The Movie Mogul Manual (abreviated the "MMM"), is a major, step-by-step reference
guide to establishing an on-going motion picture production company or mini-major studio.
The MMM unfolds into a
98-volume set for distribution to executives, staff and crew that are employed
by your company on a need-to-know basis.
Before I explain details connected with the The Movie Mogul Manual and
what you can do with it, I would like to tell you more about my
mentor and friend, Lee Garmes, one of the great Filmmakers, upon
whose input these materials are based and with whom we co-founded a company.
"American Cinematographer" magazine of November 1978, (page
1094) reports: "The Film World Mourns Lee Garmes, ASC. When Lee
Garmes, ASC, passed away on August 31, following a brief illness,
his many friends were not only shocked and saddened, but some
were also surprised to discover that he was 80 years old."
"Recently in these pages, Mr. Garmes' colorful 60-year
career as a cinematographer, producer and director was reviewed
in some detail (see American Cinematographer, September 1978),
but certain facts bear repeating. He began his film career in
1916 with the New York Motion Picture Co. and joined Thomas H.
Ince on the West Coast afterward.... Rising to the top of this
profession as a cinematographer, he photographed such outstanding
films as: SCARFACE, DISRAELI, THE JUNGLE BOOK, LILIES OF THE
FIELD, MOROCCO, SINCE YOU WENT AWAY, LOVE LETTERS, SPECTER OF THE
ROSE, THE SCOUNDREL, THE BIG FISHERMAN, DUEL IN THE SUN and THE
SHANGHAI EXPRESS, for which he won an Academy Award. Although
officially uncredited, he also photographed a considerable
portion of GONE WITH THE WIND."
Lee Garmes' complete feature credits are as follows:
Producer/Director Credits:
1934 CRIME WITHOUT PASSION, Co-Producer/Director
Director of Photography Credits:
1924 FIND YOUR MAN
"Although officially uncredited, he also photographed a considerable portion of GONE WITH THE WIND." - American Cinematographer Magazine
Few will be able to follow that act. But hopefully The
Movie Mogul Manual will pass on to you information and
inspiration that Lee passed to me.
The Movie Mogul Manual was derived from in-the-field-experience as well as Lee's ideas on production and financing.
An integrated production system (that may or may not align with
systems of production being currently used in the Industry), The
Movie Mogul Manual endeavors to weave together the administrative
and technical aspects of film production that have been observed
to create maximum efficiency and the best entertainment for the
dollar.
Whether you want to produce in video, Super 8, 16mm, 35mm or
Showscan, at budgets of a thousand dollars or millions of
dollars, the principals are the same and The Movie Mogul Manual
will get you started and help keep you from crashing and burning.
Lee used to say "The impossible only takes a little longer" and
"Light is light no matter what size production you are on."
This Manual will not guarantee that you will not crash
several times; your first two films may very well, but at least
you won't burn.
By your third feature, you may very well net millions of
dollars with it over the long term (or even short term) - if you
have the guts to persist and can tell those around you who say
"give up" where to go.
This volume makes an exhaustive effort to be exact and
specific in the process of developing, financing and producing
motion pictures, and has an initial goal of getting you started
on a production that is the right size for your experience level.
If you are like me, I hesitated for a long time, because I could
not determine what it takes, nor could I really separate theory
from the practical information necessary to end up with actual
products - on budget and on time.
The Movie Mogul Manual will give you valuable policies you
can use to establish and operate your own production company from
the ground up as Producer, or with trusted, respected partners.
If you are already a studio executive, or a producer who has
been involved with massive projects but felt you were just a cog
in a large machine with a title, this approach to filmmaking
might interest you because it will give you a blueprint, a
follow-the-dotted-lines method of producing with a hands-on
approach until your productions grow large enough to where you
must unbundle your hats, thus putting you once again quickly back
at the level of executive from whence you came. The difference
will be the fact that you had the opportunity to create it
yourself instead of "going indi" with your former employer's
connections stuffed into your pockets and not really knowing the
business from the ground up.
The Movie Mogul Manual has taken over 15 years to write
because the physical universe has taken billions years to become
confusing.
Each page was written on a day-by-day basis from in-the-field experiences as they happened. You are more than welcome to
review my resume to see some of the specific experiences I have
had.
Of course, before release of the initial volume, the manual
was word processed, tightened up and brought up to date, as
things change rapidly and there are always new, better ways of
doing things. Usually, I have left the original creation dates
so you get an idea when each situation naturally arose in the
course of a learning curve and so I can track the development of
information more easily.
Possibly these creation dates will correspond with your own
learning curve - being the information you desire to know in
synchronization with what I naturally went through.
