promotion, festivals, shit's hard!

Since we started the movie, we made rough estimates and calculations of what we spent on the movie. Keeping in mind that we used a lot of things already in our possession, made do with home made props and set design and all that shit, we didn't spend a ton of money on the movie at all. Between the group, we said about 2000 dollars. Even that to me is on the high side of what we spent. I'd like to catch peoples reactions and get their opinions on how much the movie cost to produce. I think the majority of people will assume a lot higher than what we spent.

This leads me to the next part of the whole movie making process. Now that it is finished, we need to get the damn thing out there. We want people to see it. Maybe they will laugh, cry, shit their pants, walk out, who knows? But getting them to see it and spreading the word is what we are doing now.

**REVAMPED** The theater told us we'd be able to have a poster up and flyers and all that jazz, but we aren't actually mentioned on their monthly schedule. I was pretty bummed about it, and they put a note up to let people know we are a rental and not an official show they put on. At first I was like why? I know we arent the usual art type fare shown at indie theaters, but we are still the shit! I think mostly I am just nervous and paranoid cause I want everything to go perfect and want the place to fill up. We could probably get more people in there if more people knew we were there to begin with right? Such is life.

It is ridiculous to me when I am looking at everything we did to produce the movie, and now we are spending what seems to be more on promotion, flyers, festival entries, posters, etc. etc. The theatre rental itself cost a quarter of the shooting budget. Festival entry fees range from 30 to 60 bucks a pop. We are paying a bunch of people to sit there and watch the movie and decide if we are good enough to be seen by others. Our movie definitely has a specific crowd that would love it. I truly believe it would be the most important crowd as well, and that is the teenage dude crowd, looking for some raunchy humor, violence, and offensive language. The issue is, our movie will probably be judged by some old fart who is stuck on the "old days" when movies had no sound and the visual impact told a million stories on its own. It sucks. We PAY people to decide the fate of whether or not a couple hundred people in Toronto, Long Island, Pittsburgh or Denver can actually come and see our movie. We should be getting paid because maybe there are huge crowds of people who DO want to see it, but they don't even know about it. I can now see why "independent cinema" is such a tough thing to do. There are so many people, production crews, and indie companies out there trying to grab a piece of the pie, but really, we aren't even given so much as a glimpse as to what we would be eating anyways.

Maybe we should open up shop on a festival of our own. I'd love to be able to be a part of something like that. Then again, my taste, your taste, and anybody else judging would all be different as well. I guess there is no real fair way for your movie to get seen.

Whatever.

I am rambling on. I could go on for a lot longer, but I don't want to bore the two of you reading this. Bottom line, show some support to the local guys busting their asses! I.E. US!