MAKING A TIN MAN:
HOW I MADE MY FIRST
FEATURE FILM
By John G. Thomas
Smashwords Edition
"If you're going to make a feature film
you'd be well-advised to read this book first”
Ronald Neame, Director ("The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie," "The Poseidon Adventure.")
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Copyright © 2010 by John G. Thomas
ISBN: 1-59872-129-1
PREFACE
This book details many of the trials and tribulations I went through in order to make my first feature film, "Tin Man." Because everything happened during 1981-1983, many details have faded from my memory. For this reason I may have neglected to recognize or thank someone.
I hope that by sharing my experience, others will be able to avoid some of the mistakes I’ve made and most of all, make a better film.
I welcome your comments and questions via email at: john@easy-budget.com
CHAPTER ONE
The Very Beginning
I have a confession to make.
Before I made my first feature film I had absolutely no idea how to make one.
Now, I thought I knew how to make one of course. I had a strong background in filmmaking - USC film school grad, something like 37 documentaries, shorts and commercials to my credit, but I discovered I was completely unprepared to make a feature-length film. While the USC "Wonder Boys" like George Lucas were cranking out one major studio block buster after another, I was exploring the world and whatever interested me with my 16mm NPR and a Nagra recorder.
I’d load up my old VW bug with equipment, strap a mike boom to the roof rack, and off I’d go. Each film was mainly the work of one person: me. I wrote, shot and cut every one of ‘em. Frankly, I felt as though documentary filmmakers were the only real filmmakers. Feature filmmakers just sat in a motor home drinking ice tea and chatting up the actresses. Right?
But as often happens to young children and us creative types, I was getting bored. I’d developed my own style which always guaranteed me some level of commercial distribution and modest financial success. But my “style” eventually became a creative rut in the road. As hard as I tried to change, I kept approaching and documenting each subject the same way. Hell, it was safe, it worked and the distributors didn’t want me to change a thing. “Make another one, won’t you?” But I just didn’t have the yearning to do another one.
So, I’m walking downtown one day and discover a book of matches laying on the sidewalk. I picked the matches up and read the advertisement printed on the cover: “You Too Can Drive the Big Rigs!” There was a drawing of a happy looking guy waving at me from the front seat of his mighty Kenworth – W900, 19 speed diesel tractor-trailer rig. I thought, “Humm. I don’t have to make documentary films. I could drive a big rig!” I briefly considered signing up for truck driving lessons but had to drop that idea when reminded that I didn’t own a big rig. No, I had to remain a filmmaker and the only thing left to do was make a feature film.
You probably think I’m kidding, don’t you? I’m not! That’s exactly how it all began. I figured it would be easy. There’s a lesson here: don’t ever pick matchbooks off the sidewalk.
So now I was a producer/director of feature films...just because I said so. With a few exceptions, I’d never really “directed” an actor in my life and I’d always wondered what a movie producer really did. Directors wore berets, sat on Chapman cranes and yelled, “Roll ‘em” to thousands of Egyptian extras. Armani-clad producers would drink champagne at the Cannes Film Festival and say, “Sergio, babe. You look great! Let me tell you about my next picture.” This couldn’t be right. So how would I begin my next career? I needed help.
Sadly, most of my film school buddies who went directly into features pretended they didn’t know me anymore. One consented to a brief 10 minute meeting at his plush 20th Century Fox studio office. He’d just co-produced a so-so feature and thought he was pretty hot stuff. He flat out told me that I had made a mistake by making documentaries - that nobody would take me seriously now. Like I could "...play for the Yankees because I was good in the Little League." I ran into an attitude that USC film school grads weren’t supposed to need anyone’s help - they’re expected to be automatically successful. Hah! Nobody told me that. So much for the old-school-network and USC’s hammer lock on Hollywood.
Remember, I was Mister know-it-all documentary filmmaker. Scripts? Who needs ‘em? I didn’t need any stinkin’ scripts before. But now I did.
A few years earlier, during a brief period of temporary insanity, I’d spent almost six weeks writing a script. Then, I sat back and read it. What a piece of crap! Nothing less than a waste of paper! But I did realize something significant: the script is the key ingredient of any feature film. If you don’t LOVE your script and aren't willing to jump in front of a bus for it, drop it. Let it go. Bad scripts are dangerous! Don’t touch them - they’ll burn you!
In Hamlet, Shakespeare said, “The play’s the thing.” I’m not a big fan of his work, but he was right-on about this. The story is the foundation of everything - you’re nowhere without it. That’s why the great writers are some of the richest people in Hollywood.
Truthfully, I’m jealous of them. They have that odd talent to craft and compress a highly visual story with dramatic dialogue and colorful characters into the small space of 110-120 typed pages. I think it’s a god-given talent that they possess, and I don’t.
CHAPTER TWO
The Screenplay’s the Thing
So there I was, Mister Big Time director/producer and I had no script. I didn’t have the Armani suit either, but that’s another subject. I had a 747-sized desire, but no destination in mind.
By this time I’d rented a small office, turned the phones on and printed up some cool-looking letterhead and cards. Nice office, nifty letterhead, but no script. I figured I’d go outside and look for another matchbook. Only this time the smiling big rig driver would be holding a screenplay out the window and the copy would read, “I’ve got your screenplay right here!”
Of course that didn’t happen - I’d never be that lucky. But the answer was out on the street on top of a newspaper dispenser. It said, “It pays to advertise.” So, I did.
