Launch of Comic on Tapastic! Exclusive Movie Content for Subscribers

Something our team has learned (as far as making a movie), is that it is also important to build upon our existing fandom through indie #webcomic outlets such as Tapastic! If you haven't checked out the website yet, please do. Not only does it have our fresh take on the zombie sub-genre, but there are literally thousands of other indie comics that LOOK professionally made!

Don't take my word for it, check out more here:

http://tapastic.com/episode/172942
 

My Learns While In The Middle of Film Finance

In Film, The Challenge Is To Negotiate

I’ve done film challenges before, with their pressure-cooker deadlines and getting know and then love/hate all the team-members you’re stuck with as you spend almost 48-hours straight with them. And as grueling and stressful as this can sometimes be, it is all done for the love of creating a story through film. But not many film-makers can love, or even appreciate the art, of making a successful negotiation.

I’ve found in the last month, from taking my Negotiation and Deal-Making class online, that the love for the craft and the passion behind making a deal go hand-in-hand….If you want to be a successful indie film-maker. The biggest take-away I go from this class is that even if I don’t like a person that I’m about to work with, I can at least find a way to work with their passions. It is said in that it is important to “separate the people from the problem” in any negotiation.

This tactic was mentioned in Getting to Yes, a very smart, negotiation tactic book. This ideal very recently helped me out when I met a potential financier in NYC. He was smart and Harvard educated. But looking behind the title and seeing this man for what he’s really worth (or why he was there meeting me that day) I knew that we could make a deal. He was there to make money and gain experience producing a film and I wanted to get a responsible hedge-fund manager that knew how to “talk money” to investors.

What I loved the most about my real-life negotiation this month is that I got the instinctual feeling that both this financier and myself can learn a lot from each other and ultimately make each-other more successful. Although it seems everyone wants to be a director in this business (ask the film students I went to school with), I’‘m finally getting the handle of what it is to be a savvy negotiator in this business.

And although I’m not filming this spring, which I outlined in my learning timeline, I’m much happier with where I’m at now as part of being a good negotiator is not rushing anything!

Know Your Audience! -How Blumhouse Does It...

What does J Lo have in common with the horror movie industry? Well, a lot whether you readily know about it or not. You've heard me mention before how A-List actors and celebrities are no longer shying away from horror movie projects? But why do we see actors like J Lo, more and more, grace the silver screen under a well-known horror movie label? Well, Latino audiences are apparently the 'silver lining' to a sometimes dwindling box office. This fact made news in Variety a couple of weeks ago as the article explains how latinos tend to line-up for a good scare when looking for a movie.

The movie Boy Next Door that features Jennifer Lopez along-side a hot and young male lead may just be the formula to success when ticket sales are low. At least this is how Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions looks at things. Earlier last year in 2014, Jason is getting accolades for his indie-produced flick Whiplash which demonstrates the breadth of expression that Blum plays with as far as his taste in movies. In short, he takes calculated gambles with what projects he chooses to associate his brand with.

For nearly 8 years now, Blumhouse Productions made their name (and money) for advertising themselves as "that horror movie company" that makes, well, creepy movies. But what incentives can you enjoy when you become successful in the box office? Well, if you choose your projects carefully like Jason Blum, you get to continue on, branching out from the horror genre, and sign major deals with Universal Studios, etc. to make whatever kind of movie you want! This is just another reason why a chose to make horror movies first and then branch-out into other genres. And, as always, it will work because I won't have any qualms about choosing the best stories to be adapting to the big screen.

Novelist JK Rowling Speaks About The "Benefits of Failure"

While perusing the best of Ted Talks, I found one of the most-inspiring writers of all time, J.K. Rowling, has a optimism and a fresh take on how failure helped pave the path to where she got to award-winning novelist today. She mentions in her blog, "There's an expiry date on what you can blame your parents for around your own failures in life." Poverty is only romanced by fools, she goes on to describe as the harsh conditions around her upbringing was not the focal point of her speech...

As she speaks at a commencement speech at Harvard, she acknowledges how many of the students she's speaking to are not too "well-acquainted" with failure. -She shares her own personal experienced poverty growing up, a short-lived and imploding marriage and then the coffee shop she escaped to to write. Failure helped Rowling feel "set-free" as she was truly aware of who she was without any delusion and get down to the bare-bones at what her passion is in life.

"Failure helps you realize your strengths to survive," she goes on to speak. Personally a very recently, I found myself standing at a precipice of what I thought was a fulfilling life: a steady job with a paycheck, benefits and friends.... Or who I thought were my friends at the time. I was afraid if I jumped off from this rock of a what I considered a very stable existence that I would fall, get injured and never recover. I thought my day job was everything to me. In truth, I think I was brain-washed to believe that it was the best part of my life. I let myself get brainwashed.

After being un-employed (just doing odd jobs) for 8 months, I came to realize the things most important to me... My husband and our growth as individuals and a couple, our 7 zany but wonderful pets and my passion to tell good stories. If I was asked to strip away all the layers around who I am and introduce myself I would say, "I am Stephanie and I am a writer who loves to tell enigmatic stories." And like J.K. Rowling, I hope my stories will be as inspiring as the giving and helpful life I've lived.

"We make a life by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." - Winston Churchill