Adventures in Movie Making: Dont Fick Around with Questionable Festivals

Adventures in Movie Making Series with your host Jack Francis

Note: Updated (see portions in orange) on 04/15/2008..

As an independent filmmaker, I make a pretty good welfare recipient. I've "been there and done that" in terms of zero budget movie making. The experience enriches as it depletes your mind, your body, and your investment capital. I wouldn't give it up, since it's on my own terms and it's something I love. If I was doing this in Hollywood as a main career, I'd either be having much more luck or I would have moved on to something else. But I like it here in the Mitten State. No killer bees. No mudslides. No floods. No earthquakes. Not too many twisters. Not as many illegal Mexicans stealing your jobs, and our majority of illegal aliens stealing our jobs are Canadians which means we can at least share a beer with them and understand what they are saying. If someone is stealing my job, I want to be able to at least know their language. Err anyways so I do it on the side and enjoy every moment of it on my own terms.

Zero Budget movie making can be pretty fulfilling and pretty fun, especially when the experience gets surreal as long as you have the fortitude to enjoy the profession for what it is. Artistic and managerial chaos with no guarantees. It's an experience that can be rewarding on so many levels assuming your goal is not "to get rich," but rather, to express your creativity and produce "art" and enjoy the ride. I've learned a lot about myself and made a lot of meaningful friendships along the way.

I wouldn't recommend it to someone whose only goal is to "get rich." Play the lotto! Go to Hollywood and see if you can D.O.P. for some porn then slide your way sideways into soaps and see if you can inch your way up the ladder. Good luck!

Tonight's lesson in movie making is about a surreal situation involving venue.

Let's talk about showing your movie.

If you've got the product edited together and finally ready to go, and you've looked around to show it, then I'm sure your jaw will hit the ground when you find out how much a theater will charge to show it one time. After spending 2-4 grand on the movie (or more, perhaps) you'll be dumbfounded to discover that it can cost between $1,500 to $2,000. ONE TIME. They wont let you put anything in the theater in advance. They won't let you put your title up with the other movies. Your movie won't be listed in the paper. Nope. So your big movie premier is going to draw in cast and crew and probably not much else unless you spend additional coin to advertise.

Then it can get ugly as greed or just fiscal need kicks in. You will want/need to recoup some of this. You'll be sorely tempted to charge cast and crew 10 bucks to see the movie that they most likely worked on.. for free. You'll be tempted to charge them for their copy of the movie.

Some people do this because of the pure greed of it all. "I made my movie, I want to profit!" Others for a baser reason. "Rent is due, I can't afford to show this damn thing unless I can some of it paid for or I lose my apartment!"

Big mistake. Greed or need is no excuse to be immoral. If you can't afford to show it, don't show it. Wait for the opportunity.

I bring this up because at this point you are vulnerable to people who want to take advantage of you and/or situations where you pay less but also get less.

We showed a movie at a location that was a little seedy once. It was cheaper. Not many people showed, but some did. The weird thing about that situation was, the guy running the projector was a fan of exploitation movies so before our movie played, he showed some trailers of exotic foreign exploitation movies... so we had old ladies in the lobby peering in and seeing orgy scenes and such. WHOOPSIE! I had the guy stop that as quick as I could. And we all laughed about it later. The rest of the event went great with no hitches.

But that was nothing compared to what happened to us, recently. Again, in the end, we didn't suffer as a result, we got lucky. But still, we were duped, and want to pass on what happened so others are not duped as well. And I want to take full blame, my cohorts Jeff and Jacquie were quite suspicious but I sweet talked them into going through with this. My bad!

On to the details.

We have 3 movies done now and we like them to be shown. If someone contacts you and says "I have a film festival I'm starting up and I'm looking for movies to show.. no entry fee," it seems like a no lose situation right?

We weren't desperate, all our movies had been shown at least once, but still, it doesn't hurt to get them shown again, especially for free. With the chance to sell copies at the end of the event as well, it seemed like a deal that couldn't be passed up.

I'll tell you the story and then explain why it was a huge mistake to think that way.

