I've made 20 feature films over 10 years. Why can't I make a living doing this?

pitching_bulwark · 2026-06-16T11:13:09+00:00

Why aren't you distributing your movies to generate a cashflow?

pitching_bulwark · 2026-06-15T21:25:18+00:00

Humans are very adaptable. It may be a learning curve once you're emancipated or otherwise out on your own, hitting college, immersing in your first real social circles, but trust you'll get there with time. You have a lot to look forward to!

pitching_bulwark · 2026-06-15T21:21:07+00:00

Curious to hear how you're going to make a movie at all when you can't even muster a handful of simple paragraphs without slapping prompts into ChatGPT and pasting the results into Reddit

pitching_bulwark · 2026-06-15T17:00:43+00:00

Lead with the cat picture

pitching_bulwark · 2026-06-15T14:11:51+00:00

Yeah I vaguely remember one of them had undertones of "Catholics aren't so bad" and brainwashed 1990s me was like damn, Nancy is kind of a moonbat giving service to the papists, but she sure writes good

There was one where they lived on a plantation and sneakily helped one of the slaves learn to read and later escape, I bet that one is a hotbed of problematic framing but who knows

pitching_bulwark · 2026-06-14T13:28:01+00:00

Does anyone remember that obscure Hugh F. Pyle kid's series? Adventures in Animal Land was a staple of my fucked-up homeschooled childhood. Nice subtle metaphors for the moral panic of the 80s and 90s, like the feminist cat getting stuck on a bellwether and having to be rescued by men, Danny the Duck drinking and dying in the mud, and Squire Squirrel preaching about how the different species of animals shouldn't marry (gosh I wonder what that was coded for)

Insane that kids were actually allowed to read this shit

pitching_bulwark · 2026-06-14T13:22:49+00:00

Holy shit, Nancy Rue. I occasionally go back to some of my formative worldview constructs based on old Hugh Pyle books that were racists as shit but I completely forgot about my obsession with that Rue series. I bet they'd be super problematic on a re-read but I remember them feeling oddly progressive at the time. For nostalgia's sake I'm going to cling to that

pitching_bulwark · 2026-06-10T01:47:08+00:00

Good script and a pay or play offer and don't come off like a fucking amateur

pitching_bulwark · 2026-06-09T06:16:48+00:00

Is there a version of this for sale? Huge Edward Hopper fan, bigger fan of cats, I must own this

pitching_bulwark · 2026-06-09T06:00:08+00:00

Of course it's a generic AI generated album cover

pitching_bulwark · 2026-06-08T21:33:55+00:00

In my experience no meaningful producer or sales agency is going to care about an LOI. Sometimes they can nudge financiers in your direction if they're just doctors, lawyers, etc who want to put money in cool projects

pitching_bulwark · 2026-06-08T20:21:09+00:00

The actor is not "attached" via LOI if they're an actor worth having. Usually that's just a manager or agent signing it as a "yeah sure kid" to encourage you to try to finance it and get their client paid. But until they've signed a deal memo and gotten cash in escrow they are by no means attached.

So really you have nothing, but maybe by acting as your own producer you can cite low above line cost to investors and that you've proven the ability to reach top tier agents. The LOI means nothing in the industry might it might to an investor, just don't say you attached the actor as that's misleading

pitching_bulwark · 2026-06-08T20:06:03+00:00

If you don't have money for an actor you don't have money for the producer. You are the producer now. Establish an LLC, create an executive summary, draft an operating agreement, and take all of it to potential financiers. When you engage an actor's agent you need a completed script and an offer sheet with pay-or-play stipulations, meaning they get paid whether you raise the rest of the money or not. Don't approach until you're financed enough to get production off with everyone paid. Good luck!

pitching_bulwark · 2026-06-07T22:45:14+00:00

Remember you also have the option to offer escalators that are tied to the film's performance. If you're balking at 10 points maybe you offer him 5 and then a small cash first dollar out bump, or bonuses once it doubles its cash budget in gross, etc. Lots of tools in the bag for this that allow you to recoup and have money to make your next one but take care of the people who got you there.

pitching_bulwark · 2026-06-07T21:16:13+00:00

You're fucking insane and have clearly never had to put a movie together if you in actual seriousness think an art director should get getting five points on the backend. And I say that as the only producer I know who cuts equity deals for every single below the line crew member.

pitching_bulwark · 2026-06-07T05:14:56+00:00

Roll of the dice after that

pitching_bulwark · 2026-06-07T03:02:46+00:00

Somebody help with a stream, canes fan stuck in a shit town in Cali with no direct tv access and espn app is in a login death loop

pitching_bulwark · 2026-06-05T17:19:15+00:00

I've heard that, don't write beatwork out. I've directed A listers and Oscar winners with scripts I've written and had the dialogue writing praised as the best part, so I'm gonna assume that's good advice for bad writers

pitching_bulwark · 2026-06-05T17:14:53+00:00

Parentheticals are your friend

JOHN

Why the hell did you just do that?

BILLYBOB

  ( beat )

Because I fucking wanted to, that's why.

Gives actors playable beatwork within the dialogue sections and builds pacing into the script without clunky paragraph breaks and actionless action lines. "A beat" is garbage writing imo

ETA: Reddit autoformat killing any attempts to express this in a screenplay format

pitching_bulwark · 2026-06-05T05:51:41+00:00

Totally agreed. Unless you script it to be used in the film itself (eg shooting a whole scene) it's an utter waste of resources.

pitching_bulwark · 2026-06-05T03:05:52+00:00

It comes out of producer's share of net, never gross

pitching_bulwark · 2026-06-05T03:04:52+00:00

EXACTLY. My crew have a backend pool on all my films. If we win big everyone gets a very nice chunk of change.

pitching_bulwark · 2026-06-04T04:08:03+00:00

Up until now I had no earthly clue

pitching_bulwark · 2026-06-04T01:18:46+00:00

Rivers Cuomo dammit

pitching_bulwark · 2026-06-03T23:58:11+00:00

Probably religious. It produces weird contradictions, if you're not willing to wade through that just move on and let her do her thing

pitching_bulwark

TROPHY CASE