It all started with The Prosecutor

After many years of trying The Prosecutor was the first production for Bear Productions, Ltd. As I said earlier, I wish I could say it's good. It's not. Wish I could say it's good enough to be called bad. Nope probably not that good either. Also wish I could say it didn't make money. It did and probably under another title change, it's still making money.

Let's start by talking about the financing for The Prosecutor. During my many trips to LA attending all types of filmmaking seminars there was one general theme about movie financing; never under any circumstance should you invest your own money.

If I heard that once, I heard it a hundred times. I heard it over and over. Somehow that just didn't ring true. If I wasn't willing to invest into me, my projects, how could I expect anyone else to invest. I guess there really isn't a right or wrong answer, but it does give you something to think about.

Ok, we put together a Missouri Limited Partnership for The Prosecutor financing. Made the rounds trying to raise money with the great help from the attorney and "angel." We were almost at the proposed budget, which I might add was about half of the budgets from the earlier attempts.

It finally came down to me breaking the cardinal rule of investing your own money or property. Oh well hell, I did it anyway. I'm not going to tell you exactly what it cost me, as you would think I was a lot more than just a movie nut, but I don't regret it one little bit. My only regret is not trusting myself enough to speak up when I saw things the industry professionals were doing that I knew weren't right.

So we were financed. The "angel" and I acted as Executive Producers. Now comes pre-production. The producer/director put together a local crew he had worked with before. Hoping to add more marketability and credibility we brought in three actors from LA. The rest of the cast was selected from the local talent pool.

The start date was selected. It's production time for The Prosecutor. All in all the production also ran smoothly. We ran over a few days but nothing out of the ordinary. The main problem was learning from a couple of cop investor friends that my action scenes had been greatly changed.

Besides the never invest your own money, another cardinal rule I learned at the filmmaking seminars was; whatever you do, don't remove your most marketable pieces of genre, and ours was action/adventure with a touch of sexuality.

So I brought it up to the producer/director. He told me they got the main shots and planned to go back for more shots later. Didn't seem right. I mean, we are on location now. Why not finish? So I stepped back and trusted the industry professionals. My mistakes keep growing.

With the production finished we moved into post production. The Prosecutor was shot on 16mm. Editing was also done on film. We transferred to tape after the final edit. This allowed us to make vhs tape copies for distribution. Other than some ego clashes between the producer/director, editor, and cameraman, the editing went ok.

Although we saw some scenes come together during editing, I really don't think anyone was too unhappy when we saw the final edit. May not have been as good as we hoped, but it wasn't too bad. Time for distribution.

During production I followed a common plan used by many producers. I notified a few distributors who handled like genre movies about our production. I told them I would contact them once the movie was done. Nearly everyone responded positively wanting to see our movie.

With our movie in hand, I along with an ex cop investor, went to LA. We had several meetings scheduled to personally deliver our movie. We were only going to be in town for of couple days, but we hoped to hear from a few of them before we returned to St. Louis. Must admit that was quite the experience but we were about to learn a hard lesson in the business of filmmaking.

We didn't hear from anyone before we returned to St. Louis. However, one distributor called right after we left for the airport. So when we got home, I called the distributor back. They wanted to make a distribution offer. We went through the process but couldn't reach a deal. Another mistake.

I received a couple other offers, but not ones I really wanted to accept. Then as I advised earlier, I contacted a producer's rep. After viewing the movie he offered a contract. From my limited experience it seemed within the industry standard. I accepted the contract.

The Prosecutor went to the American Film Market in Santa Monica. In the first four days it made almost 40% of the production budget in sales. Everyone was very excited. We all hoped we were on our way to other productions.

Below is the Front Sheet or Sales Sheet that was produced by the first distributor.

The first payment due to us was late. Then it was late again. Finally a payment was made but less than anticipated. My concern grew. Without going into exact details our movie was really doing pretty well. The other movies represented by the distributor weren't doing as well. So our movie's sales were being used by the distributor to offset the costs of his other movies. That was clearly not in the distribution agreement.

When the distributor and producer's rep were caught in a few lies, they each came in on the other. When I began legal action, the distributor declared bankruptcy. It seems a producer is not seen as a secured creditor. Needless to say, there were no more payments and I had to fight like hell to get my masters returned.

To make a long story short, I accepted other offers of distribution but with similar results. No matter what happened during any segment of production on The Prosecutor, distribution was a NIGHTMARE!

Below is the Front Sheet or Sales Sheet produced by the second distributor. Not only did they change the title but they also used photos from talent not even in the movie.

Here is the Front Sheet or Sales Sheet produced by the third distributor. They kept the same artwork but like the second distributor they also changed the title.

Remember hearing me say many times; it's your movie? Do it your way? Here's the most important part to remember; even if you're not the producer, director, cameraman, gaffer, talent or etc..., when it's your movie, you're 100% responsible for everything..!

Ultimately, The Prosecutor was my movie. I was and am responsible for everything. Few things on this planet are more difficult than realizing a dream and then seeing it explode before your very eyes. You would think I would have learned everything from my past experiences, but NOOOO...! Wait until you read about my other movie, The Law of Divorce.

From The Prosecutor To My Productions

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