Dear XXXX, Ok so some of the Professionals I work with have seen the trailer and we’ve analyzed every angle of it. I’m going to give you my absolute honest and professional opinion and then I’m going to offer a solution and you may or may not like the solution. It depends on how badly you want to get your films “out” or “to Hollywood.” This trailer is truly unfixable. There is nothing my expertise or creativity can do with it. Nobody is going to give this a second look and that is just being honest. I know its hard to hear that but it’s the truth. It was poorly lit, shot and planned out. If you ask Mark, Ennix or any other filmmaker on the East Coast, I keep my word and I always do what I say I’m going to do. In this case it is no different, but there are usually stipulations to those loyalties. I rate my time on different scales. I may do something for free depending on different things. My latest, “passion project” was Ennix Xiong’s Bad Ass Killers. It was a feature. We shot it for $12,000.00 I was paid $2500.00 for the job. I Produced, Shot, Rewrote, and ultimately Edited and Sound Designed it. If you break that down to the amount of pay I made by hour it equals 4 cents a hour. The reason I have stuck in on it, is I get 25% of profits and being that the film will level out at $20,000.00 on cost. We WILL because of the fruits of my labor and the amount of care I have put into it will sell it for at least $50,000.00. Do the math on that. Sure it’s not much but once you sell a feature to anybody, you will get a chance to make another film with somebody else’s money. Every job I do for little to no money has to have some sort of value to me. Your trailer does not and as is will not. Now if you paid me, sure I’d do whatever I could to see this trailer through knowing the outcome would be one big goose egg which is why I won’t allow you to pay me to fix this. But with that said will not fix it for free either. On Union jobs, I’m paid $450.00 to $850.00 a day, depending on how much of my equipment is used. It’s not because I’m expensive. It’s because I’m that good at what I do and that’s what people pay me because they know the result is well worth more than that. I can throw this together and with fancy text and smoke and mirrors but in this business we have a saying, “you can’t polish a turd.” Unfortunately, that’s where we are on this trailer. I’m going to keep my word to you that I’ll help but I want it to be worth all our while and the only way it will be worth my while or yours is if it either is good enough to raise funds to make the feature or it’s good enough to get passed around small production companies that could afford to pay a million to produce it. That means reshooting this thing using production value. So here’s the pitch and it’s as cheap as I can do it for because your basically not paying for my equipment, or experience. You’ll be paying my bills for the month it will take to plan, shoot and edit it. I will reshoot this trailer using my crew, my gear, for $1000.00. If you want Mark as well, add $200.00 to that. Mark will not only help direct the actors, but he’ll add voice over and if we can’t get John Rutland back will play his part. The $1000.00 also includes two more crew men that are paid and I’ll get two PAs that will do it for experience. We’ll shoot it all over two days with lights, sound, DONE RIGHT. I won’t be free of my commitments til June or July so it’s no rush. I will assure you if you speak to Ed and the rest of the cast that you are reshooting and have hired Roadhouse Pictures and Garrick Lane to shoot it, you will have no problems getting them back. I can assure you that. We will do it right and you will have a piece of your art that will really show your talent as a writer. It will get you noticed. Don’t make a decision today. Think about it. This is not a scam. This is the real deal. How much is your script worth to you? How much do you REALLY want to do this for a living? Is it worth $1200.00. If it makes you feel better, I spent $1200.00 on 3 hours of stock footage and used 25 seconds of it and it increased the value of this Documentary by 200%. Let me know what you think. Ask around. My word is 100% and my work ethic is the best in the Southeast. Call Mark if you have any questions. Let us know. We will make a trailer that has contention for a future. What you have now.... Well, without sounding like an asshole, is just a lesson learned. Sincerely, Garrick W. Lane
Creative Director
Creative Director
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