How to Make a film for Less Than A Car: Interview with Sean Cisterna of Moon Point

Moon Point is a Canadian indie feature made for - drum roll - less than a car.

This is the story indie filmmakers know. This is the story all filmmakers know, really.
The nice thing about what Sean and his team have been doing is being very open about their process - even, in many ways, be more transparent about how they got from point a to point b on their site than most are.

What's incredibly fascinating, though, is the process of getting to theatres. No easy feat for most indies out there. But with a lot of dedication to the cause - they've done it with a really great team.

What's been the process from start to finish in getting Moon Point to a theatrical release?

Start to finish? The amount of detail I could go into to answer this question could fill a novel, so let me give you the run-on sentence version. Had idea, hired writer, read script, loved it, applied for money, raised $950 thousand from various sources, needed just 150 more from Telefilm, they said no, went to the major distributors, they said no, therefore lost $950 thousand as well as self-esteem, my sanity, and two years of my life. Angry at the system, I then greenlit my own ass, managed to raise $60 thousand from angel investor, hired film friends to help me make it, auditioned awesome actors, shot the film in 12 days, edited the film over 6 months, crowdsourced finishing funds, applied for and received local arts council grants, sound mixed and colour corrected the film, applied to festivals, got into festivals, traveled across Canada with my actors, won an award, admiration from audiences, self esteem returned, Indiecan Entertainment picked up Moon Point for distribution, received marketing money from Harold Greenberg Fund, became good friends with social media, released the film at AMC Yonge and Dundas, and awaited our first paying audience.

What did you shoot on?

We shot Moon Point on a Canon 7D, a tiny digital SLR that you can pick up at any Future Shop. Our awesome DOP Carl Elster had just purchased one, so we used his personal camera, pushed its limitations, and shot a beautiful-looking film.

How many crew members/cast were you working with?

It was a small crew - about 10 people. We were making a road trip movie, so we needed to be small and portable to get to multiple locations on any given shooting day. We had about 30 speaking actors throughout the film. One of the rules for low budget filmmaking is to limit your locations and your amount of actors. We broke that rule badly. You can't make a road trip movie if you don't go anywhere or meet anyone. 

You've done a lot with social media - has that helped with your turn out at events?

Social media is our best friend. Our team is very active on Facebook and Twitter, and we really respect and appreciate our supportive followers. We've had numerous fans appear at either film festivals or our theatrical screenings, and just introduce themselves. The other day we met Yusef, the 12th person to join our page over a year and a half ago, just a really cool eager young Canadian film lover. It was awesome.

In the early days, we even shot custom-made videos featuring our actors for every 100th fan. Check out this video from Paula Brancati: http://youtu.be/EuvtdP_9SX0 - so yeah, we love our social media followers.

As well, the idea of selling merchandise at a live event - like hats and the (frankly amazing) soundtrack you've got - seems new idea for most filmmakers - has it been successful for you?

We only ordered a few t-shirts and posters at the beginning of our festival run, but at every event, they'd start to sell out. It was crazy. Audiences just wanted us to autograph stuff, and luckily we had our swag on standby. We were recouping more on merchandise than on ticket sales. We've recently mastered our own CD soundtrack with the blessing of all our bands, like City and Colour and Michou, who have been really supportive of Moon Point throughout the process, and we're hoping that's a big seller, as well.

You've had some hiccups in getting the funding together - any advice for other filmmakers dealing with the same issues?

There are two trains of thought - you can either go the traditional route of applying to all the funding sources such as Telefilm and the OMDC on your first projects, but you do have to realize that they only have limited amounts to give out. Now, with the new 2012 guidelines, it's going to be more difficult even for established filmmakers to access funding. If you're lucky enough to receive public support, congratulations, you're one of the few.

The other funding route is to take some lessons in both business and charm, because you'll probably at some point in your directing career, have to go after money yourself. And if you can educate yourself in the private equity game and learn how to incorporate a single-purpose company, calculate federal and provincial tax credits, draw up a recoupment schedule, etc, I guarantee you that you'll be successful raising money yourself. Now, that being said, you'll be on the hook for that money, so you better make sure you shoot good film.

Getting two weeks at AMC seems like a daunting thing for most filmmakers in Canada - indie or not - how much work was it from your team to get that to happen?

We were pretty successful the first weekend, coming in 6th out of 19 films playing there. We were the number 1 Canadian film, and beat out a bunch of big-budget American ones too. It was an insane amount of work, something that the team at Indiecan put a lot of effort into. Now that we're entering our unexpected second week, we're increasing our public appearances, hosting a "pitch the distributor" event, and even raffling off some of our cast/crew at the Valentine's screening. We're basically putting every effort into making these screenings a special experience for our audiences. Canadian film needs that extra bit of razzle dazzle if we're going to compete against our American brothers at the marketplace.

