Investment, costume video, crowdfunding… the ways of production in the 21st century.

A lot is happening these days, we’re preparing to shoot Jac’s scenes for Dead But Dreaming. We are setting the theatrical release date of that Vampire epic, City Hall is considering sponsoring the event during the city’s celebration of its revolution. Dead But Dreaming takes place during the gestation of that revolution in 1805.

But that’s not all. A new review and an interview with Amy appeared at the online site Obscure DVD and Videos Blog. This time they reviewed Le Marquis de la Croix. They previously reviewed Maleficarum.

The comparisons are amazing:

Jac Avila is again excellent as The Marquis. he knows how to put his all into the part and he reminds me of the late great Klaus Kinski. Mila is gorgeous and makes a very sexy and helpless woman who has chosen a bad fate for herself, and then there is Amy Hesketh who as I mentioned, has a surprise at the end of the movie.

And of course:

If you like exploitation much like the Franco films of the 70’s, then this is a film I would highly recommend you see. it came out on my favorite day of the year which is Halloween which was perfect timing Amy, thank you. See this movie….it is very well made and Amy shows a lot of promise as her star keeps rising.

But the high point of the month is the interview with Amy that appeared in Fangoria, the great horror film magazine.

INTERVIEW: AMY HESKETH
Next time you go someplace like Bolivia, you may run into one brave actress/filmmaker.

To Amy and us this is a huge deal. I remember when Jac took me to a famous comic book store in New York, in the corner of Broadway and 12th Street: The Forbidden Planet, Jac’s favorite store where he could look for Conan the Barbarian, Gor novels, Pichard’s graphic books and Fangoria.

The year was 1989, during my first visit to the Big Apple. He mentioned then that he would love to be on that magazine some day. Well, he’s mention in the magazine now because the interview is about Amy’s directorial efforts and her role in Maleficarum, thus the “brave” comment about her. They are going to be reviewing the films too. Amazing, indeed.

So, if you happen to come across a comic book store somewhere in the US, get a copy and read the interview. We won’t be getting our copies until much, much later, when they happen to arrive here. It’s a historical issue, of course, a collectible. It marks the time when we broke into the larger mainstream world of the horror genre.

Well, a discussion seems to be brewing on the particular topic of investing vs crowdfunding. And why should be this of any interest to the larger world of Gimp? Well, I can sum it up with an anecdote related to me by none other than Jac himself.

There was a time that he wanted to see some good Gimp. It was not easy to find, not where he was growing up, even if then comics supplied a lot of what he was looking for. Comics like Jungle Girl, Tarzan, once in a great while, and others. He would check the movies, of course. There were some Italian Roman Empire movies, some Christian epics, once in a great while, etc.

At one time there was an Italian film. Jac saw the trailer, at the movies, and for a split second it showed a woman tied to an X cross being whipped. He had to see that movie. He was 15 or so. He didn’t have the money to see it that day. Some days before he learned a trick. It was simple, he learned how to revive a fly.

He called his father and asked. Would you give me 5 pesos if I resurrect a fly? His father responded I’ll give you 20 pesos if you revive a fly. So, Jac trapped a fly, drowned it and laid it on a dish. “Is the fly dead? he asked. His father saw the fly and yes, it was dead. “Light a cigarette“ Jac requested, respectfully of course. His father took out a Derby and lit a match. When the cigarette burned a bit and Jac had enough ashes, the future GIMP filmmaker began to cover the fly with the warm ashes. After a few seconds, perhaps a minute or so, the fly began to shake its wings and a bit later got up and flew away. Jac had his 20 pesos and could go and see that woman tied to an X cross, suffering the whip, and he had some extra money to take his girlfriend and for some candy.. and some leftover

The moral of the story is: Jac was willing to do anything to get the money to see what he wanted to see.

So, when JJ and Camille were working on what you now know as The Via Crucis of Camille, Jac had an epiphany. He commented it to Camille. “Do you know that people would pay good money to see these tapes?” She said. “really?” … Jac’s answer. Yes, if we made one movie like this, we could sell it well. Camille: Why not? … Jac: Really? would you be willing to do it? Camille: Of course. They made Red Feline on the Cross with the purpose of selling it.

People bought it, lots of people. Many people commented that they were very happy that finally something was made that was exactly what they were looking for all their lives. He knew he found an audience. Jac was looking for something like that all his life, just like his new found fans, until he decided to do it himself.

The question is What are you willing to do to get what you want?

At the beginning of Red Feline, we put the price of the tapes at 49.99. There was an average of sales. Someone wrote to me: Don’t sell it so cheap, there’s nothing like it anywhere. So we raised the price to 70 dollars per tape, plus shipping. The average sales didn’t go down. People were willing to pay that much to see that movie. It is, even to this day, still the movie that sold the most. Maleficarum is closing in but Red Feline on the Cross still adds to its numbers and proudly holds the Best Seller title.

