A Working Grip and Editor in San Antonio: Where to Go Next

[El Gato Negro Films]

I am a working professional in the independent film scene in San Antonio, Texas, where I work as a Grip, DVD Author and Editor. I am also the owner of El Gato Negro Films. About a year and half ago I was producing my first feature film entitled "The Myth of Man". As part of the publicity I contacted our local Indie Newspaper "The Current" which is a sister newspaper to New York's "Village Voice" who did an article on my efforts. Out of a few hundred thousand readers only one person contacted me and made a minor donation which I used to pay an illustrator for storyboard and a composer to work on a spec score based on the screenplay. Soon after the remaining funds ended and I was at a major stalemate. Months passed by with no progress. So I was left doing the only thing I could afford which was to rewrite my script. I've done everything I could imagine to get funding, including taking some promo still photography, storyboard, an original score track, a PayPal donation link on my official website, made hundreds of calls, got a letter from our Film Commissioner and applied to a few film grants with no avail. So I decided to work on short films first before I start working on my feature.

At the present time I'm in the dreaded limbo period on the development stage once again for a short film titled "The Art of Dreaming" that will be shot on Super 16mm.

So I am seeking an advice or suggestions to get my filmmaking career back on track. Should I try to get a producer? Resubmit to film grants? Is there a professional independent producers network I should contact? Feel free to read my screenplay which you can download on PDF on my official site so you can get a sense of my style. Also here are some stills and storyboards of my first effort "The Myth of Man".
Gracias.

 

[Kim Welch]

Maybe

Maybe

I don't know anything but maybe you might try something different. I heard someone say that, "If nothing changes, nothing changes." Sounds like you might be in that place right now. Why not go work on someone else's film for awhile to make some money and connections? I am sure you can find something to work on that will lead you closer to connections and money. Or just work and make a little money and start shooting bits and pieces of your script as you can to get interest. I know this might not be what you want to hear but maybe your journey needs to take a turn to the right or the left before you hit the home stretch on your own film. If you love making movies I am sure you will find a way.

 

[zerohour]

Well El Gato I say don't give up... when the going got tough for me I didn't give up. When I first started my project, I had a company named Beyond Digital Studios and I had a team of 25 industry artists. Things began to turn for the worst and money started to dry up and my artists started to drop like flies and bailed on me. Then when I was down to my last 5 artists and was behind of my rent "something like over $6,000", I still just said f..k it and put together a grand presentation with what I had compiled up with my last artist. Doomsday was looking me right dead in my face and I kindly smiled... just then and only then I landed an investor that totally turned everything around for me. We changed our name to Dangerous Games and hung up our multimedia hats and traded them in for computer games development and movie production hats.

So never give up on your dream and when you least expect it someone will sweep you up from the clutches of doom. Put together a presentation with your script and storyboards that you already have and sign up on this website The Go Big Network () this is a network with tons of angel investors to VC plus, funding corps that are interested in what you have to offer. So Go Big and happy hunting.