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Trying to raise the moolah for a movie? Forget form-filling, says Leanne Smith, and join the growing band of filmmakers leaping on the pixel-ad bandwagon.
The first rule of Film Club is - never spend your own cash. The second rule of Film Club is - never spend your own cash. So I take my hat off to two enterprising filmmakers, Billy Lawson and Brian Clark, who this week launched Pixels2Movies, a fundraising website they hope to turn into a romantic comedy, The Ladies Man. Encouraged by a knockback from Scottish Screen - their project has 'potential as a successful low-budget comedy' - shorthand for don't annoy us with your crappy script - the bold Billy hooked up with workmate Brian to come up with their own cunning stunt that promises to make producers of us all by selling pixels to punters from as low as ten quid, rising to a hundred for 'Gold Pixel' status. Not a bad idea, even if the idea's ripped off from Alex Tew's million pixel advertising homepage and milliondollarmovieproject, set up by another bunch of hopefuls who plan to make a schlocky horror, Waking Dreams - just as soon as they raise the dough. Great plan guys, I admire your guts, energy, ambition, yadda yadda. Not wishing to point out the turd in the punchbowl, I want to know a few things before buying into The Ladies Man. For starters, you're a couple of guys who've never made a film but you're asking us to part with money to make your film. Well, you're not the first - some of us remember Pasty Faces and most of us would rather forget. You admit you could use some practice, so can't you at least borrow your dad's camcorder and try out a couple of scenes to see if they're kneeslappers? Even better - since you've gone to the bother of putting up the site why not let would-be punters read the script and decide for themselves if it's a surefire hit? I mean, I've never known a producer to part with cash without at least getting their development executive/this week's girlfriend to read the script, no matter what shape it's in. In fact, I've never seen a producer part with cash full stop. Not even for a bar bill. I could be dead wrong. Maybe flattering punters by calling them producers is the way to go, but you shouldn't go offering people input, especially when you might have a few thousand of the buggers to deal with. Take it from me, I know what kind of input a tenner makes any old customer think they're entitled to. Boys, if you really want to make The Ladies Man there's a few things you need apart from the cashola. Stars come pretty high on the list. Or at least somebody who's been in a couple of episodes of River Shitty. In the bearpit of real-world moviemaking the first question you'll be asked is 'who have you got?' like it's it's some kind of affliction. Whether you choose to chance your arm is up to you, but where's the harm in say, putting up a daily ranking of 'most likely' actors - go for broke by announcing you've got Ed Norton/Robert Downey Jnr as Jim, say, or Natalie Portman or Winona Ryder playing Carla. Think of the links - et voila - a million hits. It's the same tactic every two-bit Brit producer uses. Who's doing your soundtrack rates as a close second. Coldplay? Embrace? Shayne Ward? U2? Sky's the limit. Pixels2Movies might look naive in some quarters, but I disagree. At a time when seasoned producers - those two-time shorts filmmakers, the people who can't raise fifty quid for DV stock, the people who can only dream of making a first feature by the usual route - I say good for you Billy and Brian - you've only sold 100 of your 1,000,000 pixels so far but you took your knockback from Scottish Screen on the chin and refused to lie down and die. I'm no script doctor but in this lacklustre era of laugh-free UK comedies The Ladies Man seems as likely as say, Ben Elton's Maybe Baby. And possibly more entertaining. So let's take inspiration from Billy and Brian. Okay, they may not know the first thing about actually making a movie but when did that stop anyone? If they raise the cash, it only reinforces the fact that we all love to be in on something. The Ladies Man, centred on a big dick premise and a hoover gag, stands (ahem) a better chance than ours of winning the Lottery, Me, I'd love it to be a multi-million gross-out. And just like the floater in the punchbowl, no doubt the ghost of Scottish Screen will rise to applaud it, too late to cash in but ready as ever to claim the credit.
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