Ever miss a turn when you are driving\u2026 and your GPS says it\u2019s recalculating your route? I feel like that a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve got this problem: I\u2019m stretched awfully thin and I need help to get all my work done. But I don\u2019t make enough money to afford to hire someone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019ve tried several ways to get more money in the door. The Dr. Film Pilot\u2026 bust. Selling stuff to TCM (they keep saying no for some reason). MeTV?: NO. Streaming\u2026 bust (so far). Selling DVDs (OK but not fantastic). Starting my own TV station\u2026 looked promising but I couldn\u2019t even get Pluto to return my email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The best idea was to start a non-profit and solicit for donations. This is a great idea, but I\u2019m not a finance\/business guy. I don\u2019t even really know where to start. And doing too much of that work takes me away from the stuff that I need to be doing. I need a business-oriented person to keep me working on the restoration projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have had one hell of a time trying to find someone to help me do this. I\u2019ve been through almost 10 people so far, even some pretty heavy hitters. A couple just bailed on me and didn\u2019t explain why. One got another job and ghosted me for months. One said I was crazy to do this work at all and hung up on me. Another told me that he\u2019d need a contract for $50,000 for two years before he would even start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019d LOVE to make $50,000 for two years. My accountant would love it even more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had thought I was doomed to just be that guy who did a movie or two a year for life. And then came King of the Kongo<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Screenwriter Richard Maibaum was writing the screenplay for Goldfinger<\/em> when he got to a point in the book in which Goldfinger\u2019s men would load the gold into trucks and steal it from Fort Knox. It wasn\u2019t described very clearly in the book, so Maibaum did some quick calculations and realized that it was impossible to load that much gold into any feasible number of trucks. The logistics were just not workable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the same token, I needed to restore 21 reels of King of the Kongo<\/em>, which were taking me on average a month per reel, mostly computer run time. And I had to go through about 70 reels. That doesn\u2019t count the sound, which we hadn\u2019t even started. The logistics were just not workable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A quick calculation told me that it would be up to 10 years before I could finish the project. In desperation, I turned to some friends. I got a grant to pay them a little (not much) and to buy them some computers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I had such success recruiting victims, er, assistants, that I assumed that they\u2019d stay on for the long haul, even if I couldn\u2019t give them all steady work, at least part time. If you saw the Kickstarter video for Kongo<\/em>, you saw me announce the grand plan to get things going and use the money to move forward. And they finished Kongo<\/em>, but one guy buys houses and flips them, and he\u2019s busy. Another is on the road photographing a roller derby team. I had a guy who was set to help me set up a new streaming site, and his heart exploded last year. Amazingly, he\u2019s alive and OK now, but whew. And\u2026 and\u2026 and\u2026 you get the idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m not known for my optimism, but in this case I was overly optimistic. I worked with another assistant to get the non-profit started, and she filed the paperwork, but then nothing. Then she got another job. And got married, and didn\u2019t answer my emails or phone calls for months, and didn\u2019t get me an email I could use\u2026 and let\u2019s not even go into how bad that was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile I\u2019d started working on Little Mickey Grogan<\/em>. If you\u2019ve followed this, you\u2019ll know that Little Mickey<\/em> presented some new problems with restoration and I worked steadily on it for months, even with another assistant. It ultimately looks quite excellent, but it took forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I didn\u2019t have the time to sit and untangle the mess of bubblegum and knotted yarn that had become my 501(c)(3). Logistically, I don\u2019t have the money to buy more pieces of restoration software.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The computers that we got that were so spiffy in 2020 are now kinda long in the tooth in 2026. And that\u2019s more money. Add that to the guys who have other work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I came to the point where I began to think that maybe I had been way too optimistic, that I\u2019d overshot my capabilities, and that I really would retreat and be that guy who sat in the corner and did one or two movies a year. I was pretty down on the whole experience. I\u2019d expected that Little Mickey<\/em> would be a breeze and it turned out to be anything but that, and I was kinda burnt out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the end of Kongo<\/em>, I had engaged a guy to help me navigate through the maze of management. That was another issue. The people who are good at film restoration tend to be just on the edge of unmanageable, and I used to work in a place where the management was, well, awful. They\u2019d had one consultant who was quite good, and they didn\u2019t listen to him, but I did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I\u2019d been talking to him. You see, I have some other problems. I\u2019m kinda shy and I don\u2019t have a lot of charisma. I would need to learn to be an effective manager who isn\u2019t a jackass, a challenge these days. I\u2019d noticed that most successful non-profits have a real charismatic go-getter at their helm. That just isn\u2019t me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But he\u2019s had some really excellent advice: he told me that people don\u2019t follow managers who are charismatic, but they follow people with a dream, one they can participate in, and that makes things fall into place. Apparently, I\u2019d sold the dream of PLEASE GOD, LET\u2019S FINISH KONGO, and I got some help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, I didn\u2019t sell the dream of \u201cLet\u2019s continue to save abandoned films that no one else will release. Films that are important but being ignored.\u201d And that led me to be ineffective going into the non-profit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eric\u2019s fundamental law is as follows: \u201cWhatever you expect, that\u2019s not it.\u201d This isn\u2019t negative, and it isn\u2019t positive, either. It simply reiterates that the universe is unpredictable and works in ways that even the best planners can\u2019t foresee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have a friend who just retired and saw just how flustered I was with the non-profit process. He took the mess from me and got the process restarted again. I can\u2019t even tell you the relief that is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another guy wrote me, remembered the name of the non-profit we hadn\u2019t even finished activating, and said, \u201cHow do I donate to this?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Several others have come to me and said, \u201cI have XYXY film that I\u2019d like you to work on and release.\u201d Those have stacked up. Some are important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There seems to be some idea that the market for MeTV has opened a little, even if not much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I hate to name-drop, but in this case it\u2019s necessary. Diane Baker spoke to me at the Chiller Theatre show and asked me why I wasn\u2019t presenting at the TCM Fest. I told her that I\u2019m not important enough. Baker disagreed (I told her the story behind The Haunted\/The Ghost of Sierra de Cobre<\/em>.) I’ve been working with Sara Karloff for some time and she agrees with Diane. I don\u2019t know that it will lead anywhere, but I hope it does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So maybe I was being pessimistic about being too optimistic. I have a lot of stuff on my plate at the moment, but most of it is good. As my friend Kevin Friedly says, \u201cI sure am popular for someone so poor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the wise Buddhist once said, \u201cWe\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ever miss a turn when you are driving\u2026 and your GPS says it\u2019s recalculating your route? I feel like that a lot. I\u2019ve got this problem: I\u2019m stretched awfully thin and I need help to get all my work done. But I don\u2019t make enough money to afford to hire someone. We\u2019ve tried several ways … Continue reading “Recalculating…”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"powered_cache_disable_cache":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[207],"tags":[251,25,250],"class_list":["post-2456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","tag-business","tag-dr-film","tag-projects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2456"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2461,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2456\/revisions\/2461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}