I placed these tiny ads (that’s all I could afford), in the Hollywood trade papers - Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. The ads only ran once or twice (and again later on), but the results were incredible. During the next year I read almost one thousand scripts!
By now I'd heard rumors that all the really great scripts were already in the greedy hands of a few powerful talent agencies. But they couldn’t have scooped up all the good scripts? Odds are they’d missed one or two. The Writer’s Guild says that only five out of a thousand scripts are ever optioned, and only one out of a thousand is ever produced, (That’s why I read so many!). I’m not a fast reader, about 3 a day was my max. Keeping all those smooth-talking Hollywood agents in mind, I also wanted to make sure the writers would remember me in the future.
What I did was send all of them a detailed letter after I’d read their script. I would write the letters immediately after I finished reading them so the characters and story were still fresh in my mind. They loved this - someone out there was giving them feedback about their script. Much different than the attitude from an arrogant agency or pretentious studio producer who returns the script unread.
This extra work paid off for me in later years. Those same writers would send me their new screenplays before they sent them to an agent. Soon, I had a constant stream of scripts flowing in. However, the stacks of unread scripts grew and grew until I had a backlog of almost 600 in the office. And the stacks kept growing higher everyday!
But most of them were terrible. A veritable Pike’s Peak of putrid prose! I was beginning to think that those nasty agents did have all the good scripts. But there were a couple of nuggets in those mountains of literary manure. In fact, one of them was a great new script from a writer whose earlier screenplay had been a stinker. I’ve made several other features since then and three of them were from this original group.
Moral: Be very nice to writers.
Out of the thousand scripts I read, there were two I zeroed in on, and one in particular: “A Heart For The Tin Man” by a writer named Bishop Holiday.
CHAPTER THREE
Getting Started
By now you’ve probably realized that nothing in my life happens normally. Turns out that my first writer, Bishop Holiday, wasn’t even a writer. He was a musician! And Bishop Holiday wasn’t his real name either. It was his “stage” name as a guitar player. Whoever he was, this slim, slightly balding young man from Manhattan Beach had written a very unique script. And, he’d already written and produced the theme song and musical score! It was one of those stories in which the theme can be nicely stated in one sentence: Born deaf, a young genius invents a computer that can hear and speak for him.
Remember, this was back in 1981. The dawn of the computer age when a Radio Shack TRS-80 with 4 kb of memory was state-of-the-art. In many ways, the story and film were way ahead of time. To be honest, I can’t remember what I paid Bishop for the rights to the screenplay, although I’m sure it wasn’t very much.
All either of us cared about was that I liked his screenplay and he liked the fact that I wanted to make a movie out of it. Money was never an issue because we both wanted to make it happen and money was something neither of us had anyhow! For a first feature film, this kind of relationship between the director/producer and the writer is essential. Everyone knows they’ve got to work hard and forget about money this time around.
Obviously, “A Heart for the Tin Man,” might cause unthinkable legal problems with MGM, Judy Garland, or someone else in the legal department. So, the title was shortened to just “Tin Man,” a thinly veiled reference to the computer electronics which enabled the lead character, “Casey,” to communicate with others. Doing a bit of legal research, I learned that it would be okay to have a film titled “Tin Man,” as long as the characters in my film weren’t on their way to Oz followed by a bunch of oddly-dressed dwarfs.
Just reading all of those scripts was a great education. I had developed a pretty good idea where a script needed improvement and how to fix it. While the Tin Man story itself was unique, the dialog was just too predictable and simple – a very common fault. Several of the characters, especially the female lead, were very thin.
Bishop agreed with me and we spent several weeks working on these problems. Looking back at the completed film, I can’t say that we fixed everything in the script, but I believe we improved it quite a bit.
Bishop brought me a cassette recording of a song he’d written and produced called, “A Heart for the Tin Man.” It was very nice, professional sounding, and I enjoy hearing it to this day.
I thought I could use it to entice an investor...if I ever met one.
I still had a long way to go. During the middle of all this, I had another project keeping me busy. Many months earlier I’d decided I would take a year off and build a house outside of Santa Barbara where I was living - build it with my own hands and hire very few people to help. For this reason, I didn’t drive to Hollywood meetings in the latest Porsche, but in my broken-down Chevy pickup truck. Many times the guards at the studio gates would direct me to the delivery entrance! Thankfully, my wife had a good job and that helped pay the bills during this period.
Getting the script was a major step, but I still needed a lot more: a budget, lots of money to put into it, and a star. Not too much to ask for, huh?
Unfortunately, I had another problem to deal with: a partner. He was older than me and more experienced, which was good. But he also had a meddlesome, hard-line-feminist wife which wasn’t good. He’d stay in a local motel during the week and spend the weekends with his wife in Los Angeles. Every Monday he’d return with more demands for money (as if I had any!), or greater profit participation. But he never raised a cent...never contributed anything constructive.
Soon, I dreaded Mondays. What’s he going to want this time? What demand would his head-strong-agent-manager-wife ask for this Monday morning? It was a very negative situation which got worse with every day.
We jointly decided to split up.
Although I had about $25,000 set aside, I needed a lot more! I had no idea how I would raise the money, much less get a star, but I could do something essential: make a budget. Of course, I’d never created a feature film budget in my life, but why should I let that stop me?
