Jesse Harris, Filmmaker: They basically looked at it and said Okay, Lucy Hale, this script,
we think it's this much money we can make off of it. So this is what we'll offer to you. Even then
they don't give you the money to go make it. You then have to still find someone else to usually
finance that contract, basically it's almost like collateral you use to kind of then go make.
Film Courage: If we took your pitch [for Borrego movie], how much of it was about
the idea of the film and how much was about the return on investment?
Jesse: I think it's probably a 50/50 kind of pitch in terms of the creative side and
the financial side. I mean obviously it depends on who you're pitching. When it's an actor or
something like that it's all about the character and all about the story. When it's an investor,
it's much more on the financial side but hopefully the people you're working with do care about
making a good movie and that was the case in my case. But ultimately making movies is a business
and unless you could finance it yourself, you have to kind of work within that system.
I felt confident though that this film could be financially successful because it wasn't
some sort of quiet indie drama, it was a really compelling kind of commercial film but with a lot
more to it. If you look at the trailers that the distributors made, it's a very commercial version
of the movie. There’s actually a lot more depth than in the film when you actually watch it but
they are able to market it as a broader kind of commercial action movie and that's going to bring
people in. When they watch it they're going to hopefully be pleasantly surprised. There's
actually so much more to it. It's not so much that. It really is a much deeper, complex film.
But I knew that that's how you could do it and that would that would be a model that would work
and so we also the movie is not a very expensive movie and we we made it for as little as budget
as possible and we put a lot into it and we were able to make a really great looking film
on a pretty small indie budget still and so I think it's in a place now where because of all
that I think it will hopefully make its money back and be successful and I think it's an interesting
size film that I think we could be doing more of these kind of couple million dollar films where
it it has this blending of genres and worlds where there's there is some risk still because
you're trying to tell maybe a more deeper story but it's not just this
I think we Hollywood needs to take a little bit more risk but there could also be some calculated
risks like this which is not everything has to be some sort of sequel or remake or whatever like
there is there are sizes of films that still make sense where it's it still could make its
money back it still has a good shot at being a very successful film but it's still telling
a new fresh original story with a unique cast and maybe really almost first time director so
I hope it's it'll be a I hope if it's successful it'll prove and show that they can be taking more
chances on people like me how much do investors care about movie ideas movie ideas I mean I think
if it's a good investor they they care about the idea and the the concept certain investors don't
care at all and they just want to see who's in it and what the genre is and what the the dollars and
all that stuff is what is a tax incentive and all that kind of things and unfortunately that's how
a lot of movies get made but that's also why we end up with a lot of not so good movies too so
I think the best case is when you kind of think of it from both sides you you obviously need to
understand this is a business it has to make money and have a shot of that but you still
have to make a compelling good movie otherwise what's the point because we're only doing this
to entertain people and make good stories so I was lucky to have investors that wanted to make
a good film and so hopefully that's where people want to kind of go towards when you're
when you're trying to make your film I definitely met with people who didn't have that that vision
and and I didn't make the movie with them so I think it is about trying to be patient
and and I probably could have made the movie a little bit sooner if I had made more compromises
creatively but I was pretty clear on certain things specifically authentic cast and
making the film in a certain style and in actual real locations that that fit the story and
not shooting in New Mexico or something that just fit totally out of place just because
it had a good incentive or something and so it definitely probably took a little bit longer but
in the end it made a really great film by kind of holding out a little bit longer probably
so from your experience in 2003 when you were a teenager and you made a feature do you think the
concept the idea was important at that time to those distributors versus now it's it's
just much different it's a machine well so I think that first feature I made when I was
in high school it got picked up from a distributor because I think they could tell a bigger story by
this 17 year old had made a feature film like that's kind of was the selling I was the star
of that movie I guess so I don't think it's changed a whole lot obviously there's there's
more and more opportunities now for distribution than ever and so I still think there's lots of
opportunities and there's lots of smart good distributors that want to make good things but
unfortunately there still are a lot of movies that are made more from the financial only sense and
not just is this a really good movie that's gonna people are gonna enjoy because I think also people
they when sometimes when they analyze a movie only from the money side they forget that the creative
is a money side too like if the movie's crap then it doesn't mean the movie's gonna be successful
just because it fits everything else and so and if you make a really good film it'll still
probably it can still be successful so I think it still should all be it should be all around
the story and the script unfortunately it isn't but hopefully more films are successful of this
kind of size that are like that that hopefully that can that can change some things okay so you
have a name attached you have someone who has a fan base then how how does the money then follow
yeah so I had written the script I had made this proof of concept I had gotten Lucy Hale attached
