Welcome to the wild.
Ever since the invention of moving pictures, the creative medium of film took shape, filling our entertainment and informative world with wonderment. Those who have been fortunate enough to have made a living, to varying degrees, inside that industry, have only been able to be successful based on the market.
What we have consumed has only been made available between the money generated by studios, advertisers and the viewing public. It takes producers to make a project go.
Milwaukee filmmaker Frankie Latina is working on his second independent film project "Snap Shot." He’s gone to Kickstarter, a website to help creative people get funding for projects, to get funding.
Earlier this week, Warner Bros. green-lit a project by "Veronica Mars" creators to produce a movie of the 3-season TV series that stared Kristin Bell. With Kickstarter, the effort amassed more than $2 million in less than 2 days.
Embolden by the "Veronica Mars" project, Zachery Levi, the actor that played "Chuck" on NBC, wants to launch a film project of his own. Ever since the 5-season show was canceled, Levi had big-screen dreams for the character to live on.
"We are entering into the wild west of entertainment where essentially everybody can do what only studios could do for the last 70 years," Levi told Salon.
With advancements in technology, the ability to make entertainment and deliver it to an audience has become easier than it has ever been. YouTube videos of cute cats are proof enough that it doesn’t take much to entertain us these days.
However, making a profit on a feature film is still a gamble. Kickstarter efforts can raise funds and show others willing to double down that an audience could exist for a project. While it is an exciting time living in the wild west of entertainment, it will be interesting to see which efforts will turn a profit.
For every great film that makes millions, there are millions more that are fortunate to break even. For many creative people who would love to make a blockbuster, sometimes their efforts a merely a labor of love. I think of it the same way hot rod enthusiasts feel about their automobiles. The time, parts and effort that goes into a restoration or build from scratch rarely turns a profit. Sure, sometimes they do, and those successes are celebrated. But overall … the bottom line hardly would ever come close to covering the labor cost alone.
Welcome to the wild, indeed.
PAPAL MASS: Fox News Channel will be among the multiple news outlets that will present live coverage of the inaugural mass for Pope Francis in the very early hours of Tuesday morning. Coverage will begin around 3:20 a.m. locally.
SPEAKING OF FOX: The Fox Business Network will be focusing on taxes with special reports this week.
Cheryl Casone will host "Tax Pain," examining the most challenging tax returns for high net worth individuals and small business owners. Casone will interview industry executives and tax experts to provide viewers with insight on how to properly file your taxes.
Her special coverage will run from 11 a.m. to noon each day this week. Interviews will be conducted with guests, Americans for Tax Reform founder and president Grover Norquist, National Federation of independent business tax attorney Christopher Whitcomb, Jackson Hewitt Tax Service chief tax officer Mark Steber, former Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Heritage Foundation senior policy analyst Curtis Dubay and Tax Foundation president Scott Hodge.
Media is bombarding us everywhere.
Instead of sheltering his brain from the onslaught, Steve embraces the news stories, entertainment, billboards, blogs, talk shows and everything in between.
The former writer, editor and producer in TV, radio, Web and newspapers, will be talking about what media does in our community and how it shapes who we are and what we do.