Time Runners (the European title for 95ers: ECHOES) is strutting its stuff in front of film buyers right now at the Marche du Film, one of the largest film markets in the world.  (It takes place alongside the Cannes Film Festival.)  In addition to the title, a couple other things have changed about the movie…

More cool visual effects have been added, like this fortress exterior.  Bad guys on the way…

And here’s the “TIME RUNNERS” version of the movie poster.

If you haven’t see the BRAND NEW TRAILER yet, check it out!!!

If you’re reading this post via email and you can see the video player… just click here and you’ll see it on the front page of the 95ers website.

Que la force soit avec nous!

What NOT to do when embarking on your first indie movie project…

Greetings earthlings, some of you may have seen this on RedGiantTV…  If so, there will be nothing new until Part 3.

If you’re viewing this in an email, you won’t see the YouTube video window… so here’s the link.

In other 95ers news, I’m working feverishly to get the movie out on DVD and Blu-ray in the U.S. and increase the international reach.  The distribution game is, well…  More on that later!

In this final push, a few things are actually being ADDED to the film… such as…

Yes.  More spaceships.

Still tweaking the film?  Am I crazy?  Sort of… But there actually are some good reasons. Even reasons beyond getting to see the exterior shots of the fortress getting blasted by spaceships!!!

Catch 95ers at a film fest near you!!!

Want to see 95ers on the big screen?  How about at a FILM FESTIVAL!!!  In the western U.S.?  Come to Utah!  In the East?  Boston.  Hopefully we’ll have international venues soon as well.

We’re happy to announce that 95ers will be screening at the LDS Film Fest on January 25th at 7pm on a giant screen!  The LDS film festival is one of the biggest film fests in Utah and only, ahem, a few miles away from a slightly larger one going on at the same time!  Then in February 95ers will be at the Boston Science Fiction Film Festival!  (Their schedule isn’t posted yet, but stay tuned!)  Rumor has it that this is the oldest and largest sci-fi film fest in the country.  But is it big enough for 95ers???  Can it contain the epicness????  We will see…

Spread the word!!!  Love us up on Facebook!

And we need some special love on YouTube and IMDB.  A bunch of bozos who either haven’t seen the movie or who are expecting a big budget action thriller are giving us lame reviews and ratings.  We need YOU to set the record straight!

If you’re seeing this post in email and can’t see the video, go to this link:
https://vimeo.com/55341481

So, Ali and I got a very unusual piece of mail the other day… a CHECK. People on the other side of planet Earth PAID us for our movie.

First of all, I must apologize for being AWOL for the past many weeks. Since finishing the movie, I’ve had to do something vitally important: PAY MY BILLS.  My day job required lots of attention, and they’ve been more than patient with me.  At the end of this post, you’ll see the big project I produced/directed for them.  And I’ve also been waiting for some cool movie news to share…

And this is indeed cool.  After a ridiculous amount of ado, we actually got a check for the movie!  The mad tangle of hoops which defines movie distribution was boldly and defiantly navigated by a little bitty check with numbers and “$” sign on it.  Though it weighs a fraction of an ounce, its arrival in our mailbox is actually quite magnitudinous. (Yes, “magnitudinous” is a word, appropriately rare and justly invoked for this occasion.)

It means that someone on the other side of the world saw our movie, wanted it, received its components, arranged for its distribution, paid for it, and some of that money actually found its way back to us. The archaic system actually WORKED! On November 2nd, people in Japan will be able to buy the DVD!  Other Asian territories are soon to follow.

There is a certain “legit”-ness that comes with actually being paid for a movie. A certain “full circle”-ness about it all. A sadomasochistic satisfaction of having our movie on a shelf somewhere: “Ha ha you naysayers and oh how the pain was worth it!” Well, that last bit maybe not so much.  But Ali and I are very happy and very grateful for everyone who has been part of this adventure. And we have new respect for the sci-fi instincts of the people of Japan, Thailand, and Vietnam!

SO, you may be wondering, “What kind of money are we talking about?” Very little, unfortunately. I don’t make a dime off this check! But you may find “how it works” interesting…

Ali and I funded about 80-90% of the movie budget ourselves. The rest came as investment from friends and family, and from generous donations, like from our Kickstarter peeps.  Additionally, the movie is very much in debt, having borrowed significant sums to fund its completion. So before the movie can profit, first it must pay its creditors, then it must pay its “deferred” contractors (people who worked for low rates in exchange for potential back-end payments), then it must repay the investors. THEN it will actually profit and people can start making money. And of course, out of each “sale” price (meaning the amount a “buyer” pays for rights to distribute the movie in a given territory), a horde of fees are taken—distributor fees, market fees, SAG fees, etc. And then there are the wonderful accounting, marketing, festival, etc etc etc. fees.  And taxes.