This person, I'll call him Phil Frag, had such a deal for us. He was starting up a film festival and wanted movies. So we sent him our DVDs.

Frag liked em and was going to show them. A double feature! 2 of our movies back to back! Seemed like a great idea!

The big warning flag that I convinced us to work around was that Frag seemed like a bit of a scatterbrained thickie; he would give no actual information aside from the barest of vague facts and only after constant request. He gave us the address of the place. It was a bowling alley movie theater combo (say what?). He gave us the date. We had to ask him about 10 times before he said which movies he would show. Getting the time the festival would start.. was a real feat. We finally got it.

Then another warning flag: Another zero budget company, it turned out, was telling people their movie was showing there that night!

We confronted Frag on this and he said it was now a triple feature! He assured us that the order was our movies first then the other company's movie. We knew the guys from the other company and they are great guys... so that was no big deal for us to include them.. in fact it was kind of cool. Why not, hey if they were OK with their movie being shown at 10:30pm-ish.. worked for us. After all their movie was a zombie movie.. perfect for being last on the bill. Still it seemed fishy. Jeff mentioned he was leery so many times I jokingly called him "King Leery." Hey my decision to press on was wrong but at least I got a bad pun out of the bargain.

We hadn't spent any money aside from postage to mail him the DVDs... so why not give it a go. That was the road to Cinematic Hell that I was paving with my exploitative intentions.

And now let me tell you about the night of the "festival." I'm going to keep this vague as it's not my point to fry this Frag ficker, but rather, to use this as a cautionary tale that is packed to the gills with absurdity and hilarity.

So there we were, "Shaven" Dave and I, at the "festival" scene. It looked bad right off the bat. It said "Movie Theater" on the outside as part of the big sign, or something to that effect, but mostly the big sign said a lot of words about BOWLING. Definitely nothing about any movies currently playing there. No signs or banners outside to indicate that any "festival" was going on.

We went in and wandered around. Looked a lot like a bowling alley and nothing at all like a theater. No evidence of a theater being in there at all, actually. Shaven Dave and I wandered down the length of the bowling alley to investigate. Much like Shaggy and Scooby might do. Looking for some food and beer at the same time .

"Raver, rare are ra Rebby Racks? Rooby rooby rebbyrooooo!" - Me

It was a popular place, most bowling lanes had people bowling. Across from the lanes was a
restaurant-style room and beside it...a band room with a mechanical bull in it as well. Yee-ha!

Sadly, no one was riding it.. that would have been a hoot to see, I've never seen anyone actually doing that except on TV.

We wandered all the way down the lanes down past the restaurant room, past the band room.. to see an arcade room across from lane 18 or so. We looked in it to see what games they had and noticed that along the back wall, we could see an open door and what looked like a theater curtain in the far back of that room. We headed over to take a closer look. We had found it! That was the theater. We found it by pure chance.

Nestled back in a secret room behind the Arcade room near the back of the establishment.

Later on we heard that other people had come into the place and asked a staff member about the theater.. they didn't think there was a theater inside the place at all!

Fellow producer Jeff and his lovely wife Jacquie of our movie company were already there, chatting with Frag. I peered past them into the theater room through the door to check it out. It looked like a place you would find PeeWee Herman, and not on a good day. On a "I need some sexual release in the darkened company of strangers" type of day. PeeWee was not there at this time.

The movie screen itself was a real beaut. It had some slices in it, but the real damage was a huge gaping hole that was duck taped up. at the bottom left, big enough to constantly distract from the movie of course.

Bottom Line: This screen was in no shape to show a movie.

Luckily enough Frag was too stupid to have actually gotten the word out about this event. He had lied and said he had a notice out in Real Detroit but it turns out there was no notice. Frag had no publicity out. Nothing outside in the parking lot. No sign on the external doors to the bowling alley. No one out front to flag people down. No sign by the Arcade room. Not even a sign at the theater door. how the Fick were people supposed to find this place? It looked exactly like a bowling alley that had no theater in it.

Like I said, as it turns out, this was an awesome stroke of luck for us.

