I’ve been prompted by a meeting with upcoming producer, Z_, to share some of my tidbits on how to get by in LA.  Z_ is headed across to support a short film she has produced and which has made it into a film festival over there.  Congratulations Z_!

Although I know you already must know a lot to have got this far, I hope these tips can be of some use to you.

Getting There

Things have changed a lot in 18 months since I was there.  Even though the Aussie dollar was near parity with the greenback, air fares have come down a lot due to a combination of the GFC, Swine ‘Flu and most importantly – competition.  Virgin Atlantic and Delta have entered the old duopoly held by Qantas and Contintental Airlines(?).

Don’t forget your toothbrush

I remember we (my former filmmaking partner and I) had to go via Taiwan, making a 13 hour flight into a 24 hour flight with an 8 hour visit to Taipei International Airport, and the fare was still more expensive than what you’d get now.  My filmmaking partner was not in the habit of brushing his teeth which added to the discomfort of flying cattle class.

Practical Tip:  Bring breath mints for the flight – to give to the other passengers you are forced to sit next to.

Accommodation

Staying in LA is actually quite cheap if you don’t mind staying at backpackers and YHA’s.  There are at least two YHA’s, conveniently located for doing “film biz”-type activities.

One is at Santa Monica, one block away from Loewe’s Hotel, the epicentre of the American Film Market (held in November I think, although they were thinking of moving it to January last I heard.)

Santa Monica is the famous beach-side suburb, just one suburb north of the even more famous Venice Beach.  You’ll probably recognise the famous Santa Monica pier from films like Forrest Gump.  It has an amusement park on it.

Don’t tell people you’re staying at a YHA

Whilst working our way around the AFM, hob-nobbing with film exec-types to get meetings, we’d frequently be asked where we were staying.  Many had come to LA specifically for the AFM and thought it would be good to meet outside the AFM which was too crowded for discreet discussion.  Also, the Loewes Hotel prohibited screening of films, even by DVD on a laptop (in order to get people to pay for a suite there at some exorbitant price) So I’d ask them “Do you know where the Hotel Carmel is?” (The Hotel Carmel is a good hotel nearby on Second Avenue)  To which they’d respond “Oh, you’re staying at the Hotel Carmel?”  To which I’d non-answer “Let’s meet at the café right next to it. You know the one?”  To which they’d always respond “Oh yeah.  Let’s meet there!”

If you want to stay closer to Hollywood for meetings, there’s also a YHA in Hollywood.

Another alternative my filmmaking partner and I tried was couch-surfing.  This is pretty much what it sounds like.  You go to a website like the eponymous www.couchsurfing.com and try and find people willing to put you up in their spare bed (or couch – thus the name).   They’ll usually do it for free.

We really lucked-in.  After spending a week at the YHA at Santa Monica during the American Film Market, we still had business to do.

Practical Tip:  If you are at the AFM, it’s good to reserve a week or two after the event to do follow-up meetings with all the good contacts you made.

 

Immediately after the AFM I had lined up some couch-surfing with an amazing and extremely generous guy called Marcus York.  Marcus is an actor, wheel-chair bound by a car accident he had in his twenties.  Now in his forties, Marcus doesn’t feel the wheel-chair is a limitation at all, having opened up many avenues for him, the most important of which being his mind.

Marcus welcomes guests, especially filmmakers trying to get their break in LA. 

 

Think of a figure and double it

It was literally on Marcus’ sofa-bed that we got the phone call from the Canadian studio execs.  They asked us how much we needed to make our film.  In previous discussions my partner and I had agreed we would “high-ball” any studio with a budget of AU$3 million, even though we knew we could make our script on AU$500,000.  When it came to the moment though, it kind of got stuck in my throat:-

Y: “Err,  I-I think about, ummm, two, maybe, errm, three-“

The Mr Big on the other end of the line (we were hunched over my partner’s mobile phone which had a speaker-phone setting) cut me off:-

Mr Big:  We think it’ll take four million.  Whaddya say?

