conditionals, the future, and forward momentum
I've sent a couple of big, serious emails around about Dogsview Ln., just planting seeds in the heads of people like Jon. Talking to anyone who'll listen (Jen, Brie, Dutch even) about some of the more ambitious ways I've thought of spending money on this project. (Money I don't have, mind you; money I hope to find a producer who'll help me get.) Anyway, even though all I have is an outline it feels like maybe I could get some gears turning.
In light of requests for a more official screening or "release party" for Wyatt, Walk Away in January, I was thinking about everything, and I may have formed a loose plan. Laying in bed sharing warmth with my cat, reading emails, Twitter and Facebook messages from my phone, this is where my brain goes. Anyway, the plan.
If RACC accepts my proposal and gives me some money to make The World of Missing Persons into a short, I will pause the Dogsview Ln train and polish up the TWOMP script, start contacting people about that project, find a producer who'll help me (and audition them/sweet-talk them about later working on a feature with me, hopefully). We'll probably have a premiere screening/"release party" for Wyatt that coincides with a preliminary fundraiser (kickstarter, say). I'll start working with Jon and others to develop the kind of look and story that will really exceed everything we've done before it, and then I'll start getting serious about fundraising and casting and location scouting and the whole works. Probably hope to shoot it in the summer, but it's way too early to declare anything like that. Use TWOMP as my polished send-off to short filmmaking (for now) and a calling card for future fundraising. Spend the rest of 2011 chasing festivals with more than just the one film, hoping to build the tiniest of names for myself so I have one more commodity to leverage toward feature fundraising. Then roll straight into Dogsview Ln...
If RACC doesn't accept my proposal and doesn't give me money to make The World of Missing Persons as a short, then I'll probably forgo the short version altogether and launch straight full-bore into making Dogsview Ln happen. I'll collect the short films up to and including Wyatt onto a nicely mastered DVD and have a premiere and/or "release party" and go hogwild with festival submissions for Wyatt, Open, Every Room, and maybe Bathwater (if I get it rescored). I'll start wooing producers, meeting with Jon and others (Andy, Russ if he's interested) to develop the project, and I'll get moving. Because I'd probably need to rent a house for a month to shoot and because I'll be working with child actors, I assume I'll have to shoot this in summer, which means 2011 may be too soon -- but who knows! That's really a matter of money and production. Either way, if RACC says no thanks, then TWOMP remains a feature script only, and I start making my first full-length movie happen, no matter how long that takes.
Either way, I've got to find time (ha!) to crack out a new feature script for Sundance Institute -- prediction: D Ln will be the only thing I'll be remotely prepared to send them, and that will become my third submission and rejection, despite it not being their style at all. Last year I wasn't ready. This year I want to be ready again.
It's time to be serious about the future (isn't it always). These things are me being serious.
And now, off to the dayjob, that damn money-making endeavor that gets in the way of all of my crazy dreams.
In light of requests for a more official screening or "release party" for Wyatt, Walk Away in January, I was thinking about everything, and I may have formed a loose plan. Laying in bed sharing warmth with my cat, reading emails, Twitter and Facebook messages from my phone, this is where my brain goes. Anyway, the plan.
If RACC accepts my proposal and gives me some money to make The World of Missing Persons into a short, I will pause the Dogsview Ln train and polish up the TWOMP script, start contacting people about that project, find a producer who'll help me (and audition them/sweet-talk them about later working on a feature with me, hopefully). We'll probably have a premiere screening/"release party" for Wyatt that coincides with a preliminary fundraiser (kickstarter, say). I'll start working with Jon and others to develop the kind of look and story that will really exceed everything we've done before it, and then I'll start getting serious about fundraising and casting and location scouting and the whole works. Probably hope to shoot it in the summer, but it's way too early to declare anything like that. Use TWOMP as my polished send-off to short filmmaking (for now) and a calling card for future fundraising. Spend the rest of 2011 chasing festivals with more than just the one film, hoping to build the tiniest of names for myself so I have one more commodity to leverage toward feature fundraising. Then roll straight into Dogsview Ln...
If RACC doesn't accept my proposal and doesn't give me money to make The World of Missing Persons as a short, then I'll probably forgo the short version altogether and launch straight full-bore into making Dogsview Ln happen. I'll collect the short films up to and including Wyatt onto a nicely mastered DVD and have a premiere and/or "release party" and go hogwild with festival submissions for Wyatt, Open, Every Room, and maybe Bathwater (if I get it rescored). I'll start wooing producers, meeting with Jon and others (Andy, Russ if he's interested) to develop the project, and I'll get moving. Because I'd probably need to rent a house for a month to shoot and because I'll be working with child actors, I assume I'll have to shoot this in summer, which means 2011 may be too soon -- but who knows! That's really a matter of money and production. Either way, if RACC says no thanks, then TWOMP remains a feature script only, and I start making my first full-length movie happen, no matter how long that takes.
Either way, I've got to find time (ha!) to crack out a new feature script for Sundance Institute -- prediction: D Ln will be the only thing I'll be remotely prepared to send them, and that will become my third submission and rejection, despite it not being their style at all. Last year I wasn't ready. This year I want to be ready again.
It's time to be serious about the future (isn't it always). These things are me being serious.
And now, off to the dayjob, that damn money-making endeavor that gets in the way of all of my crazy dreams.