Dealing with idiot agents

Modern Day Myth Prod. LLC said:
You mentioned B-List actors. So, I gave examples in kind.

Julie will get B movie distributors attached.

Obviously if you want bigger distributors attached you need bigger stars.

You have to crawl before you walk. An unknown producer cannot start off from the top. They have to work their way up.

In the words of a studio exec, "What have you done before?"

Do not believe for one second the agents and managers of the talent won't run the unknown producer's name through IMDB! because they will.

When nothing turns up, they will be very suspicious and want to see money up front.
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If the only names in your movie are in the caliber of Julie Strain, they will not get you distribution, these former B-listers, now C- or D-listers are pretty much worthless if you want distribution.

B-listers to me and everyone else in the business are names like Van Damme, Steven Seagal, Cuba Gooding Jr., Christian Slater, Val Kilmer and names of that caliber.
Most of them are basically former A-listers who are nowadays mostly "has been" and do any movie if they get their salary. If you have two or more of these names in your movie you are guaranteed distribution, names lower than that are almost worthless.

It's also important to remember that just because you get distribution, it doesn't mean you are necessarily anywhere close to being profitable.
Buyers around the world need bigger names than before, and at the same time they are paying less.

So you might be able to sell your movie filled with lower B-list and C-list names to a few distributors, but they are probably paying you a few grand each, so unless you are able to make your movie for really cheap, you're going to lose money.

My advise to a producer who has no experience to speak of, is for him or her is to position them correctly.

An absolute unknown producer can get an experienced writer to write a script for very little money upfront, they also can attach lower level recognisable names to their project, they can also do a detailed budget, sales projections and with all these elements in place they can do a pitch packet which they can use to sell themselves and their project to a bigger and more experienced producer.

But at the end of the day money is what matters, I have seen these B-list names like Slater and Kilmer work with first time directors and small time producers, all they care about is money.
 
There are people here who were surprised to see Robert Vaughn work in the $70,000 production called Witch Academy.

He must have done it with a SAG ULB Agreement. But, he did.

There are deals that can be made when you keep in mind actors want to work. And, some love the art so much that money is not their main concern.
 
If you want to approach actors without their reps, go to Chiller Theater and Comic Con Conventions.

Last time I went a few years ago I was able to meet and talk with Marc Singer, David Carradine, Tracy Lords,.Linda Blair, Katheryn Lee Scott, Margot Kidder, and the guy who played Spawn im the live action movie.

In another one I met and talked with Richard Anderson and Lou Forigno. Lou does have a hard time understanding things at times. But, he a real gentle and great guy.
 
WalterB said:
No.
Her appearance is proof that she shows up when paid enough.
The question is: did the movie get good distribution and sell well?
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It got good distribution because she also was in the animated Heavy Metal movie with both voice and image.

The producer I knew was still trying to break even when he had to run for the hills for both legal and tax problems. I have not heard from him in year.
 
Modern Day Myth Prod. LLC said:
There are people here who were surprised to see Robert Vaughn work in the $70,000 production called Witch Academy.

He must have done it with a SAG ULB Agreement. But, he did.

There are deals that can be made when you keep in mind actors want to work. And, some love the art so much that money is not their main concern.
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I might be wrong on this but I don't think SAG had their Ultra Low Budget agreement available back when that movie was produced.

I don't know what the real budget was on Witch Academy, but I would say that back then Robert Vaughn got paid a lot more than $100 a day, probably between scale and triple scale, or even up to $5,000 a day, but that was years and years ago, you can't really compare that to now, the business has changed dramatically.

It's common for actors agents and managers talk in terms of scale, and what they mean by that is "regular scale" which is something over $800 a day, even though the movie might be produced under an ultra low budget agreement, name actors will want regular scale, or double scale and so forth.

Like I said you can hire name actors very easily, for not a lot of money either, but these names will not get you distribution. I would say 90% of all "name actors" are absolutely worthless, they don't get you distribution.

Of course if you are a first time producer and a first time director and you are financing your movie out of pocket, having "names" in your movie like say Lorenzo Lamas, Corey Feldman, Steve Guttenberg etc. is better than having no names at all, but these guys are almost worthless, not talking about their acting or any of that, just what their names are worth as far as distribution goes.
You can maybe sell a movie with those names to a buyer or two, but the money you are going to see will most likely not be nearly enough to earn you profit, or even enough money to cover yur budget or pay you a decent salary.

Of course you should always work up in this business, but it's important to be very careful on what you spend money on, especially if it's your own cash.
 
Modern Day Myth Prod. LLC said:
It got good distribution because she also was in the animated Heavy Metal movie with both voice and image.

The producer I knew was still trying to break even when he had to run for the hills for both legal and tax problems. I have not heard from him in year.
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She has not worked since 2009, so whatever distribution her name got happened years ago, the business can change dramatically in a matter of months. So whatever someone was worth a year ago, two years ago or ten years ago can be either considerably less or considerably more now.
The old B-listers are worthless, but then again there are a bunch of actors who nobody knew about 5 years ago who are huge now.

And just because someone appeared in a huge movie doesn't mean that their star power goes up.

