Film Courage: Can you talk about the five years
you put in trying to get people to invest in your first movie?
Ramon ‘Swift’ Sloan, director, producer and writer: It was a long journey but well worth it.
I would say that initially
when I first started to go after different people to try to see if I didn't have the money to make
a movie right so I mean what I had was a script and I just had the passion for actually doing it
right to actually want to do it rather and what happened was I went around to a bunch of people
probably I don't know 10 people just over the course of maybe a few years in action people that
I felt like okay well maybe I can get it from him maybe I can get it from her or whatever but again
it was it was I think that the the challenge for me was the fact that and probably the reason
why a lot of people didn't want to invest was because I didn't I didn't have a sound
business idea so at that point it was just a passion project right it was okay well I
want to make this movie but I didn't even have any data to tell people okay well this is how
much meat we can make off of this because I didn't know right and I'm sure most beginning filmmakers
people who have scripts and they looking to get into this how would you have any
data there's no data available you don't know so that was a that right
there was a challenging moment for me and eventually what I end up telling myself was
I'm not going to keep action people to give me no money because I came to that conclusion
and I said this is not going to happen because number one I can't even show people how they
going to make their money back right number two which is which is let me go back which is very
different now what all these streaming services out here if a newer filmmaker is trying to get
someone to invest in a project and I'm talking independent project where your budget might be
let's say $50,000 to $70,000 right the best thing you can do is go find a producer who can help you
show some numbers I didn't have that available to me right so throughout that process I think
I probably spent about three years trying to get somebody to give me money right I thought I needed
$20,000-$25,000 so I'm trying to get this money yeah it didn't happen ultimately it
didn't happen and and I think that it didn't happen because it wasn't supposed to happen so
now that I think back on it right we're going to go back to that whole rejection thing again
so I think that there I was being rejected because it wasn't time
and ultimately what ended up happening was I ended up coming up with the money myself
and when I find and and when I when I came up with the with the with the funding for the project
that kept me in position where I could retain 100 ownership to my content right and by that time I
had more information and another good thing was the fact that if I have made that investment with
somebody else's money I would have had to figure out like how do I hurry up and get that money back
but by being my money I was able to be patient and just work the process through because even
when I shot the movie my first movie it took me like a year and a half to get distribution
because I didn't know I didn't know any of this so all of this was new to me so imagine me getting
twenty five thousand dollars forty thousand dollars whatever from somebody to shoot a movie
and it's sitting I'm sitting on it for a year and a half right imagine the kind of pressure that
would have been so when I say that I just mean that that all of these all these things happen
in my situation and it could be different for somebody else I feel like in my situation it
happened the way that it was supposed to and it was a long process but I eventually got it done
and I did it on my time and I did it on I did it the way I wanted to
why wouldn't anyone invest in your first movie I know you said you were chasing
twenty thousand twenty five thousand was this from the same person or that was different people
I think nobody wanted to invest in it because as I said I don't think I had a solid business plan
not to mention the fact that I had no experience and on top of the fact that I was asking people
to invest in a movie that didn't that knew nothing about the movie business
right so I think that a lot of investors who are going to come on board and invest in the artist
is someone who is have some level of passion for artistry and a lot of a lot of the individuals
they just that that wasn't something that they was interested in so I don't hold nothing against
anybody I just think that that once again that's one of those things where you have
to be realistic and you have to move in a way when you're seeking out investors and things like that
you need to be dealing with people who are real prospects and at that time I just didn't know
anybody outside of anybody within the film industry outside I only knew the people from
that I had knew just in my life in general I didn't know anybody in the film industry
personal question here but how much did of your own money did you put in to your first movie
first movie total probably marketing plus the movie probably was about forty thousand dollars
and it was all at once or it was over the course of a few years well no it was that
was that was I probably put more into it I mean if you talk about plane tickets
and all that and all that kind of stuff but initially it was a it was about the
first the initial budget was I want to say twenty five thousand dollars
for the movie and then the marketing of it it was a 15 came later once the film was out and what not
okay all right that's that's a good chunk that's not sure it's doable for everybody but yeah that's
and and so you felt did you did you feel good too and that you didn't need to keep chasing these
individuals around like for asking them checking in with them yeah it felt at the at the time it
was so much going on to where I didn't I wasn't able to think about it oh I see okay but later
on in retrospect you think back on things you think back on years like okay after you've built
a catalog and you start to look at some of the stuff you've done I mean you can appreciate that
you did it on your own terms and and had I not continue to press forward with one to do the
first movie even with all the rejection that I was getting had I not continued to push forward
I wouldn't be here right now so it's is fulfilling now to know that first of all
I was able to accomplish that Milestone that was a big milestone in my life and it was
also a big milestone just in my career as a producer a lot of people they asked me would
you ever shoot circumstances one over and I tell them I probably wouldn't and
the reason why because I think that it's important for a young filmmakers to see
what you can come from right so and when I say that I mean that the production value the hustle
everything that it took to make that movie right even with all the imperfections in the movie
I still excuse me I still wouldn't even with even with all the imperfections in the movie
I still wouldn't want to shoot it over because I think that to me it's a piece of history that
I wouldn't want to take away from someone who is at that level right someone who's at that level
of of wanting to become a filmmaker they need to see some realistic work a realistic idea of what
can happen with a what a budget that's not so big right because most people they can attain a
budget of twenty five thousand dollars they can they can if you work hard enough and you focus
you can do that but it's a different level when you're talking about a hundred thousand dollar
movie right the production value is different so I mean you want a beginning project like that to be
to be a starting a starting line for somebody who is trying to break in the
industry and they don't have a lot of resources.