World Premiere

Holy shit, the world premiere was unbelievable. People came out of the woodwork for us. We nearly sold out a 180 seat theater at the Roxy in Burlington. Everyone laughed their asses off. We knew the movie was funny, but we didn't expect for everyone to laugh the ENTIRE TIME. The Q&A session was a lot of fun, and the audience seemed to enjoy it. We got some cool questions, and I think we had a few funny answers. A ton of people wanted to know when and where they could buy a copy, which is a good sign. We are working on getting the retail store up on the website within the month, stay tuned. The after party was a blast. Despite the fact that a lot of people had to work the next day, we still got a good crew over to lift where I put far too many tequila shots on the old credit card. That would probably explain why PK was shirtless, on top of a table at Mr. Mike's screaming "USA, 1, 2, 3, 4, USA" in a thick Brittish accent at 3 in the morning. Props to everyone who came out and showed support. We will be scheduling new screenings soon, keep an eye on the website. It was the perfect premiere, now we need to really get to work!

Premiere Flier

SH on Seven Days Blog

Seven Days is a Burlington Vermont newspaper that covers all sorts of cool art and music stories from B-town. They just threw this blog up about Self Helpless:

http://7d.blogs.com/blurt/2009/10/local-indie-buddy-film-to-premiere-at-roxy.html#more

What the Fuck is this Tour Thing?

Now that Self Helpless is done and ready to premiere, people have been wondering what the hell we're doing next. The usual answer is: "we're going on tour." This seems to be a rather mystifying response, so here is a breakdown of this whole “tour” idea.

Essentially, we plan to tour like indie rock bands tour. From city to city, gig to gig, we'll self promote and screen our movie. In our case though, instead of ratty-ass music clubs and dirty hipsters' basements, we'll be going to art-house theaters, college campuses and film festivals. We plan to start off screening Self Helpless in cities where we have a base of support from our friends and family, and connections with schools and the local media. Places like Burlington, Vt, Boston, Hartford, Ct and NYC are going to be key for building buzz. In each of these locations we have a solid grasp on how and where to schedule and promote screenings.

We will screen Self Helpless at several different venues in each city. The multiple venue aspect of this plan is important because it keeps costs down (more screenings per mile driven), and it gives us a chance to build some buzz with different types of audiences. The crowd that will attend a screening at an indie theater is very different from the audience at a packed college auditorium, and we love everybody!

Even if audiences go wild for the movie, we'll still have our work cut out for us. We know that this tour looks good on paper, the financial numbers really do work, but we will have to make it work on the ground. As with everything involved in the making of Self Helpless, the success of the tour will hinge upon our will to make it work. It's been a constant hustle thus far, and this phase won't be any different. As always, we look forward to the challenge, especially this one.

Devin the Dude

If you don't know Devin the Dude, maybe you need to take a closer listen to Dre's "Chronic 2000". Devin was the cat on the first track who sang "I just want to fuuuck you". He has since had a huge hip hop career releasing a stack of solo albums as well as albums with his Huston crew Tha Coughee Brothas. Devin has done tracks with Snoop, Lil Wayne, Nas, Xzibit, Scarface, UGK, and tons of other dope MCs. Why does all this matter? Because Devin is making his big screen debut in Self Helpless.

Devin plays "The Dude", the Drake's trusted weed dealer. When The Drake comes to him to get a little stress relief, he ends up getting a rambling, nonsensical speech, and less weed than he was hoping for. Devin is hilarious in the scene. He is clearly a natural performer. His facial expressions and delivery are some of my favorite comedy in the movie.

How, you ask, did we get a major hip hop star to appear in our low-budget, low-brow comedy? A couple of years ago I met Devin (my favorite MC of all time, by the way) when I had the honor of DJing for him at a show in Burlington. The show went well and he was a cool cat to hang out with. Last winter he came back to town for another show. I caught up with him backstage after the show. I was just hoping he might be willing to let us use some of his music in the movie. We were blown away when Devin offered to make a cameo appearance in the movie. After a few months of phone calls back and forth, we set out for DC in a Prius packed with camera gear. We braved a late season snow storm and caught up with Devin on the day that he performed at the Go Go Awards. We shot the scene in a couple of hours, and it turned out to be fantastic.

Much love to Devin. He is a true talent, and a cool, down to earth guy. He definitely has a big future in acting. We were lucky to be able to work with him before his acting career takes off. For more on Devin the Dude check out www.myspace.com/devinthedude.

What are you going to do with the movie when it's done?

The traditional model of independent film making is quickly going the way of the dodo bird. It used to be a nice, easy 3 step process: 1 - make movie, 2 - go to film festival, 3 - sell movie to major studio. I am obviously overstating the simplicity here, but there was at least an established pattern.

With the explosion of accessible movie making technology, way more people are making movies. This has lead to a glut of films on the market. This technological boom has also resulted in the creation of a few different movie distribution models such as: VOD (video on demand), self-distribution, and direct to DVD distribution.

What we are pursuing with Self Helpless is a hybrid marketing strategy. Here is a general outline of our different angles on promoting the movie in the hopes of someone buying it:

1) Web Assault - We will be plastering advertisements all across Facebook, Myspace, YouTube, and Twitter. This has become standard practice these days. Our advantage is the large network of friends that the four of us have established. We have approximately 1,200 friends already lined up on Facebook alone. If everyone passes the movie on to 5 of their friends...

2) Promotional Copies - We will be sending promo copies of the movie to anyone and everyone we know that is even tangentially involved in the movie business. You have a friend who cleans the floors at a talent agency in wisconsin, what is his email address?

3) The Premiere - The world premiere hasn't been scheduled yet, and details are top secret. Suffice it to say that it will be off the proverbial meat rack. Picture 100 drunk Self Helpless fans, and 15 bloggers and reporters packed into a theater. Good times will abound.

4) Film Festivals - There are, literally, thousands of film festivals in the US evey year. We will be submitting Self Helpless to a select few festivals that seem to be cool enough to understand the genius behind farting in people's milk.

5) Screenings - We hope to organize premieres in a few different East coast cities to start with. If we decide to try to independently distribute DVDs then we will probably arrange a full tour. Lock your doors and hide your daughters, America!!

These are the major avenues that we are looing at for advertising and promotion. Our main focus is to be adaptabe and work hard. The movie is truly excellent and unique. All we have to do is hustle as hard as we can to get it out to the public.

Why does Self Helpless matter?

Basically, the movie industry is crazy right now. Every fool and his mom is trying to sell an independent film, and at the same time studios are trying to cut their costs to the bone. One might think this spells doom for Self Helpless, but fear not.

Self Helpless is something of a miracle. Big Hollywood pictures can have budgts in the $100 million. "Independent" films (which often have a studio behind them) have budgets as low as $5-10 million. Low budget films tend to have a budget under $1 million. Movies with a budget under $20,000 are considered "no budget" films. Self Helpless was made for around $10,000. The fact that we managed to make a feature length movie that was shot in 2 countries and features an army of extras and a cameo appearance from a major hip hop star is nothing short of astounding.

This positions us uniquely in the film market. We have a finished product that is hilarious and entertaining. Studios don't need to worry about taking a risk on an unproven script, they can simply watch the audience go crazy at a screening. If there were ever a time to push a high quality, low budget film that makes people laugh, this is it. Cross your fingers!