Black Coffee

We’ve entered into the blackout days of BLACK COFFEE. Our esteemed director, Mark, goes under contract with the NFL, not to play in the games, but direct/produce the Thursday night games. So, we have to go on hold until after the Super Bowl. This makes raising funds a little tricky. You can take meetings, make contacts, build relationships, but no one’s really going to let you bank a couple mil for eight months. We can only hope that we can have something earmarked.

Casting also becomes a challenge. Not too many actors are going to hold time for a film that may or may not be ready to shoot come March. But, in that time between now and then, I will get a further education. A doctorate in patience and plotting. I do want to make one thing plain, though:

We are going to make this movie.

Yes, I have said that before. Pretty much on an annual basis. Filmmaking is an extremely slow process. Well, making the film only takes a matter of weeks. Raising funds, getting cast, putting all the pieces into place takes months and, more often than not, years. Black Swan took eight years. We are still only in year five.

The past eight months have served the lesson of waiting. Waiting for actors to respond, waiting for investors to respond. All of this slows the process, but without the actors or the investors, we can’t do much. This is simply the dance that is done. All you can do is keep making those polite calls, sending patient emails, try to make new contacts, forge new relationships, and learn new skills.

The process of making this film, raising funds for it, will continue. My goal is to be in formal pre-production on February 3rd. Until then, here’s a little teaser.

This is what producing a film looks like:

There’s nothing worse than a phone that doesn’t ring, except when an “Unknown” or “Private” call comes through, only for it to be a friend that recently decided to hide his/her identity. (Oh, how I wish we could do Private Call Block on cell phones.) The quiet time that shrouds the entertainment industry from Thanksgiving to after the first of the year and/or Sundance is, well, special. You can almost hear a pin drop. Or perhaps it’s the sound of frustrated tears falling.

While we wait, we are doing what we can. Some of which we can’t because we are waiting for answers, call backs, etc. But, all we need is that one call or email to get everything moving as quickly as we’d like. And we believe that will be soon.