May 26th, 2005

An early promo shot from the first makeup test
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Well, I guess everyone now knows which movie studio was interested in the flick, huh?

May 26th

Things are crazy right now. I'm trying to come up with all the deliverables for my second film because, between you and me, a big company is interested. I won't name them but it rhymes with Lion's Fate.

And if you don't know what deliverables are, and you're making a film...for God's sake...stop and find out.

Here's a start: Deliverables are:

1) All the paperwork. The releases from actors, writers, producers, DPs, location releases, music releases, every other release. You need them all. You need multiple copies(always keep your originals)

2) A master of your film on digibeta(some will still accept BetaSP) with music and effects on separate tracks, plus a full mix on another two tracks(in stereo)

3) The above sound elements on DA-88 or Magneto Optical Disc(though some will still accept DAT)

3) Photos and artwork. Make sure you get a lot of cool stills while you're shooting. Not behind-the-scenes stuff, though you can get some of that. I mean the cool shit pictures you see on the back of the dvd box, or in Fangoria magazine. You need at least 100 of these. They need to be good. If you're not a talented photographer, hire someone who is--money well spent.

4) Screening Cassettes

5) A master of the trailer and/or teaser for the film

6) Press kit if available, and it should be

7) Shooting script

8) Dialogue continuity/spotting list - this is gonna come as a surprise to you. You need a script that contains nothing but the dialogue from your film. Not too hard, you say! So you go through your script and take out all the action paragraphs. THEN you go through your movie and find out where your actors improv'd lines and change the script to exactly what they say. Then you're ready for the hard part. You need to mark down the timecode where every line is said. This is for the foreign guys who need to dub or subtitle lines--they need to make sure they're putting the right lines in the right place, and they may not actually understand English. You can pay someone to do this--I got a quote two years ago on my first film of $1200--so I did it myself.

9) Credit Information - A .word file with front end credits and back end credits. Make sure you get everyone's name spelled right or you'll get some nasty emails.

10) Music Cue Sheet - Timecode where every piece of score/music starts.

11) Chain of Title - This can get tricky, but mostly it's the copyright form for the screenplay of the movie and a separate copyright form for the actual movie. You'll also need a Title Search and accompanying legal opinion along with a Copyright Search. You'll need a lawyer to do this, but wait until you're about to sign the contract to do this. Sometimes the company you deal with can help you out with this, but also you'll need the searches to be dated within 60 days of delivery, so if you get them too early you may have to get them again. This will cost you between $500 and $2000 each time you do it.

12) Mortgage of Copyright and Security Agreement - the distributor will provide these to you, but make sure a lawyer looks them over before you sign.

13) Instrument of Transfer - Again, the distributor will provide

These are the basics--there are others. I'll tell you now, don't get so excited when a distributor provides you with a contract that you go ahead and sign off. One of the most important things to remember is this: The exhibit DS in the contract may look pretty standard, but DO NOT sign it unless you're sure you can deliver everything on the list. If you sign and can't provide something on there it will be the distributor's perogative to get/create it and BILL you for getting/creating it. You don't want that.

Wow, that's a lot of rules. I'll try to be more entertaining next blog--this is just tons of stuff I wish I knew before I did my first movie, and I haven't seen it talked about in depth anywhere.