I don't recommend anyone jumping into a feature film as
producer-in-charge. If you do, you will probably spend in the
next five to ten years in excess of $250,000. This money will be
absorbed by the expense of holding open a personal or full office
and phone, by hiring professionals who are really only interested
in their own survival - not yours - by numerous lunches that you
will pay for to pick their brains, by travel expenses to meet
with frauds and dreamers or both, by doing things in the
incorrect sequence and having to re-do them once, twice, three,
four times or more, by the time spent getting over your own
uncertainty and by being out-negotiated by seasoned sharks who
will prey on your ignorance of deals and norms that actually do
exist in the legitimate industry. The flakes and frauds will
tell you that there are no norms so they can confuse you to the
point of relying on them until you go bust. The countless errors
and omissions you will make in your learning curve will only be a
part of it - you will suffer the economic loss of the money you
could be making in some other more familiar business, such as
real estate, retail or medicine.
The reason I know this is because to date I have spent the
equivalent of $770,000 on these things. The only redeeming
factor is that I kept careful memos of what I did wrong and what
I did right and these comprise The Movie Mogul Manual today. No,
I have not made a blockbuster feature - so many will say, "well
why should I listen to him." My answer to those is don't
listen. But if for no other reason, by my experiences in finding
out what doesn't work, you can avoid the expense of repeating
unworkable things -this volume could greatly increase your
chances of success.
On the other hand, to those who see that if you apply
principals that work on small productions and at the same time
systematically eliminate the inefficiencies and things that don't
seem to work, eventually, by trial and error, one can develop a
program, a methodology or system that does build a better mouse
trap. It's the planet Earth way.
Unfortunately, I am not alone in my losses. I personally
know one person who has lost $275,000 another $500,000 another
$800,000 and a limited partnership that lost $1.9 million trying
to get started producing features.
On the other hand, a partner and associate of mine made over
$700,000 on one medium-budget picture. A good friend of mine,
and one of the really great guys in the movie industry, produced
a relatively low budget feature, GRIZZLY, that made over
$30,000,000. My mentor shot part of GONE WITH THE WIND and that
film was and still is among the top five highest grossing
pictures of all time. My former teacher at the CINEMA INSTITUTE,
Shorty Yeaworth, produced and directed the original low budget
feature THE BLOB, and that was very successful.
Thousands of books have been written on film: How to Hold a
Camera, How to Aim a Camera, How to Snap a Camera, How to Wind a
Camera, What is a Camera, What a Camera is Not, How to Write
Screenplays, How to Write Screenplays Not, How to Direct a Movie,
How to Edit a Movie, How to Save a Movie, Legal Aspects of Film,
Accounting Aspects of Film, Filmic Aspects of Accounting, How to
Put Together a Film Investment, How to Remember to put together a
Memorandum, How to Sell A Movie, How to Deal a Movie, Movie
Politics, Political Movies, etc., but most of them boil down to
how to let light fall on silver halide crystals (film). In other
words most of them boil down to the cinema technique.
All this technical info is useless to the filmmaker who
wants to produce features, unless that filmmaker can manage, and
have managed, the thousands of moving parts that go into the
making of any professional feature. And these things go beyond
letting light fall on crystals.
I don't think there is a human being on the planet Earth
that doesn't have a good idea of how movies are made - but still
there is 80% unemployment in this field when the national average
is usually less than 8%.
Hopefully, you are not one of those filmmakers who, being an
"Arteeest," cannot allow yourself to get your hands dirty with
the "business side" of filmmaking. Hopefully you are not one who
just waves their hands and hopes some genius producer or agent
will come along and beg to produce or represent you. You will
most likely wait for a long time if this is your modus operandi.
Even sexy, good looking women can't get into the industry
the way they did in the golden years of Hollywood, because no
producer is going to risk it (as mentioned in Mark Litwak's book,
Reel Power).
There have been many valuable books on producing a low
budget feature, but most of these are from the point of view of
production management and equity financing with limited
partnerships.
There has not been a fully comprehensive book on how to set
up and manage a motion picture company on an ongoing basis and
how the structure can be built to keep it going and growing. If
you look at the books out there, they tell you how to get ONE
film project going, usually a low budget feature financed with a
limited partnership for $300,000 to $1.5 million. When this film
is done - an all or nothing deal - that's it. You may drop dead
at the box office and none of your friends will give you any more
hundreds of thousands of dollars for your next film (which will
be a masterpiece, in your opinion).
So The Movie Mogul Manual simply assumes that you are going
to fail and anything else is gravy.
Your investors may have a hard time stomaching that, but if
any of them are into Zen, they'll love it because it means you
are targeting for the best, but are prepared for the worst.
If you gear up to produce many films, using the energy
generated by each at the time of production, a fusion process
will occur. In other words, you will go to hell several times,
but if you can keep the momentum, you will come back with a hit
movie before one of an infinite number of monkeys accidentally
types the preamble to the U.S. Constitution.
I have commuted to hell and back several times so I'll
attempt to point out the molten lava pits and help you with some
of the details that are "completely unimportant" - details that
are unimportant until they inevitably crush your chest in if
ignored too long.