Times have changed since then, still, what is our work worth?

With more production values, higher production costs, our work is looking better and better, if I say so myself. But it’s not me who has that opinion, that’s the message I’m getting. So the question is how to finance our movies to make them look better and better and that’s where this discussion is going.

Lynn Thank you for the excellent explanation concerning investing vs crowdfunding. Now, while 25 – 50 bucks obviously can not be treated as an investment;

Amy said that a contribution of 25 to 50 bucks brings some perks, one of them is the actual movie, so we would be pre-selling the movie to all those contributors. It’s not something new. Back in the old days of Red Feline, particularly with the Inquisition and Seven Days on the Cross series, Jac did some pre-selling during post-production. For a lower price people could buy the movie a couple of months in advance. That was good for some time but after having a few titles on our catalogue, that was not necessary. The catalogue kept us afloat and with enough resources to shoot more titles, like Crux Bride and there was enough money to buy new equipment and make two feature films. Martyr and Nocturnia.

Movies like Agent X, Perils of Jane in the Green Inferno, and other Amy movies were bringing in enough cash so we could make a movie like Sirwiñakuy and plan to make Barbazul. But something amazing happened during those times, and you’re all aware of it. Ralphus offered Amy to put some hard money in a movie if that movie had a roasting scene. He was willing to pay for that single scene. At the same time Jac was planning to shoot an inquisition movie after Barbazul. So there was a perfect match. A roasting scene in an Inquisition movie. And so it was.

So, a custom made scene made an entire film possible. And why is that? There was the plan to make an inquisition movie, but the input of cash helped Jac to make up his mind and proceed with the production of Maleficarum. It was necessary to invest a lot more, of course, but just the fact that part of the movie had financing made things easier and it was inspiring. During that time Sirwiñakuy was playing at the Cinemateca for months, so there was some cash flow that paid some of the production in Barbazul, so most of the resources we had were put into Maleficarum and Le Marquis De La Croix

Lynn: you also state that even 10,000.oo could not be enough to justify the legal expenses of creating a “Limited Partnership”. I would however suggest there is a third way too, I’d call it “unofficial investing”. In fact, you allude to that with the statement “we do have the intention that when all is said and done and we see an overflowing amount of cash coming our way, we would, in fact, start sending some cash back to the individuals who helped make the scene … and movie, possible.”

Ralphus input was not an investment. “It was a custom video“, as it is called now. An individual wants to see something specific, with a set criteria, and this individual is willing to pay for it all.

It happened again with Dead But Dreaming. D Santorum had a very specific scene in mind, a public flogging, and he was willing to cover the cost of such scene. In both cases the cash involved was less than 10,000. So, what if someone wanted to put in 10,000 or more?. What then? How would we treat such input?

A limited partnership works roughly this way. The production company works out a budget, let’s say 1 million dollars, and decides to form a limited partnership for some of that money. (We don’t even dream of such budgets, I’m sure that if we ever got that kind of money we would make 100 movies, maybe more.)

So the production company puts half of that budget into assets. So, half a million dollars is the value of the limited partnership, half of which belongs to the production company, the other half will belong to the partners. The half a million is broken into shares of an X value, it could be 25,000 a share. It will depend where the partnership is formed. In New York, for instance, there was a limit, if I remember correctly, of 25 partners. That would be 20,000 a share, which would give the share holder a percentage of the movie. The movie would have to recover the full million before beginning to show a profit which would give each share holder some cash back. You get the point.

In our case we value our work, time, effort as cash investment. We set the value of our work, either as actors, directors, producers, etc, as an investment which is translated into points, which become cash, when cash comes in. Each investor receives a percentage of the profits. Camille, for instance, still gets her percentage of what we sell now. The actual cash investment in Red Feline on the Cross was less than 1,000 dollars. So Jac’s and Camille’s work was the value of that movie. They still get their percentage. Camille was able to go to university in France without any worries because she had that cash coming weekly. But even this set up is a bit complicated. Agreements had to be made and percentages had to be set and kept.

Lynn: Then you say, “But it’s different to share the blessings out of the goodness of our hearts than to have it down on paper…” Yes, it is of course different from the legal and enforceability standpoint; but once a upon a time many deals were simply concluded with a handshake and a belief in the honesty (and reputation of) of the other party.

If someone will come and say I’d like to invest 10,000 in a movie. Not a custom request, no strings attached. Just an investment because we make good movies and the investor might make his money back, but without complications, with a handshake. That’s possible but are there people around willing to put out a lot of cash without any kind of written agreement?

Lynn: Now, realistically, you will get quite a few 25-50, even 100 dollar donations through crowd-sourcing. But it is unlikely that you will get any 9,000.oo dollar donations that way; that’s a little too much for most people to just gift.

