I have other reviews, but this one just got posted today so I figured it's apropos to put it up. The bonus is that it's mostly positive!
Deadly Doll's House Review of FOC2
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
February 17th, 2006
It's funny reading stuff from the past. I guess that 98% chance was high--of course, if I let Lionsgate rape me then FOC2 would have been out from them two years ago.
It's probably a good thing I didn't hire this guy. He did have a lot of equipment, but technically HE is now a SHE. I'm a fairly open-minded guy, but I don't need that kind of drama on a set.
There's more than enough regular kind of drama.
February 17th, 2006
You know, when I cast "Fear of Clowns" it was a funny thing that wanna-be actors and actresses didn't want to come down from New York to audition. For a starring part in a feature film, they didn't want to make a three hour drive.
Now, I understand that at that point all we had under our belt was one feature film that had been distributed in every Blockbuster and Hollywood Video around the country. So maybe they were skeptical.
So I hope that every one of those pinheads, upon seeing the announcement that Lion's Gate had picked up FOC, I hope every one of them smacked themselves in the head.
Flash forward to now. We're doing the sequel to FOC. It's like a 98% chance that LGF will distribute that one too. And still we get some people who make excuses about sending in audition tapes.
And this:
There's this guy who owns a TON of equipment. He's shot a couple of low budget features(none of which got significant distribution or ANY critical response), so you'd figure this guy would want to get associated with a picture that gets out there.
We made him an offer. Come be our head griptrician, bring your two guys with you, and help us shoot the flick. For free? No, we offered them $6000 for 18 shooting days(and the head guy was actually only going to be there for 15 of them) AND I was going to make the guy an Associate Producer, just to get his name in the front-end credits.
And the guy says it's not enough money.
I'm thinking--what? Are you serious? It's $2000 a week plus a front end credit that many people actually PAY for, and you actually get to be associated with a movie that not only gets distributed but I can guarantee is gonna get some positive reactions(call me cocky, but I firmly believe this is gonna be the movie where I finally get to show some of my stuff).
And if you want perspective, that $6000 is 1/6 of the total budget of the film.
This guy is just dumb. What could he possibly be thinking? I think that kind of thinking is what determines who gets put in the history books and who doesn't.
I hope he'll be happy; I'm sure shooting wedding videos satisfies that creative urge in every artiste...
It's probably a good thing I didn't hire this guy. He did have a lot of equipment, but technically HE is now a SHE. I'm a fairly open-minded guy, but I don't need that kind of drama on a set.
There's more than enough regular kind of drama.
February 17th, 2006
You know, when I cast "Fear of Clowns" it was a funny thing that wanna-be actors and actresses didn't want to come down from New York to audition. For a starring part in a feature film, they didn't want to make a three hour drive.
Now, I understand that at that point all we had under our belt was one feature film that had been distributed in every Blockbuster and Hollywood Video around the country. So maybe they were skeptical.
So I hope that every one of those pinheads, upon seeing the announcement that Lion's Gate had picked up FOC, I hope every one of them smacked themselves in the head.
Flash forward to now. We're doing the sequel to FOC. It's like a 98% chance that LGF will distribute that one too. And still we get some people who make excuses about sending in audition tapes.
And this:
There's this guy who owns a TON of equipment. He's shot a couple of low budget features(none of which got significant distribution or ANY critical response), so you'd figure this guy would want to get associated with a picture that gets out there.
We made him an offer. Come be our head griptrician, bring your two guys with you, and help us shoot the flick. For free? No, we offered them $6000 for 18 shooting days(and the head guy was actually only going to be there for 15 of them) AND I was going to make the guy an Associate Producer, just to get his name in the front-end credits.
And the guy says it's not enough money.
I'm thinking--what? Are you serious? It's $2000 a week plus a front end credit that many people actually PAY for, and you actually get to be associated with a movie that not only gets distributed but I can guarantee is gonna get some positive reactions(call me cocky, but I firmly believe this is gonna be the movie where I finally get to show some of my stuff).
And if you want perspective, that $6000 is 1/6 of the total budget of the film.
This guy is just dumb. What could he possibly be thinking? I think that kind of thinking is what determines who gets put in the history books and who doesn't.
I hope he'll be happy; I'm sure shooting wedding videos satisfies that creative urge in every artiste...
Monday, March 22, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
January 12, 2006
My favorite casting submission so far...