CHAPTER FOUR
The Budget
In the past, budgets were never a problem for me. When you’re making documentaries and shorts for $2,500 or less you really don’t even have a budget. But a feature film would be much more complicated to deal with, not to mention expensive. All said and done, the completed, “delivered” cost of Tin Man was about $224,000. I had hoped to spend about 350K, but that never happened.
So, I started making a budget for the re-titled “Tin Man.” I’d only seen one feature film budget in my life when a friend-of-a-friend at Warner Bros. let me borrow a copy of the budget for one of the “Planet of the Apes” movies. What an eye-opener! Jeeze, they budgeted for labor unions, location fees, legal costs and most surprising of all, catering! I didn’t know I had to feed the crew! Did I have to do their laundry and burp them after dinner too?
As it turned out, the “Apes” budget was a good model since, by Hollywood standards, these films had very low budgets. There were no software budgeting programs available – back then everything was done by hand using a No. 2 pencil and these pre-printed, 14 inch, 35 page forms everyone bought at Enterprise Stationers in Hollywood. The forms hadn’t been changed since the early 1930’s and had account lines for extinct items like camera sound blimps. But the process itself remains unchanged even today.
I soon discovered that when compared to any typical business budget, movie budgets were very strange animals. What made them so peculiar was the number of costs which were not fixed, but percentage-based. Take the completion bond for instance (please!). If your budget is a hundred dollars, at 6% the bond fee would be six dollars. But if your budget was $112.36 the fee would be $6.75. Every time you add the cost of one donut or cup of coffee the bond fee and the budget total would go up every-so-slightly. Make a small change on one page and you need to revise hundreds of numbers all over the place! I’d sometimes erase holes through the paper and have to start all over again.
I resolved then that I’d eventually do something about this problem. This was the beginning of my soon-to-be created Easy Budget software, but that’s another story I won’t bore you with.
Struggling through a budget is not only necessary, but an important learning exercise. Try to use a good “template,” or some kind of fill-in-the-blanks format because you can never remember all the things you’ll need. The individual accounts not only provide a space to budget for something, but most importantly they prompt you to consider whether you’ll need something or not.
For example: You may not have thought about a Steadi-Cam, but maybe there’s a scene that could use one? Perhaps you didn’t even consider taking publicity stills on the set, but you’ll wish you had later.
A word or two about budget templates. Someone may tell you that a budget for, say HBO, has to be in an HBO-approved format. Not true. Here’s the truth: If you’ve got a really great project, your budget could be written on a paper napkin and they’ll go for it. It’s the budget itself that’s important, not the format and layout. Think of the budget, in whatever format you choose, as just another essential part of the puzzle.
I was astounded by the amount of detail required in a feature film budget. (After a few more films it didn’t seem to be enough!) Gradually, I started to learn what I really needed and…what I could do without. With the amount I was planning to spend, I had to do without a lot!
Not everyone has $50 million to spend. In my gut, I felt there just had to be a way to budget and make a film for very little money. I proved you can, but it’s very difficult to pull off. You have to train yourself to look at budget estimation in a whole new way.
In my case, I felt that a quarter million dollars was something I could raise. Why? I felt the amount was small enough to attract investors to roll the dice if I could convince them I could really deliver an actual feature film with good production values.
I started with the basic things first: raw stock, cameras and all the absolutely necessary material and equipment. 75,000 feet of raw stock (a measly 8:1 shooting ratio) was about 40K...almost a fifth of my budget! An aging Arri BL-2 package with some lenses would set me back about 20K for the four week shoot. Throw in some lights and a cheap dolly and almost half of my budget was already spent.
Needless-to-say, I was dispirited. Making the film seemed impossible - the price of admission to the world of feature filmmaking was way too high for me.
Now is a good time to mention something very important about budgets in general. Never, ever tell anyone what your actual budget is unless you have no choice.
Why? Look at it this way. If you tell an agent that you have $25,000.00 to spend for a particular part, I guarantee you will pay $25,000.00 for that actor. When the guy at the camera rental place asks what your budget is, just say “I don’t know yet. We’re just trying to get estimates.” Don’t be a sucker, get the best price you can.
You’ve got to think of your budget as a top secret document which is only shown to those with a need-to-know. If this information gets out everyone will use it against you. It’s a big, extremely stupid mistake which too many first-timers make. There are however, a few exceptions.
You will have to show the budget to bankers, investors, bonding companies and insurance brokers. If it’s a studio picture, you’ll have to discuss it with the business affairs department. If the head of your production camera team wants to see it, fine. But only show him the part of the budget that pertains to them!
As a rule, I never even carry a copy of the budget with me on the set. I’m always leaving things laying around and it would cause a lot of problems if it were picked up by someone. Mary will be very angry when she learns that Jim is making twice as much as she is! You might even open yourself up to a law suit as a result.
Everyone I know submits a fake budget to any union or guild. Why pay a higher cash bond if you don’t have to? Why slip the entire budget into a higher salary bracket if you can help it? Why be forced to hire additional crew members just because your budget total crosses an arbitrary guideline set by the union?
People will also use your budget against you if they discover it’s very low. A lot of Hollywood types assume you must have a minimal amount of money to make a film and that anything below that mysterious level can’t be very good. Good cast and crew that you want to hire may back out even if you can afford to pay them what they want.
Just remember that your budget is private information and none-of-their business. They’d like to know it, but never tell them. But suppose the worst happens and people begin to whisper? Someone let the horse out of the barn. What do you do then?
I handle it the Russian way.
