As Usual

I say this all the time but I really need to post more often. I actually had intended to post last thursday but Mike wants me to have him "edit" my posts. So i sent it to him and he "edited" it two days later. We'll i'll keep having him do it cause (as you know) my spelling and grammer is just aweful. But i'm not going to have him do this one. it's been too long since we I posted last. Here's what i would have posted last thursday:

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I was approached by a potential investor the other day. Money. Money. Money. MONEY!!!. Haha, just kidding. Well, not kidding about being approached. Nothing signed yet so I wont reveal who because I want to protect this person's privacy, but yeah. They were interested in investing a small amount of money (a couple hundred to a possibly a few K or two) to help with festival fees and marketing stuff. Every little bit helps. I'm also excited about this because if it goes through, it's more leverage to find other investors. People are more likely to get on board with something that other people are involved in as well, rather than floating the boat all by them selves. I'll keep everyone posted on what happens with this. For right now I'm working on getting this person a DVD screener so they can be better equipped to make a decision.

One of the things that Mike and I have been talking about (and we discussed this with our potential business partner as well) is that there are three major steps we need to take, even before we decide which way to go in terms of finding a distributor. The three steps are these: setting up a professional website, having a test screening for invites/cast/crew/vip's in a professional venue, and having professional DVD's made (for festival submission and cast and crew copies).  these will be important no matter which way we decide to take the film. It's important that our core team (cast/crew/friends/family) be as excited and passionate about the film as we are. We need to prove to them that this is legit. Not some crappy student film that we're just going to throw away. So I'm in the process of getting quotes for all these things.

The search for student web developers didn't work out so well. The student organization that got back to me said no one would do it for free.

Maybe I should try a different school other than ASU.

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So yeah, that would have been it. I've been doing research on a venue for the screening. It's looking like the cheepest place is going to be $200 for the evening but i hesitate to do that because i want to promote as much professionalism as possible. I'm afraid that doing the test screening in a "$1 theatre" will make the film less credible. But maybe not. it's 750 for the next best thing and then 5000 for an AMC theatre. Retarted. I've got to make a decition on this pretty quick

I've also been doing research on DVD duplication. It looks like it's going to be the cheepest to go through Kenny's company. But i need to decide how many to make and in which manar. it's $2.50 a disc for full packaging (amerey, insert, disc art, shrink wrap, etc.). it's $1.50 for a spindle of DVD's that have art on the disc but that's it. Not sure how i'll do it yet.

I got a copy of the movie to my potential investor. He saw the flaws of the movie right away (which is good because it means he's got a hint of what he's doing) but over all he said he was impressed with the film. He used the word "Polished" specificly. I think that's good. Right? so i'm going to set up a meeting with him sometime in the next few days hopefully to work out the details and see if this is really something he wants to do.

The ASU film fest was this weekend. That was fun. 

I found a web designer that did a website for another local feature. I found this guy through the IFP vendor list. Hopefully this will work out. I'm going to meet with him on Friday to talk about options for the website.

Johnny's been calling me asking me questions about details on the poster so i think he's making progress. I asked him to try and be done in 2 weeks so that we can start making the DVD's soon.

I've got more to write about but i'm tired. I'll post again tomorrow. -GN.

Will It Work?

I seem to be on this trend of titling my posts with questions. but they're appropriate enough. 

So I had this idea. Well... more like i borrowed this idea. :) A few years ago a website for the sequal to one of my favorite video games was set up. Every week day the game developer would update the site with information regarding the game. maybe he'd announce a character. Or an Item, or a game mode. Sometime it would be something as lame as how to set widescreen or full screen. But every once in awhile he'd upload a trailer, or a video clip. those were great days. I checked the site almost every day for a year and a half. Just to see what was knew. And it was always something small. something that would only take me 5-10min to look at, then go on with my day. Well, i'm going to try that with MH. I've already started. I established a facebook "page" which is sort of like a facebook profile. It's actually way neater than i thought it would be. Gives me status on page views, photo views, interactions, etc. Other users on facebook become "fans" of my page and that allows me to send them updates. So, for the past 3 business days i've been updating the site. I actually have 2 months of updates planed out so far percisly to exactly what i'm going to upload on what day. and i've still got more content after that's up. If you read this and want to become a fan of the facebook page, or just check it out, here's the link: 

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Madison-Hall/85227223141

I hope to use this strategy with the main website as well. once i have it up.

speaking of the website, i spent a few hours today combing the ASU website network looking for student orgs or departments that deal in web development. I sent a few emails out and have already gotten a response from a student org. They just requested more info, but it would be so awesome if i could get someone to work on the movie's website that knew what they were doing. even a little bit. Of course it will be the same situation as with the cast and crew. Some sort of deferred or pro-bono work. I'm hoping to find someone that is interested in just building a resume. Someone who has skills in web development but doesn't have content to apply them too. cross your fingers. :)

I spoke with my brother in law the other day about a game for the website. He's going to start working on it. I'm really excited about this. I hope we can make it happen. I'm not going to say too much about this yet. I want it to be a surprise.

