My life up to now. Part 9: Never a dull moment

We finished post production on The Water's Edge and it only took two separate audio engineers to save the audio. Not only that, whole lines of dialog had to be meticulously pieced together using multiple 'good' takes. It was a labor of love… of course we were going whole hog! Our little film started touring and winning festivals, from Oklahoma to Los Angeles. We were on top of the world again! With some festival wins under our belt we were approached by a few "producer's reps" in the business. When I got that first call, all I could see were dollar signs. This was it, all of our hard work and dedication has paid off, we are now hitting the big time. I wasn't even sure what a "producer's rep" was, I just knew that someone saw our movie and called us. That right there was enough to send me to the moon and back. A few days later, Robin and I had a conference call with Ms. Producer's Rep. (names hidden). She loved our film, saw it while it was in LA at the Brilliant Light Film Fest. "This film is a great inspirational movie, we can make money with this. I'd like to take it to the Cannes film market", she said. Robin and I dropped our jaws. I started to feel like a freakin movie star to be honest. I almost asked her over the phone if she would like my autograph but it then dawned on me that this request was impossible because I couldn't reach through the phone to give her the paper. Ah, who am I kidding, I could fax it I thought…. anyway, mind blown. So we told her, "Yes of course! Is the sky blue!? Take the movie to Cannes!". She then let us know there would be a $10,000 fee for signing up with her agency for representation. This is when our jaws hit the floor again. There's a lot of jaw dropping going on, but I'm serious its a roller coaster of madness I tell ya. MADNESS. "Oh….? $10,000?"

silence

I held the phone stretched out passed my arm and mouthed to Robin something to the effect of WTF, the F standing for "freak" of course. I then heard Ms. Producer's Rep on the other end talking so I quickly drew the phone back to my ear. "So can I get you over to my sales colleague so we can sign you guys up? I need screener DVDs sent to me by this Wednesday…". I tried moving my mouth but I think I might have let a strange indecipherable noise come out instead. Trying again, I told her that we needed more time to come up with money like that. I then went on to tell her that we made the entire film for $9000 and that was me pretty much maxing out my Citibank card. She didn't miss a beat and blew on like a high-pressure car salesman. Taking everything we had, we hung up with her feeling defeated. Done for. Shambles. Balky, colorless gloom.

Days later, with nothing more than guidance from the good Lord, we decided not to put up the 10 grand. We called Ms. Producer's Rep and delivered the bad news. "You're making a mistake", she said. "You've got a good film, it will sell". We hung up and never heard from her again. In fact, we never heard from anyone again on that film. Much later, someone gave me some advice once, "Never sign with a Producer's Rep if they ask for money up front. Ever. If your film is good, they will go to bat for you and take their fee out of the sale of the film. If your film is bad, they will ask for their money up front." Makes sense, no? Learn it, live it.

Despite our run-in with Hollywood blood-sucking sales reps, we were pretty proud with our little film, so proud that we decided to do another one.

Some of the best stories come from our past life experiences. One interesting thing to do is to go into a retirement home and tell them you are there to play checkers with the fellas. Bring your board and your listening ears because you are about to hear some of the most interesting stories from people who have really lived. Call it research. One story, not from a 90 year old double-jumper but one that inspired Robin and I years before, when we were first married, was about a dear friend of ours who had 4 different boys from 4 different fathers. We always loved her personality, so bold and carefree, blunt and matter of fact. Her personality was so attractive that we always wanted to hang out with her and spend time with her. This is the story we wrote, the story we wanted to tell people. When Robin wrote the script, she added much more to it, changed it up a bit, but the character was pretty much dead on. In 2009, we set out to make this movie called "Leftovers". Again, we had very little money but what we did have was more experience and a better crew. Because we had been in San Antonio a while, we had met lots of people who wanted to throw their talent towards us, good camera guy, good sound guy, better everything. After shooting, we entered post production with excited high hopes. We really got everything we wanted during production. This thing was going to cut together nicely and we knew it. It was during post production where our lives took a very dark turn.

First of all, I am a non-confrontational person. My goal in life is to have no enemies and to love everybody. In fact, I have never had an enemy, ever! The few serious arguments I have had with people I have managed to work it all out, kissing and making up. I am no saint, but I try really hard to get along with everyone I meet. During post on Leftovers, Robin and I really started butting heads with co-producers. In fact it got really ugly… so ugly that law suits ensued, hard-drives were held. Post production stopped completely leaving the entire film in limbo. If you are a non-confrontational person or are around one, and are having a confrontation with someone, you know the desperate and disastrous feeling that gives you. Realizing that someone hates you and you can do nothing about it. It's awful and not fun. Zero fun sir.

A light pierced the darkness and started approaching us. A few months later, all parties came to an agreement and we started posting Leftovers. Things were great again, we were kings of our future. We finally finished the film and considered it a wondrous success. We were elated! Our eyes were set on finally getting distribution! That word shoved it's way into my mind like a mob on black friday. We were bound and determined.