But regardless… it’s a check.  AND, there’s even more light at the end of the tunnel.  Right now 95ers is at one of the biggest film markets in the world: MIPCOM in Cannes. At the end of the month, it’s off to LA for AFM, the American Film Market. Please send us your prayers and vibes. We’re hoping hoping hoping to snag a European and domestic deal!

I know many of you have NOT yet seen the movie! My distributor and I and working very hard to remedy that! Thanks for your patience. I didn’t design this archaic system. But… my next project may circumvent it a bit. Stay tuned for that…

Anyway, here’s the big project I recently cranked out at my wonderful day job, with the help of lots of talented people.  3D projection mapping and augmented reality live performance… it’s all the rage.  Some of you may recognize the voice of the high-tech narrator…

If the video box doesn’t show up in your email, click on this link to see it.

Here’s how it works:

My sales agent (“distributor”) takes the movie trailer and posters and marketing stuff to “film markets” (such as the Cannes film market, which he just got back from), and shows it to “buyers” from the various territories of the world.  The buyers—who are looking to distribute movies in their territories through various channels like TV, cable, on-demand, theaters, etc.—look at all the new movies and… BUY them.  Meaning, they pay a certain sum for the rights to distribute the movie in whatever territories they represent.

This year the foreign film markets have been looking for ACTION ACTION ACTION, so sales have been slower than expected.  95ers has plenty of suspense and some great action scenes, but it’s definitely a “thinking person’s” sci-fi movie. HOWEVER, I found out a couple of days ago, that my distributor just closed a deal with JAPAN!  Woohoo!

It will still be a while before we can see it in the U.S.A.  First, the festival circuit, which kicks into high gear in September.  I’ll let you know which ones it gets into in case you want to go see it at a film fest!  Maybe you’ll see me there too!

As for Europe, people from various territories have been impressed with the NEW TRAILER and are now reviewing the whole movie… I’ll keep you posted!

Speaking of the new trailer, here it is…

For those of you reading this blog from an email program, and for those of you who want to share the trailer, here’s the YouTube link to see it:
http://youtu.be/_gyZrrF-7Z0

SO, we are rocking and rolling. Now that 95ers is largely “out of my hands” I’m able to starting putting together funding for my next sci-fi or fantasy movie…  Email me or send me a message on facebook if you want to hear more about that…

Accompanied by a mammoth sigh of relief echoing from here to Pluto, 95ers goes to market in Hong Kong this week.  The completed movie literally got on a plane yesterday.  Then to Europe and beyond!  THANK YOU, EVERYONE!

Well, in timespace we don’t deal so much with “circles” per se.  We get more of these these weird shell-type constructs.  But the connection is the same.  Thanks to some big news that will hopefully come next week… I feel I can safely say that this project is reaching closure.  Years ago when I began chronicling the 95ers indie film adventures in this blog, I wrote about some of the core mysteries and struggles—and grand misconceptions—we were facing.  A reprint seems very appropriate now.  Enjoy!

(To give you a little chronological perspective… It is now 2012.  The following (except for the last line) was written in 2009.  95ers was first conceived in 1998.)

“DEATH OF AN INDIE”

When people ask me about my movie, what they usually ask is something like: “So how do you get it out there?”  Or in other words, how does a nobody get their movie in theaters or on TV or at least on DVD?  In fundraising, the most typical question seems to have been: “Do you have distribution?”  And in fact, when I first embarked on this journey, that was the biggest obstacle in my own mind—getting it seen.  Little did I know that was the least of my worries.

For most of the people I’ve met, filmmaker or no, the great and mystical gate in filmmaking where success is on one side and failure is on the other is the gate of “getting it seen.”  Also known as “distribution” or “getting picked up.”  This is the point at which a giant creative blob that seems to be only an eccentric hobby, suddenly becomes something useful and worthwhile.  It is creativity legitimized.

I was fully steeped in this fallacy.

The truth is, as any artist whose creative aspirations have been in the emergency room for most of their existential existences will tell you, the distributor’s gateway is absolutely not the plague an artist needs to worry about.  Most indie movies die horrible deaths long before the question “So how do we get it out there?” is ever seriously addressed.  In fact, I would hazard to say that a careful autopsy of 99.99% of indie ventures would reveal that distribution problems had nothing to do with their demise.  Perhaps the fear of non-distribution plays a role, but rarely non-distribution itself.