It was only later I took in that they meant US four million.

 

In the end, Marcus put up with us for four weeks, after initially saying we’d only stay for 1 week.  He didn’t mind at all and remained a generous host throughout, driving us around the sights and shouting us to dinner on numerous occasions.

Getting About in LA

Something that was a very big surprise to us was that public transport, namely buses, are extremely efficient and cheap.  We fully expected the motor car to dominate (and it does in important ways), but so long as you want to go to film-biz type destinations, you will find the buses are quite regular.

There is also a train line which is clean and efficient, and is not too far from Marcus’ place in North Hollywood if that is where you choose to stay.

There is one down-side to getting about on public transport in LA, and that is, none of the local Los Angeleans know about their great bus system, and few will be able to direct you to the closest bus stop.

Food & Beverages

Nothing is as it seems in America

We were fortunate enough to bump into an Australian actor, Grant Bowler (the voice for “Border Security”, Something in the Air, Canal Road, Outrageous Fortune, Lost, Ugly Betty) whilst we walked back along the Esplanade back to our YHA from the American Film Market.  My filmmaking partner had the good fortune of taking acting classes under Grant, and Grant generously treated us to lunch. Grant shouted us to whatever we wanted, and, as is the custom in America, your coffee mug is filled, then refilled ad infinitum.  Smelling the coffee, I took a big swig – and almost gagged.  Grant burst out laughing at the expression on my face.  After a few seconds to recover myself I was finally able to get out the words: “That’s not coffee!  It looks like coffee.  It smells like coffee.  But it sure don’t taste like coffee!”  I declined the waitress’ offer of a refill.

Food in LA is comparably priced to Sydney with two exceptions.  Cheap (and unhealthy) fast food is very, very cheap.  One dollar will buy you a hamburger at a well-known hamburger franchise.  Expensive food can be very, very expensive too.  But by and large, food prices are comparable.  Like we found in Cannes, we did not put on any weight whilst in LA despite our unhealthy diet, because we found ourselves doing a lot of walking.

Don’t forget to tip

My filmmaking partner and I had just finished a good meal at the “All-you-can-eat” sushi restaurant in North Hollywood, a place we had frequented on two or three occasions.  This occasion was to catch-up with a young Australian actress I’d known in Australia.  She had been in some of my earliest short films, and was great value – free actually.  Nowadays, she was supporting her acting by working in a video hire shop.  Like most actors, she was trying to produce her own screenplay.  The time came to paying the bill, and I felt the usual nudge from my filmmaking partner, P_.

P_: Hey mate.  Can you cover me?  I’ve only got ten bucks.

P_ showed me the contents of his wallet which revealed a ten dollar note and a few coins.

So as was our custom, I paid for the full bill, suggesting he pay the tip.  But when it came to paying the tip, P_ let the Japanese sushi chef pick up the coin tray without dropping anything in it.

Staring at the empty tray, the chef exploded.

Chef: “What? No tip?  This is the third time you guys have been here and no tip?!  That’s outrageous, especially considering how much you eat.  Especially you! (He pointed at P_.) 

Fortunately, our actor friend, blonde, blue-eyed and already a favourite with the Japanese chef (“You are so beautifoo! Beautifoo rady!”) was able to smooth things over.

She graciously took the blame for it, saying she should have warned us that American restaurants expect a tip of at least 10%.  To not do so would be considered rude.  Of course, we already knew that.  I’d told P_ that on at least two earlier occasions.

It was yet another nail in the coffin of our filmmaking partnership.

 

Film Biz Tips

Sorry if I’m telling you stuff you already know.  This is stuff I learned whilst I was over there that isn’t in the textbooks.  Much of this information is best used in the film market environment, but even if you aren’t going during the AFM, you might be attending a festival where similar rules apply.

