A New Thing Comes to Life

Things I cannot yet discuss: the name of the movie, the work it’s based on, and why that guy did that thing in that particular way.

But, speaking as a producer of said unnamed motion picture-to-be, I can tell you that the all-important “first money” is in the bank. It’s called that because it is, literally, the first money anyone invests in the movie, and it is prized because it represents the greatest leap into the dark for any investor. For all those who follow, there is the comfort of knowing that someone else has already signaled their faith in the project via their checkbook, and that the project is almost certainly going forward. “First money,” then, represents the nudging of the boulder, the thing that frees it from stasis and starts it rolling downhill. We can now use this money to make an offer to a name actor, and once an actor is attached it becomes that much easier to close the deal with other investors. Each step forward makes the next step (slightly) easier, till the boulder acquires its own momentum and a movie gets made.

When you’re listening to a director’s commentary on a DVD, you sometimes hear a director say something like “This project took three years to put together.” It’s one thing to hear that in the abstract; it’s another thing to have to live through it. Didn’t take three years for this specific project, but it has been three years since “Zen Noir” was released in trying to get some project moving forward, dammit, and that’s been a mighty long and agonizing time.

But now we’ve got a check. And it’s cleared the bank, too. That means we get to move forward now. And soon I’ll even be able to say what and when and why and how.

That thing about that guy, however, will have to remain top-secret for forever. Sorry.