I’ve been chomping at the bit to talk about what has been going on with the Movie, and being a known blabbermouth gossip whore who can’t keep a secret if his life depended on it [TBC once defiled a slightly retarded girl. There! I’ve said it. It’s out of my system] it’s been near impossible not to annotate every little thing that’s been going on. One reason is that I didn’t want to jinx myself and fuck everything up with my karmic idiocy. This totally contradicts the fact that I’m a fatalist, but I still believe in superstition for the bad things. Anyway, a second reason is that I didn’t want to write about all the things that might be on the horizon is because I didn’t want to come off as a dickweed douche bag loser when these might happens turn into a lot of nothing. I already come across as a rip roaring dingle berry anyway, so why add gas to that fire?
There is one thing that has happened that I feel I can finally write about, mostly because none of you five constant readers live anywhere near me so it really doesn’t matter if I write about it or not.
The movie is going to have a theatrical release here in Phoenix.
Harkins Theaters, which is local theater chain here in Arizona, has agreed to show the movie.
This is very cool for a number of reasons.
One, obviously, the movie is finally go to screen on a big theater in front of a [hopefully] paying audience. Even though for many independents this is more of a vanity run than anything else, it is super duper supreme motherfucking kick ass awesome to have this happening. This isn’t a fucking film festival playing in some high school dungeon or in the back room of an elk’s lodge. This is a real deal movie theater. I mean, fuck, man, how can I not get excited about it?
Secondly, it is icing on the cake that this movie is going to be playing at a Harkins Theater. People who don’t live in Arizona probably will not get this, but Harkins Theaters have played a very important role in my life. I was introduced to movies, grew up, fell in love, had my heart broken, had life altering moments of clarification, cried, laughed, made out, saw my destiny play out before me, and became who I am because, in no small part, to Harkins Theaters. I am extremely over the top devout to this local chain of theaters. I simply will not, not ever, ever, ever go to a another theater in Phoenix. Aside from the nostalgic and sentimental reasons for me liking these theaters, they are just all around better. They are better in ways that only a nutcase like me would care about, but they’re better.
Why? Two big reasons come to mind.
They use the correct wattage bulbs in every theater for every screen. Believe it or not, this is not true for most theaters around the country. The bulbs for projectors are really expensive and theaters mistakenly think that if they use less wattage the bulbs will last longer. This is steadfastly not the case, and it creates a dark, shitty image on the screen.
When they are showing a scope movie [2.35.1 aspect ratio, as opposed to the normal 1.85.1 widescreen aspect ratio] they actually widen the screen instead of crunching it down. This extremely important and rarely happens in a typical theater.
Of course, the seats are comfortable, the popcorn always fresh, they don’t force you to take out a small loan in order to buy a large popcorn and coke, the people are great, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They’re just better all around.
The place has been such a staple in my life, for my movie, my dumb little humble movie, is going to play on one of their screens is just a tiny bit of a poetic finale to this long fucking odyssey that has been this project.
There are a couple of ways this can go. Based on how well we do here in Phoenix, we can use that success to take the movie all over the country and have it play anywhere and everywhere we can. The great thing about this business, and it is not exclusive to Hollywood, is that no one really has the balls to take that chance and be the first one to risk it on an unknown movie. Once you get that one person to take a chance with you, a domino effect occurs where you can use one success to lead to another, and so on and so on.
I’m not so sure that we are going to do this. First of all, it costs a lot of money. Realistically, the best we could hope for is that the money spent would be recovered and we would eventually break even, but there are no illusions of actually making money of doing something like this. There is the possibility that the movie can lay and egg and look like a giant steaming turd on the screen with an empty theater. Secondly, there is a time factor. It would probably take close to a year to truck the movie around the country is various cities and places. I’m not sure if it’s worth taking the time to do so. Maybe, but than again… A more likely scenario is that we’ll try to have the movie play in Los Angeles [you just have to do that] and maybe Omaha, New York, and a few other places and call it good.
This begs the question: what do we hope to accomplish from this? You can’t really make any money on this. In fact, it could end up costly money. What do you want in the end?
Well, there is a pie in sky kind of outlook. There was a movie called SLACKER a number of years ago that started playing in Austin. The movie was so popular in Austin [I’m giving the cliff notes version here] that eventually word spread to Hollywood, Orion Classics [there’s blast from the industry past] picked up the movie, gave it an art house release, and then released it on video.
I don’t expect this to happen with our movie.