Have you ever wondered why there are (artistically or
physically) dead filmmakers all over the Planet Earth's surface
and 80% unemployment in most of the industry trades, with either
WGA, SAG, DGA and/or other unions and guilds striking almost
every year? Why are there hundreds of thousands of unemployed
and unutilized people "trying to break into the Biz?"
Did it ever occur to you that one reason there are so many
unutilized talents is because there are so relatively few people
that know how to establish and run a stable on-going independent
movie company?
Why do you think the same people keep getting employed in
the executive suits and as leading talent? Could it have
anything to do with the fact that so few actually know the day-to-day sequence of events that must occur before any of the
education you gave yourself on allowing light to fall on
crystals, or general political information about the industry,
can be put into practical use??
The Film Industry is VERY geared up to build films the
minute the money is ready and the gun from the First AD is fired.
Probably no industry on the face of the Earth is as well geared
up for the ACT of production as the film industry. Unfortunatelymost of the ACTORS are usually sitting around because it's in
hiatus most of the time.
I believe that building a feature film is as complicated or
more complicated than building a 36 story skyscraper. Filmmakers
can accomplish similar feats in time frames numbering weeks.
Filmmakers are among, if not, the most able people in the world and they are absolutely amazing when in production. There
really is no group of production-oriented people, except the
people who run Presidential Campaigns, who have as much
creativity, spontaneity, energy and ingenuity as filmmakers.
However, almost all filmmakers, or would-be-filmmakers, want
to get on the production bandwagon once it is rolling. Thousands
of new filmmakers enter Los Angeles every year to ride the wagon
down the hill but relatively few want (or even know how) to push
the wagon up the hill until a project is financed.
People with money do not easily allocate large dollars to
chaotic organizations with artistic dreamers and wild managers or give DECISION-MAKING
POWER to executives that play musical chairs, off to the next
competing company next quarter, on and on. But this is the way
the movie business is today, and Wall Street, who was
underwriting production for a while (in 1979) with IPOs is no
different. Can anyone blame investors for not wanting to invest
under such circumstances? Even though Mr. Buffett does not
invest in movies (because he does not understand the industry
probably), read a book called The Warren Buffet Way? to get an understanding of what I am saying here about management and
chaotic organizations.
Read The Hollywood Reporter and you will see that most of
the column inches are about executives moving around or companies
eating up each others' management teams, spitting out the
imagined bad seeds, and then starting all over to do the same
things themselves. This whole endless saga is called "POLITICS"
- another word for bad management.
Again this industry is totally geared up to expose movie
film, roll cameras and eat up artists and executives who do not
know why it is all happening except some vague idea that "it's
just politics" or "things happen." The whole ad hoc set-up of
the movie industry is designed to get rid of people easily. Some executives pride themselves on the fact that they will cease to read a resume if they find even one typo in it: a moron's excuse to "get rid of people easily" -- part of the "throw-away-society mentality" and physiognomy of the family unit at disintegration point.
This is why the "studio system" does not exist today but the "temp system" is big binny. That's why most of the
people work as independent contractors or free lance workers.
That way you are unemployed until proven employed. The
justification for this fast flow firing system is because
"audiences are crazy or wishy washy." Could this possibly be
true of too many investors, boards of directors, executives or
producers in the current film industry? I think not out of the
question.
The Movie Mogul Manual will show you how to build a company
that emphasizes a grossly neglected end of the business -
acquiring and development of screenplays and talent packages for
multiple-simultaneous projects of widely varying genre and cost.
Financing naturally flows towards companies that are
properly organized and managed. Money does not flow into a
system of pipes that are twisted together and leaking here and
there. Do you think money people are stupid? They got their
money by 1) having a creative idea and 2) managing the steps
necessary to creating the final product that people bought. Of
course, some did something illegal, (or made what they did
"illegal" after they did it so others couldn't compete).
The Movie Mogul Manual has the intention of helping you do
part 2 of the above. Part 1 comes from your particular
uniqueness. If you aren't creative, go out and look at a tree in
a meadow until you realize you are. If you feel you have to be
illegal to get ahead, stare at the stars in the night sky and
realize that Mankind has survived on this wilderness planet in no
small part because of his systematic advancement of law and
reason. If it is not evident that there is plenty of room for
you out there - go see a lawyer about your problem.
The movie business has been known to be "risky" - as
audiences do not know what they like to see until after they see
it. This is a Godsend because it means that you have equal
chance, with everyone else, to make that "Best Picture." The
race is on and the winner will be the Movie Mogul who has the
most efficient machine, who can torque out the greatest number of
quality movies while staying on the track. I emphasize, however,
that quality is better than quantity in the movie business. This
may not be true in other businesses. In the movie business, all
films compete with each other on the same block, on the same
screen and at basically the same price. This highlights the
inexpensively made pictures and makes it hard for them to compete
against the expensive pictures which have so much behind them in
slick, mainstream advertising. The ticket buyer, shopping for a
movie, figures he will spend the same amount for each movie he
sees, so he only spends it on the film he perceives as his next
best bet. The "best" is usually the one that has received the
most slick advertising, which usually has nothing to do with the
quality of the picture.
