There's Two Ways To Budget a Low Budget Flick.... The Pie In The Sky or The Sky In Pie...

After getting off the phone today with two different producers in regards to two different features I am producing and when I say different kinds of producers I don't mean apples and oranges different, I mean elephants and angel food cake different.  But I digress.  In my humble experience of producing I think ten low-ish budget features I came to the conclusion that there are two ways to budget a low-budgy-flickeroni;  You can go out and hire a fancy production manager, or a not so fancy production manager, and pay them their fee, or promise them a job if the movie finds its way to a producer, and lop off the script to them and say "budget this" I call this the "pie in the sky" budgeting;  or,  you can go to a production manager and you say "this is the budget" and then they budget the movie, and when I say budget, they work with what you actually have or think you can get.  I call this "the sky in the pie" budgeting.   You see,  at the end of the day it really doesn't matter if the line producer says what the f*** the budget is, because the budget is how much you have in the bank to make the movie, (or in a Prada shoe box, or how much room you have on your credit car) that is the budget of the movie not what some bourgeoisy production manager tells you what the budget it.   No offense to PMs because that's a job I would never want to have (though did do it on one feature "Life On The Road With Mr. & Mrs. Brown" along with many other jobs, like directing, producing,  driving James Brown's wife to re-hab twice,  fending psychotics, but that's another story), but a production manager is not a producer, and usually doesn't think like a producer.  A good producer (in my opinion) thinks with the concept of "This is what I have to make this thing, so lets go for it, and make it happen some how, even if it means flirting with your ex-boyfriend editor to do a rough cut of the movie for free (but lets face it, these favors aren't really free either, but you play the card because hell, it's a solution so your investors don't chop your balls off for not finishing the movie."

Moral of the story, don't be a robot, and try not to hire a robot production manager who can't think a little outside the box, movies are meant to made not to be theorized about.

Love, Camille
www.camillesolari.com
@camillesolari 

Navigating The Shark Tank - Article 2) "Holiday Prison"

"Holiday Prison"

The holiday season should be full of warmth and fun.  Snow flakes falling, families frolicking, egg nog nogging, and lots of presents and fun, and most of

all not a moments loss with a thought about work needing to be done.  And yes, this is the case, for the truly successful TV executive, studio head, the top

two of the top five talent agencies, some producer who actually made a killing on a movie this year and lets throw in Fergie and Carrot Top. Nahh, not Carrot

Top he's probably sweatin' it in Reno doing a soul draining stand up comedy show for a Walmart Corporate party function with Danny Bonneducci, (hey ya gotta

do what ya gotta do and I am not harping on corporate shows they pay better than ANY stand up comedy gig - well sans Dane Cook at The Staples Centre). So who

else in Hollywood is left? Depressed writers, out of work actors - experience a time where no one who can get you a job is available to meet or talk or

converse or nothin'. I fondly refer to this time as holiday prison.

Trying to fit in your last goddamn meetings to get your shows set up before the whole goddamn happy industry closes shop not for a week, not for ten days but

a whole goddamn month, can be a serious chore!  Truly it's a month, something I could never understand. So excessive. I used to wake up with anxiety sweats

come October because I knew the industry was getting ready to shut down in the next couple months.  I could smell it. I can still smell it. You can smell it,

if you tried to smell it.  Now I understand why Jack Nicolson went mental in The Shining, the industry shut down for not one month but like five months! Holy

shit mental breakdown city and THAT'S EXACTLY how writers feel during x mas. Or people who have to rely on executives to get jobs. Comics I leave as a

separate catagory, there is always a joke to be made about everything and the the more ass-backwards the situation the bigger the joke (enter blog here).

Take this incident for instance - two weeks before Christmas I tried contacting a producer I met at a predominant film festival who was anxious to get my

movie shot in Canada and was all up in my grill a month ago about it, and when I was finally ready to have the big fat chat - suddenly his assistant or

virtual cock-blocker as I like to refer to this breed of an assistant or should I say secretary just to be a dick about it said, "Oh Gosh John isn't going to

be able to do that (3 minute conference call) until after the holidays" is there even Christmas in Canada? Okay maybe I'm being slightly fecisious but come

on, don't just jump on the closing shop band wagon when you don't even have a shop to close up. It's tarded as in "re". But I digress.

After Thanksgiving we have basically one more week before brains start turning into saw dust, and Hollywood execs start checking out.  All right true, there

are a few workaholics that work through the holidays, and god bless their souls but they are far and few inbetween.  And then there are the writers, the

actors, the directors who didn't score a job before the wretched hollywood break who suffer through the holidays putting christmas gifs on credit, or are

forced to re-gift presents from the gift drawer that you got from some weird ass gifting suite - like pedicure slippers, a $6.44 gift certificate to

Starubucks or a "Wicked" coffee mug (the musical not the porn company).  So what is the solution to this yearly crisis?  Well, here it is... use the time to

get ahead of the game. If you're fat get thin, if you're getting dumb get smart, if you're a writer, write your balls off and restock the shelves with new

scripts if you're a director start writing,  if you're an actor, well go watch a movie and and tell yourself how much better of a job you could have done

than Anne Hathaway then go to the gym, and if you're a comic just keep on keeping on.  And most of all, have a darling time with your family, and when they

ask about your career change the subject to how beautiful the weather is and isn't nice that you're getting to spend a little extra time together this year.

Love,
Camille
p.s.
please bear with me on the typoes I had way too much spiked egg nog last night.

Camille Solari

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