During the so-called Cold War the Soviets developed a neat trick called disinformation. When they couldn’t keep up with the arms race they released bits of erroneous information to fool the U.S. into thinking they were more advanced than they actually were. They learned that if you release enough false data you’ll soon reach a point where nobody knows the truth anymore. Incidently, this deception has the added benefit of helping you find out who is leaking the information!
This happened to me only once, but I was able to use disinformation as a kind of damage control. I learned that I could simply look someone in the eye and flat-out lie. I would tell them what I thought they wanted to hear. When someone would say, “I heard your budget was 7.5 million,” I’d answer, “Well, please don’t tell anyone, but it’s actually 6.2 million.”
At this point, I was dead in the water and my low-budget life boat was leaking badly. I was borrowing money from friends just to keep the phones on. I couldn’t afford the parking lot behind the building so I parked on the street and kept moving my car every two hours to avoid a ticket. It was that silly.
But this is what a budget is supposed to do: force you to look at the truth.
Other so-called friends started making jokes about me...really beating me down and telling me how irresponsible I was. My crazy desire to make a feature film was stressing my marriage and everyone else too.
I stopped working on the budget.
When the rubber meets the road like this, most intelligent folks give up. Everyone has a comfort level they don’t want to drop below, myself included. Making a feature film, especially your first one, requires a major life-decision. Are you willing to give up everything for your dream? I mean, really? You could destroy the comfortable life you’ve worked so hard to build and wreck all your significant relationships in the process.
Are you prepared to fight for your film as if it were the life of your own child? You’ll fight battles you never anticipated with obnoxious, repulsive people you’d never want to meet otherwise. Believe me, YOU are the one who’ll make all the real sacrifices.
Ultimately, you’re all alone.
You must feel this passionate desire deep inside and be willing to make the big commitment - otherwise I absolutely guarantee you’ll fail.
Looking back now, I don’t have much respect for all those “friends” who put me down. They wanted me to be like them: sad and unhappy people with simple goals and aspirations. They clung to their pensions and a good dental plan while I was willing to risk it all. That doesn’t mean I was smarter than they were and it doesn’t mean I made a stupid decision either.
I never forgot what I observed while standing in the Hollywood unemployment line many years earlier. Most of the people around me had been laid off from large companies with good pension and dental plans like Warner Bros. and Fox! So, even their security was an illusion.
It was a big mistake, but I changed into my Butterfly McQueen mode and began to ignore all those things I couldn’t afford: like actors and editing. My foolish attitude led to a risky “cross that bridge when I come to it” mentality. But what else could I do? What I needed was a break...something big and dramatic that would get investors interested in what I wanted to do. What I needed was a star!
Although I had no money, a BIG star would be even better.
As usual, I went outside and started looking for a matchbook. I imagined a young, smiling Marlon Brando driving the big rig this time. He’d be waving, smiling and saying, “I’m not doing anything, call me!”
You’re probably not going to believe this, but I found my big star out there. In my own backyard. It wasn’t Brando on a matchbook, but pretty damn good anyhow.
CHAPTER FIVE
Trolling for Stars
Since I couldn’t afford to hire a real casting director, I started developing a list of stars for the male lead, “Casey.” I’d write their names down on 3 x 5 cards and put them on a bulletin board. Then, I’d call SAG, ask for the representation department and find out which talent agency they were with. SAG would only allow me 3 requests at a time, so I’d disguise my voice as Ed Sullivan or Cary Grant and call back again.
The answers I got were predictable: International Creative Management (ICM), The William Morris Agency, and what was to later become the Creative Artists Agency (CAA). At that time, the “Big Three” talent agencies controlled 99.9% of the “name” stars in Hollywood. As I soon learned, they’re not just the artist’s representatives or managers, but more like Hollywood gatekeepers, unfailingly devoted to keeping insignificant filmmakers like me out.
Until you’ve actually tried, you have no idea how insulting and imperious some of these agents can be. Egos the size of Texas and as foul-mouthed as the most drunken sailor - even the women! If I was persistent or lucky enough to get by the snooty, usually gay assistant, the agent would normally just hang up on me.
Years later I learned a lot about the mysterious inner workings at the talent agencies, but I didn’t know this at the time. If you want the agent of a big star to pay attention, you must have one of two things they want: A “deal” with a major distributor, or millions of dollars in a bank account.
Piece-of-cake, right?
If you’re one of the few who actually has a studio deal, chances are the agent already knows about it and they may have already called you. Or, if you’ve got millions of dollars salted away in a bank account somewhere, be prepared to prove it. Believe me, they will call the bank. Like Las Vegas, they want you to prove you’ve got what it takes for the buy-in before you can sit at the table. Heck, this shouldn’t seem so unusual since it’s all a big gamble to start with!
Sometimes, even millions of dollars is not enough. People have been trying to buy their way into Hollywood for years - always with disastrous results. The star you’d like to have won’t even read your script until you’ve made an iron-clad, "pay-or-play" offer in writing for their services.
Hollywood agents are not just sharks, they’re Great White Sharks. You may have to work with them, but never, ever, trust them. If they see an opening or a weak spot they will go for it. I’ve actually tested a few agents that I had grown to trust over the years. Given the opportunity, they took advantage of me everytime. They can’t help themselves, that’s just the way they are.
