My Parents Are Trying to Seize Control of My Money! conversation reopened

[dramafreezone]

how about scaling down the size of your project to one that fits your current budget?  You have to crawl before you walk.

You need to assume that you are going to be doing this by yourself, while supporting yourself.  That is what it takes to do what you're trying to do. 

Your parents are here to keep you safe first and foremost, that's their instinct.  That is at times in diametric opposition to their kid's dreams, so understand it from their point of view.

Additionally, understand that some people just don't think on a grand scale.  A lot of people are just happy with a 9 to 5, paying the bills and going on a vacay once in a while, and there's nothing wrong with that.  But those people don't understand others that want to take huge risks to be great.  More often than not when you see huge filmmakers, movie stars, tv stars, they had parents that thought those pursuits were a waste of time.  That said, some parents just bit their tongues and supported their kids, while others spoke up, but a parent's instinct is to generally shield their kids from risk.

Edited February 23, 2022 by dramafreezone

[ironpony]

8 hours ago, Wiseman2 said:

Then why use extreme hyperbole and extreme buzzwords such as "Seize Control of My Money!".

When in fact,  all they're doing is just trying to give you financial tips about saving for the future?

Well if the money is frozen then I have no control over it to make the movie, so I felt it was out of my control as a result.  But I see your point.  I know they want what's best, but it's strange how the money has to be frozen for a year, just so I will get a few hundred extra more dollars.

[ironpony]

48 minutes ago, dramafreezone said:

how about scaling down the size of your project to one that fits your current budget?  You have to crawl before you walk.

You need to assume that you are going to be doing this by yourself, while supporting yourself.  That is what it takes to do what you're trying to do. 

Your parents are here to keep you safe first and foremost, that's their instinct.  That is at times in diametric opposition to their kid's dreams, so understand it from their point of view.

Additionally, understand that some people just don't think on a grand scale.  A lot of people are just happy with a 9 to 5, paying the bills and going on a vacay once in a while, and there's nothing wrong with that.  But those people don't understand others that want to take huge risks to be great.  More often than not when you see huge filmmakers, movie stars, tv stars, they had parents that thought those pursuits were a waste of time.  That said, some parents just bit their tongues and supported their kids, while others spoke up, but a parent's instinct is to generally shield their kids from risk.

I think it's as scaled down as I can possibly scale it now.  The script has to be at least 90 pages to be feature length, in industry rules, and it's at 96 now.  But that is still quirte a lot of money to pay everyone for 96 pages of filmming work.  So I don't think it can be scaled down any further, unless someone who can do it better than me is willing to help out there.

[ironpony]

4 hours ago, ASG said:

@ironpony what film do you want to make? 

Do you have a script? A storyboard? A budget? Have you planned ANY of it or are you just high ont he "I want to make a film" wave? 

Most people with a career in film making start out by working for others, int he film making industry (or even in the TV industry), and start off making short films, on NO budget.

I don't quite understand why you want to spend 40k of your savings on your first endeavour into film making... Unless I'm wrong and this is not your first??

I have a script but still trying to get the budget down.  I have done a good amount of the storyboards, and my gf is doing a lot of them too, since she is good at drawing, but I can't do a lot of them until I have the locations, but I need to have a certain amount of crew on board first before I get the locations, so it's a paradox there, before I can do all of the storyboards.

I have already done no budget projects before and I have helped out a lot of people on theres over the years.  I just felt it was time to move onto something bigger and take the next step rather than keep on being stuck on helping out others only, if that makes sense.

[Wiseman2]

12 minutes ago, ironpony said:

 it's strange how the money has to be frozen for a year, just so I will get a few hundred extra more dollars.

That is called investing. Use your money to make money.. Not throwing money away on unrealistic projects.

In fact you could lean some money management and investing skills, so that when they are gone, you can take care of yourself without having to work menial jobs.

[ironpony]

Oh okay, I am just not sure how else to invest the money in wanting to get into a filmmaking career, other than spend on on making a film project to get into the door with.

[Wiseman2]

7 minutes ago, ironpony said:

Oh okay, I am just not sure how else to invest the money in wanting to get into a filmmaking career, other than spend on on making a film project to get into the door with.

Ask your parents to help you find a financial advisor and CPA to help you develop money management skills, tax strategies, etc.  As long as you have professionals help you you won't be broke when your parents are no longer around. Your parents widely suggested you invest the money.

Pages and pages ago in this thread you went on circles for pages and pages about not even having a viable plan for making any sort of movie. Your parents are not stealing your money. They are protecting you from yourself.

Edited February 23, 2022 by Wiseman2

[ironpony]

1 minute ago, Wiseman2 said:

Ask your parents to help you find a financial advisor and CPA to help you develop money management skills, tax strategies, etc.  As long as you have professionals help you you won't be broke when your parents are no longer around. Your parents widely suggested you invest the money.

Pages and pages ago in this thread you went on circles for pages and pages about not even having a viable plan for making any sort of movie. Your parents are not stealing your money. They are protecting you from yourself.

Oh okay.  I feel like I have more of a production shooting plan, but trying to get it done for a much lower amount of money is the challenge.  When you say find a financial advisor, won't that person cost money to pay though too?

[ASG]

1 hour ago, ironpony said:

Oh okay, I am just not sure how else to invest the money in wanting to get into a filmmaking career, other than spend on on making a film project to get into the door with.

This is a misconception. 

Spending money on a movie is not how you get into the industry. 

Having connections is how you get in. This is very much a "who you know" industry. 

Crew doesn't have to be professional.

Technical film students tend to need the experience. You'll have to pay expenses, but not day rates (you definitely cannot afford that) 

Spending all you savings on this will not get you in the door. That's not how it works. 

What would your end goal be, once this film was done? What would your next steps be, to get into the industry? 

[ironpony]

The end goal would be to market movies to festivals.  If it doesn't sell, hopefully it will be a foot in the door to get other projects offered to me.

I feel that the crew has to be at least somewhat professional in order to get professional results though.  The DP, PSM, and PD have to be at least talented enough in their areas to get good results on the overall product I feel.

I don't have a lot of connections in the industry other than some people I know who's projects I have helped out on, but I think connections would take one more seriously if they had a feature film under their belt or so I feel.

[dramafreezone]

2 hours ago, ironpony said:

Oh okay, I am just not sure how else to invest the money in wanting to get into a filmmaking career, other than spend on on making a film project to get into the door with.

How about finding financial backing from people that have the means to fund these types of ventures?  That of course requires a business plan, which requires planning, a lot of meeting people and those people telling you "no thanks", and patience/perseverance.   If you ask enough people though, someone will like what you're doing and give you a chance if this is a sound, original project, of course in turn you'd sign a contract detailing that they would be cut into future earnings/rights to future projects.  You have to think creatively on how to get this off the ground.

There's a reason why some are very successful and that's because they took small, manageable steps to get where they needed to go.  They didn't rush or bite off more than they could chew because they felt like they had to do something now.  There shouldn't be a rush, if this is a great project you should want it to go as smoothly as possible.  If it takes another 2 years to do this right, so be it.

Edited February 23, 2022 by dramafreezone

[ironpony]

I can do that, it's just I would feel much more under pressure if it was other people's money other than my own.  If other people's money went into a product that didn't make any money back,, I would just feel more bad, compared if it was my own money.