There are no losers-weepers in the DGA's "Director's Finder Series." The series, just completing its third year, offers DGA directors the chance to screen their unreleased independent films for studio executives, independent distributors and ancillary-market buyers that can place finished product.
Success stories include Marty Davidson's Looking for an Echo, which was picked up for theatrical release by Regent Entertainment; Laurie Agard's Frog and Wombat, picked up by HBO, Showtime and Blockbuster Home Video; Gil Cates, Jr.'s $pent, which was picked up by Regent Entertainment for theatrical distribution; Holly Sloane Goldberg's The Secret Life of Girls, which secured a domestic video distribution deal with Blockbuster video; and Phillipe Mora's Snide and Prejudice.
Mora said, "The DGA Finders' screening was instrumental in creating a word of mouth buzz about the film that resulted directly in the distribution deal for North America in all media. The film, a dark comedy which the L.A. New Times' (Gregory Weinkauf) described as the "successor to Dr. Strangelove," was totally unconventional in subject matter (a Jewish psychiatrist treats a man who thinks he is Hitler) and needed to be showcased in a first-class theatrical environmental like the DGA theatre.
"It was very important to get it screened at the DGA since many truly independent films never get a chance at excellent theatrical presentation — the films are never seen as originally conceived — they are marketed on VHS. Consequently, screened correctly, one's film can be compared to pictures with budgets sometimes one hundred times larger," Mora added.
"Importantly, there is an intangible prestige associated with being screened at the DGA, with its history of defending creative rights, the raison d'être of independent film."
Made for $400,000 under the DGA's Low Budget Agreement, Snide and Prejudice was picked up by FOCUS Film Entertainment for distribution in the United States and Canada. Mora said the budget was challenging "involving a very fast shoot and 50 setups a day. On the flip side, the creative freedom made it a great pleasure compared to the queasy agonies of dealing with some of the, uh, rocket scientists, that still exist in the film business."
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Director Darin Ferriola on location filming Soulkeeper.
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Two additional recent beneficiaries of the "Director's Finder Series" are directors Rich Martini and Darin Ferriola. Martini's film, Cannes Man, is a shot on the fly "mockumentary" he made during the Cannes Film Festival. "Seymour Cassel plays a producer who makes a bet that he can make any schmuck at the festival into the next Quentin Tarantino," Martini said. "It's all just hype. So, the next Tarantino turns out to be Francesco Quinn, who Seymour just hypes and hypes with no good reason. But, pretty soon, everybody wants to get involved. Seymour knows everybody in Hollywood, so we asked whomever we came across at Cannes to be in it, and a lot of them agreed. It was improvised on the spot."
The cameos in the comedy included many Hollywood players playing themselves. John Malkovich, for instance, decides on-camera in Cannes Man that he wants to direct. Director Jim Jarmusch and actor Johnny Depp argue deal points in the movie.
After good reviews in 1996 in The Hollywood Reporter, New York Daily News and other major publications when it was made and toured the festival circuit, Cannes Man, which was nominally sold to Blockbuster a bit after that, was selected for the "Director's Finder Series."
"Thank God the DGA has this series to give filmmakers the opportunities to show their works," said Martini. "As a result of the 'Finder Series,' I sold Cannes Man to DVD. If your film hasn't found distribution, the 'Finder Series' could get you a deal, whether that's theatrical or cable or video or DVD. I got five phone calls as a result of the film being in the series."
Ferriola's science fiction film Soulkeeper received a Feb. 23, 2001, screening in the series. Eight months later, it debuted on the Sci-Fi Channel after First Look Pictures bought it and sold it to the cable network. The movie, about two thieves hired to steal "the Rock of Lazarus," an ancient relic that's capable of returning evil souls to Earth, featured Rodney Rowland and Kevin Patrick Walls in the leads and a host of character actors, including Michael Ironside, Robert Davi, Brad Dourif and Karen Black. The film was sold to both the Blockbuster and Hollywood video outlets and to Japanese and French territories and is also known by the titles The Chosen Ones and Our Souls to Keep.
"The 'Director's Finder Series' is one of the great venues to show your work," Ferriola said. "After that screening, I entertained a few offers. That was a really good expereience. The 'Director's Finder Series' allowed me to test the waters. First and foremost as an independent filmmaker, you don't have a lot of money in postproduction, then even less to market your film. Anything the DGA can do to help independent filmmakers is a plus. In this case, it's a free venue to show Hollywood executives what you've done. It costs from $500 to $1,500 to rent a theater in Los Angeles just to screen your film. And hardly any facilities are close to what the DGA theaters can give you for free. They have the ultimate in sound and pictorial quality. The DGA has Dolby digital sound and shows your picture in a high-end, studio-caliber environment.
Ferriola also pointed out that working within the guidelines of the DGA's Low Budget Agreement (LBA), gave him latitudes as a writer, director and producer that he wasn't expecting. "Soulkeeper was made under the low-budget agreement for $2.3 million," he said. But it looked like a $10 million picture. The low budget agreement worked out really well. The caliber of people you get when you do a DGA production is top-notch. We had a 28-day shoot with all sorts of stunt gags, animatronic creatures, explosions, computer graphic effects — everything. We did it all the safe way, but we did it under the gun, too.
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TIPS - Barbara Kopple: I wish I knew when I was starting to make films how difficult it was going to be. It is such a struggle and nobody cared about the kind of work I was doing. Everytime I went to look for funding nobody took me seriously. But I guess that helped me because it allowed me to get into places I ordinarily wouldn't have been able to get into. I just leaped into it, having no idea what was before me. I just went for it. |
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"Soulkeeper was an incredibly ambitious picture for the money we had," Ferriola added. "But the project came in on schedule and on budget and looking good. That's what a DGA team helps you achieve. They helped me prove to the investment group that I could do it for as much as I said I was going to do it. When you're going forward on schedule and on budget, they don't question you. The film was like a train and was set in rhythm — 20 setups every day. When you have that regimen and you're doing what you said you were going to do, it increases the passion on the set. We got the biggest bang for our buck. My ADs, Greg Webb and Dan Suhart, were crucial in making it happen."
"The 'Director's Finder Series' is a place for all kinds of films," Martini added. "The studios may reject you and it can be tough on the festival circuit if you don't have something that plays to someone's agenda. But there are so many more areas of distribution nowadays. You can find a place for your film to be seen, whether it's on television in another country or on video here. As the director, you're sometimes the last person on the ship, the captain amid the typhoons and hurricanes. You are the last person to raise your hand and say, 'The film is still here, take a look.' The 'Director's Finder Series' can come to your rescue. It really works."
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