A waitress/manager/someone who you wouldn't want to wake up beside on a Sunday morning after a drunken binge walked over to talk to us. Frag had ficked off to tamper with the "movie projector" (more about that later). People had been calling the bowling alley asking about what movies were playing and when and she had no information at all to tell them. Nice work Frag! I guessed at the movie lineup for the night and told her; she was very happy that someone actually had some information for her. She ficked off to attend to her various duties.

Frag was up in the projection room playing bits of the movies see how they would look on the screen. They looked like ass, even aside from the "duct-taped gaping hole movie screen" aspect of things. The movies were projecting larger than the screen, chopping off the heads and feet. Shaven Dave went upstairs to the projection room to help. He ficked around with the aspect ratio and such to see what he could do. He couldn't do much but he made it a little bit better.

Shaver told us a revealing detail later.. there was no actual movie equipment at all, just a projector component that you could buy at a Best Buy/Circuit City/Office Depot to project something onto a white wall or a screen off a PC or a DVD player or whatever. Basically what you might buy to show your family movies at home.. preferably on a surface that wasn't full of slices and duct taped holes!

UPDATE:

Here's a picture of the equipment that was set up:

If you click on the picture it should take you to the link to "buy it now" for $350 bucks on eBay.

"High XGA resolution 1024x768 and 1000ANSI lumens. LCD technology, this projector can project fine image even if room not completely dark. HDTV support 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p/60. Electronic zoom and manual focus. Can be used as desktop or with ceiling mount."

Hey I'm not knocking this product, I'm sure it works great for its intended use.. for business presentations. It was not designed to work as a movie theater projector.

Back to the story..

Mike B. from the other movie company showed up, confused as we were. I brought him up to speed as best I could.

Frag was just standing around with his hands on his hips, it was 7:15pm and only two people had showed. We finally pressured him to start our first movie since 2 people had paid cash money and the movie was supposed to start at 7:00..

Frag finally started up the first feature. Jeff, Jacquie and I wandered around the bowling alley and found someone who let us at least say over the bowling alley loudspeaker that it was a "film festival" and the first movie was starting. You know, to lure in the people already there. Not that redneck bowlers are film buffs as a rule unless the movie is about canoes and dueling banjos.. our movies had neither.

Mental note... if we make a movie for this place, we know what content to put in it. And don't bother making it look nice... it don't matter son! Also a deal... see the movie, get a mechanical bull ride for 50% off.

Back to the story. Jacquie went to see the movie, but Jeff and I didn't head right in, we stopped at one of the many many numerous places where you could order a huge monster beer for cheap (hey.. it was a redneck bowling alley. God Bless them for their love of beer). Nate, an actor from one of our movies, showed up, we saw him wandering around looking for the ficking theater. We flagged him down. He hadn't paid yet. We had a beer with him, and even though the movie he was in was playing right then.. after hearing about things he felt no urge to rush down and see himself on the big screen. Maybe he thought the hole would obscure his head.

Those egotistical actors! (Nate, you know I'm kidding). Nate was going to bring his whole family, luckily for them and us, that didn't happen.

The movie played, the sound was OK I guess. I have to say, the sound did not suck any ass. Attention blind audiophiles who enjoy cheap beer.. you would have enjoyed the feature. I kicked back after getting my second monster beer and enjoyed myself ok. It was a lot like sitting at home watching a movie while thunder boomed outside (bowling alley) except that my TV doesnt have a huge hole in it. With my eyes closed I could imagine I was home, and it was stormy outside.

Jacquie, who doesn't have polar bear stamina like myself, noted before the movie started that it was freezing in that theater. They did some minor scrambling around and one dude said he was going to turn the heat on. I think it got a little warmer. I initially blamed the establishment for this but looking back, they probably never heated that room because (1) they never used it because (2) they apparently were unaware of the existence of that room!

So let's check the festival status at this point. 2 people there plus the movie company reps. And Nate, who Jeff snuck in when Frag had ficked off to do something. A total bust as a festival. But on the plus side we didn't have to pay to get in. And Frag had only gotten 20 bucks.

