The first question is: How can I complete Tokyo Cowboys by the end of July of this year?
Last night I spent a good deal of time working on the story. It feels like it’s going on forever, but I’m working on transforming my vocabulary. Instead of “going on forever,” it’s “moving right along.” I still haven’t decided who will make the cut and who won’t. What’s very clear is that not everybody can stay in. That would be a 4 hour rambling film that just wouldn’t be accessible to most people. And, one think I’m sure about is that I want to make it accessible. No matter how beautiful and moving Chris Marker’s film is, it is not accessible to a general audience. That having been said, Tokyo Cowboys must maintain it’s poetry. I will not sacrifice that. Well, I wouldn’t say sacrifice because I believe that a general audience would be open to poetry. With all of the shit going on in the world right now, we could use a little poetry.
“American Movie”…now that was an accessable documentary. It just didn’t get seen by a massive audience because of poor marketing and the fact that it was before the big documentary fashion. It started the trend.
Anyway, I’m writing out all of the stories just in case. I feel close to inter-cutting them together, but there’s still the fine tuning. There’s also a bit of funding to raise in the form of grants. There are also £6000 worth of shares still left. Our goal is to finish by July. This is certainly possible, but it would be a whole lot easier with money. Isn’t that always the case? Patrick and I could dedicate more time to it. I wouldn’t be so tired in the evenings. Sometimes I’m so tired from the day job, that I must do some serious motivational hoo hah before I can start to write.
I’m applying for the JUSFC grant again if they let me. I’m applying for the Women in Film grant. It’s only a maximum of $5000, but that would get us grading.
The other question I need to start asking myself is: How can I effectively market Tokyo Cowboys to sales agents and distributors? Are those the right people to be targeting? Perhaps I should back up and think of the real goal. Besides communicating my vision, which is to have as many people as possible watching the film and getting it, what are the other goals? A) (and these are in no particular order…A) get investors their money back, B) Make a big enough profit to entice them again for the next project, C) interest people (influential people) in me as a filmmaker so that I can make more films. Very tall orders, but if we don’t ask the questions, how will we find any answers? Marketing, marketing, marketing. I’m reading the Marketing book nearly every day to get prepared.
Really tired now. Time to sleep.