I met with Johnny the other day about the posters. It was a good meeting. Very productive. I think we're on the same page. He should be getting me some drafts sometime this week.

I got about half way through touching up the movie it'self. I'll finish tomorrow and start burning DVD screeners for Harkins and such.

What to do? What to do? What to do?

So.....

Now the movies done.....

What to do? what to do? what to do?

Well, i guess first things first. I've been watching the movie as much as possible on as many different platforms as possible. I need to make sure there arent' any universal problems that i missed, and that my exports and compressions are good. At least for the DVD anyway. So far i've screened it twice at home, once at Tapia's, once at my brother-in-law's (with him and my wife's parents - man was that awkward) and once at a friends house on his tube television. It's interesting how different the movie looks and sound on all these different platforms. I've found a bunch of problems so far. Nothing to bad though. A few situations where i forgot to bring the music down, or my mixing just didn't work like i thought it did. I should be able to fix everything in a day or so, then re-export another couple DVD's. Then be done for good on the film it's self. 

But once I finish it it's back to the same question. What to do? Well, a while back, John had asked me what my distribution plan was. that's something I need to work out. Steph saw the movie and thinks we should try and world premiere at the 2010 Slamdance Film Festival. Seems like a long shot to me. i never thought the film was much of a festival movie. more of a b-movie comedy. but who knows. I have a lot of thinking to do over the next week or two. I bought a book. Chris Gore's ultimate Festival Survial Guide It's pretty good so far. 

I also talked to Harkin's about both a completion screening and a limited release. It's gonna cost about $450 to do a screening. I got some money to try and raise. In terms of the release, it was an awkward conversation with one of their film aquaistion executives. he said that these things rarely work out and kind of talked to me like I didn't understand the industry at all. He started to explain to me that i should find a distributor and that the distributor would put the movie out in theater's. :) ha. so i told him that i'm more interested in a limited release to gain numbers to show to a distributor, and to raise money for the festival circuit. He started to warm up and said he would take a look at a screener. Sometime next week after i fix the stuff i'll bring him a DVD. I'm hesitant to do this at all though, because if we do a limited release, we shoot our selves in the foot for the festival cuircut. 

Basicly i've got 3 options:

1. Festivals, 2. Four Walling/Limited release through Harkins, 3. Approaching Distributors Directly. 

I got some thinking to do.

Completion. Now What?

I'm 2 weeks late on this post and 1 week late finishing the movie. But, IT'S DONE! yay!!!! I finished last thursday, April 9th, 2009.

All I did was mix and mix and mix the week after i posted last. It was very tedious to say the very least. 

The Phoenix Film Festival was last week. it started the 3rd, the day i wanted to finish by. well, by the 3rd i was not done. I was close, but not done. i spent all that day at tapia's working on the movie, and then took fri-sat-sun off. just getting a break from the movie, hanging with Molly, etc. Plus I couldn't really move forward because i was waiting for that song from nashville. they didn't want to email me a copy or anything. Instead they snail mailed me a copy. it came in the mail Tuesday. I was exstatic. I stayed up all night trying to finish to get it done for the 8th so that i could pull a scene and walk into my old capstone class and "turn in" my capstone. Well, come about 6:30am on wednesday i couldn't do it. So i had to leave to pick molly up from work. I could have gone back to tapia's that morning and finished but i was exhausted. So i went to bed and went back to tapia's that afternoon. I worked all day and at about 8:00pm on wednesday i thought i was maybe 2 hours from finishing. just going over stuff again. you know. anyway, i got a strange call. a number from new york. It was Chad Ohnstad. If you go back and look at my old posts, he was someone i had wanted to help me produce the movie. well he was in town and wanted to meet up. I told him i was about to finish the movie and he was like "no shit!". he came over and we caught up for like an hour and then he left to let me finish and i'd call him when it was done. well, as it has gone with the project since the beginnning. it took me roughly 3 times as long to finish as i thought it would. I finished about 3am on thursday morning. I started the export and burning process and it took roughly 3 hours. the first disc was done at 6am and I had to leave to get molly at 7am at the hospital. when i got back at tapia's at about 9am some how i feel asleep on the couch. i don't remember how. i just woke up. kinda strange. the first thing i did was go get a hair cut. Jarvis was with me. In fact, Jarvis was hanging with me the whole time i was working on the movie for the past few days. it was nice company. well, we went and i got my hair cut. then we met Chad and some other friends at Four Peaks and had a celebration lunch. Then we went back and watched the film. Everyone had great reactions. I was actually surprised. 

so that was about it. Since then i've taken a week off. just watching the movie as much as i can on different tv's and sound systems. there a few problems that i missed in the final mix that i'll have to go back and fix. but no need to rush. I watched the movie with Jason, he said i did a good job in the mix. The movie also looked really well on my TV i thought. i'm excited to move forward now.

moving forward now. right? now what?.....

Since the movie is done. I'm going to discountinue this blog and start a new one. www.madisonhallmovie.blogspot.com. As a fresh chapter in the life of the movie, i figure i'll create a new blog. plus, i'm sick of having to log into my old gmail account to update this one. yay for less log ins! :) see you on the new page!