Didn't Like Art Investing? How About Movies?

[Zaphod]

The White Coat Investor wrote:

Zaphod wrote:

Well, breathing is risky sure. Just stay west of the 405.

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That’s hazardous to my wealth.

Seriously though, I lived in Orange for a month for a rotation at UC Irvine. I went boogie-boarding most days, wishing for bigger waves. Then one day I got what I had wished for and I thought I was going to die.

You know what still bugs me about that month? That jerk who rented me a room kept my deposit. Never could get him to send it back.

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Thats a nice area. Yeah sometimes the waves dont seem big enough from shore, than youre like...omg. Helps you appreciate the power of nature than getting pummeled by a seemingly small wave. Always wonder how those big wave riders dont die when they eat it.

Keeping the deposit is definitely not cool.

[High Income Parent]

I had my first big wave experience recently while trying to surf in Costa Rica.  Getting caught in the wash and seemed to be waiting for eternity to be able to swim up to breath. Yah, the guys riding 20-40 footers are absolutely insane.

[FaveDave]

Zaphod wrote:

Well, I looked at their site, and I like it a lot more than the art site. The art site was vague and ‘we got this’, which who knows, might be perfect for that demo but Im not it. This site is quite detailed with how things work, pretty charts, description of involvement, etc…it doesnt make it any safer per se, but a better transparency level.

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Zaphod, I'm the producer/director of the movie in question. Thanks for taking a look at it. I'm a show business veteran and a victim of "Hollywood accounting" myself, so I wanted to make this movie project very transparent indeed. I'm giving investors what I would want if I were looking at it from the outside.

It's been very interesting to me to see the two different types of investors we're attracting.

1. People who say "Oh, a Christmas movie. That looks like fun," and they make a small investment as a lark. (I know this because they email me or post on FB.)

2. Sophisticated investors (like the people on this site) who drill down into the numbers and read everything carefully, then make a much larger investment than those who do it strictly for fun. (I know this because they also email me or ask probing questions on the campaign page.)

Of course, I have no idea how the people who look at our project and don't invest arrive at their decision. That's why it was interesting to read this thread!

Everyone who's involved in this project arrived here for their own reasons. Some people who are in the business invested because, in their words, "You'd have to make a pretty crappy Christmas movie to lose money at this budget." Gee, thanks. Nothing like setting the bar low, huh? Well, whatever their reasoning, we're glad to have them. But because they're in the business, they know how evergreen Christmas movies are. One of our first investors ran the IT department at a small production company, so he saw the revenue come in year after year on small movies, so he's seen it first hand.  Of course, we could make a movie that ends up bombing like last year's Ben-Hur in which case there's no Hollywood ending. But our team has 4 Emmys for "The Simpsons" and "Frasier," so you be the judge

BTW, we've got Jennifer Tilly now! She's the first actor to come on board and we're thrilled to have her. She's a writer's dream because she always makes the lines work.

 

[The White Coat Investor]

FaveDave wrote:

Zaphod wrote:

Well, I looked at their site, and I like it a lot more than the art site. The art site was vague and ‘we got this’, which who knows, might be perfect for that demo but Im not it. This site is quite detailed with how things work, pretty charts, description of involvement, etc…it doesnt make it any safer per se, but a better transparency level.

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Zaphod, I’m the producer/director of the movie in question. Thanks for taking a look at it. I’m a show business veteran and a victim of “Hollywood accounting” myself, so I wanted to make this movie project very transparent indeed. I’m giving investors what I would want if I were looking at it from the outside.

It’s been very interesting to me to see the two different types of investors we’re attracting.

1. People who say “Oh, a Christmas movie. That looks like fun,” and they make a small investment as a lark. (I know this because they email me or post on FB.)

2. Sophisticated investors (like the people on this site) who drill down into the numbers and read everything carefully, then make a much larger investment than those who do it strictly for fun. (I know this because they also email me or ask probing questions on the campaign page.)

Of course, I have no idea how the people who look at our project and don’t invest arrive at their decision. That’s why it was interesting to read this thread!

Everyone who’s involved in this project arrived here for their own reasons. Some people who are in the business invested because, in their words, “You’d have to make a pretty crappy Christmas movie to lose money at this budget.” Gee, thanks. Nothing like setting the bar low, huh? Well, whatever their reasoning, we’re glad to have them. But because they’re in the business, they know how evergreen Christmas movies are. One of our first investors ran the IT department at a small production company, so he saw the revenue come in year after year on small movies, so he’s seen it first hand.  Of course, we could make a movie that ends up bombing like last year’s Ben-Hur in which case there’s no Hollywood ending. But our team has 4 Emmys for “The Simpsons” and “Frasier,” so you be the judge

BTW, we’ve got Jennifer Tilly now! She’s the first actor to come on board and we’re thrilled to have her. She’s a writer’s dream because she always makes the lines work.

 

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Awesome! First we get the art company participating on the forum and now the motion picture company!

I've got a brother in law "in the business" (he's a director of photography) but I don't know enough about the business to be your 2nd type of investor, and I've got too many competing investments for the first type. Not to mention I'd hate to have to do a California state tax return for a lark investment.

[Zaphod]

FaveDave wrote:

Zaphod wrote:

Well, I looked at their site, and I like it a lot more than the art site. The art site was vague and ‘we got this’, which who knows, might be perfect for that demo but Im not it. This site is quite detailed with how things work, pretty charts, description of involvement, etc…it doesnt make it any safer per se, but a better transparency level.