Most people who make feature films know somebody at a major studio even if it’s an intern in the mail room or the guard at the gate. But I didn’t know anyone! Sometimes I would read about a major studio executive in one of the trade papers and send them a copy of the script. Every time I did, the script would be returned with a letter saying, “Unfortunately we cannot accept unsolicited scripts.” (Years later, after one of my films got a flattering review in the trade papers, they started calling me.) The Hollywood studio rule is, they’ll call you but you shouldn’t call them.
The big talent agencies follow the same rules as the studios. Hollywood is an exclusive country club where they only discriminate against people they don’t already know. The few people I did get a chance to talk with always said nobody would take a chance with someone’s “first feature.” Later on that was amended to, “It’s only his second…or third, etc.” See?
With no studio deal and no money I was once again stopped in my tracks. Hell, I expected it, I was getting used to it in a strange way. I was trolling for a big fish but I had no bait on my hook and they weren’t biting anyhow.
So one day I’m walking down the sidewalk in Santa Barbara looking for the next magic matchbook. I didn’t find one but I bumped into “Bob,” the handyman/manager of the building where I’d rented my small office.
At first I assume he’s going to ask me about the back rent I owe him! Instead, he asked how the movie project was going. I told him about how difficult it is for a nobody like me to find a big star these days. Although Big Time producers like me weren’t in the habit of considering casting suggestions from handymen, Bob said, “You know who I really like? Timothy Bottoms.”
At the time, Timothy Bottoms was the well known star of “The Last Picture Show,” “The Paper Chase,” “The Other Side of the Mountain,” etc. He’d been nominated for a Golden Globe for his acting in Dalton Trumbo’s “Johnny Got His Gun.” In fact, Timothy Bottoms was already on my list. I told Bob that he was represented by the venerable William Morris Agency which meant he was untouchable.
Thanks to Bob, I got the big break I needed.
Turns out that Timothy Bottoms was born in Santa Barbara and still lived there. Bob, a life-long local resident, got me Timothy’s home phone number from a friend and the next day we’re having lunch together across the street at MacDonald’s!
Timothy loved the script and told his handlers at the mighty William Morris agency to make the deal. A week later I drove my pickup home from Beverly Hills with a real star’s signature on a contract. Cool, huh?
CHAPTER SIX
Raising the Money
I didn’t know it at the time, but I had accidentally created what is known in the “biz” as a feature film “package.”
A package is what you present to investors or a distributor and is composed of various creative “elements.” Usually, this will include a well-known star, a successful director or producer, and a great script with an easily exploitable story line. Sure, there are exceptions. This week’s “hot” director may not need a star at all. The studio guards will wave you right on to the lot if you’ve got a Nora Ephron or Paddy Chayefsky script tucked under your arm.
Never underestimate the value of a good title. Remember, “My Dinner With Andre”? Or, “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” How about one of my all-time favorites, “Sex, Lies and Videotape.” A good title is a wonderful “hook.” Heck, the best thing about a lot of films is the title!
Just think about this for a moment: it costs you nothing to come up with that one, great, title. Start today by writing down alternative, catchy and incredibly interesting titles for your film. Ask your friends to help you with this. Come up with 50-75 possibilities. Then, go to an extensive database like IMDB.com and see if they’re available. Don’t be discouraged if someone has already made a film with the title you like. You may still be able to use it.
Now, narrow your list down to a couple of dozen of your favorites. Tell everyone you know just a little about the story and ask them to pick out the titles they like the best. Remember that you may be too close to the story to remain completely objective. As your audience, their opinion is most important. To an audience, distributor or investor, first impressions really count.
Knowing when you’ve got a marketable package is hard to determine. When are your project’s elements strong enough to make people stand up and notice?
My best advice is to look at the big picture and keep your options open. Be flexible. Maybe an Oscar-nominated music composer, a unique script and half the budget in the bank is enough? Ultimately, if you’re persistent and lucky enough, your project will begin to generate interest among investors and distributors.
As the driving force behind your project, one of the most important things you can do is carefully control the perception that others have about what you’re doing.
Whether true or not, you must make sure everyone believes your film’s momentum is strong and purposeful. You should give everyone you talk to the impression that your film production is going to happen. Imagine your feature project as a train gathering steam and leaving the station - nobody wants to be left behind. Few will want to stand in front of it.
Mainly due to my own inexperience, even Timothy Bottoms couldn’t get the attention of the major studios. The story was considered too narrowly focused and un-commercial (figures!). Most of all, a 200K budget was unthinkable to a major studio. Just mentioning my budget was the kiss-of-death.
But I did get the undivided attention of all the “other,” non-major studio distributors. Want to contact them? They’re all members of the American Film Marketing Association (AFMA). (http://www.afma.com)
Fact is, none of them are really film distributors. Although they may have the word “distributor” in their name, they are more appropriately called, “sales agents,” or “producer’s reps.” These are the sometimes shady middlemen of the energetic “B” movie world. They don’t distribute films in the customary sense, but they do sell films (completed or not), to actual distributors who do.
It’s their job to be on a first name basis with every small to medium theater chain owner and every video and cable distributor in the world. You’d be foolish to try and do their job by yourself. Like any business, there are good ones and bad ones. If the agents and entertainment lawyers are the Great White Sharks of Hollywood, the foreign sales agents are never far behind in the food chain. In either case, you’ll probably have to deal with these people sooner or later.
Of course, I had to pick one of the really bad ones.
How bad was this guy? The man who ran this company was so disreputable that he later did time in a federal prison for endorsing producer’s checks and depositing them in his own bank account!