What are the next steps?

Now that buzz is building and we're getting specific requests to screen in certain markets across Ontario and Canada, we're creating a schedule whereby we can embark on a road trip with our film. I'll travel with the film as much as I can, and so will our actors. Moon Point was a unique filming experience in that cast and crew bonded so closely during production all the way up to now - we all have a creative investment in the film and all want to see it succeed as much as it can.

And, lastly, any advice for the other crazy kids out there doing similar work?

Embrace low-budget filmmaking! You don't need millions to make a great film. You'll find that audiences are really supportive to underdog stories, and Moon Point is a shining example of that. It was a film that was rejected by funders and distributors, but a small core of believers had the will and the way to turn it into something bigger. It's so rare to see a Canadian film made for $75,000 make it to the big screen and succeed at one of the biggest theatres in the country, and I think that's thanks in part to our own team's belief in the film.

Zen and the Art of Pitching: TV, Web, Film - and they all fall down.

Pitching.

The Pitch. The throw. The curve ball. The dreaded walk in. The Meeting That Will Dictate The Rest of The Year. (TM)

I hyperbolize, perhaps, but for many writers/producers/actors the time spent in prepping for a pitch meeting is more than you ever spend in time in the pitch itself. For most people, the pitch is just a standard part of the year - a few weeks perhaps. But the prep for it - that's long and meandering.

An article from the LA Times, by TV writer Jesse Lasky hits on these issues. The pitch after all - is a moving target.

Needing advice on how to sell, I turned to my pal Scott, a car salesman. "Smile, make eye contact, and exude confidence," he said. "Make them want you more than you want them."

I then drove to my co-worker Frank's house, in my just-purchased only slightly used 1994 Chevy Silverado (what can I say? Scott's a good salesman). There, Frank said, "Just know what you're talking about." I thought it was sound advice, until I realized perhaps this was his way of telling me I usually don't know what I'm talking about.

Lastly, I was told to "practice over and over while looking in the mirror."

Advice in pitches, is much like that many fabled song that was an essay:
"Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth."

Which is to say - when you're pitching, a good bit of advice you'll receive from people won't work pants for you because that's not how you think.

A pitch is, in some ways, a personal thing. A piece of art. A many splendid thing, really. Partially explosive creative dialogue, partially powerpoint presentation minus the powerpoint, and, of course, all brilliance.

In this case, the pitch seems to go great:

I began the pitch. Their excitement built as I talked, in turn getting me excited. I fielded their questions. Made them laugh. My fly wasn't open. This was going well.

The issue with the fly isn't always a game killer, but it'll put you off your game. Simple solution - wear clothing that looks good without a fly. Or button.

Generally, looking TV-writer-hip - i.e. semi-washed in the last twelve hours, fun shirt, nice pants and you're set. A blazer never hurts - but always remember to check the zippers, buttons and etc.

Then came the waiting game. I was prepared for the worst. After all, most pitches don't get sold.

Five days later I got the call — they're buying it!

They asked if I'd be willing to write it as a multi-camera traditional sitcom as opposed to the single camera comedy I originally proposed. Are they kidding? I'd write it in German subtitles if they wanted me to. I was elated. I've made it! I'm going to start wearing expensive sunglasses indoors and eating caviar omelets at every meal.

Amazing pitch! Great job in - from pitch to presentation to buying your goddamned pilot in a week.

Or, in reality, seven years, a chance meeting with the right people and a week. But truly - the week was important. In Lasky's case it didn't turn out so well - a network exec change over meant that the pilot didn't go forward - but the points in place - going balls out and practicing, practicing, practicing before.

Those were in place. And those things did work.

Other than the tried-and-true pitch-yourself-then-your-mom-then-your-boss-then-that-homeless-guy-down-the-street formula, there are some other bits and pieces to the art that can help.

The five (or whatever) bullet point system is fairly simple - if you can distill your concept down to a small number - five points that can fully describe your show. Have these written legibly in a nice and small notebook and refer to them if you run into trouble. This is pretty much the same thing you did when you practiced to tell your parents your girlfriend was pregnant or that you were going to drop out of college - the pitch is more important than either of those things.

F*ck It: I.e. Go in and wing it. I know more people who can salvage this than I care to admit. That said - most of them have a background in improv.

Powerpoint: Business types (not industry specifically) and CEOs love powerpoint. There's a reason for this - it distills concepts down to their component bits - and then puts them into tiny little slides. Please don't actually use a powerpoint presentation to do this - even if your shiny ipad has the ability. That said...