As I said, we're casting for FOC2 now and we've gotten a lot of submissions. This one cracked me up the most so far(name removed):Hello,
I am coming from Slovenia (Europe).I was never acting before (some hot photos-one on newspaper cover) but than I stopped.But all friends are telling me (all the time) that I should be an actor, so now maybe I want to give a shot. I am working as Account manager now and dont have problems to convince people in something (to buy,people are "following" me, listen to me) I am successful in 95% to do it my way. Now I want to know-How does this work? Do I have a chance? What do an agency must know about me? Etc.
Thank you ,
Br,
Friday, March 12, 2010
Thursday, December 29, 2005
December 29, 2005
After like 6 years of adding and deleting files, and finally organizing my hard drive I figured I should defragment my hard drive. It's something they say you should do every couple of months or so.
But Windows 2000 has no defragment. Windows help tells me to use cleanmgr. I do. The program opens, analyzes my hard drive, then asks me to check some boxes. One is to compress seldom-used files to save room.
When you check it it says: WILL NOT DELETE ANY FILES and is "completely safe".
So I hit OK. I go eat dinner and when I come back...there are now 5 items on my desktop. There used to be like 30. I check windows explorer to see how much room got freed up on my hard drive that only had about 1 gig free.
There are now 55 gigs free. I notice missing folders everwhere. Somehow this horrid program has deleted 54 gigs of stuff.
I have an article for Fangoria magazine that's due next week--it was four pages and Tony Timpone, the editor of Fango had called me up to make sure I could do it by the deadline. That article, and most of my other docs(including the new scene breakdowns and shooting schedule for FOC2) are GONE.
I rarely panic. But inside I was freaking out. All the digital photos I had taken in the past year were gone--including pics of my kid, of my brother-in-laws wedding, of EVERYTHING--gone.
Windows pops up an error telling me that crucial windows files are missing and please insert the windows install disk. Yes, that's right, this program has deleted necessary Windows files among its random deletions.
CUT TO:
Me at the store buying a search and recovery program to attempt to salvage what's still on the hard drive. It managed to find 169,000 files but it doesn't find any names--so I have to individually go through those 169,000 files to figure out which ones are good and which ones are bad.
So that's where I'm at now. I managed to find the Fango article and the FOC2 stuff, so that's good. Will be going through those for weeks.
Moral of the story: Don't run cleanmgr no matter how safe it says it is.
After like 6 years of adding and deleting files, and finally organizing my hard drive I figured I should defragment my hard drive. It's something they say you should do every couple of months or so.
But Windows 2000 has no defragment. Windows help tells me to use cleanmgr. I do. The program opens, analyzes my hard drive, then asks me to check some boxes. One is to compress seldom-used files to save room.
When you check it it says: WILL NOT DELETE ANY FILES and is "completely safe".
So I hit OK. I go eat dinner and when I come back...there are now 5 items on my desktop. There used to be like 30. I check windows explorer to see how much room got freed up on my hard drive that only had about 1 gig free.
There are now 55 gigs free. I notice missing folders everwhere. Somehow this horrid program has deleted 54 gigs of stuff.
I have an article for Fangoria magazine that's due next week--it was four pages and Tony Timpone, the editor of Fango had called me up to make sure I could do it by the deadline. That article, and most of my other docs(including the new scene breakdowns and shooting schedule for FOC2) are GONE.
I rarely panic. But inside I was freaking out. All the digital photos I had taken in the past year were gone--including pics of my kid, of my brother-in-laws wedding, of EVERYTHING--gone.
Windows pops up an error telling me that crucial windows files are missing and please insert the windows install disk. Yes, that's right, this program has deleted necessary Windows files among its random deletions.
CUT TO:
Me at the store buying a search and recovery program to attempt to salvage what's still on the hard drive. It managed to find 169,000 files but it doesn't find any names--so I have to individually go through those 169,000 files to figure out which ones are good and which ones are bad.
So that's where I'm at now. I managed to find the Fango article and the FOC2 stuff, so that's good. Will be going through those for weeks.
Moral of the story: Don't run cleanmgr no matter how safe it says it is.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
A Word About Netflix & Victory Multimedia
I'd like to take a moment to express my OPINION on something here. Everything I say below is my opinion regarding this event.
SO...
I submitted FOC2 myself to Netflix myself. I figured it's a no-brainer that they'd be interested because 1)The first film performed extremely well(a fact they can check for themselves) and 2) I've seen some of the ridiculous stuff they carry.
I mentioned in my letter that I could either provide them with whatever limited edition FOC2s I have left or, if they need more, I could print up a whole new batch that would be Netflix exclusive with never-before-seen stuff.
Three months later I get a letter from them. It's a form letter that says:
Thank you for your recent submission. We have received and reviewed your materials. Regretfully, we are passing on your submission.
