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Truly Free Film

David Geertz on “How To Extract The Value Of Your Film When You Need It Most”

Metaphors reveal truths. Analogies help us have deeper understanding. Perhaps we have been looking at our business in the wrong way. Today Brave Thinker David Geertz offerrs up a fun new vision on how to see what we all are doing.

Stake Your Claim!

Scientists have discovered a new element called FILMIUM!

Filmium (F on the periodic table) exists oddly enough within transmission lines, servers, and other devices that can store and deliver binary information packets.

This new but quickly growing habitat of fiber where filmium is being discovered has forced scientists into creating a new periodic class to house it called the ELECTRO class.

What is most interesting is that filmium requires a gestational period of about 24 months and has rare attributes that change from each discovery or deposit making it somewhat of a hybrid and giving it oddly enough – human characteristics! No deposit of filmium has the same characteristics making it truly unique but at the same time making it prey to free markets based on factors of instability.

That being said most of these unique attributes never move past the gestational period and die with the actual lines from where they are transmitted. In fact, upon looking closer most of these deposits of filmium lie just below the surface never to be extracted at all and what scientists see and now recognize is the need to build a extraction program in hyper localized areas to allow for the filmium to flow to the surface and be consumed.

In the past deposits of other minerals and elements required the staking of claims and were very cost intensive, but scientists, business people and consumers alike are now seeing that the cost of staking a claim and becoming a purveyor of the goods within the lines at these hyper local locations is very affordable. So affordable that some people are calling filmium the next gold rush!

The pre-selling of future revenues in the past via way of staking a land claim was limited to those who had large amounts of capital but filmium is now demonstrating that staking a claim could be as low as buying a large pizza. This of course has speculators sniffing around and wanting to hear more about the first public deposits that will be made available, and the timing couldn’t be better as many people are looking for alternative sources of income, but are not prepared to lay down huge amounts of capital.

The first offerings of Filmium deposits are set to hit the market in about a month’s time and it will be interesting to see which deposits the market flocks to and more importantly…for what reasons.

It might also be noted that since the time of writing this post there have been 3 other discoveries within the electro class. Scientists have duly named them Musicum (MU), Bookite (B), and Gamium (Gm).

David Geertz has worked in the film business since 1992 and is a partner in Binoir Media, a diversified holding company that has a focus in the content sector and is heavily engaged in building social utilities for the producers to assist them in funding, marketing, distribution and audience participation of independent media based projects. David’s work currently focuses on finding the new sweet spot for ensuring a balanced approach to funding and profiting in the content sector through his newest technology company SoKap.

Categories
Truly Free Film

David Geertz on “Are Indie Filmmakers Slave Drivers?”

How do we truly think about film? Do we ignore the truth even when it is right before our eyes? Are we sometimes willing to compromise our ethics in order to achieve our creative goal? Would we be willing to defer that goal in order to maintain the ethical standards that we otherwise embrace?

I named David Geertz as one of Hope For Film’s Brave Thinkers (2009 Edition) for a new start up he had then. That venture may now be gone, but David is still very much a Brave Thinker, as his guest post below, and his commitment to more, attests.

So you’re planning on producing an independent film — good for you, join the club. You are now officially a Slave Driver.

Before I begin this post I’d like to state that this post is mainly precursor of a series of posts to come for filmmakers and backers who see film as both an art form and an enterprise. An enterprise that pays skilled people a living wage, and provides an opportunity for those who fund those endeavors a chance at seeking a return on their money, while providing the needed funding for best and the brightest to continue to push boundaries within the moving image.

Let’s play a numbers game first before we dive into this post. Here are some assumptions that I am going to make on your behalf about your unmade film stuck in development hell.

1.    # of pages in my script – 90

2.    # of characters in my film – 10

3.    # of days on average that my talent will be on set – 7

4.    # of people on my crew – 20

5.    # of days I need to prep – 6

6.    average # of crew during prep – 8

7.    # of days I need to production – 15

8.    average # of crew during production – 20

9.    # of days I need to post – 30

10.    average # of crew during post – 6

11.    # of hours a day in production – 12

Using these tidbits you can get a rough idea of what it will cost you in labor to produce your film. All you need to do now is to assign each member of your crew an average dollar per hour for all their hard work. Here are some results.

2 bucks per hour       $14,352

5 bucks per hour       $35,880

10 bucks per hour       $71,760

25 bucks per hour       $179,400

40 bucks per hour       $287,040

70 bucks per hour       $502,320

Never before has it become so easy to access technology to make and deliver these cultural snippets that are part of the every day fabric of modern storytelling. I mean all you have to do is buy a cheap camera and some editing software and BLAMMO you are now a full on filmmaker!

The question is: Are you a slave driver?

Never mind about all the marketing, publicity, travel, deliverables, legal, accounting and banking mumbo jumbo….lets just get the film done.

And lets also forget about all the services like food, hair and make up, gear, locations, wardrobe, props, permits, insurance, hard drives, etc etc….

Lets focus on the people and assume that they will make up the majority and the rest you can do for a paltry 50K.

So….whether or not the people working for you feel like….well…slaves….here are a few more questions.

1. Where are you going to find the money?

2. What are you going to offer in return?

Perhaps before you try and answer those questions it’s a good idea to think about the people who are funding you and what their needs are. I think it’s a good idea knowing where your backers ‘donor fatigue threshold’ is as well as their ‘opportunity threshold’. There are two things that will make it easier for you to obtain this said funding (providing that you have all the creative, technical and management issues ironed out in your package but I’m not here to talk about that) and these are those things::

1. Provide easy access for people to fund you.

2. Provide an even easier method for those same people to recover.

Seems simple, but how do you do this without having to jump through the regulatory hoops, hire for a bunch of underwriters and lawyers? Even if you do this properly how do you ensure that the people who helped you out are going to have the best chance for a return on their money, or that your true fans get to see your film in the best light without having to wait for it to come out on Netflix?

Over the coming weeks I’m going to be writing a series of blog posts here. These posts will cover a range of topics mainly dealing with aspects of these subject matters.

   — enterprise and/or hybrid crowdfunding

   — theatrical and online digital distribution of your indie film

   — building a promoter mindset inside the film community

   — learning how to accurately find and engage your audience prior to a funding campaign

   — how to put a fair pre-funding valuation on your film prior to approaching people.

I hope you’ll join me and clobber me with all your questions and concerns regarding all of these issues as we try and find a happy middle ground not only for producers, but for crews, backers and consumers of independent film.

Join me and find out if you are indeed – a slave driver.

“You’re unhappy. I’m unhappy too. Have you heard of Henry Clay? He was the Great Compromiser. A good compromise is when both parties are dissatisfied, and I think that’s what we have here.”    — Larry David

David Geertz has worked in the film business since 1992 and is a partner in Binoir Media, a diversified holding company that has a focus in the content sector and is heavily engaged in building social utilities for the producers to assist them in funding, marketing, distribution and audience participation of independent media based projects. David’s work currently focuses on finding the new sweet spot for ensuring a balanced approach to funding and profiting in the content sector through his newest technology company SoKap.