And here’s why: INDIE MOVIES HARDLY EVER GET FINISHED.

Here are some of the true terminal illnesses which plague indie movies:

1) Too many great ideas.
The filmmaker has so many great stories in his head, he or she just can’t settle on one long enough to write a script.  These movies die young.
2) The script never gets finished.
The filmmaker realizes the entire script needs to be re-written, and the task is so daunting he throws down his scalpel and leaves the patient dying on the table.
3) The money runs out.
The rich uncle’s blood type is actually not O-negative (universal), meaning he just doesn’t invest in ‘anything,’ and the filmmaker himself only gets $60 a pint when he donates.
4) “Dammit Jim, I’m a pizza delivery guy, not a physician!!!”
The filmmaker looks down at his instruments and his patient and is struck by a sudden fear—what am I doing here??  He is convinced (by himself and/or others) that his lack of training or talent will only lead the project to disaster!
5) Seeing ghosts.
Phantoms, relatives of #4, emerge all over the hospital where the filmmaker is trying to save his movie.  He thinks he’s been given some kind of second sight that allows him to see them.  But really it’s the shadow of his own fear that “opens his eyes” to the ghastly remains of all the creative projects that didn’t make it off the operating table.  Like banshees they croon their singsong tales of woe: “No money!  No time!  Your idea is lame!  Turn back now!”
6) The man behind the doctor’s mask.
The filmmaker is actually a charlatan who has no idea what he’s doing (which in and of itself is not a true reason for failure), and is too dumb or lacks the integrity to fess up.  The fair promises and blustering used to get people on board or string them along eventually reveal themselves and soon everyone is driven crazy, and eventually everyone is driven away, leaving the filmmaker to his own faulty devices and pitiful excuses.
7) The creative team dissolves.
It’s right during the catastrophic organ failure at some stage of the production process that one of the doctors on the elite team realizes he or she hemorrhaging themselves.
8 ) Will to live.
The filmmaker has called the ambulance so many times, and has been in the ICU overlooking the comatose movie venture for so long, he’s forgotten what makes the thing worth saving in the first place.  He begins to search for enough reasons and tries to find enough consolation, to pull the plug.

Indie movies don’t fail because they don’t get picked up for distribution.  For the most part, if they fail, it’s because they don’t get finished.

Thanks to everyone who helped me learn that for real.  95ers will be completely finished next week.  More news to come…

I had my first sit-down with a distribution company, and they gave me a strange and somehow mystical stack of papers…

The best thing I can do is show you my behind-the-scenes video.  Don’t be too fooled by the non-glamor of a meeting at a bagel shop, it was wonderfully convenient for both us.    But it’s also somehow appropriate for an indie film, don’t you think?  Also please forgive the gross dry-sticky-lips I seem to have, also strangely apropos.

(If you’re on email, to see the video you can click at the top of your email where it says “Distribution agreement?” or just go the following link: http://vimeo.com/37947142.)

PS.  I have NOT signed any agreements…

(The above image is from the upcoming NEW and AMAZING 95ers movie poster.  Stay tuned for that.)

Over the last few years, I have had the great displeasure of spending thousands of hours creating many of the visual effects for the movie…    There is a ludicrous amount of compositing, greenscreening, and fancy particle effects, etc. throughout the movie, payment for which was required in SILVER. Silver hairs.

Our awesome miniatures and cool sci-fi sets were of course created by Hollywood veteran and time machine engineer/puppeteer Clark Schaffer.  Clark and I are huge fans of traditional in-camera VFX with miniatures, sets, and cinematic trickery of all sorts, a la the original Star Wars movies.

But lurking in the back of my mind throughout all this time were a couple of final shots…  Shots that had haunted me ever since I did that darn rewrite on the script.  Shots that would be way too expensive to do as miniatures and with motion control.  But shots that I HAD TO HAVE nonetheless!  Shots that would add production value, tell critical parts of the story, boost sci-fi “epicness”, and help sell the movie.  I needed a 3D matte painting, something outside of my realm.  I searched and searched, deep into the portfoliac recesses of the web, and finally found a teacher-turned-VFX-guy from Poland living in Shanghai!!!

It was this cool shot that first grabbed my attention…

Please welcome Adam Kuczek to the 95ers VFX team!  Frankly, Adam has been a delight to work with.  Not only is he a fantastic talent, he also has a strong sense of visual cinematic storytelling.  I can’t show you the shots he’s done for us yet… but in the upcoming “95ers official trailer 2,” due in about two weeks, you’ll see a glimpse them.  Until then, explore his site and enjoy his reel.