August 21st, 2001/November 19th, 2001

To put the budget in perspective, film cost $3900, development and transfer of the film to BetaSP cost $6900, the D.P. and his hotel cost a total of $2700. So between those three things is $13,500 of the total $20,500...

August 21st, 2001

    Rick came over and we watched the movie, noted any final sound problems we had. Once scene was totally out of sync, so I have to fix that. Then, I’ll be sending it out to distributors(I sent a copy with the fucked-up sync to the Copyright Office to establish my copyright).

    All in all, I’m pleased with the movie. It’s got some moments where I literally cringe because I don’t like the scene, but there’s a lot of great moments too.

    What it all boils down to is that it’s better than I ever expected it to be. I’ll put it up against any other under $25,000 flick, especially by a first-time director. The final budget, total cost to make Hunting Humans, was $20,500.

November 19, 2001

    A lot has happened. I’ve fixed everything that had problems. I started mailing out tapes to distributors(nine have gone out) and already there’s good news.

    One of the ones I sent the tape to first, Spectrum Films, called my voice mail number that I gave them and said they’d like “to discuss a possible distribution deal”. This was on Thursday the 15th.

    I figured I’d call them on Monday, which would give me some time to talk to some people and see if I could get my mind wrapped around what I’d say.

    Instead, Friday came around and they dropped me an email which said the following:

“Kevin:
Yvette gave you a call yesterday.  Perhaps you're busy or you found a distributor, but I just wanted you to know that your movie was so "different" it had to make the rounds.  I saw it first and that started the rounds.  Unanimously, it is a good film and we would like to distribute it.

Please let us know either way.”

    It was signed by one of their acquisition guys. All of a sudden it’s not “We want to talk”, it was “We want to distribute”.

    Understand, from all I’d read, it sounded like finding a distributor for an independent movie with no known stars was a little like looking for your contact lens in an in-ground pool.

    And here we are, three weeks after sending out tapes, a distributor has already offered to distribute it.

    I keep my wits about me. First, never celebrate until someone’s signed on the dotted line. Second, I don’t know much about Spectrum. Their web site shows they’ve distributed other small movies, some with small stars and some with no stars. But do they pay well? Do they get behind your movie and try to get it out there?

    And there’s another part of me—the same part that was saying “When are the distributors going to call?”—that’s now saying “Why’d they have to call so soon? None of the other distributors have even had a chance to see it yet?”

    See, no mattter what happens, I’ve always got reason to complain.