The iPad Pitch: Producers and later stage development for shows with bibles - they often have a shiny pitch that fits snugly on an iPad. Shockingly similar to the powerpoint pitch - it has all the pretty and shiny bits you'd put in your Bible...and on said powerpoint... In pretty and shiny ways on the iPad. It's different. Trust me.

The One Page/Leave Behind: A one page pitch is pretty simple - it's a quick synopsis of your show, your main characters and your show engine. Yeah, okay a one page can be a delightfully difficult write. And leave behinds are great if you like to kill trees.

The Discussion Meeting: Execs ask writers/producers/directors/actors/their sister's brother's kid to come in to chat ideas sometimes. It's usually a good idea to take said meeting - and to come in with some pitches that make sense for the network/production company.


So to review, the handy little acronym:

Idea
Research
Practice
Alcohol*

*Please to keep in mind that not all stages should be followed. Ever. Especially during the pitch.

Why SOPA & PIPA - matter to Canadian Content Creators

Sites like Reddit, wikipedia and then there's the rest of the Internet go dark today - against SOPA and PIPA.

The lowdown from the Reddit site:

FAQ
What is the intent of SOPA/PROTECT IP?
The stated intent of the bills is to provide tools for law enforcement and copyright holders to protect their intellectual property rights.

What’s wrong with protecting copyrights?
Nothing! The devil, as they say, is in the details. PROTECT IP and SOPA will cause too much collateral damage, have a high potential for abuse, and won't even be that effective at stopping the crimes they target. Read alienth's examination of where these bills fail.

I'm not in the U.S. Why does this affect me?
Many of the sites that you may use (e.g. Google, Facebook, Wikipedia, etc.) are all affected by this law and will be required to hide offending domains from you.

If a non-U.S. site is blocked in the U.S., the site could suffer financially or even be bankrupted by the loss of U.S. traffic and revenue.

Are non-US sites necessarily going to die with the lack of US traffic? Maybe not. One might even say probably not.

However, under SOPA and PIPA sites could be tried in America - based on random information - perfect strangers could, say, theoretically dislike something you said on a hot button issue - gay marriage, abortion, breathing correctly - and then claim issues of IP and then you're attempting to protect your site from American rules built in by people that don't understand the Internet.

Indeed, from CIRA:

If a Canadian website is found to infringe on copyright, U.S. search engines may be required to stop indexing the site in their results. If the site is hosted by an American ISP, it could be shut down. A Canadian online business could find itself without a system to collect payments if a U.S. online payment provider is required to not do business with them.

OR: The Oatmeal explains it all with a gif:


To find out more about the Canadian side of things, Michael Geist has ongoing coverage of the issues.

When TV Meets the IntARnets: Mass Participation, Marketing and the Internets (z) (TM)

KAPLAN: Hillbilly Handfishin' is like the No. 1 title on television!
BERWICK (smiling): Wait a minute. How do you prove that?
KAPLAN: I don't have to. I say it three times and it's true. Title is everything. In a world where people are scrolling through [programming guides] and when you never have enough marketing money, if you can put out a title and people go, "I've got to watch that . . ."

From Female Cable Execs Talk The Future Of TV.

And while I'm not sure Hillbilly Handfishin' is the show that tops out the list of to-watch-shows for me - to say it's the number one title on all TV, and then keep at it?

That, friends, is marketing at its best.

And more in truth - marketing is what can make or break a film - depending, entirely, on how the media interprets something.

And with the numbers not readily apparent (though TV By the Numbers is a great resource) - it's sometimes a little bit easier to claim that in TV. But it doesn't hurt to claim to be the top in web in your demographic. It's possible to use that spin - and that kind of positivity in your brand - to keep pushing it out there.

The other thing that's becoming more and more apparent for the TV types seems to be what has been apparent for the last ten years - the new kids don't like waiting, and if you don't have access to a place to watch the show, then they'll find it some other way.

"Nobody under the age of 16 is scrolling through the cable guide. Their first choice is either VOD, Hulu, Netflix, or DVR."

Because the new audiences are impatient easily - which implies that they're looking to be as interactive as possible in a lot of ways. The ideology behind 'time slots' has died - it died ages back for anyone under 30.

To get on top of that, though, there's other things that can be done.