A few examples, look at Eric Roberts, he's the quintessential C-list actor who does anything.
He had a pretty sizeable role in The Dark Knight, one of the biggest movies of all time.
It did absolutely nothing to his career, after that he had even a bigger role in The Expendables, WW BO Gross $270M, it did nothing to his career.
He is still appearing in some D-list bottom of the barrell stuff just like he was before those movies.
I'm not saying that it's a bad thing to act in small movies, bu the point is, just because he appeared in some major motion pictures, it doesn't matter the least when it comes down to his name's worth, which by the way is not a whole lot.
He's a working actor and he's probably glad he continues to get work.
 
Is Summer Glau still bankable for a cable tv science fiction series?


She is someone I'm considering for my series. I'm thinking Jessica Alba may be too expensive right now.

I may as well consider Laura Vandervoot as well.
 
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Modern Day Myth Prod. LLC said:
Is Summer Glau still bankable for a cable tv science fiction series?


She is someone I'm considering for my series. I'm thinking Jessica Alba may be too expensive right now.

I may as well consider Laura Vandervoot as well.
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Television is a whole different ballgame, one that I don't have much experience at.

Many actors do exceptionally well in TV, Most of them worthless in movies, but on TV they can rake in big bucks.

Summer Glau seems to do mostly TV, I haven't seen any of the shows she's on (don't watch much TV) so can't say whether she's been the lead character in any of them, can't say if she's a huge deal in TV either.
Only the network executives can answer that.

But looking at her credits, all she does is network or larger cable channel shows. It will be really hard if not impossible to get her to appear in a pilot/tv-show that is not ordered by a major network or run by an experienced showrunner.

Jessica Alba is an A-list movie actress, she doesn't do much tv at all anymore, getting her for an independent movie would be hard, let alone a tv-pilot.

Laura Vandervoort, she seems to be doing more movies lately, a lot of studio pictures.
I would say it would be nearly impossile to get her for an independent sci-fi pilot, unless your name is George Lucas.
 
Modern Day Myth Prod. LLC said:
Okay, maybe people in my cast work with them? If so, we can give them a shot.
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I'm no TV expert, so take whatever I say with a grain of salt.

In my opinion if you are making a pilot that you are trying to shop around to the networks, the most important thing you need is exceptional wiriting and great production value. Those are the main reasons a network would be interested in a pilot made by someone they haven't heard before.

Even if you can get a star to appear in your pilot the network would probably cast someone completely different for the role if they pick your pilot.

Having a name actor in your pilot might give you some extra attention, but the network executives aren't going to be impressed, because if an independent producer can hire the actor for a pilot, so could a network, so by having that particular actor in your pilot won't really give you any extra leverage with them.

Unless of course you can get some major movie star who never does tv to star in your pilot, that would be much different.
 
Mike, I say this with the greatest respect but you need to stop focusing on pipe-dreams like getting Jessica Alba to star in your show, and focus on making sure that the production standard looks professional. If you cannot do that then nothing else is going to fall into place for you.

And this applies more widely to the thread. You need to be able to show that you can make a film that looks like a cinematic release in order to get any actor interested in joining your cast. You can't cut corners and do it the other way round.
 
Using examples from decades ago doesn’t really address today's
market. I know Julie, I’ve made four films with her. Today, in
2012 her name on a movie will not attract distributors. Sure, in
1995-1999 her name would guarantee a small company like Vista
Street could sell some copies in the Asian market, but not today.

There is no argument that for the right price a C or D list actor
will agree to work for just about anyone in just about anything.
But that still doesn’t begin to address Keith’s (applebyfilms) issue
of getting name talent on board in order to raise money.

E.D. has it right, he clearly knows his stuff.
 
EuropeanDistributor said:
I'm no TV expert, so take whatever I say with a grain of salt.

In my opinion if you are making a pilot that you are trying to shop around to the networks, the most important thing you need is exceptional wiriting and great production value. Those are the main reasons a network would be interested in a pilot made by someone they haven't heard before.

Even if you can get a star to appear in your pilot the network would probably cast someone completely different for the role if they pick your pilot.

Having a name actor in your pilot might give you some extra attention, but the network executives aren't going to be impressed, because if an independent producer can hire the actor for a pilot, so could a network, so by having that particular actor in your pilot won't really give you any extra leverage with them.

Unless of course you can get some major movie star who never does tv to star in your pilot, that would be much different.
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Well, I do have experience shopping to networks, which is why I'm avoiding all of the networks big enough to afford their own studios. I'm going to the small potatoes that buy content from independent producers.

The list is small, but we will concentrate only on them and web tv.

I've mentioned shows more in our range like Roger Coreman's Black Scorpion and Wonder Woman being campy and looking low budget and finding networks

The entertainment value carried them.
 
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Well TV actors in my cast are saying we should concentrate on story and entertainment value for the small cable TV networks. Content that is not dumb-down and replaced with fancy effects is hard to come by these days. Halon Ellison himself has been complaining the networks prefer eye candy to story. The music composer of my 22 minute version thinks we should dumb-down the story. However, myself and the cast want to leave it as is.

I also personally know a producer who sells to cable TV networks. The word is to send out to ShowTime and HBO every quarter. They buy filler content from independent filmmakers.

That is more important than names and a studio budget look for the small networks without their own studios. The small networks rely on content from independent filmmakers.
 
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