Again, something closer to reality would be that the movie will play in Phoenix, and hopefully a few other places, and there will be a moderate to above average response to the movie. One thing that we hope will happen is that there will be some good press for the movie. Some positive reviews would be nice, a couple of write ups, perhaps an interview or two. Again, you never know what will happen, but the idea will be to used this press to sell the movie to 1. video store chains like Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, mom and pop stores all over the country, and places like Best Buy for people to buy the fucking thing. 2. to financiers for the next movie. This movie is great and I want people to see it and like it [or hate it; anything but indifference] and all of that, but I’m also laying the ground work and preparing for the next movie. Ideally, if I can prove decent sales, decent audience attendance and reaction to the movie, good reviews from some decent places, then we’ll be able to use this as a selling point for the next movie. This is what would happen in a perfect world, and we’ll just have to see how this drama plays out.
Here’s a curious side note to this entire thing. It was suggested that I might want to consider doing a Q&A sessions after the screenings. Of course, I the idea made me want to vomit. I am by nature an extremely shy person when I’m thrown into a situation where I’m not familiar, comfortable, and feel very inferior to the other people in the room. This is almost every fucking situation I encounter. I’m a wallflower. I’m generally fairly quiet. I keep opinions to myself. And I fucking loathe talking about myself in any capacity whatsoever. It makes me very uncomfortable. I feel like a world class pretentious douche bag, and I avoid these situations like the fucking plane is going down. The very last, last, last thing that I would ever want to do is get in front an audience for any reason whatsoever, let alone get in front of an audience that has just watched my movie.
I know there is a contradiction in this. I’m arrogant enough to feel that I have a story worth your time and money, but I’m self-effacing enough to not really want to make a big deal about it.
I haven’t decided, but I’m definitely leaning towards not doing the Q&A. If the questions and answer sessions was with someone who was even a moderate big deal in movies, then maybe it was bring in a few people for the movie. Having me there is not going to put asses in the seats. So, if we’re looking at this from a purely economic point of view, I don’t think it would matter one bit if we give a Q&A session or not. If this is the case, why bother? If I did do the sessions, it could go three ways. It will either be a total ass kiss fest, the audience revolts on me for wasting their time and money, or a combination of the two. However it would play out, it would be a nightmare for me and I don’t think it worth it. And really, no one wants to see a fat man up there, his flop sweat seeping through his clothes, stuttering and stammering his way through whatever questions are tossed up. Of course, no one can show up and I’d be up there answering questions from my Dad like, “Um, you sent how much money on that thing?”
So, there’s the news. The movie is going to see the light of day in a theater. It’s the culmination of a lot of hard work by a lot of people, and I hope we’ll be able to enjoy it as much as we can. There’s more news on the horizon, but it’s still too soon to unleash it on you.
As always, I’ll keep you informed.
There is one thing that has happened that I feel I can finally write about, mostly because none of you five constant readers live anywhere near me so it really doesn’t matter if I write about it or not.
The movie is going to have a theatrical release here in Phoenix.
Harkins Theaters, which is local theater chain here in Arizona, has agreed to show the movie.
This is very cool for a number of reasons.
One, obviously, the movie is finally go to screen on a big theater in front of a [hopefully] paying audience. Even though for many independents this is more of a vanity run than anything else, it is super duper supreme motherfucking kick ass awesome to have this happening. This isn’t a fucking film festival playing in some high school dungeon or in the back room of an elk’s lodge. This is a real deal movie theater. I mean, fuck, man, how can I not get excited about it?
Secondly, it is icing on the cake that this movie is going to be playing at a Harkins Theater. People who don’t live in Arizona probably will not get this, but Harkins Theaters have played a very important role in my life. I was introduced to movies, grew up, fell in love, had my heart broken, had life altering moments of clarification, cried, laughed, made out, saw my destiny play out before me, and became who I am because, in no small part, to Harkins Theaters. I am extremely over the top devout to this local chain of theaters. I simply will not, not ever, ever, ever go to a another theater in Phoenix. Aside from the nostalgic and sentimental reasons for me liking these theaters, they are just all around better. They are better in ways that only a nutcase like me would care about, but they’re better.
Why? Two big reasons come to mind.
They use the correct wattage bulbs in every theater for every screen. Believe it or not, this is not true for most theaters around the country. The bulbs for projectors are really expensive and theaters mistakenly think that if they use less wattage the bulbs will last longer. This is steadfastly not the case, and it creates a dark, shitty image on the screen.
When they are showing a scope movie [2.35.1 aspect ratio, as opposed to the normal 1.85.1 widescreen aspect ratio] they actually widen the screen instead of crunching it down. This extremely important and rarely happens in a typical theater.