BERWICK: We'll constantly ask, How do you get people to go from one platform to another and back? We want them to go TV, online, and back to the TV. With the new season of Top Chef, we launched this thing where you don't know why some people come back on the show unless you watch a web piece.
KAPLAN: You're stretching the brand in a way that doesn't damage it.
GANELESS: There has to be more innovation. It can't just be, Here's a clip, pass it on to your friends. It has to be, How do we reward them for participating? A lot of our viewers grew up in that generation where everybody got a soccer trophy.
KAPLAN: Our viewers and employees.
GANELESS: Exactly. So how do we develop this conversation? TV has been a one-way medium. We've been successful in a few of our shows, Tosh notably and Colbert notably, where he can get the Colbert Nation to do things like sponsor a speed-skating team. How do we evolve that process not just for singular talent-driven shows like those, but for scripted shows?

And this is the key - it's all about creating real ways to integrate that are beyond the show, but still let people interact with the original show.

It's always a bit of a question of what works - but there seems to be some really strong placement in the cable industry for reality shows.

Which begs the question - is Mass Participation the best way to get involvement from scripted content and audiences?

Motivation, Transmedia and Getting INnovative.

The video relates in a lot of ways to some great understandings of human behaviour - that, perhaps, the carrot and the stick model aren't working for a number of reasons.

This is a huge step in how we look at the development of, say, a game or writing a script for an online source, or a web series - or even looking to incentivizing for fundraising. The consistent and ongoing thought with regard to, say, a game is that if you offer a huge reward ($10,000) people will show up - sure they will. But maybe they won't.

For something basic - for a basic physical task, as the video shows: "As long as the task used only mechanical skill, bonuses worked as expected" - the higher the pay, the better the performance. Thus, for someone working primarily on something not cognitive based - a repetitive action, per se, the ideal goal is thus - higher pay. Or a bigger reward - or a nicer farm in farmville.

That said, "once the task called for rudimentary cognitive skill, a larger reward lead to poorer performance."

This is definitely an interesting way to look at building online properties - to understand that at the end of the day should the task require, say, more than simply madly clicking the actual monetary reward doesn't matter (so much), and that using that understanding should thus lead to the idea of building a paradigm that people can work in - small rewards, but having greater buy in (and more complex problems) isn't a bad thing.

Especially since, as they continue to discuss, a lot of people that could easily be involved with more complex transmedia projects - like an ARG or similar - are often the ones that will spend 20-30 hours working on something like wikipedia or Linux... for free.

Pitch Notes: Digital Launch Pad

The Digital Launch Pad is a staple of NextMedia - at both Banff Media Festival and NextMedia Toronto - and is an interesting look at a variety of the ongoing tech developments.

It also speaks to a growing disparity in the tech world where things like web series and new web sites are compared and contrasted as if they're exactly the same thing.

Up at the Digital Launch Pad on the web series side was Out With Dad, Clutch the Series, and White Collar Poet.

In hot web site it was Social Game Universe, She Takes on the World and Mobile Artist.

She Takes on the World won, which is interesting because on paper it's the least innovative among the entire lot of them. Not bad, at all - it's a great site and does exactly what the intention of the site should do very well.

However, her pitch, is something Natalie MacNeil has nailed - and that's exactly where things can be taken to the next level.

Natalie lives and breaths media and marketing - most of the folk in the audience (and the entire team on the panel) were in advertising and marketing - and her entire presentation was one that defined the numbers, her audience and exactly what she could do for them.

Pitching is an art, and beyond that a practiced aspect around a cool show, a great premise, but being able to give a great elevator pitch is a science in and of itself.

The Art of Pitching on Forbes defines a great pitch as such:

"If you can articulate in two sentences the problem and the solution, you've nailed it."

Advice for anyone, really, going up to the Digital Launch Pad - or even going up to a producer - it's important to always know exactly what you're offering, how you can give that to them and what you can fix... in one or two minutes.

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From the NextMedia blog series.

Jane Espenson and Cheeks, on Husbands, Working in Web and TV

Husbands isn't a new idea per se - there's been great jumps in web content for the queer community through series like Out With Dad and Anyone But Me (to name just a few!) - but it's definitely been a fun ride to watch through. And co-creators Jane Espenson and Brad Bell chatted with me about their process.

Jane Espenson (Firely, Buffy, all around awesome) co-created the show with a great team - including lead Brad Bell (Cheeks) and director Jeff Greenstein - and they shot it all in one big batch.

Thanks so much for taking the time to discuss Husbands with me. It's a fun show, and it's always fantastic to see other series coming out in the web world. It's been fantastic to watch so far!

JE: Thank you! I'm glad you're liking it. I'm really proud of how it came out. Jeff Greenstein directed it, and we had an amazing crew, and it really came out looking great. Our cast: Cheeks, Sean Hemeon and Alessandra Torresani blew me away with their performances. And I love the amount of comedy we were able to get into these little bite-sized episodes.