Many films that are flagged as "bombs," pulled from the
theaters early or that were made for the direct-to-video market
are actually the most original and entertaining pictures in
release - for the sophisticated moviegoer.
Whenever you go into a video store, look over those boxes that sit alone on the shelf and don't be herded over to the lastest and greatest blockbuster that has 10 or 20 or 30 boxes lined up across the shelves. Sure, see all the latest and greatest, but realize you have only seen half of it. The smaller independent films, which don't get the ad budget or the shelf-space because the video store is directly or indirectly owned by one of the big publically held corporations, are the films that real life is made of. Usually they are totally original, non-formula, new-face-driven and produced with ingenuity rather than bucks.
Usually, you cannot get the kind of help available from The Movie Mogul Manual out of a normal book that is neatly printed on
semi-glossy paper and bound. You will most likely get up-to-the-day information out of a book that has bullet holes in it, is
slammed out on a word processor, xeroxed, three hole punched and
slopped together with three brass rivets, or better yet - sent to
you on a floppy disc or over a modem. Why?
It takes six months to six years to get a book published
because publishers can't make up their minds what to publish any
more easily than people in the movie business can make up their
mind what script to finance. The director of PLATOON, Oliver
Stone, was made to wait ten years and George Lucas was made to
wait over four years for STAR WARS even after putting out
AMERICAN GRAFFITI as a success. In all this time, the race is on
and the environment could have changed ten times by the time you
know what is happening. If you are mostly interested in letting
light fall on silver halide crystals, it changes more slowly.
(But even that is changing rapidly and this change effects
budgets because, with more sensitive film, obviously you spend
less money on lights so you have more bucks to spend somewhere
else. The "somewhere else" is a management decision, a decisionthat can stop the forward motion of a project, if the managers
are morons who do not have a Movie Mogulish way of deciding.)
This is why some of The Movie Mogul Manual may be typed and
xeroxed - there just ain't no time to keep up to date AND be
slick - this business doesn't stand still for a second. In fact,
people who are attempting to produce movies who are not computer
literate should not be in the business at all.
I do not plan on selling a lot of Movie Mogul Manuals, because I
have found that most "serious filmmakers" are not really serious
enough to stay with it long enough. They, in fact, are destined
to go into some other business within five years as most people
simply do not want to work so hard. Movies are hard work. Much
harder than any other profession on the planet. The people that
can endure this are the genetically tough. The competition and
confusion is far greater than expected - count on it. As the
statistics stand, this is sad but true. Ticket lines are peopled
with dreamers who wish they were making films instead of being
relegated to watching them. So, what can be done to help?
The Movie Mogul Manual does not just hit you and run like
other books and seminar sophists. You do not have chrome all
over your face from the sudden impact of the book that takes your
nickel and then slops an endless pedantic bibliography all over
your mind to further hit you up with more books leading you into
the quicksand of endless non-sequitur, un-unified, non-interlocking opinions about how to make a movie. I'll continue
to make available integrated Movie Memo updates every
time we take a bullet: "Watch out for this . . . do it in this
sequence . . . if your budget was that, then it should be this
now . . . don't spend money on this . . . we are going for this
new technology . . . here is a way we found it to work." If you
grow, we all grow. In fact this very release includes significant portions of what I learned
working with my brother-in-law and several entrepreneurial friends starting a new company where we raised $6.4 million and went public in less than a year and nine months.
As an owner of The Movie Mogul Manual, I do not care if
you do what I suggest or ignore it -- you can do whatever you
want, there are many paths to success and you may find a better
one -- but I love making movies and I am crazy about polishing
this process and pushing that to you -- looking to make it all
easier and smoother so ultimately more attention can be put on
the creative process - which is where the emphasis should be,
after the basics are in place.
If I can make your stock go up by putting you into a
position whereby your company produces a blockbuster -- we love
it.
We use the same Movie Mogul Manual policies on projects I'm
doing so you'll know if any are canceled because we found a
better way. You can use them or burn them. Would we knowingly
use bad policies on our own productions -- cut our own throats? This is your assurance
that we are looking out for your interests through looking after
ours.
We drill our way into the bedrock of better and better
management methods, production techniques and R&D results for
you, which are the integrated updates you get to add to your
Movie Mogul Manual.
Lectures and tapes are fine, but let's get real. If you are
really expanding as fast as you can, you are flat out in the
field, on the firing line; setting up; developing; packaging;
reading screenplays; handling people, places and things; working
with 10 writers at once; getting your next project financed;
prepping for production; shooting; moving to better offices;
fulfilling delivery requirements; doing it; whether for your next
VHS film or your first SHOWSCAN Epic. You are not reading
outdated, neatly printed/published books and tales told by Was-then-are-not-now-film-People.