Then, the first movie ended. Even though Frag had told us in emails that the running order was going to be our two movies then the other company's movie, Frag decided to shorten the night and cut our second movie from the bill entirely. I knew something was up when it went right from our movie to their movie with no pause whatsoever. Not even time for a pee break!

That was all I needed to hear to finally get angry and call "my people" together and split. Nothing at all against the other movie company, but we wanted to have Frag see people walk out on his ficking bullshitte.

Looking back we all should have left from the start, the moment we saw that ficked-up screen. I guess we stuck around to make sure people didn't show up. I think Jeff would have been warning people away. And like I said, he got Nate in for free.

I gave Nate and the 2 people that actually paid the 10 bucks copies of our most recent movie for their trouble. And a copy to Mike B as well, since he was duped like us. So people actually got something for their time, just not from Frag. From me.

We felt bad about leaving Mike B. there.. I need to catch up with him and see how the rest of the debacle went. Hopefully no one else showed up. But we seized our chance to flee and flee we did!

UPDATE: Mike B. has this to say about what happened after we left:

"Wow. It was like an episode of Extras. I left half-way through our flick, I just couldn't take it. It's like he was someone who hated us, and wanted his thing to fail. I watched Frag turn away every person that came to check it out. Whatta chump!"

So to recap. Frag had no clue how to play the movie. He did no work at all to publicize the event. He did no work to even let people know once they were at the address where the ficking theater was in the place. The ficking wait staff didnt even know that theater room existed!

Then Frag had the nerve to start to bitch Jeff out on not bring out enough people. As if it was somehow our job to get everyone we knew to pay 10 bucks a head. Even if it was our job..which it wasn't.. wouldn't that assume that the projected movie would be watchable? You know.. correct aspect ration and a working movie screen?

Good news was.. pretty much no one showed up so there was no embarassment. Thank God! I can't even imagine the horror of trying to face down a large group of people who came to see movies. A lot of people could have showed up, and been totally unhappy and blamed our movie production companies. Gotten quite angry! After all.. holes in the movie screen, top and bottom chopped off the picture.. this was a huge total and utter debacle!

I think back to the scene in Strange Brew when Bob & Doug Mackenzie were watching the premier of their movie and the film broke in the movie, and then they opened up a container that had moths in it so the moths would swarm to the screen. And then they made their escape. We had no container of moths!

A final humorous note, Frag had a girl with him, a beaut. When he was off standing somewhere like the buffoon that he is, I asked her if she knew any details about this "festival".. any other nights? What other movies? etc.

She gave me a dark look and said "I have no idea at all, this is his deal not mine. this is all him."

I assumed she was someone who barely knew him that he had somehow roped into helping him. Turns out She was HIS WIFE!

Nice. and of course, his wife had every reason to look upon Frag and his ficked up project like that.

So now the lesson learned.

What can fellow movie makers learn from this experience?

I'm glad you asked.

It's very important to verify the validity of an event that is going to show your movie. Check out the equipment, the movie screen itself, and the location. Can people find the room where the movie is playing?

Do the people working there know there is a movie theater? Can THEY find the room where the movie theater is?

I just assumed all of that would take care of itself and in most cases.. they sure will. Not very many places have secret hidden movie theaters. And of those, I'm going to guess we found the only one with a screen in such bad shape.

Still.. cover all your bases. Second hand info is OK but SOMEONE has to check this out. Especially when you are zero budget looking for any kind of good deal you can get. You still need to remember that sometimes a "good deal" can leave you in the negative.

We got lucky, we learned a lesson but didn't get burned in the process. We just had to apologize to two people, who were very good sports about it. So we got off scott free. A miracle, and a funny story to tell. I mean.. this stuff can't be made up, it's so bizarre that it can only happen in real life.

Frag has another one of our movies. With any luck his "festival" is over and it won't be shown. But if he shows it at least it's our first movie, and the technical limitations of that movie can synch up with the damaged screen and the ficked up aspect ration. A Match.. made in Hell!

-JF