Film Courage: Most independent filmmakers I would say would probably lose money on their
projects? What do you think is the reason? Is it the mindset?
They're not doing the proper research on what the budget should be? Mark Harris, Filmmaker: The budget.
Yeah, you have to make sure like when you when you if
you're doing a film for million dollars you can't use your friends you have to
make sure you use actors that's gonna get you that money making out let's back
if you do it so when I was doing when I was doing feeling for twenty thousand
dollars or ten thousand dollars or a thousand dollars I used I used local
actors who didn't have a name but when I decided my first film that I actually
got which is a film called black coffee why I actually got money from our LJ
which is Bob Johnson's company we didn't shoot that fennel for a lot of money but
I knew that they knew that I just can use those same actors because it would
be a hard sell for BT or to TV 100 or whoever so we needed to do use name
actors so if you're gonna do a film for $500,000 or even a hundred thousand
dollars you have to make sure that you the most important thing is for me was
or the most important thing for filmmakers make sure that we are able to
pay back our investors that's very important now if the investors know in
any field that you can pay them back then we invest and then what you can do
is you can form to form a partnership where they can continue to reinvest in
your fans so again you make if you're making a film for 50 that means for
$100,000 make sure that you use at least two two names at least two means that's
one at least gonna get you in that money back to you so you can pay back your
investors and also you can make some money
yeah can you explain how named actors get you money back so the way the way it
works is this so if I'm like I'm going to use let me use my coffee as an
example so I'm going to tell you the budget and everything so that movie was
made for a hundred and twenty thousand dollars so in a movie we did like so we
had Darin Hanson we had gabriel Dennis we had Erica Hubbard Lamar working at
Christian Keyser's out May 5 and these are named actors people know
them that you know you may not know their name but you see their faces know
them and they were BT friendly like BT like you show those people to BT they'd
known so when you when you a movie like that was made $420,000 utility BT you
make it two-fifty back you know you make it a little bit more back you know
that's how that's the way you're making your money is you know is television you
know it's television now so that's how you you know you get a movie and you
have to do your research to now if you're doing a horror film no no the
actors that are good with them when it comes to horror films and know who's
picking up horror films what is what networks are picking up the horror films
and with this romantic comedy know which networks are which distribution
companies are picking up romantic comedies know which actors that they
like go on their way up the different websites with the different distributors
and see the movies that they're putting out and see the movies that are high so
say for instant different television shows and see what television shows are
hot and a lot of actors who are doing TV they want to do feature films you know
they of course they don't so if you go on to if you see like you go see like a
one of my favorite shows like this is us if you have a great script you know that
you know what you want to do is you want to contact the agent you know tell them
what the script is about you want to make an offer to like you know I say for
instance one of the actors from this is I'll say I want you is the lead role so
you know that that television show us right now everyone loves this is us by
using one of those actors from this is us you know and you keeping the budget
very low between 150-200 depend you know you may want to do a partnership without
with those actors it say okay I want you to come in I want you to be the lead and
I want you to be the producer as well and as a producer I'm going to give you
some money up front and then you want to money on the back end once we sell it so
you use that those actors name in order to say your project
so who's want to turn down like the Sterling Brown from this is us who want
to turn out a movie with sterling Brown in it because he's so hot right now you
know so you go and you just do your research and as far as what television
shows are hot and what television shows are high and then what you do is you
reach out to those different actors who may be not doing a lot of top feature
films and you know and when they have a break from shooting like I feel like
this is also when I was show that show me when they have a break from shooting
from underneath no shells they may have the time to shoot your feature film but
me do a partnership with them like Gabriel Dennis and I you know she just
played Whitney Houston on the barbering story but we did the movie my first love
it was it was a party she came on as an executive producer you know and it was
like a partnership so you want to do a partnership with these different actors
as well how did you learn that type of partnership where you felt like you
could ask a named actor or recognizable face to be an investor as well well
because actors are looking they want to produce more most actors if you talk to
him and if the project and the script is really good and if they have the time
and if it makes sense for them they would definitely take the time to read
it anything like it they would join on and
they were joined on and they would come on as a producer and as an actor you
know or you maybe may want to attach them to the project and if you attach
them to the project that making get you while two investors think the money from
an investor say okay I have such and such actor attached to this project you
know maybe you can go to a company like HBO or Showtime whatever and get maybe
like I'm just tossing some companies names out on Netflix or Amazon Prime and
get an mg which is a minimum guarantee and say okay I have this actor attached
to it to this project you go to these companies say can you give me a minimum
guarantee that say that we finish this project with this actor
attach that this is the amount of money that you're going to give me for this
film so what these what the a network or
television a network or a streaming network like on Netflix may do there are
no promises or guarantees and what they may do is they will give you a letter mg
which is the minimum guarantee letter saying that based off the production
value based off these actors or this actor if you deliver this film to us
we'll give you a certain amount of money and what you do is you take that letter
you take that letter to investor to say okay and you take that minimum guarantee
letter you take the attachment letter from that actor you can take that to
like investors and say okay I can make this movie with this actor and Netflix
or Amazon or Hulu said that once the film is finished the production value is
there and this act is on board and stars in his film that they would give me such
and such as such and such and that's how that's how we get my family coffee made
because what happened was I called up our LJ I was like I want to do this film
it was like who do you have a test I had relationship with Gabriel Dennis I hate
relationship with Lamar worker and it's funny because I met Naraku Lamar Rucker
at a film festival in New York a long time ago I was like we gotta work
together so we exchanged numbers it was years later that I reached out to him I
got a testiment letter from Gabriel dentist they're enhancing the market
Christian keys in Erica Hubbard and Eric Roberson what I've been doing for a long
time so once I got that attachment letter from them I took it took those
not attachment letter I sent it to our LJ entertainment and within 24 hours
less than 24 hours they say okay we want to make this project because they had
actors not attached to it so if you get that attachment others from the actors
plus the distribution company you go to investors and say okay you know this is
how much money so say for instance if they say they can give you $500,000 back
based off this actor you go to that you go to the investor you say okay I'm
going to make this before 350 I need 350,000 to make this
movie so you make the movie for 350,000 you take it to the network that's gonna
give you $500,000 for the film now you just made one hundred and fifty thousand
dollar profit so now you can pay back your investors and you can pay back you
can pay them back with with the return on the investment yeah and and that was
your fourth film don't you make that was that was film number I think four or
five black coffee black coffee yeah okay so black coffee was about a story about
a guy who he gets fired from his job and he falls for this young lady who's an
attorney and who encourages him to go in business for himself you know and so now
I mean it played on Beatty for like four years and they played on now is on
balance and so again I own the rights to like also you make sure that you you own
the rights to your content that's very important they stop owning the rights to
your content you can always get paid off your content if you don't own the rights
to your content someone else's get paid pay it off your content so don't sell
your films to distributors never sell it you what you do is you license it we
like to do a three-year deal you know sometime they want to ask for a 25 year
deal sometimes I ask for a seven-year deal do it three years three years and
don't ever sell your content don't sell the content so what's the science behind
three years because then if they want to renew it you can do it you can
renegotiate at a higher rate yeah well the science between two three
years is they have you got three years you know
so everything that three years so many people have watched it and probably with
loses value unless by somebody from that film win an Oscar you know so within
three years that you know they can always you know you can you you can take
that fear within three years and then you can resell it and continue to make
money off of it so you're talking about seven years they go that's like they'll
Pippen your film within seven years it you probably never see another die but
that upfront money so you may so within three years you can get that feeling
back with three years and you can resell it again
own every sell it but relicense it yeah so you don't ever sell your car take
control your your masters control your content just license your projects out
you