Go to lectures. Listen to tapes. But when you get home,
you have to weed it all out; you have to make sense of every
sentence the Lecturers and the Tapers said, what every lofty
experienced film expert said. You still have to put it together
into an integrated understanding, an integrated systematic
machine to get production. In other words you have to do what I
did with The Movie Mogul Manual, create a production system, a
machine, a Ferrari Movie Company.
You still have to find out which scraps of opinions may betrue and which scraps
of opinions may be false. As all these
experts have not written a Movie Mogul Manual, they most likely
will lecture "red" today and "blue" tomorrow and justify it by
saying "Well, nobody knows" or "Times change" or "You can't
codify a prototype."
Like hell you can't! This is the new century, not the
industrial revolution. The advanced version of this manual will
be on computer entirely.
If the guys that talk, write books and give lectures were
making movies more, they would be much too crazy to write and
lecture. That's why The Movie Mogul Manual is a little crazy at
times -- sometimes I don't get it 100% right -- because I'm out
there getting shot at. But I get a scream of warning while falling backwards over the cliff -- and then the update
sets it 100% right before you know it.
How often do you see the Maestro, Steven Spielberg, out
writing books and talking movie rather than making movie? Never.
That's why The Movie Mogul Manual was written the way it is
written, one page each month or week, or several on a day and
then none for a half year or a month. What did you expect?
Sitting around the typewriter dreaming up a bunch of good-looking
print with no spelling mistakes or typos? Or a real manual, with
bullet holes and typos all through it because all hands are
putting their time into making movies and writing about how they
are being made in the seconds between the explosions - all for
your relaxed benefit.
When the next page will come along, nobody knows. My Modus
Operandi is not to get up early on Monday morning and sit down at
the word processor to vomit out my writing quota for the day so I
can prove to the world that I am a writer. Hell, I am the worst
writer that ever lived because when I write I just say it to the
page and it listens in print; I practically have to be forced by
circumstances to write the next Movie Memo because frankly,
writing all this is a pain in the neck. I would much rather be
producing and directing movies all the time. But I know when I
do have the next Movie Mogul Manual page coming, I have my
attention on communicating a useful, integrated unit of
experience, consistent with the rest of The Movie Mogul Manual
(or correction thereof) - quickly. And I know that if I can make
it easier for you to make movies, then I will have better movies
to watch in my spare time - your movies.
If you look at each page of your Movie Mogul Manual you will
notice when it was written. You will notice that each policy is
a personal letter to you or those concerned. It's based on the
hat(s) being worn (or those you will have to deal with until you
get going) and each was written to summarize some hassle or
experience into a unit of movie mogulish knowledge. These pages
are not supposed to be an endless vomit of memos commenting on
the artistic merits of this and that. Of course I have those
too, on our own productions, but you don't really want to sit
through all my opinions on art - you have enough of your own good
opinions to work with, I'm sure. This manual is basically here
to tell you which piston in the airplane's engine is smoking or
when a more aerodynamically designed wing is available.
When it is happening, that's the time I write Movie Memos.
I grab a tape recorder and yell it into the microphone and clean
it up to some semblance of sanity between 2 A.M. and 4 A.M. (it's
now exactly 2:16 A.M. as I write this) when all the movie
craziness is asleep and the universe of thought is harmoniously
still and stable.
When it is happening, that's the time it is freshest in the
mind - the exact do's and the don'ts, the policy that helps, the
policy that hurts - not several months or years later. It's all
the refined little things that add up to a strong system of
management and hence the efficient machine that aids the creative
process. If you have a billion dull little flawed pebbles all
added together: You have a giant dull flawed bolder of a movie
sinking to the bottom of a red sea of ink. If you have The Movie
Mogul Manual to help put together all the little things that seem
unimportant (compared to producing A...MOVIE!) - little things
without which a movie can't be made, by the way - you have
billions of shiny little smoothly rolling ball bearings that add
up to a giant, well-designed fighter plane blasting over the
horizon of your last BLOCKBUSTER into the wild blue Sea of
Yonder.
If your next production is more ambitious than your last - I
do not care whether you are confronting two 50 foot rolls of
Super 8 (rather than one) or the making of STAR TREK XX, the challenge is the
relative same. The Movie Mogul Manual does not care because
water is water, light is light, movie productions are movie
productions and all are different, but all have similar elements
and basics - the larger productions just have more, louder-yelling, disorganized people and money to waste correcting the
mess-ups due to lack of Movie Mogulish methods.
Remember: tiny, weeny little integrated chips running on
micro-millivolts of electricity (money) do much more than the
first tube-type computer covering the whole bottom floor of the
Wistar Institute. The difference: efficiency. Inefficient movie
management = burnt and wasted dollars (electricity).
The Movie Mogul Manual is for you if you ever felt like you
are spinning towards the Earth at a million miles an hour with no
parachute or are over your head in production, for real. It's
for you if you are over your head in fantasy, falling forward
from the sky of insecurity or dreams without know-how or
deadlines.
