. So long as the payments were consistent with the charitable purpose of the organization, a nonprofit could choose to use its resources to underwrite the film project.

4. Accounting and Accountability of Nonprofit Film Financing As mentioned above, the fiscal agent is responsible for ensuring that the film project’s fundraising meets its tax cont. pg. 32

Jon Garon is an attorney and professor of informatics, entertainment, intellectual property, and business law. He has extensive experience in the areas of entertainment law (including film, music, theatre, and publishing), data privacy and security, business planning, copyright, trademark, and software licensing. He works closely with entertainment and business clients providing financing, production and distribution counseling for independent filmmakers, musicians, artists and entrepreneurs.

3131

Cont. from pg. 25 Broad Com...

Cont. from pg. 25 Non Profit

My experience with broad comedy is that it’s simply comedy that can reach a wide demographic of people, basically the 4 quadrants of film marketing. It’s not edgy or offensive and usually ranges from the G to the PG category, in my experience.

To me, School of Rock is a good example of a broad comedy because it works on both an adult and child’s level simultaneously. Farce and slapstick are sub-genres of Comedy and it doesn’t have to be either of these to be considered a broad comedy. --Kraig Wenman, Producer and Writer

obligations. If the fiscal agent is a film arts charity, it will likely have little or no control over the content of the film.

(Non-arts charities are likely to participate as fiscal agents only in those situations where the charity and filmmaker have agreed in general terms about the content.) To meet IRS regulations, however, the fiscal agent must have a legal right to control the project, to assure that the funds are used in a manner consistent with the agreed-upon budget and that financial record keeping and reporting occurs properly. Charities with ongoing fiscal agency programs will have operational guidelines that the filmmaker must agree to follow. The filmmaker remains responsible for any liabilities of the production.

I would say that broad comedy is extreme comedy which is not as grounded or rooted in reality. Broad comedy tends to be more physical, and often involve fantasy, spoof and/or an exaggeration of the truth. Examples of broad comedies include: “Animal” (After receiving organ transplants from various animal donors, a man finds himself taking on the traits of those animals) , “Ace Ventura, Pet Detective” ( A goofy detective specializing in animals goes in search of a missing dolphin mascot of a football team) , “Dumb and Dumber” (two guys too dumb to exist in reality), “Zoolander” (the world of the male runway model on steroids), “Blades of Glory” (broad comedy, spoofing the world of professional ice-skating).

--Wendy Kram, Producer, Owner of LA for Hire Script Consulting: www.la4hire.com Broad comedy is the type of comedy that executives THINK appeals to the largest percentage of audience members.

Typically, in my opinion, this is the type of comedy that doesn’t evoke an intellectual response, but an emotional one.

To put it simply, it’s not there to make ya think. Broad comedy goes for the easy joke (physical humor or often “toilet humor.”) Think more Van Wilder and a lot less Woody Allen. Obviously, you can have broad comedies that get a little “heady,” (see Judd Apatow and Kevin Smith) but there are always exceptions to every rule and even those filmmakers have found their specific audiences.

--Manny Fonseca, Exec at Final Draft Inc., Co-Host of Breakin’ In! www.breakinginthebiz.com

32

The film company does not itself become a 501(c)(3) charity. Instead, it should receive an annual tax form from the fiscal agent identifying the funds donated to it. Since the amount should be offset by the costs of production, there should be no taxes owed on these payments. If the film company is a sole proprietorship, however, and the budget includes the filmmaker’s salary, then this will constitute personal income to the filmmaker. * Jon Garon is admitted in New Hampshire, California and Minnesota.

Adapted from The Independent Filmmaker’s Law and Business Guide: Financing, Shooting, and Distributing Independent and Digital Films, A Capella Books (2d Ed. 2009) (reprinted with permission). Jon Garon is the Director of the NKU Chase Law + Informatics Institute and Professor of Law (at garonj1@nku.edu) ; of counsel, Gallagher, Callahan & Gartrell.

DISCLAIMER: Readers should consult with a lawyer before solely relying on any information contained herein.

Cont. from pg. 25 Great Tips...

5.Gain Subscribers Incorporating some type of subscription service is a great way to generate leads.

I currently use SMS, E-mail, and RSS subscriptions to promote my material.

Since people actually have to subscribe to your material, they are most likely interested in what you have to offer. You can do many different things with these subscriptions. Most people choose to send out a monthly newsletter but this will vary based on your industry, etc.

Whatever you choose to do, make sure

you are consistent with regularly producing quality material for your audience.

You do not want to end up in the spam inbox every month.

These tips were authored by Carol White. Visit the link: http://tinyurl. com/8o6y747 to get more about Social Media Marketing.

DISCLAIMER: Readers should consult with a lawyer before solely relying on any information contained herein.

Cont. from pg. 25 Venture King have joined. Why do you believe bigger names have not sought this proven platform yet and what do you think will change their minds?

GD: Results always changes people’s minds, let’s start there. The proof is in the pudding. I think crowd funding is more of an independent concept. I can’t speak for the studios, this is just my thoughts, but they have metrics they use to make films. The indie world has more flexibility to make a product, so they can afford to go on a kickstarter indiegogo.

I think in the future there will be more sophisticated ways of doing it and I know there are a lot of films being done that way. However, it’s very hard to raise millions of dollars on an internet site. It does allow the viewer and film buff into the mix, engaging early, and almost literally feeling a sense of ownership.

ISM: What can the film audience expect in the future from Popcorn Flix?

GD: They can expect to see the platform on more and more devices. Including connected TV, mobile devices, and yes that includes Blackberry. They can expect to see more and more movies, and at some point exclusive films. Lastly, they can expect to see the platform in more countries.

Cont. from pg. 25 The Crowd... you will not have to be an accredited investor to buy into Hollywood, a year from now it will truly be extraordinary!” adds David.

The old Hollywood will not die, studios will still make summer event films that cost a $100 million or more, accredited investors will still invest in film slates of studio pictures and indie darlings and projects will continue to be pre-sold at world markets such as AFM. Slated and SecondMarket are not going anywhere, and their platforms are built to last and will continue to thrive. However, independent films will find a new source of funding and in turn create a new class of fans and Hollywood investors. Within the next three years we will consistently be saying “The Crowd Is Funding”.