to star in it and then it still took two years to go make the movie after that so yeah because
we still had to find the money basically we had her value now which gave the movie
an actual way to kind of have value to for people to see that it could make money once it got made
but we still had to get people to to commit to a certain dollar amount we
had to then just find the actual people that wanted to invest in that our model was after
so Lucy she signed on she actually kind of came on also as an executive producer to kind of
say hey I’ll help you try to go get this made too a little bit and so
she sent the script to a producer he came on board to help me he was excited about it he took it some
more producers that's kind of how it always works right it just kind of goes on to the next person
they eventually were able to get us it's called an mg or minimum guarantee and it's basically a
distributor pre-buying the movie before you even made it just off the script and the cast so they
basically looked at it and said okay Lucy Hale this script we think it's this much money we can
make off of it so this is what we'll offer it to you and so even then they don't give you
the money to go make it you then have to still find someone else to usually finance that that
contract basically it's almost like collateral you use to kind of then go make it so that's
how we did it that was our model and so that's that's how we were able to get the movie made
and yeah I mean it's it it still took a long time and this was also like right we were supposed to
go make the movie or hoping to go make the movie and then cope it happened so that pushed just off
again and had another delay and so it's it's just never and even when you think it's all
put together or something falls apart and so it's it's a whole process I was a producer on the movie
but my other three other producers were really the key people in terms of the financial side so
they were really the ones getting that money and putting that together and and managing all that
so I can't speak to all of it in super detail but it's definitely a complicated process that is it's
it you never know what's gonna happen next basically with it so the fact too that Lucy Hale
was an executive producer and was sort of helping to shepherd the movie probably was incredibly
helpful as well for sure I mean having her name attached as an actress is huge but then having her
as vouching for it as as a really strong project that she wants to put her weight behind was was
super essential I mean just legitimized the project and opened more doors I mean
it's funny though even when you have someone famous attached it could still be really hard it's
just so hard to get a movie made no matter who it is trying to to make it I think they they make it
as difficult as possible and but I think if you just keep going and never give up it will usually
find a way were there any things where let's say you were all boarding a plane ready to film and
something fell through luckily we didn't have anything fall through too late in the game I
think the biggest thing was just we shot the film in Spain we ended up doing that because we we had
to basically the time window we were going to originally make this was in the spring of 2020
which of course was when was coming and shutting the world down so then we had this window in the
fall when we thought we could go make it somewhere because the world was starting to open up again at
least in Europe but after we waited too long Lucy and other people might not be available anymore
so we knew if we were going to make it this year as in 2020 when we made it we had to go then and
the only place we could really do that was was not in California where we were set because
everything was still so much more closed down to get the permits at the state park and everything
were already going to be complicated but even during covet it was just almost impossible
and so I had been looking at other countries and places to film the movie before this even
just to kind of to explore what opportunities there were and Spain has this desert that looks
almost identical to California desert to the desert of Anza Borrego [near San Diego] where
the movie is set and that was not my first choice originally and it's not what I
ever thought was the right move to go all the way to Spain just to make the movie that's set here
but it ended up being probably the perfect thing because the desert it was such a perfect match
and then it allowed us our money actually went a lot further in Spain because one is there's a tax
incentive for the whole country for filming but then just the crew and other things that the money
I think it allowed us to get probably even more for our money I mean you obviously lose money too
on exchanging to euros and flying people over there and all that stuff but in the end of the day
we found a great group of people that wanted to help us make this movie and and we made a really
great film there and so it all worked out but I think yeah the to your particular question it
was the hardest thing was probably just getting the visas for people to get over there allowing
even the airlines didn't want us and to get on the plane like because at the time no one
was traveling even Americans weren't allowed to travel and so the first plane I tried to get on
leaving the airport they wouldn't let us on the plane because they were worried we wouldn't be
allowed into the country because it was just such a rare thing for people to be leaving the country
so there was those kind of complications but once we were there it was just the typical
normal complications of just trying to figure it out but luckily there weren't any sort of
major drama or anything like that so you had your boarding pass and maybe a carry-on and they said
sorry sir we can't have you yeah no we were trying to check in for the plane to go
to Spain and go film a movie and we had a ticket and everything but the actual agents checking our
bags in basically said like you're not you you don't have you're missing some pieces
of paperwork or whatever we didn't we had it but they were just so had never experienced this yet
that an American was leaving the country you'd go make a movie somewhere that that would be
allowed by the Spanish government and so it was just it was just so new to everyone no one this
was in August/September of 2020 was just still so fresh still in the middle of the pandemic really.
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