Practical Tip #1:  It Pays to be an Aussie (Part 372)

By the time we reached LA we already had some runs on the board.  We had an AFC funded screenplay, numerous letters of interest, as well as a distribution offer for Mainland China and Hong Kong. We also had a list as long as my arm of other contacts we’d met at Cannes, and could follow up in LA. We were also short-listed for the AFC’s (now Screen Australia’s) production funding.  Screen Australia’s production funding revolves around a matched-funding scheme.  For every dollar you can bring in from a genuine “arms length” investor, the Government will match it with another dollar.  At the time we were in LA, this amount was capped at AU$2.5 million (just bumped up from AU$2 million.)  This meant our pitch centred around the possibility of partnerships raising up to AU$1.25 million.

Our pre-conceptions before we arrived in LA at the World’s largest film market were that as Australians, we were small-fry in the Big Bad World of Filmmaking.  With numerous pre-GFC film budgets in excess of $100 million we thought, who would want our measly $1.25 million in our piddly Pacific Peso?

“Many people”, is the short answer.  You see, unlike most of the filmmaking World, the United States of the Universe is not being swamped by foreign film product, stifling the home-grown industry.  That’s obviously, because the US is the foreign film product swamping all other home-grown film industries (save perhaps Bollywood, Nollywood and the French – whose film industry is subsidised, by … films from the US.)

Because the US film industry is so strong, and because it is the land of the Free(-market), the film industry does not receive any government subsidies.  That’s right.  US independent filmmakers are on their own. No Screen America “Indivision” funding.  No Screen America subsidized “home base” with free internet and telephone at Cannes. And yet, US independent filmmakers make up a sizable part of the market, especially at places like the American Film Market.  

At the AFM there are loads of filmmakers who are all too happy to make films for under $2.5 million, for whom $2.5 million is a lot of money.  The reason should be obvious to those who have made a film in Australia on a shoe-string budget.  The answer is because, those figures you hear bandied around like “This film cost US$50 million to make.” Etc are rubbish.

The US$50 million figure is how much the producers of the film convinced the studio or IMDB how much they sold it for.  They probably actually made it for around US$8 million and kept the rest.

This means the Yanks outside the studio system are making films for … around AU$2.5 million.  In fact, we met the latest American enfant terrible who had made his feature film for $3000 and made US$10 million at the box office.  Suffice to say, he was pestering us for the next two weeks to allow him to direct our film, dreaming up every sort of dodgy accounting trick to come up with his “half” of the funding.

In other words, most independent filmmakers in the US know you can make a great film for $500,000 or a smallish Screen Australia production grant.  They haven’t forgotten Quentin Tarantino made his breakthrough film, Reservoir Dogs for US$300,000.  In fact, Tarantino was so confident he could make it for that amount, he turned down US$700,000 and US$1.2 million offers for his script, in order that he could direct the film himself.

It Pays to be an Aussie (Part 373)

You know that crappy little short film you made at film school?  You know how you don’t even dare show your grandmother that embarrassing rambling, waffly, soundless study about the essence of post-structuralist existence?  In places like the US, very few people get to make films like you have using Government subsidised equipment (and if you’ve attended a TAFE, university or the AFTRS then you definitely fall into this category).  This may well mean your embarrassing short film is a lot better than the struggling independent American filmmaker next to you who has no embarrassing short film to his/her name.

A corollary of this fact was that when we managed to sit a distributor or sales agent down, and show them our short films and sizzle reels, they were almost invariably impressed.  (The one exception was an Australian agent, based in LA who shall remain nameless…)

If your little short film has been good enough to win a place in a short film festival, the World begins to be your oyster.

Australia – the 51^st State

After two weeks in LA, we were finally granted an audience at Rogue Pictures, a spin-off of Universal Studio that focused upon low-budget (US$10-40 million) genre films. (P_’s agent’s secretary’s assistant happened to know a friend who knew a friend…) Fortunately, we had two films I had made that we could show them to prove our filmmaking credentials.  One was a CGI-laden short film reminiscent of “300”, only I could sincerely claim to have made it two years before “300” was released. The other, we had also scrambled to make in three weeks before we left for LA.