However, If you are looking for distribution:
Victory Multimedia works with many independent film producers and small distributors.
If you wish to establish a distribution agreement with Victory Multimedia, please contact Randy Freeman at Victory Multimedia at your earliest convenience.
This is weird. An outright pass would be pretty weird, frankly, but passing me on to someone?
I don't contact anyone. I try to find some info on this Victory Multimedia. I find nothing other than one blog post that mentions in passing that Randy from Victory is "an a$$hole".
This is one of the reasons I'm doing this blog; the more people who spread this info, the better.
Two days later I get an email from a "David Solomon" of Victory Multimedia and he CCs Randy Freeman. Let me reiterate: I did not contact anyone, nor did I give permission to Netflix to pass my contact info on to anyone.
Included with David Solomon's email is a contract for distribution. That's right. Not a request for a screener. Not a basic agreement with terms. A full out contract for distribution.
Say what?
And in my opinion, this contract is one gigantic, piece of shit rip-off. Why? Let me tell you.
What it wants me to do is this: Sign the contract. They will then request I provide them with a certain number of units of my film. Yep. I have to get the discs printed and finished, and then ship them to Victory.
I can set the retail price. Super. Victory will give me 40% of the retail price for each unit. (a shitty split right there considering I'm doing ALL the upfront work)
THEN: I also have to pay them 10% upfront of what they order. This is to go toward "Program and Development Funds". So if they order $10,000(an arbitrary number for ease of use) worth of retail from you, they would pay you $4000(40%) minus $1000(10%)...you'd get $3000 for what you send them.
But there's more. Later, whatever they don't sell they ship back to you and you owe them whatever they gave you. So if they don't sell $4000 worth of product, you're getting that product back and you're going to be in debt, because the $1000 is gone either way.(got space to warehouse that stuff they sent back?)
And this is the company that Netflix not only recommended but seems to endorse by passing on my information without my consent?
To me, it appears that Netflix has some sort of backdoor deal with Victory--they turn down flicks, wait until Victory picks them up, then they get them cheap from Victory. If the title doesn't rent well at Netflix, Netflix can have Victory ship back whatever they didn't open at the filmmaker's expense.
The fact that you can't find anything online about "Victory Multimedia" is suspicious enough. Real companies have real web sites.
Well, I'm hoping to spread some information about this deal, which in my opinion is a giant scam. I thought Netflix was a better company that that, but it appears that they are not.
SO...
I submitted FOC2 myself to Netflix myself. I figured it's a no-brainer that they'd be interested because 1)The first film performed extremely well(a fact they can check for themselves) and 2) I've seen some of the ridiculous stuff they carry.
I mentioned in my letter that I could either provide them with whatever limited edition FOC2s I have left or, if they need more, I could print up a whole new batch that would be Netflix exclusive with never-before-seen stuff.
Three months later I get a letter from them. It's a form letter that says:
Thank you for your recent submission. We have received and reviewed your materials. Regretfully, we are passing on your submission.
However, If you are looking for distribution:
Victory Multimedia works with many independent film producers and small distributors.
If you wish to establish a distribution agreement with Victory Multimedia, please contact Randy Freeman at Victory Multimedia at your earliest convenience.
This is weird. An outright pass would be pretty weird, frankly, but passing me on to someone?
I don't contact anyone. I try to find some info on this Victory Multimedia. I find nothing other than one blog post that mentions in passing that Randy from Victory is "an a$$hole".
This is one of the reasons I'm doing this blog; the more people who spread this info, the better.
Two days later I get an email from a "David Solomon" of Victory Multimedia and he CCs Randy Freeman. Let me reiterate: I did not contact anyone, nor did I give permission to Netflix to pass my contact info on to anyone.
Included with David Solomon's email is a contract for distribution. That's right. Not a request for a screener. Not a basic agreement with terms. A full out contract for distribution.
Say what?
And in my opinion, this contract is one gigantic, piece of shit rip-off. Why? Let me tell you.
What it wants me to do is this: Sign the contract. They will then request I provide them with a certain number of units of my film. Yep. I have to get the discs printed and finished, and then ship them to Victory.
I can set the retail price. Super. Victory will give me 40% of the retail price for each unit. (a shitty split right there considering I'm doing ALL the upfront work)
THEN: I also have to pay them 10% upfront of what they order. This is to go toward "Program and Development Funds". So if they order $10,000(an arbitrary number for ease of use) worth of retail from you, they would pay you $4000(40%) minus $1000(10%)...you'd get $3000 for what you send them.