Although he never gave me a nickel, he did introduce me to various investors who did. How I first met this convicted swindler is an interesting story in itself. It was in Cannes, France...
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Cannes Film Festival
Now that I had my packaged film project I needed to let everyone know about it. But not having any sort of track record in feature films resulted in a lot of closed doors. I just didn’t know what I should do next.
How could I possibly reach these important people if they wouldn’t return my phone calls? I had to find a way to quickly make my project visible to this particular group of people. I'd been to one of the early American Film Markets in Los Angeles, but the next one was a year away. The answer was the Cannes Film Festival.
About 30 miles west of Nice by toll road, Cannes is simply the French version of Miami Beach. Dozens of glossy new hotels and grand old palaces are shoe-horned together along the curvy seaside boulevard called La Crosette. Middle-class pensioners and aristocratic-looking widows are Cannes’ chief year-round residents.
Every morning they slowly walk their poodles to the vegetable market beyond the Rue D’Antibes, buy a tomato or two, and walk back to their condo overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Next morning, the Cannes sanitation department hoses all the dog poop down the sewer and a new day begins.
During June, July and August, the whole of France goes on vacation and all the over-priced hotels along the boulevard are filled to capacity. But except for the occasional dental convention, Cannes was always a sleepy medium-sized town with a lot of vacant hotel rooms and empty sidewalk cafes during the non-summer months. So, after World War Two the city fathers decided to do something to fill those empty rooms during the spring.
Voila! The Cannes International Festival du Film was born. The annual festival is simply an entrepreneurial fabrication of the Cannes Chamber of Commerce and not the French Ministry of Culture as they’d like you to believe.
I might have to travel thousands of miles, but all the people I needed to talk to would be located in one place and more easily accessible. I printed up a bunch of flyers and about 50 copies of the script, synopsis and treatment. After a few hasty French lessons, I packed all of this together with a stack of Timothy Bottoms 8x10’s and headed to the Cote d’Azur.
Turns out I didn’t need the French lessons - everyone spoke English. I arrived in Cannes with about $200 left to live on after paying a Los Angeles publicist $500. If you’ve never been to Cannes before and you haven’t got anyone to show you the ropes, hire a publicist who’s worked at Cannes. If you don’t, you won’t know anyone.
A good publicist will make sure you meet the right people and get you invited to the right parties and screenings. The best ones will steer you away from the wrong people. There are 2-3 major PR companies like the UK-based Dennis Davidson and Hollywood’s Rogers and Cowan. Plus several dozen independent publicists to choose from.
My first impression of Cannes was that it looked like a dozen traveling circuses had simultaneously come to town. Movie posters hung from every available lamp post, wall and store window. The famed Carlton Hotel was graced with a 50 foot-tall bikini-clad James Bond girl who’s legs were spread just wide enough to let you walk between them and through the front door. The Hollywood trade papers printed thick, Cannes-only, daily versions which were slipped under your hotel room door in the morning.
But while the famous folks stayed at the Carlton, the Majestic or the Grey D’Albion, I slipped into the lesser known Hotel du Nord.
Conveniently located directly across from the Cannes train station, my room would shake and the hallway lights would flicker as the 3:00AM express train blew through town. In time I learned to wake up before it arrived so I wouldn’t be shocked out of a good night’s sleep. I could trace the room’s electrical wiring through the torn and yellowed wallpaper, but, at $20 a night I couldn’t complain. Two blocks away, the Carlton was charging $600 and up.
In Cannes, the well-known major studios turn their luxurious hotel suites into temporary sales offices, while the numerous, but lesser-known U.S. and international companies rent convention-style booth space in the “Marche,” or Film Market in the “Palais” where the major films are premiered in competition.
Amidst all this confusing glitter a sales agent is forced to do almost anything to get people’s attention. It boils down to who can shout the loudest. Imagine a thousand filmmakers and stars carefully watched by 10,000 members of the world’s press and you have an idea of the annual scene that is Cannes.
I vividly remember the year when members of the French electricians union staged a violent protest. Dressed in white coveralls with huge red lightning bolts embroidered on their backs, thousands of them marched in lock-step along the Croisette. Several cars were set on fire and the national police showed up in armored vehicles brandishing automatic weapons.
And where was the world’s press during this volatile situation? They were huddled around a table at the Carlton Hotel asking questions of Benji the Wonder Dog! “Do you have a girlfriend, Benji?” “Ruff, ruff,” the small dog would answer. The reporters would laugh and then write the answer down!
Most of my days were spent audaciously walking into the distributor’s sales offices and pitching my project to whomever would listen. Even secretaries! I didn’t care. What could they say, “No?” I was able to meet and talk with all those people who wouldn’t return my phone calls in California. After a week of knocking on doors, my publicist and I decided we needed something else: a party to “announce” the film.
The date was set and I arranged to rent the living room of someone’s seaside condo for 3 hours with a hundred bucks wired from home. After the publicist had developed a guest list and printed up invitations, I went to a supermarket and bought wine, cheese and crackers. The French don’t like things cold, so finding some ice was the hard part. Then, still dripping in sweat from the effort, I greeted the early arrivals at the door.
Out of 80 invited, about 20-30 showed up. The publicist artfully introduced me to anyone who was even faintly important or useful. Absolutely none of big players showed up.
