During the pre-production phase a movie company has a very long to-do list. As executive producer my biggest task has been to attract and organize the financing of the project. While it has had it moments of setbacks and frustrations, I can truly say it has been an adventure. The financial world has its own language, one which I am conquering one word at a time, one day at a time, one situation at a time. It also has it nuances that require some patience to understand. One financial group may seem eager and excited about someone's project today, but tomorrow lose sight of it in a pile of paper work. (The paper work is its own adventure and I have spent more than one entire day doing nothing but filling out form after form after form.) Also, sometimes one person in an investment group may seem to share a producer's vision today, only to have tomorrow be a completely different project. I am here to tell you though, that none of that matters. The only thing that truly matters is our end goal and the knowledge that we will accomplish it. In my mind I am always seated in a theatre watching my movie and listening to the laughter of the audience.
My daughter has a quote on her bedroom wall attributed to Tom Hiddleston, a now A-list actor who has spoken more than once about his own challenges in getting to where he is now at. The quote says the following: "You keep putting one foot in front of the other....and one day you look back and you've climbed a mountain." So as I continue to meet with investors, fill out paperwork, and deal with the different twists and my director (John Gerds) deals with (gathering the crew and scouting locations, and organizing production), we will keep taking one step at a time, enjoying every twist and turn along the way because we both know that one day we will look back and realize we have climbed a mountain!
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AuthorLynne M. Smelser is an executive producer and scriptwriter. For more than 20 years she has been an active writer who has won many national awards. She also holds a Ph.D. in English from Michigan State University. Archives
August 2020
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