With the crowdfunding campaign we don’t expect, neither ask for a contribution as large as 9,000. The highest is 2,500. And the perks are high too. But what we do expect is to have a good number of supporters willing to put 25-50 into a movie.

Lynn: But, from what I see here, there is a lot of respect for you people: Amy, Jac, Margot, Mila… “out here”. And I think that there would be people among us who could (unfortunately I’m not one of those who can, however) provide several thousand dollars and be willing to do it on the basis of your “handshake”. I do realize that these kinds of repayments (since there is no legal contract – based on what?) may have some tax implications, but again, that is something to be worked on.

There are people willing to put several thousand dollars, their normal requirement is to have a scene that they would like to see and to their specifications. Which is a good deal for us. Of course we do have to pay taxes for those contributions, they go in as cash to our accounts and we have to report it as income and the person putting the money can also deduct it as an expense because it is paid to a company legally formed in the US.

So far, we have two films that were made with contributions for a specific scene, Maleficarum and Dead But Dreaming. We have a few films made with funds that came from pre sales, the Inquisition series and Seven Days on the Cross series. The rest were financed totally with our resources, that includes features like Martyr, Barbazul, Sirwiñakuy, Le Marquis de la Croix, Nocturnia and all of the Red Feline movies like Agent X, Fantom, Romana Crucifixa Est, etc.

Lynn: I would suggest one other thought (and I will admit, there may be compelling reasons for you NOT to do this) and that is, a more open discussion, actually a “price list”, for contributions to your movie production.

A price list is difficult to have, other than our Crowdfunding campaign. If people want a specific scene. or even specific movie, we would have to budget it according to their specifications. If the movie is outdoors, or indoors, if it requires expensive props, or large number of extras, costumes, etc, etc. A custom film, custom scene, will have to be budgeted. So, no list.

Lynn: So, what does one have to invest to get a “specially requested scene” – and how long a scene (minutes) does one get for X dollars? And what would be the minimum size for a “handshake investment” and at what point is the investment high enough to quote Margot: “But if the investment is high enough, then.. call the attorneys!

If someone is willing to put in a large amount of money, with an specific subject in mind, with a very specific actor in mind, with specific props, etc. We’re willing to work out a deal, of course.

As in the example before, Jac was willing to revive a fly to get the cash to see one scene in a movie, and he was willing to pay for the ticket with the money he got from reviving the fly. He was also willing to work weeks without pay, to build a set himself, to design the sexy garments, to set up the lights, to act, do the photography, edit, compose the music, so he could watch the movie of his dreams with his favorite actress. I’m talking about Red Feline On The Cross, of course. That’s basically the point.

The difference between a regular movie mogul, or investor and a GIMP investor is that the regular mogul wants to recover the cash and make a profit, the Gimp investor, however, wants to see the scene of his dreams, the possible return of his investment is a plus.

What consistently keeps our work going is the people who love to see what we do and are willing to pay 30 bucks for a download. Maleficarum has demonstrated that there are enough people out there who like our work.

We’re also happy to see that there are some few people that would like to see a very specific scene in a movie and are willing to front the money for the cost of such scene.

With our crowdfunding effor we shall see if there are enough people willing to contribute with small or big amounts to one of our movies. The movie will be made, regardless of how much we can raise, we might need to cut corners, it may take a bit longer to produce it, but it will be made. But if we do have enough support to make the movie, then we’ll make it with all we want to put in the movie, with the crowds, with all the costumes, etc, and etc.

As I said before, we invest cash, time, work in all the movies we make and we will continue to do so because we love what we do. That’s the simple truth. However, we need resources to make our movies better and better. We don’t do focus groups for our movies but we do consider what our fans would like to see. We can measure the preferences of those who buy our movies by what they buy the most. What attracts their interests. We don’t have losers. All the movies we invest our time, effort and cash in recover their expense and some make more than others, but none of the films have lost money, so far.

We have many ideas. Jac comes up with scenarios that require a lot of resources, so does Amy. So we always have to choose what to do next. That’s our reality. The rule of thumb for Jac is What would I be willing to do to see this movie?

At the end of the day, what really keeps us going is the day to day sales. One download, one DVD at a time. That’s what makes this ship break the waves. Considering that we are robbed by nasty pirates, a lot, still we can stay afloat because of those who are willing to pay for what we do. (Amy has one word for the pirates: Booooo!)

In short, we love what we do and we do it for those who love what we do. It’s a lot of love right there. So, we welcome contributors to our crowdfunding efforts, we welcome individuals who would love to see a very specific scene or movie, and we would welcome big time investors as well. We’re pretty much open to all possibilities.

Most importantly, we invite you to go to our stores and buy our movies. That’s what makes this ship roll.