Keeping myself informed and inspired

Went down to Austin and spent that quality time with Michelle, our fabu line producer of Lost in Sunshine.  Yep, got some INFORMATION about our budget.  Now I need that inspiration.  Ha.

Scrimping everywhere we can imagine, without sacrificing production quality, we’re still 10% over our budget at this point.  And, my creative team (DP, director, production designer) dreams of shooting LIS on Super 16mm.  Ha, again!

Both of which, bring me to juggling and focus.

Regarding the budget, I immediately thought of how to juggle our cash flow and our anticipated production-incentive monies due to be returned to us after principal photography.  Having said that, I don’t plan to rob post-production of its budget, expecting to pay for it with those refunds.  Instead, I’ll be robbing our Launch (marketing/distribution/sales budget) budget to cover post. 

Okay, so it won’t be robbing, it’ll be borrowing.  I’ve been informed that refunds from the incentive program in Texas, where we’ll be shooting, have been taking 12-18 months to come back to projects.  Yikes!  Given that, I’ll be earmarking the refund monies to support our screening tour and distribution deliverables expenses in 2011.

Another thing about cash flow.  I’d really, reeaally like to have raised all of our budget in one gorgeous lump sum, sitting happily in our business bank account before we begin pre-production next Spring.  But.  If that hasn’t happened by then, I have forecasted our cash flow needs, month by month, over the next several years of LIS’ life.  Which means, I’ve identified sums of money that we need by certain deadlines in order to keep moving forward.

And, that’s an essential point.  As a producer, I keep the momentum going. Momentum attracts.  It attracts resources, fans, helpers, good will, faith.  People want to hop on a train that’s moving, leaving the station.

Back to focus and Super 16mm.  Agh.  I completely get it.  I fully grasp why my team would prefer to shoot LIS on Super 16mm film over the Red (HD) camera.  It’s a softer look for our ensemble character piece.  We’ll be shooting a lot in natural light, a lot of car interior shots, a lot of landscape/exterior shots.

But, we’re already 10% over our budget now, and that’s with planning to use the Red.  Plus, we need to figure out how to reduce more, not spend more on film stock and processing and telecine and — you get the idea.

This week, I’ve found myself struggling with this quite a bit.  I’ve been querying peers and established line producers for their opinions (most, but not all, have come down on the Red side, asserting that film is too expensive for our budget level).  I’ve been looking into grant programs like the Panavision New Filmmaker Program, which grants winning first-time filmmakers a complete 16mm or 35mm camera package for their shoots.  I, and Michelle, too, have been pricing out film stock and processing costs, as well as researching other film-grant-type programs.

All this effort, because I don’t like saying, “we can’t…”

But, you know what?  Shooting on Super 16mm is not within our means on this project.  And, harshly, what we shoot on will not make or break this movie: the story and performances will.

AND, I need to stay focused on the 87 other things that need my attention to keep moving forward.

It’s not in the project’s best interest for me to tie myself up searching for freebie film stock and spending two days compiling a grant application for a camera package – when we still can’t afford the film stock or processing for it.

Sigh.

Next!

Thanks for reading.

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Tagged as: Panavision New Filmmaker Program, production incentives, Red camera, Super 16mm