I made no “deal” at Cannes that year. But I had introduced my project to many sales agents and I’d learned a lot in the process. I flew home with a long list of people who were interested in my project and I felt confident that one of them would come through.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Some Help Back Home
I arrived home with an awareness that Cannes means different things to different people. The television broadcasts from the French Riviera show the stars, the limousines and the parties, but never the sweat, rejection and sore feet. Sure, I went to a few premieres, screenings and parties. But all those events were quite naturally arranged to promote someone else’s film, or someone else’s company or projects. None-the-less, I had 20 pounds of trade papers, a maxed-out credit card and a stack of business cards to deal with.
One of those business cards eventually led me to this friendly, DeLorean-driving, slightly overweight Greek-American guy who’d produced a couple of teen exploitation pictures out of his small office on Barham Boulevard in L.A. (“Killer savages a teenaged girl’s slumber party, etc.”)
He was very helpful to me and sort of took me under his wing. Granted, he probably thought he could somehow make some money by involving himself in my project, but he continued to offer advice and moral support even when his financial participation seemed unlikely. If I ever had a question about the business-end of movie making he usually had the answer. I also befriended his full-time film editor who eventually cut Tin Man for me.
Now, somehow or another I was introduced to an actor named Brian Avery. Before Tin Man, Brian’s most notable claim to fame was his part as Katherine Ross’ jilted-at-the-altar fiancée in 1967’s “The Graduate.” But, like most actors, Brian paid the bills by doing something else. He dabbled in the booming 1980’s L.A. real estate market and knew many investors. After first securing an acting part for himself in Tin Man, he introduced me to a slippery real estate speculator from New York named, Aaron.
Like a lot of people, Aaron was dazzled by anything even faintly related to Hollywood and movies. Meeting a star, any star, was a moment he'd remember forever. I must confess that I made the most of this idiosyncrasy whenever I could.
After much negotiation during which I gave away half of the film, Aaron decided to put up a little over $100,000.00. This wasn’t enough to complete the film of course, but it was enough to get started and maybe even get it “in the can.”
At this point I was ready to rock!
This approach might seem to have been suicidal, but I had learned something interesting at Cannes. VCR’s were becoming a common household item in the early to mid 80’s and there was a great demand for titles to fill those machines, (but not anymore). I met buyers at Cannes who would scoop up the video rights to anything available. HBO and Showtime were in their infancy and needed titles too. If I could just keep my budget low enough and still put quality on the screen, I’d make money.
Of course I never told anybody I didn’t have all the money to make the film. And while I did my best to conceal my inexperience, this fact was probably very obvious to the more experienced people I met. But looking back, I don’t think my greenness was so bad after all. There are very few people out there who really know what they’re doing. They’re the ones whose names you see on the credits of one film after another. All total, maybe a dozen or so? These successful people are literally one in a million.
Everyone seems afraid to admit their lack of knowledge and experience. As a defense, they often radiate high levels of self-assurance which makes you feel less competent by comparison. This is a time-tested Hollywood smoke screen!
Like most other professions - nobody knows anything.
It was at this point I learned the most important lesson about making movies - and life in general. The greatest asset you have is yourself. You may be thinking, “Well, that’s obvious.” But the fact is, most people don’t really believe this. They don’t live it.
Never forget that the movie, and you, are one and the same thing. This is not some ego trip, it’s the truth. If you answer, “I’m a director,” when someone asks you what you do for a living, you have to be that person.
This is the indisputable fact of filmmaking: Your movie can never be anything else but the sum total of your own life experience...and a good script of course.
Think about it: you have nothing else to draw from but this anyhow.
So when Jason says his Dad plays poker with Al Pacino, just nod. When Tiffany says she’s friends with a super agent at William Morris, just say, “That’s nice.” If Jim mentions that his college roommate works at Universal, just smile and act impressed. If Josh says his project is in development at Warner’s, wish him well.
Whenever I hear someone say, “It’s who you know,” I think: Loser.
It’s your idea and your dream. No one else’s. You will make it happen, they won’t. If you have something that’s really good, you don’t have to sell it to anyone.
They’ll steal it.
But, I still had a movie to make and a few more things to do first.
Like casting.
All of us filmmakers are creative technicians. We direct cameras, lights and catering trucks. Not actors, right? Unless you have a live-stage background, you probably know nothing about these strange people from another planet, much less how to direct them. But, I looked forward to the casting process because it meant I was very, very close to actually making my movie.
CHAPTER NINE
Actors and Casting
The sum total of all my experience as a director consisted of briefly working with a few actors in a couple of documentary films I’d made. In one unfortunate incident, the famous character actor, John Carradine, had turned around to me and said, “Don’t tell me how to act!” That put me in my place real quick.
What little I may have learned in film school was a distant memory. That was it. I felt so inadequate.
I had my star already, but that left another 20 or so slots to fill. With my slim budget, I had to cut many of the smaller speaking parts out of the script and give those lines to another character. This is actually beneficial because any film improves when you reduce the number of speaking parts.
Too many characters burden and confuse your audience. It also limits their empathy for your main actors who must ultimately drive the story forward. Unless a character has an important function directly related to the progression of the plot, they are nothing but distracting noise. You’ve got a limited amount of money and 90-100 minutes to tell your story, so focus on the entrée and forget about the side dishes.
Just 90 minutes north of L. A., Santa Barbara was home to myself and many full-time, professional actors who chose to escape the traffic and smog. If I had a part that fit, I used one of them. For example, a local actor named Richard Stahl had been starring in a popular television series and aptly played the part of the bad guy, “Tyson.” A Santa Barbara modeling agency supplied most of the bit parts. I was surprised that such a small town would have so many people who considered themselves actors. Even the VP at my local bank was an amateur thespian!