Films are like fly paper - more sticky (to make) than they
look. This is one of the stupid reasons movies get a bad name
with financiers and are deemed "HIGH RISK INVESTMENTS." Thus
many directors and producers never get the bucks. Much of the
reason for this is no Movie-Mogul-Manual-type efficiency, hence
filmmakers have to spend all their time staring at blank walls
trying to figure out how to manage their company instead of being
out spending some time exploring life so their next movie will
not be a third generation re-hash of all the movies made the past
year by other producers.
NASA (as much as I admire them) goes on to get billions to
go to Mars but some producers can't even get a lousy million to
make a piece of art that will entertain the 200,000 human beings
born every day on this planet and the next.
When I was making super-8 movies, frankly I could not even
conceive of the secretly guarded steps required to make a movie
for a "lousy million" dollars - the understanding was a quantum
leap. The Movie Mogul Manual can help you make that leap.
If you read it in chronological order, The Movie Mogul
Manual forms a record of my cognitions as each set of problems
and solutions appeared to me for larger and larger productions.
I am not saying that you would follow this order, but you could.
I would advise going through it in this order because, although
it will not get you into production on your first multi-million
dollar production tomorrow, it WILL get you there before the
monkeys get there.
Many of the freaks that are credited as producers on million
dollar movies overnight, are just tinfoil filmmakers who have
never even made even a home movie of Christmas. (Insulting, but
sometimes the truth is.) They crap up the business with
intellectual flotsam and jetsam and the end is just more
politics, more money juggling, kick backs, expense and risk for
everybody - especially you - when this sort of thing causes
dollars to be sucked up and away from your projects to go to some
"filmmaker" who can buy a producer position because he's rich or
has an uncle in the business, or just wants to run around in the
glamour saying she's a producer to make it with the acting
personnel.
The movie industry "system" lets many of these freaks "rise"
to become film executives (some with or just because they have
MBAs) so they can really victimize dedicated artists and true
filmmakers with their demented, sick ideas of the filmmaking
process, management and the world. Since they know not now to
make movies efficiently, or at all - because they have not
actually made one in their back yard, or any other yard - their
only solution to putting out production fires caused by "letting
in their friends" is to splash stockholder dollars at them
usually in the form of more bookkeepers, lawyers, middle
managers, friends or aunts. We now have whole new breeds of
filmmaker hyphenates in the business: director-accountants,
producer-agents, producer-stock brokers, actor-producers, loan
officer-directors, actress-bookkeepers, director-real estate
developers, mutual fund manager-executive producers, production
manager-ice cream shop suppliers, etc.
YOU can someday make a $50,000,000 movie that is so
efficiently run it delivers $400,000,000 worth of production and
entertainment value! If you cannot dream this dream - then you
are not crazy enough to need and kill for a Movie Mogul Manual.
If you are basically the practical guy or gal and not "nuts"
enough to realize that in a universe with a billion trillion
stars, with huge computers coming up left and right, with
24,528,000,000 people expected to pass through this plane of
existence between 01 January 1992 and 01 January 2006 (who have
never even seen John Wayne in TRUE GRIT), that nothing is
impossible -then you, too, do not need The Movie Mogul Manual.
Cookbook movie moguls need The Movie Mogul Manual muchly every
month. Micro movie moguls need The Movie Mogul Manual mostly
every minute. And macro movie moguls and would-be movie moguls
need The Movie Mogul Manual just as much every moment.
Steven Spielberg, the Master, said it is a stepladder
process when he accepted his Irving Thalberg Award during the
1987 Academy Awards Ceremony. He said you are only as good as
your last step. The steps illustrated above may not be carved in
stone, but you can see that there is a ladder there and it can be
a fun ladder. The Movie Mogul Manual is there to help you find
each rung in the dark. It does not guarantee that the movies you
make will be any good, but with all the people that will be
around by January 1, 2001, someone will like your movies - even
if it just the historians.
The Movie Mogul Manual can help you watch out for stepping
on missing rungs too.
As I said at the beginning of this manual, in the next five
to ten years, if you are serious about producing and directing
motion pictures, you are more than likely going to spend at least
$250,000 on mistakes, getting started, economic loss (because of
some other business you lucratively could have gone into) and
slipping off the slightly slanted wall of financing.
$250,000, the amount of money you are going to spend holding
a position with your filmmaking dreams and making them real. I
know - I have already spent this six times over because I learn
slowly. But I usually don't fail to codify a lesson - hopefully
one you will benefit by.
If you buy this reasoning, The Movie Mogul Manual is worth a
minimum of $125,000 (not even including the contracts) as it is a
codification of the existing movie business practiced on the
professional level - the how, the why, the sequence, the
pitfalls, the costs, the whose, the whats, the when, the swirl,
the excitement, the cornerstone of your movie mogulish future.
