Olive And Mocha

It’s been a couple of months since my last update. I feel like so much has happened and yet not much at all. So what exactly have we been doing?

The past few months have been, what I like to call, a wait-and-see time.

We have had all of our paper work together for a couple of months but we needed an initial investment to get that paperwork checked by a lawyer. That money will be coming in next week (YAY!) and then we can really start rolling.

We were also trying to lock down a director so that when we go into our big fund raising push we can have some visuals to accompany our movie’s pitch. We want to be able to approach investors with a complete vision of the project so that anyone coming on will have confidence investing. I guarantee it will be easier for you to raise money too if you have something for people to watch that is of a reasonable quality.

It took us many months to lock down a director. We met with and approached many different and talented people for the job. We really wanted to make sure that whomever came on board had A/ a vision for the project, B/ a vision that matched our vision and C/ the know-how to pull it off. It took a lot longer to nail someone down than I thought it would though, and the reason is this: PEOPLE. Everyone’s got people. Half the battle in this early part of the journey is finding a Director/Actor/DP you like, the other half is finding one that doesn’t have too many people.

On a budget this low, it can be a bit tricky. You really want to find good crew that can do a lot with a little money (having a good script people love will help you with this) but inevitably if those crew members are worth a damn, they’ve got agents and managers and lovers, and all those people have opinions. And finding out those opinions takes time. Everyone of those people has to read the script and think on it and then they have to meet with the crew member they attend to and then you have to meet with that crew member to hear the reactions from all their people. And then you have to account for all your own people. I mean really people. If you’re going to produce your own movie, I really hope you like lunches and coffee and meetings. Lots and lots of meetings.

Now, your ability to get good crew can also be determined by what good crew you already have. Seem like a catch 22?

The smartest thing I’ve done so far was bring on a fellow producer who knew more and different kinds of people than I did. Where my strengths lie in raising funds, Lara’s strengths have really been in getting this script in front of creative people. It’s key to have someone on your team who gets their phone calls answered. That person doesn’t necessarily have to know a lot of rich people or famous people, but there has to be someone on your team who isn’t afraid to make phone calls. Maybe this person on your team is a PA who’s worked on dozens of shows. Or maybe it’s just your suave cousin. And if you’ve got more than one of these people on your team, then you’re really cooking with gas.

So, now we have a director, but part of bringing her on was meeting with the producer she wanted to bring onto the project to see if she meshed with all the people we already have established on the creative team. And it turns out, that all worked out fine. But that took some time. And bringing on this director has put the script in front of some very talented production designers and directors of photography and so on and so forth. You can see how the street starts to pave itself.

Some of the coolest bragging rights I have going into the making of this film is that we have, what’s shaping up to be, a cast and crew of about 80% women. Huzzah!

So, we’ve got a good director that everyone can agree on and we know where our first check is coming from. Whoohoo,  things are really starting to get fun!

We had a first read through on Monday with the entire creative team in one room together. It was great to hear the script read out loud again. It took me about 3 months to write the thing and about 2 and a half years to rewrite it and I’m not done yet. Hearing it out loud by actors really gives the whole project a sense of stability and realism. This thing is happening and everyone involved is really jazzed about it and that excitement is a great feeling.

Next steps in the process include:

~ Doing a final rewrite
~ Locking down a lawyer to go over the legal documents (try to get one for a set price on coverage of the whole film)
~ Getting the budget drafted

Then the steps will be:

~ Raising the rest of the $300,000.00
~ Bringing in a casting agent
~ Meetings with the creative team about production

The keys are to take it one step at a time, find people who have more experience than me in making these things happen and (most importantly) keep a positive attitude. It can sometimes feel like you are being spread thin by the process. But here is my real advice; trust that the universe is setting you up for success. If you do the work and give into the creative process then it’s going to be okay. It has to be. My script is way too funny to fail!