As the credits rolled on this latter short film, the Rogue studio exec rocked back in his chair and asked “Hey that’s really slick! Musta cost you at least $100,000 right? (It had cost us $5000) So which city in America did you shoot that in?  It looks really familiar…”  He paused as he noticed P_ and myself glancing nervously at each other.  The penny finally dropped for him.  He knew we had come to the US two weeks earlier, and could only have made the film in Australia.

Practical Tip #2: Don’t forget the Empire!

In addition to our film funding bodies, Australia also benefits from its numerous co-production arrangements.  Again, the US has no co-production arrangements (except perhaps with Puerto Rico, the real 51^st state of the United States) to benefit its filmmakers.  If you are seeking film funding, make sure you memorise the countries that have filmmaking co-production arrangements with your own. Naturally enough, Australia has co-production agreements with many Commonwealth and former Commonwealth nations, in addition to a few other enterprising countries that value their filmmaking industry.  This small fact proved invaluable to our film financing efforts.

Practical Tip:  It’s all about representation

In film school, you will be taught about the film making chain.  The screenwriter writes the screenplay, and a producer buys an option on it and takes it around to the studios, or production houses to get it made into a film.  They in turn will try to get a deal before the film is made, from a sales agent or distributor, who then sells it to the exhibitor (the chap or lass who owns the cinema.)

But two very important parts of the equation that are not mentioned in the above are “stars” and “agents”.  Sure, many people are aware that stars are extremely important elements in getting a film funded.  However, fewer are aware (and watching Entourage does not count as being ‘aware’), how important the talent agent is in the above equation.  Talent agents represent the new force in Hollywood.  They control the stars (who the paying public really want to see) and as a consequence, they begin to control the studios when they have enough stars (or ‘talent’ in the film biz lingo) on their books.  The top four talent agents control so many stars that it almost becomes essential if you are an actor, writer or director to be represented by them.  If that is what you want to be, I recommend you get representation by one of them, or at least a credible agent.

As to how you get to be represented by one of them – I’ll save that for my Hot Tips for Hollywood sheet.

How to Stay in LA

OK, so you’ve come to La La land and stars are in your eyes.  In fact, isn’t that George Clooney sipping a chai latte at the booth across from you?  All the stars, the studios, the agents – this is the town where it all happens, and you’ve decided you have to stay.  So what do you do?

This is what our friend K_ did:-

“That stuff only happens in the movies.”

K_ was blonde, blue-eyed, young and female.  The World was her oyster.  The only problem was, she was an Australian in Australia, and all the action was in LA.  Within two years of having met K_, at the ripe old age of 22, she had jetted off to LA, and decided she would stay until she made it.  But two years had passed, and her visa was running out.  Sure, she could spend a year out of the country and return, but that was a whole, critical year.  K_ knew that despite being forever blonde, blue-eyed and female, she would not remain young forever.  She decided she needed to do something more “permanent”.  What did she do?  K_ decided she would marry an American.  In fact, she offered to pay any eligible American male US$2000 for the privilege of being their spouse.  The lucky qualifying man turned out to be just what she wanted.  He never interfered in her life, lived apart from her and never asked her for sex.  No matter then that he was nearly forty years her senior.  I asked if she had any “Green Card” style experiences (the film starring Gerard Depardieu and Andie McDowell, about the piece of paper you need to stay in the US, equivalent to our “PR” or ‘permanent residency” status.  Briefly, Gerard Depardieu finds he needs to marry someone to whom he is totally unsuited for a green card.  The couple are subject to intimate interrogations by the Department of Immigration officials to prove their authenticity as a genuine, loving, married couple.)  She said breezily “Nuh.  Never.”