In a brick of words, here is what you get in The Movie Mogul
Manual: How to establish a production company...what your
capitalization should be...what you must rent vs purchase...who
you need to hire to start...what you can defer...how to hire
competent legal and accounting help... who you can legally raise
money from...what is an accredited investor...how to create pro
forma financials...how to budget motion pictures...how to direct
capital in your organization to increase stockholder
value...feature film screenplay format...what you must do first,
second... 250ith to produce a feature...how to set up your
company for productivity...things you better know about post
production and certain aspects of production...what
computerization you must have and what is only ideal to
have...how to set up and configure your computer system or local
access network...how to set up a Web Site and interact with the
Internet and other services...how to route paper before you
translate it all to your computer systems...how to set
priorities...how to handle many things simultaneously yet drop
few balls...how to build a better budget...sample budgets for
$400,000 low budgeters...$5,000,000 medium budgeters and
$30,000,000 for high budgeters...sample P&Ls for worldwide
distribution...what are P&Ls...sample contracts for optioning
literary properties, hiring writers...raising development
money...hiring staff, crew and executives...setting up joint
ventures...setting up co-productions...doing a Reg D private
placement...going public...trading on the OTC bulletin
board..."needle drop" music vs scores...arranging a negative
pickup....pre-selling worldwide rights...arranging
distribution...pitching to movie studios and talent...meeting and
working with stars...maintaining an ethical approach to
business...complete checklist on producing a feature film...the
sequence of hiring crew for a production...how to find a good
production manager and first AD...how to setup an efficient
office to handle heavy phone and paper traffic...the deferment
question...granting participation in projects and/or equity in
your corporation...recouping...producer unit pay and
participation...if and when you need agents...checklist to get an
agent...pre-take patter on the set...hats to keep development
going while you are busy making movies...how to increase your
communication skills with financial people...negotiating
tips...how to cut the catch 22 in financing a picture...preferred
methods of accounting...what are the markets...how much can you
pre-sell rights for...film festivals vs film markets...how to put
together a package for the private capital markets...negative
pickups vs studio acquisition financing...how to produce a
feature for $200,000 that can generate $1.5 million in the
direct-to-home-video and cable markets... what do moviegoers in
China and India mean to you...why is the U.S. played out...video
cassette purchases...selling video cassette directly to
consumers...how the home-video distribution system works, and
does not work...realistic above-the-line allocations...how to
make a $5,000,000 picture that can generate a 900% return on
equity...what is Rule 144... what does exemption 4(2) and section
506 mean to the producer...blue sky laws, what are they...how to
build a $1 stock in 3 years...raising movie money with common
stock, convertible preferred stock or warrants...when do you
issue warrants rather than preferred stock...when do you sell
limited partnership units rather than units consisting of common
stock and preferred stock...what are the public markets...what is
a broker-dealer...do you need your series seven license...how
much capital do you need to get started...completion bonds, when
they are necessary...bank financing...how to package in the
direction of closing a production deal...how to handle frauds,
jerks, strappers, assistants to the assistant's Assistant and
people who are "in a meeting"...busy executives... being
responsible as a producer...keeping your creative edge...how to
set up an original think tank...company organizing
charts...statistics to monitor the health of your company before
the financials tell you're already dead...how to work with studio
executives...what studios do not want...what are operating
expenses...selling a movie package...exact job descriptions from
the production level through studio executive levels...how to
establish connections and make contacts...how to negotiate fairly
and effectively...reception policies...casting a movie...saving
money in post production...video tape transfers to DVDs...hard
disc...and hard cards...bandwidth problems...MPEG-2 technology...the coming Web
TV and ADSL tech...how to make sure people
in your company don't make you crazy under pressure...what you
need to do to make your first narrative dramatic movie...how to
assemble and work with a crew of 32... a crew of 125...shooting a
feature on-budget or on-peanuts...how to be an assistant editor
to become an editor to become a writer to become a director to
become employed...how to direct a feature...feature production
schedule...setting targets...forms with which to interview
talent, professionals and personnel...how to "reject" people that
don't meet with project's needs but show them the respect they
deserve...how to make people keep secrets...corporate level
hats...how to understand big corporations so you can relate to
them and they can relate to you...producer unit job
descriptions...how to train and then utilize people who want to
work with your company...rates and fees...how to set up a
screenplay development division...what makes a project go...how
to diversify, yet stay focused...
I have codified the process of developing, packaging,
financing, producing, directing, editing, marketing and
distributing movies in The Movie Mogul Manual because I love
making movies and seeing them made with a minimum of hellishness
and a maximum of quality. I like seeing movies too and see
almost all of them. I like seeing your efficiently made,
excellent, high quality movies - movies that can best be made
when most of your attention goes into creating dreams on screens
- not mud wrestling with the physical universe and management.
Let's turn the picture business into a business which gets
people thinking about spending less time, money and energy on
pizza and more time, money and energy on things like cultural
advancement, peace, love and even space exploration. Let us
promote more friendly relations between art and business to help
move our planet's people out of the Cultural Dark Ages we
currently find ourselves in and the Technological Wasteland in
which we might find ourselves enslaved unless we are clear on how
to proceed.
