JULY 19th, 2007: FOC2 Premiere:
Yep. It's done. And I don't mind telling you that it's easily the best
movie I've done. With the score in, pieces of it are actually pretty
damn good.
That's not to say it doesn't have its problems.
There's a few things I wonder if people will pick up on, but I bet we
get a lot more positive reviews for this one.
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NOTE: Will have a special Premiere Post with All New Pictures!
AUGUST 21st, 2007: The Abyss Beckons
Okay. I'm in a dark place right now. Not literally, but mentally.
Those who know me may be thinking, "Why?" And it really does show that everything is a matter of perception.
My premiere went well. There was between 350-400 people. We got some good press. People geniunely seemed to love the sequel.
But
for me, still a partial failure. Even with all those people the theater
cost more than I made in ticket sales. That's a very bad thing right
now, as I've sunk all my money plus some into FOC2. I can't afford to go
any more into debt.
And you have to understand; I am a deeply
cynical and pessimistic person. I really am. I had the thought a while
back that if I was Steven Spielberg you know what I'd be thinking right
now?
Not "Wow, look at all the great films I've made and the millions of filmmakers I've influenced with my style."
I'd be thinking, "Why did I have to go and make Hook?"
Believe
me, this is not how I want to be. I don't know why I think like this.
Perhaps the opposite of "Ignorance is bliss" is true.
Regardless,
I stand now on the brink of a giant decision. I feel like I did just
before I shot "Hunting Humans". I was terrified. I was a twenty-six year
old writer with minimal training in actually SHOOTING film. I had
$11,000 saved, and a credit card with a $4000 limit. I had an amateur
actor buddy who I thought was pretty good, but no other real actors that
I had confidence in. I had hired a director of photography that I'd
only talked to once; his reel looked good though, but who makes a reel
with crappy footage?
There was this point where I thought--if I
take this chance and fail, where will I stand? What will I have? No
place to live, no money, and another failure on my list of failures.
But I jumped off the cliff on that one, and came up okay. Here I am again.
FOC2
doesn't have a distributor. Lionsgate wants it, sure. A couple of other
companies have also contacted me. But I can almost guarantee none of
them will pay me what I want for it.
What appears to happen is
that the distributor makes all the money on the movie and throws scraps
to the actual filmmaker. So for the past year I have been doing pretty
extensive research into what it would take to become a distributor.
It's expensive. It's time-consuming. It's risky.
But
if it pays off, it pays off BIG. So I'm sending out a screener of FOC2
to my rep tomorrow but I'm standing at the brink of simply going ahead
with the plan to distribute and get the movie into
Blockbuster/HV/Netflix/Amazon/Best Buy/etc on my own.
Scary scary stuff though.
