We Examine The Pandemic
Thriller Before The Fire!
September 24th • 5pm PDT (8pm EDT)
Filmmaker Charlie Buhler, who I'll be speaking with this Thursday in my next No Budget Confidential, told me something revealing about Hollywood and perception. She finished shooting her film a couple of years ago, but post took awhile and then the pandemic. But her film was released last month by Dark Sky Films, after a bidding war. When we spoke today, she was preparing for a big commercial shoot she had tomorrow. The work is coming in now. She told me, "I'm no better a filmmaker today than I was two years ago, but after our film's release was mentioned in Deadline, I'm starting to get work."
And this is one big reason you take the bull by the horns, raise your own money, and spend five years making a micro-budget feature. Because people won't take you seriously until they can see something tangible. Until they can read about you in Deadline or The Hollywood Reporter.
Charlie's story is one of hard work and perseverance, luck and skill, happy accidents and nearly-fatal mistakes. So, yes, it's a typical No Budget Confidential story! How could she know in 2014, when they decided to write a thriller about an unseen pandemic, (for budget reasons, no less--you don't have to show something invisible), that the world would be ravaged by a pandemic by the time they were finished?
Join us as we talk about (and show) the work she did to prepare herself for her first feature, inventory the resources she had available to her back in her home state of South Dakota, demonstrate the necessity of being quick and agile on your feet in the face of changing plans, and roll with the punches until the fight is finished. It will be an empowering and edifying two hours.