Of course, the seats are comfortable, the popcorn always fresh, they don’t force you to take out a small loan in order to buy a large popcorn and coke, the people are great, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They’re just better all around.
The place has been such a staple in my life, for my movie, my dumb little humble movie, is going to play on one of their screens is just a tiny bit of a poetic finale to this long fucking odyssey that has been this project.
There are a couple of ways this can go. Based on how well we do here in Phoenix, we can use that success to take the movie all over the country and have it play anywhere and everywhere we can. The great thing about this business, and it is not exclusive to Hollywood, is that no one really has the balls to take that chance and be the first one to risk it on an unknown movie. Once you get that one person to take a chance with you, a domino effect occurs where you can use one success to lead to another, and so on and so on.
I’m not so sure that we are going to do this. First of all, it costs a lot of money. Realistically, the best we could hope for is that the money spent would be recovered and we would eventually break even, but there are no illusions of actually making money of doing something like this. There is the possibility that the movie can lay and egg and look like a giant steaming turd on the screen with an empty theater. Secondly, there is a time factor. It would probably take close to a year to truck the movie around the country is various cities and places. I’m not sure if it’s worth taking the time to do so. Maybe, but than again… A more likely scenario is that we’ll try to have the movie play in Los Angeles [you just have to do that] and maybe Omaha, New York, and a few other places and call it good.
This begs the question: what do we hope to accomplish from this? You can’t really make any money on this. In fact, it could end up costly money. What do you want in the end?
Well, there is a pie in sky kind of outlook. There was a movie called SLACKER a number of years ago that started playing in Austin. The movie was so popular in Austin [I’m giving the cliff notes version here] that eventually word spread to Hollywood, Orion Classics [there’s blast from the industry past] picked up the movie, gave it an art house release, and then released it on video.
I don’t expect this to happen with our movie.
Again, something closer to reality would be that the movie will play in Phoenix, and hopefully a few other places, and there will be a moderate to above average response to the movie. One thing that we hope will happen is that there will be some good press for the movie. Some positive reviews would be nice, a couple of write ups, perhaps an interview or two. Again, you never know what will happen, but the idea will be to used this press to sell the movie to 1. video store chains like Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, mom and pop stores all over the country, and places like Best Buy for people to buy the fucking thing. 2. to financiers for the next movie. This movie is great and I want people to see it and like it [or hate it; anything but indifference] and all of that, but I’m also laying the ground work and preparing for the next movie. Ideally, if I can prove decent sales, decent audience attendance and reaction to the movie, good reviews from some decent places, then we’ll be able to use this as a selling point for the next movie. This is what would happen in a perfect world, and we’ll just have to see how this drama plays out.
Here’s a curious side note to this entire thing. It was suggested that I might want to consider doing a Q&A sessions after the screenings. Of course, I the idea made me want to vomit. I am by nature an extremely shy person when I’m thrown into a situation where I’m not familiar, comfortable, and feel very inferior to the other people in the room. This is almost every fucking situation I encounter. I’m a wallflower. I’m generally fairly quiet. I keep opinions to myself. And I fucking loathe talking about myself in any capacity whatsoever. It makes me very uncomfortable. I feel like a world class pretentious douche bag, and I avoid these situations like the fucking plane is going down. The very last, last, last thing that I would ever want to do is get in front an audience for any reason whatsoever, let alone get in front of an audience that has just watched my movie.
I know there is a contradiction in this. I’m arrogant enough to feel that I have a story worth your time and money, but I’m self-effacing enough to not really want to make a big deal about it.
I haven’t decided, but I’m definitely leaning towards not doing the Q&A. If the questions and answer sessions was with someone who was even a moderate big deal in movies, then maybe it was bring in a few people for the movie. Having me there is not going to put asses in the seats. So, if we’re looking at this from a purely economic point of view, I don’t think it would matter one bit if we give a Q&A session or not. If this is the case, why bother? If I did do the sessions, it could go three ways. It will either be a total ass kiss fest, the audience revolts on me for wasting their time and money, or a combination of the two. However it would play out, it would be a nightmare for me and I don’t think it worth it. And really, no one wants to see a fat man up there, his flop sweat seeping through his clothes, stuttering and stammering his way through whatever questions are tossed up. Of course, no one can show up and I’d be up there answering questions from my Dad like, “Um, you sent how much money on that thing?”
So, there’s the news. The movie is going to see the light of day in a theater. It’s the culmination of a lot of hard work by a lot of people, and I hope we’ll be able to enjoy it as much as we can. There’s more news on the horizon, but it’s still too soon to unleash it on you.
As always, I’ll keep you informed.