Click to expand…

Zaphod, I’m the producer/director of the movie in question. Thanks for taking a look at it. I’m a show business veteran and a victim of “Hollywood accounting” myself, so I wanted to make this movie project very transparent indeed. I’m giving investors what I would want if I were looking at it from the outside.

It’s been very interesting to me to see the two different types of investors we’re attracting.

1. People who say “Oh, a Christmas movie. That looks like fun,” and they make a small investment as a lark. (I know this because they email me or post on FB.)

2. Sophisticated investors (like the people on this site) who drill down into the numbers and read everything carefully, then make a much larger investment than those who do it strictly for fun. (I know this because they also email me or ask probing questions on the campaign page.)

Of course, I have no idea how the people who look at our project and don’t invest arrive at their decision. That’s why it was interesting to read this thread!

Everyone who’s involved in this project arrived here for their own reasons. Some people who are in the business invested because, in their words, “You’d have to make a pretty crappy Christmas movie to lose money at this budget.” Gee, thanks. Nothing like setting the bar low, huh? Well, whatever their reasoning, we’re glad to have them. But because they’re in the business, they know how evergreen Christmas movies are. One of our first investors ran the IT department at a small production company, so he saw the revenue come in year after year on small movies, so he’s seen it first hand.  Of course, we could make a movie that ends up bombing like last year’s Ben-Hur in which case there’s no Hollywood ending. But our team has 4 Emmys for “The Simpsons” and “Frasier,” so you be the judge

BTW, we’ve got Jennifer Tilly now! She’s the first actor to come on board and we’re thrilled to have her. She’s a writer’s dream because she always makes the lines work.

 

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I think its interesting. Likely for the most part its hard to invest something thats totally foreign and how to judge the investment. Your site made it about as approachable as I've ever seen.

[FaveDave]

Zaphod wrote:

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I think its interesting. Likely for the most part its hard to invest something thats totally foreign and how to judge the investment. Your site made it about as approachable as I’ve ever seen.

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Thanks, I appreciate that. We worked hard to make it so.

[FaveDave]

I wanted to let you all know we've raised over $600k for the movie now.

You can see our new crowdfunding investment campaign here: https://wefunder.com/thatchristmasmovie/

We're also doing a Regulation D 506(c) offering for Accredited Investors. If you want to invest via Regulation D, you can email us at [email protected] for more info.

 

Happy doctoring!

 

 

[Donnie]

I see these opportunities where I work from time to time. They are very difficult to evaluate and essentially amount to complete speculation. I didn’t look at the link, but you probably need a 30%+ expected IRR to make this worth thinking about.

Pretty Interesting that the producer is posting on here. Can you post your track record or provide other summary info to help us evaluate such an opty for those of us too lazy to click through the links?

[Hatton]

I just don't know anything about this!

[FaveDave]

Donnie, I'm happy to enable your laziness    As for our track record, our team has an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and 15 Emmy nominations, with 4 Emmy wins for "The Simpsons" and "Frasier." (For writing and producing.)

We're making a Christmas comedy because that market is underserved, and Xmas movies pay off every year, decade after decade.

Yes, these things are difficult to evaluate. Basically, you should watch the 3 minute video of us pitching the project, and if you think we're not drooling idiots and that we can keep up the same quality as we did on Frasier and The Simpsons, then you should invest. Risk capital only, of course. Because the market for Christmas movies is so constant, the bar is rather low. Well, we've never aimed that low, so we're pretty sure we'll stand out in the marketplace. Also, we are selling off the foreign rights but distributing ourselves in North American via iTunes, Cable, Amazon, etc. So we cut out the middleman distributor to keep a larger share of the profits for investors ad our company.

SEC regulations prohibit me from going into investment details, but I can say that it's all about cash flow and is very very investor-centric. Sorry -- but you'll have to click through to read more per SEC requirements. As much as I'm willing to enable your laziness, I can legally only go so far

BTW, the accredited investors we've gotten so far are CPAs and programmers at Apple and Google, and we've gotten $275k from them. Other filmmakers told me about doctors, and judging from the numbers you all are throwing around here, this investment is a fit for you all (if you're so inclined, of course). It is a high-risk, high-reward prospect and the projected IRR... well, again, I cannot go into numbers but we wouldn't be spending 2 years of our lives on it without a salary if we didn't think it would pay off. (Please see the investment page for all caveats.)

Also, movies are fun!  You can walk the red carpet with the stars at the premiere. It makes for much better pictures than that shot of a rental duplex bought as an investment.

Here's the link so you don't have to scroll up: https://wefunder.com/thatchristmasmovie/

[FaveDave]

Hatton1: that's why we explain it all on the campaign page.  Movie investment is risky, but it's a way to diversify and dip your toe into show business.

[Donnie]

Haha, thanks for the reply. Unfortunately Oscars, Emmys, and Golden Globes don't liquidate too well, and I’m not sure the correlation between them and ROI’s (maybe you know?).

FWIW, I’m not a medical doctor, but generally like what WCI is doing here and find the non-doc discussions interesting, so I post anyway (apparently to some other forum member’s dismay )

Good luck!

[FaveDave]

Thank you. We'll take any good luck that comes our way.

And Emmys and Oscars are simply indicators that (a) our peers think our work doesn't suck, and (b) it's not our first day on the job.

 

 

[Dicast]

Why does Jay Kogen, net worth $12 million, need my help raising funds for a movie?

[Zaphod]

Dicast wrote:

Why does Jay Kogen, net worth $12 million, need my help raising funds for a movie?

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Just like anything else, better to spread the risk amongst as many people as possible.

 

Why does Elon Musk who is purportedly worth billions keep needing capital raises and debt offerings when he's worth so much? Always better to risk someone elses money than your own.