But there's more. Later, whatever they don't sell they ship back to you and you owe them whatever they gave you. So if they don't sell $4000 worth of product, you're getting that product back and you're going to be in debt, because the $1000 is gone either way.(got space to warehouse that stuff they sent back?)
And this is the company that Netflix not only recommended but seems to endorse by passing on my information without my consent?
To me, it appears that Netflix has some sort of backdoor deal with Victory--they turn down flicks, wait until Victory picks them up, then they get them cheap from Victory. If the title doesn't rent well at Netflix, Netflix can have Victory ship back whatever they didn't open at the filmmaker's expense.
The fact that you can't find anything online about "Victory Multimedia" is suspicious enough. Real companies have real web sites.
Well, I'm hoping to spread some information about this deal, which in my opinion is a giant scam. I thought Netflix was a better company that that, but it appears that they are not.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
December 29, 2005
Yeah, so I vividly remember this. And given that I recently lost two hard drives to 1)hardware failure and 2) I did a stupid thing when I was incredibly stupid--well, I've been through this twice since the original loss.
December 29, 2005 After like 6 years of adding and deleting files, and finally organizing my hard drive I figured I should defragment my hard drive. It's something they say you should do every couple of months or so.
But Windows 2000 has no defragment. Windows help tells me to use cleanmgr. I do. The program opens, analyzes my hard drive, then asks me to check some boxes. One is to compress seldom-used files to save room.
When you check it it says: WILL NOT DELETE ANY FILES and is "completely safe".
So I hit OK. I go eat dinner and when I come back...there are now 5 items on my desktop. There used to be like 30. I check windows explorer to see how much room got freed up on my hard drive that only had about 1 gig free.
There are now 55 gigs free. I notice missing folders everwhere. Somehow this horrid program has deleted 54 gigs of stuff.
I have an article for Fangoria magazine that's due next week--it was four pages and Tony Timpone, the editor of Fango had called me up to make sure I could do it by the deadline. That article, and most of my other docs(including the new scene breakdowns and shooting schedule for FOC2) are GONE.
I rarely panic. But inside I was freaking out. All the digital photos I had taken in the past year were gone--including pics of my kid, of my brother-in-laws wedding, of EVERYTHING--gone.
Windows pops up an error telling me that crucial windows files are missing and please insert the windows install disk. Yes, that's right, this program has deleted necessary Windows files among its random deletions.
CUT TO:
Me at the store buying a search and recovery program to attempt to salvage what's still on the hard drive. It managed to find 169,000 files but it doesn't find any names--so I have to individually go through those 169,000 files to figure out which ones are good and which ones are bad.
So that's where I'm at now. I managed to find the Fango article and the FOC2 stuff, so that's good. Will be going through those for weeks.
Moral of the story: Don't run cleanmgr no matter how safe it says it is.
December 29, 2005 After like 6 years of adding and deleting files, and finally organizing my hard drive I figured I should defragment my hard drive. It's something they say you should do every couple of months or so.
But Windows 2000 has no defragment. Windows help tells me to use cleanmgr. I do. The program opens, analyzes my hard drive, then asks me to check some boxes. One is to compress seldom-used files to save room.
When you check it it says: WILL NOT DELETE ANY FILES and is "completely safe".
So I hit OK. I go eat dinner and when I come back...there are now 5 items on my desktop. There used to be like 30. I check windows explorer to see how much room got freed up on my hard drive that only had about 1 gig free.
There are now 55 gigs free. I notice missing folders everwhere. Somehow this horrid program has deleted 54 gigs of stuff.
I have an article for Fangoria magazine that's due next week--it was four pages and Tony Timpone, the editor of Fango had called me up to make sure I could do it by the deadline. That article, and most of my other docs(including the new scene breakdowns and shooting schedule for FOC2) are GONE.
I rarely panic. But inside I was freaking out. All the digital photos I had taken in the past year were gone--including pics of my kid, of my brother-in-laws wedding, of EVERYTHING--gone.
Windows pops up an error telling me that crucial windows files are missing and please insert the windows install disk. Yes, that's right, this program has deleted necessary Windows files among its random deletions.
CUT TO:
Me at the store buying a search and recovery program to attempt to salvage what's still on the hard drive. It managed to find 169,000 files but it doesn't find any names--so I have to individually go through those 169,000 files to figure out which ones are good and which ones are bad.
So that's where I'm at now. I managed to find the Fango article and the FOC2 stuff, so that's good. Will be going through those for weeks.
Moral of the story: Don't run cleanmgr no matter how safe it says it is.
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