If by reading this you have discovered that the movie business is not for you, you are welcome,
I have saved you a lot of hassel and loss.
But if you really want to produce features, this is a realistic program that has a hope of getting you there.
Don't waste time - confront it now!
James R. Jaeger II
1935 THE SCOUNDREL, Co-Producer/Director
1936 ONCE IN A BLUE MOON, Co-Producer/Director
1937 DREAMING LIPS, Co-Producer
1940 LILAC DOMINO, Producer
1940 ANGELS OVER BROADWAY, Co-Director
1940 BEYOND TOMORROW, Producer
1941 LYDIA, Producer
1942 THE JUNGLE BOOK, Associate Producer Academy Award Nom.
1943 THE SKY'S THE LIMIT, Director
1946 THE SPECTOR OF THE ROSE, Co-Producer/Director
1952 ACTORS AND SIN, Co-Director
1953 HANNAH LEE, Producer/Director
1978 SHAME, SHAME ON THE BIXBY BOYS, Co-Producer
1925 KEEP SMILING
1925 THE GOAT GETTER
1926 THE GRAND DUCHESS AND THE WAITER
1926 A SOCIAL CELEBRITY
1926 THE PALM BEACH GIRL
1926 THE SHOW OFF
1926 THE POPULAR SIN
1927 THE GARDEN OF ALLAH
1927 ROSE OF THE GOLDEN WEST
1927 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HELEN OF TROY
1927 THE LOVE MART
1928 THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME
1928 THE YELLOW LILY
1928 WATERFRONT
1928 THE BARKER
1929 HIS CAPTIVE WOMAN
1929 LOVE AND THE DEVIL
1929 PRISONERS
1929 SAY IT WITH SONGS
1929 DISRAELI
1929 THE GREAT DIVIDE
1930 LILIES OF THE FIELD
1930 SONG OF THE WEST
1930 THE OTHER TOMORROW
1930 WHOOPIE
1930 MOROCCO (Academy Award Nomination)
1930 BRIGHT LIGHTS
1931 DISHONORED
1931 FIGHTING CARAVANS
1931 CITY STREETS
1931 KISS ME AGAIN
1931 AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY
1931 CONFESSIONS OF A CO-ED
1932 SHANGHAI EXPRESS (Academy Award)
1932 SCARFACE
1932 STRANGE INTERLUDE
1932 SMILIN' THROUGH
1932 CALL HER SAVAGE
1933 FACE IN THE SKY
1933 ZOO IN BUDAPEST
1933 MY LIPS BETRAY
1933 I AM SUZANNE
1934 GEORGE WHITE'S SCANDALS
1934 CRIME WITHOUT PASSION
1935 ONCE IN A BLUE MOON
1935 THE SCOUNDREL
1937 DREAMING LIPS
1939 GONE WITH THE WIND (Academy Award)
1940 ANGELS OVER BROADWAY
1941 LYDIA
1942 THE JUNGLE BOOK (Academy Award Nomination)
1942 FOOTLIGHT SERENADE
1942 CHINA GIRL
1943 FOREVER AND A DAY
1943 FLIGHT FOR FREEDOM
1944 SINCE YOU WENT AWAY (Academy Award Nomination)
1944 GUEST IN THE HOUSE
1944 NONE SHALL ESCAPE
1945 LOVE LETTERS
1945 PARIS UNDERGROUND
1946 THE SEARCHING WIND
1946 SPECTOR OF THE ROSE
1946 YOUNG WIDOW
1946 DUEL IN THE SUN
1947 THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY
1947 NIGHTMARE ALLEY
1947 THE PARADINE CASE
1948 CAUGHT
1949 MY FOOLISH HEART
1949 THE FIGHTING KENTUCKIAN
1949 ROSEANNA McCOY
1950 MY FRIEND IRMA GOES WEST
1950 OUR VERY OWN
1951 SATURDAY'S HERO
1951 THAT'S MY BOY
1951 DETECTIVE STORY
1951 THUNDER IN THE EAST
1952 THE CAPTIVE CITY
1952 ACTORS AND SIN
1952 THE LUSTY MEN
1954 ABDULLA THE GREAT
1955 LAND OF THE PHARAOHS
1955 THE DESPERATE HOURS
1955 MAN WITH THE GUN
1955 THE BOTTOM OF THE BOTTLE
1956 D-DAY THE SIXTH OF JUNE
1956 THE SHARKFIGHTERS
1956 THE BIG BOODLE
1958 NEVER LOVE A STRANGER
1959 THE BIG FISHERMAN (Academy Award Nomination)
1959 HAPPY ANNIVERSARY
1961 MISTY
1962 HEMINGWAY'S ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG MAN
1964 LADY IN A CAGE
1966 A BIG HAND FOR THE LITTLE LADY
1969 HOW TO SAVE A MARRIAGE AND RUIN YOUR LIFE
1972 WHY