I placed notices in the L. A. casting journals like Drama-Logue. Similar to my call for screenplays, I received thousands of submissions. Several very good actors were selected from this group. For the main parts, I finally scraped up a few bucks and contracted with a Los Angeles casting director.
A good casting director is an extremely important resource. Ideally, your relationship with the casting director should be a creative collaboration with a lot of give and take. It’s their job to be familiar with the ability of every actor they propose because you don’t. The good ones are well-respected and often have long-time close relationships with influential agents. A word of advice: if a prospective casting director ever says, “I can get you so and so big name star,” don’t believe them.
They’re lying.
I was fortunate to snag John Phillip Law who was fairly well-known as the winged-angel in “Barbarella,” with Jane Fonda. I even unearthed Troy Donahue as the female lead’s rejected lover. But the female lead became my biggest problem of all.
I could never find the right actress no matter how many I met. I vividly remember a casting session with the current Miss Universe, one of the most stunningly beautiful women I’d ever seen in my life. She’d been taking acting lessons assuming she would be able to leverage her short-lived notoriety into a movie career, but her deep South Carolina accent got in the way. She told me she could get rid of it, but suppose we were on the set and she couldn’t? What would I do then? In hindsight, it was actually the weakness of the written character in the script that made this such a big problem from a casting standpoint.
With only a week or two before we started shooting, a William Morris agent proposed the attractive young daughter of Curt Jurgens, Deana Jurgens.
Running out of time, I selected this well-trained, attractive, but extremely green actress for the female lead, “Marcia.” Deana was very promising and from a distinguished acting family, but this wasn’t enough to prepare her for the physical and emotional stress of her first feature film shoot. Of course, I wasn’t well-prepared either, and this limited my ability to help her when she needed it most. Sorry to say, her omnipresent, meddling stage mom made things worse.
Although I didn’t understand it at the time, the emotional and psychological state of the actors is a principal responsibility of the director. They’re in the same environment you are, only they’re much more fragile.
In order to assume the part of the character they must play, the real person inside becomes naked and vulnerable. You would do well to regard your actors as delicate pieces of rare crystal which are easily shattered.
So, I must accept the blame for any weakness in her performance. I consider this error to be my biggest creative failure in the making of Tin Man.
Alas, with just one week left before shooting it seemed as though everything was beginning to unravel before my eyes. The challenge I faced was dealing with a group of well-organized bureaucratic thugs known as the Screen Actors Guild.
CHAPTER TEN
The Truth About SAG
As I mentioned in the very beginning, my previous experience in documentary films gave me a bogus sense of confidence about making a feature film. A big difference is the prerequisite to do business with labor unions. In the U.S., the Screen Actors Guild is the most infamous of all.
With less than a week before filming started, I was summoned to Los Angeles by the union. While I had already signed their numerous agreements and they had given me their consent to audition actors, I had not been given permission to actually employ the actors. My miniscule budget had qualified me to operate under a special contract called the "Low Budget Agreement." In addition to slightly lower salary levels, the agreement granted minor exceptions to several exasperating work rules.
Although their basic agreement mentioned that the union administrators might request a cash bond, I incorrectly assumed this only applied to the “big guys” with a monster budget to match. I wasn’t prepared to provide a $20,000.00 cash bond, payable in advance. The bond actually exceeded my total actor’s payroll! Since I wouldn’t get the money back until well after filming was finished, I would run out of money before the film was completed. I wouldn’t even have the money to buy all the raw stock I needed.
I begged and pleaded with the union without success. Although SAG is supposed to get work for their members, the union did everything within its power (legal and otherwise), to make sure I didn’t make my film. At this point I should have stopped everything and cancelled the scheduled start date just one week away. But, I didn’t.
Big or small, SAG assigns a Contract Administrator to every production. Mainly frustrated, jealous, ultra-liberal middle-aged women, they have the power to make things easy or terrible. My rep told me something I’ll never forget: “I don’t care about your problems, Mr. Thomas. I’d be happy if you never made your movie.” I still have this on a cassette tape, by-the-way.
Over the years I learned that SAG only exists for the benefit of itself, the major studios and a few of the biggest name stars. Even the guild’s own president said that the union was, “…out of touch with the membership.” If you’re a mini-producer they’ll try just about anything to stop you. To them - you’re an unwelcome tourist - the minority family that lowers property values by moving into a white-bread neighborhood.
So, I gave them a check with the absolute certainty that my film would go belly-up two or three weeks later. At this point the guild held enough money to pay the actors almost three times over. Grudgingly, SAG notified my actors that it was okay to work on Tin Man. This is a good example of when my drive to make the film overwhelmed my lack of common sense. But, the last roadblock was removed and I was ready to start.
Only a few persons had intimate knowledge of the unpleasant financial truth we were facing. If the word got out, everyone in the cast and crew would be disillusioned. No matter how I felt, I had to keep acting confident and positive.
Depending on your point-of-view, I was either foolish, courageous or untruthful. Most likely, a calculated combination of all three.
During the last days before shooting, actors, crew and equipment began to show up - moving into motel rooms and parking places all over town. It was all coming together piece-by-piece. While watching all this happen around me, I experienced an unnerving combination of the thrill that I was going to make a feature film, and the fear of the unknown.