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In creating Husbands what was the original inspiration?

JE: This grew out of an idea that Cheeks (writer Brad Bell) had about two LA-based characters to be played by himself and Alessandra Torresani, trying to outgrow their own boozy Hollywood fun. When we started talking about the concept together, we realized that there would be more to say if we built the show around a young gay married couple. Alessandra remained as Haley the best friend, but the character of Brady (played by Sean Hemeon) was added.

What issues have you faced in getting the show out to an audience - with both Jane Espenson and Cheeks having established fan bases already, has it been difficult in any ways to access media sources?

JE: We've had some really high-level exposure, but I think that web series are still seen as a sort of second-tier of entertainment, which is a shame. I don't care about the media exposure as an end in itself, but I hope that everyone who would love this series gets to hear about it. We're getting lots of views, but of course we always want more. I'd love to be able to get the kinds of numbers that make it really clear to the powers that be that there is an audience eager for this content.

What's been the best part of the process for you and your team?

JE: I loved writing the scripts with Cheeks, and shooting was cool. Jeff Greenstein is a great director – calm and hilarious at the same time. I loved how open and creative the shoot was. And now watching the reaction is so gratifying. I think the only hard part of the process was the week before we put the first episode up on line. We were all overworked and worried and stressed.

Conversely, what was the most difficult part of working on a web series as opposed to working in TV?

JE: On TV, there is (metaphorical) moving machinery that pulls each episode along; each stage of the process triggers the next stage. Our amazing line producer M. Elizabeth Hughes kept things moving, but even on a blissfully smooth web series process, there just isn't that big machine, and each step takes a little more thought and initiative.

Having talent who work traditionally in TV and film is obviously a great way to establish and move forward - have you had any resistance in working in digital series from those quarters?

JE: Not at all. We got Nathan Fillion for a cameo appearance and he was delighted to be involved. And Jeff and I both come from very traditional TV backgrounds. I think everyone who came from TV to this web project really enjoyed the speed and maneuverability of the smaller scale project. That sense that we could be purely creative without having to second guess people above us – that was great.

In developing the season arc, what was the best part of the process?

JE: It's really more of a pilot than a season. The eleven two-minute "episodes" go together to tell one pilot story, but with developments that hint at the sort of stories we would tell in a longer season. The best part of developing the arc was discovering the richness and variety of the stories we could tell with these characters in this situation. Almost anything the actors talked about between shooting would spur discussions about how this could become an episode.

The show itself has a really unique structure - in that they are such short pieces and they all lead, in some ways, to great outs. Was it written in an episodic format or more, say, like a film?

JE: It was a combination. They were written (at least in the early drafts) mostly in sequence, with attention to how the story lay out overall, but they were also written with that purposeful episode break every two pages.

What's been the best way to move through the process with all the episodes?

JE: We'll let you know when we find the "best way" – we've sort of been blundering through a way that works for us. With the three of us all sharing executive producer credit, we find ourselves having to reach a consensus that doesn't always come easily. But so far there haven't been any stand offs.

Was the release schedule - every Tuesday and Thursday - decided in advance? Has it been difficult to keep up with?

JE: We did set that in advance, and we haven't had trouble making those dates. Again, I'll credit the crew including our director of photography Ben Kantor and editor Nate Atcheson with keeping us on time.

You've been lucky to have your entire cast, and writer and director directly engaged on twitter - and all talking about the show - how has this shaped your experience?

JE: Well, that's been a great help with PR, of course – we're all working hard to make sure people are aware of the show and that they know to go to http://husbandstheseries.com to see the episodes. But Twitter has also been great for keeping us all looped in with each other – we know when the others are busy or distracted or excited about the next step in the process.

Husbands seems, in some ways, a launching point for the WeYuMe site - has that given you any opportunity to build bridges across both fan bases?

Cheeks: Husbands is somewhat of a flagship presentation from my site, WeYuMe, which is an online entertainment portal. I'm in the process of building and branding it as an independent source for original web content that is both forward thinking and lifestyle focused.

The blog that has been the primary feature of the beta version caters to creatives, geeks, fashionista, foodies, and entertainment lovers. In that sense, I think it does capture a demographic wide enough to build bridges while maintaining a unique flavor of specificity


Using Cheeks as a base for the character is not only fantastic to watch - how much of that related to him and how much really pushed out beyond that?

Cheeks: I think outlining the distinctions would take the fun out of it. If I were being like, all ferrealzies, I'd say to attempt explanation would limit the freedom from judgement that exists in all of my art. Guess you'll just have to watch and see for yourself or whatevs.

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This will be part of an ebook being released in 2012 on making web series and working in transmedia spaces.