Motion Pictures

DIGITAL MEDIA PRODUCTS - PRODUCTIONS - SERVICES
10-Mar-2010

Motion Pictures

So what is a digital media company doing in the motion picture business? Actually its being driven by a lot of the work we're doing with Digital Cinema. Independant Film, also happens to be a passion with the four major founders of TechYou.

Below are a couple of production stills from Craig's 1976 film Mirrored Eclipse. The film bug bit early and once your infected it stays with you. If you happen to have visited the Canada Pavillion during Expo '86 you might remember seeing Craig's documentary production "Life at Mould Bay" which documented the life and times of people working year 'round at a remote weather station in Canada's Western High Arctic.

From Mirrored Eclipse - 1976 Craig Bowman/Ian Pauley Producers

So although on the surface making movies might seem a bit of a stretch, it actually fits quite nicely into everything we're involved with at TechYou.

Current Production News

Summer of 2009 is shaping up to be a very busy one for TechYou Digital Media. Don Ferguson and Jim Dow were off to Vancouver at the request of Telefilm Canada in relation to moving Jackson Styles to its next stage of development.

Craig Bowman is getting the casting director information required in relation to the budget on Plastic so that the two starring and four main supporting roles can have their budgets nailed down and Cast by the end of July. Craig also needs to get an update from Environment Canada about the current status of the Weather Station at Eureka on Ellesmere Island to find out what might need to happen to facilitate use of the external parts of the facility for Summer 2010. We can take advantage of the 24 hour sunshine for a late July, early August 2010 shooting schedule.

After much feedback its been decided that Plastic needs to have its third draft rewrite finished by the end of June so that key people will be available for the three week shoot of a Horror feature.

On the equipment front our initial Red One camera (#214), will be joined by an Epic with a full set of the new Red Pro Primes, two S35 Scarlets, six Red Ray players, two new Arri MB 20 Matte Boxes and a pair of Arri FF fives, two sets of ND and Infrafred filters on a new double set of O'Conner sticks. That should alleviate some of the scheduling issues.

Architectural plans are awaiting confirmation of zoning for the proposed site of our "mini" studio facility. Fortis B.C. will be doing the underground power line installation.

Training materials are progressing and we have some samples from the Tallus Ridge shoot with our Red One for basic Dolly Move and Crane Up, Jib Up and Crane Down. Click the following links to check them out:

Standard Dolly || Dolly In || Dolly Against Flow || Crane Up One || Crane Up Two || Jib Up

Crane Down One || Crane Down Two

Plastic - In Casting
	Trying to impress the love of his life, Harry Gibralter gets massively into credit card debt and hatches an ingenious plot to lose the debt and win his girl.
Jackson Styles - In Pre-Production
	A man wins ten million dollars in the national lottery and then sets up a treasure hunt for his friends. The friend that finds him gets a million in cold hard cash.
H.A.W.S. - In Development
	A High Arctic Weather Station is about to be mothballed by the Government until a diamond deposit is discovered nearby. All hell breaks loose in the mad rush to get the diamonds and save their jobs.

Plastic - The Stars
	Trying to impress the love of his life, Harry Gibralter gets massively into credit card debt and hatches an ingenious plot to lose the debt and win his girl.
Jackson Styles - In Pre-Production
	A man wins ten million dollars in the national lottery and then sets up a treasure hunt for his friends. The friend that finds him gets a million in cold hard cash.
H.A.W.S. - In Development
	A High Arctic Weather Station is about to be mothballed by the Government until a diamond deposit is discovered nearby. All hell breaks loose in the mad rush to get the diamonds and save their jobs.

Plastic - Bhind The Scenes
	Trying to impress the love of his life, Harry Gibralter gets massively into credit card debt and hatches an ingenious plot to lose the debt and win his girl.
Jackson Styles - In Pre-Production
	A man wins ten million dollars in the national lottery and then sets up a treasure hunt for his friends. The friend that finds him gets a million in cold hard cash.
H.A.W.S. - In Development
	A High Arctic Weather Station is about to be mothballed by the Government until a diamond deposit is discovered nearby. All hell breaks loose in the mad rush to get the diamonds and save their jobs.

Investing in the Movies Between the Federal and Provincial Tax Credits Motion Picture Investors are guaranteed to recoup at least Sixty (60%) Percent of their original investment back. That is a worst cast scenario. However, the potential can be quite large. The key item to making effective returns on a feature length movie is a strong and binding distribution deal. We are referring to a North American distribution deal as well. Foreign film markets have changed dramatically for the Independant Producer in the last five years. The American Film Market (AFM), used to be a place where a producer could take their film and make several distribution deals. So after a successful debut at a festival like Sundance, the "popcorn deal" would be setup in the lobby of the theatre with the Acquisition Executives from the major distributors and the Producer would practically give away their movie, (essentially relinquishing the North American rights for nothing) in exchange for keep the foreign rights. The producer would then make substantial returns for the investment group at the AFM. The AFM in the last few years has been deluged with mountains of garbage as everyone and their grandmother would be making zero budget feature and the foreign buyers just didn't have the physical time to slog through the mountains of crud trying to find something they could actually distribute in their country that people would pay to see. TechYou Digital Media has a unique approach to the old school distribution model. Come and chat with us and we will explain how the discreet marketing windows work and and how we can maximize return for each of those windows.
Having a picture which grosses 200 million and up from an total investment group that have less than 15 million in a picture is not out of the question. We'll show you how we leverage the special corporate structure we employ to spread the risk out across multiple markets. If your tired of watching your portfolio shrink and want an opportunity to have better stability then email us or give us a call and we'll set up a meeting to discuss your options.

Plastic - Investment Pool #542

Jackson Styles - Investment Pool #416

H.A.W.S. - Investment Pool #612