Sick Boy (2011)

[BurnetRhoades]

This is the second independent feature I've made with my brother Tim and our first horror/thriller under our new Goat Man's Hill banner. Tim wrote and directed based on a story he and I developed. I shot it on a Canon 7D. I believe we were less than $50K in-the-can, shot in 13.5 days in Austin,Texas and are now completing post production...




Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/3wjbu4f

SICK BOY stars BOOGEYMAN and FIRESTARTER 2: REKINDLED's Skye McCole (a.k.a. Skye McCole Bartusiak) as Lucy, a young woman who steps in for a friend to take a job babysitting a young boy. The boy is confined to his room due to what Lucy is told is a mysterious illness, but she begins to suspect the child's mother (Debbie Rochon) is hiding something—the truth turns out to be far worse than she could imagine.


PRODUCER: Blayne Gorum, Tim T. Cunningham
WRITER: Tim T. Cunningham
DIRECTOR: Tim T. Cunningham
DP: Sean C. Cunningham


HD Download: http://www.megavideo.com/?v=5AJSJ2PE

[PatBateman]

looks pretty good

[BurnetRhoades]

Thanks. To be sure, it's a simple little film but making it with so little risk to our investors was important, not to mention establishing our philosophy that low budget doesn't mean we don't have to try to craft an actual film.

And I misspoke above, we were less than $40K "in-the-can" and now, with post production near completed, we're still less than $50K spent. More than a mere calling-card film, our goal is to turn the simple facts of this film, as an example of our capabilities both technical and creative, into a full-time opportunity.

We'd have been totally completed back last year if we could focus on this as an actual "job" and not had to support ourselves or families by selling our souls to the Hollywood meat-grinder. I got out, but I only have me to worry about. Tim's got a family.

[SGGreenman]

wow, that looks actually good. I'll have to check it out

[BurnetRhoades]

We had our cast-n-crew screening this last Saturday at the world famous Alamo Drafthouse (Lake Creek location in N.Austin). It came off without a hitch even though, true-to-form, we ended up being right down to the wire and I ended up hauling my Mac and array down to the theatre, hooking it straight into the Barco digital projector and we ended up watching the uncompressed, 10bit color-correct renders directly because making a HQ h.264 version was just taking too damned long, LOL.

[Erebus Dirge]

This looks really good man, well done. I got to see this.
This is the kind of undiscovered indie-jem I would expect to find at the likes of Fright Fest or some other major horror film festival.

You got anything else planned for the future film wise?

[BurnetRhoades]

We plan to have our sales representation sorted by the end of September. We're still fielding offers on the rights and just need to pick the right company. This part of the process got out of our hands quickly on our first feature but we made this one so inexpensively we were able to maintain majority holdings.

We weren't originally planning on festival participation but wanted to get into distribution as quickly as we could, get our investors their money back and the ball rolling on our next film. Truth is, setting the festival circuit as a priority adds at least a year to the equation and without already having sales representation set up for the film it's actually almost impossible for individual, truly "indie" filmmakers to get their films entered.

That's the part of the story they always seem to leave out of all these independent film success stories. Film festivals are a business and all that altruistic, artistic ra-ra stuff is mostly propaganda. At least with the mainstream, name-brand festivals, this is the case. Focused, genre-specific festivals I'm more likely to be less cynical regarding their intentions but it's still a costly, very demanding undertaking that does nothing but suck money out of your wallet, which we didn't/don't have.

You either budget for festival participation in the beginning (and this is money you have to justify not going up on the screen) or go back to fund raising once you've got a completed film.

If we were back in our 20s it would be easier to just consider that "part of the game" but our aim is to make this, making movies, our full-time job and not something we do nights, weekends and holidays while we continue working at vendor facilities, realizing the "vision" of other filmmakers and constantly being shat upon by the dysfunctional, ungrateful and often retarded corporate studio system.

Besides entry fees and travel expenses there's advertising costs which would all fall on us. There's a real tendency to follow a "build it and they will come" philosophy but the festival film needs ticket sales as badly as any Hollywood film on opening weekend, with intense competition for even fewer potential eyes on the screen and asses in the seats. So, we figured, if we were going to reach back into our pockets again we were going to give the folks that believed in our project maybe (worst case) their only chance to see their hard work up on the big screen at a place we hold far more dear to our hearts than any Mann Chinese Theatre.

With a sales/producers rep in place the game changes. We have at least one that's really gung-ho for festival participation as part of a focused marketing strategy. Of course this means the money still has to come from somewhere but the issue is far more manageable as a deferred kind of thing where it's not immediately having to be footed by us directly.

Long story short, we aren't sure this is going to happen but it's now a much more real possibility (the festival thing). Additionally, as we were hoping, we're getting interest from companies that aren't just interested in this film but our next and even tenth. We've got many more stories to tell, full scripts, treatments and then the little narrative inspirations that have been rolling around in our heads for years that just need fleshing out.

[Erebus Dirge]

Originally Posted by BurnetRhoades

We plan to have our sales representation sorted by the end of September. We're still fielding offers on the rights and just need to pick the right company. This part of the process got out of our hands quickly on our first feature but we made this one so inexpensively we were able to maintain majority holdings.

We weren't originally planning on festival participation but wanted to get into distribution as quickly as we could, get our investors their money back and the ball rolling on our next film. Truth is, setting the festival circuit as a priority adds at least a year to the equation and without already having sales representation set up for the film it's actually almost impossible for individual, truly "indie" filmmakers to get their films entered.

That's the part of the story they always seem to leave out of all these independent film success stories. Film festivals are a business and all that altruistic, artistic ra-ra stuff is mostly propaganda. At least with the mainstream, name-brand festivals, this is the case. Focused, genre-specific festivals I'm more likely to be less cynical regarding their intentions but it's still a costly, very demanding undertaking that does nothing but suck money out of your wallet, which we didn't/don't have.

You either budget for festival participation in the beginning (and this is money you have to justify not going up on the screen) or go back to fund raising once you've got a completed film.

If we were back in our 20s it would be easier to just consider that "part of the game" but our aim is to make this, making movies, our full-time job and not something we do nights, weekends and holidays while we continue working at vendor facilities, realizing the "vision" of other filmmakers and constantly being shat upon by the dysfunctional, ungrateful and often retarded corporate studio system.

Besides entry fees and travel expenses there's advertising costs which would all fall on us. There's a real tendency to follow a "build it and they will come" philosophy but the festival film needs ticket sales as badly as any Hollywood film on opening weekend, with intense competition for even fewer potential eyes on the screen and asses in the seats. So, we figured, if we were going to reach back into our pockets again we were going to give the folks that believed in our project maybe (worst case) their only chance to see their hard work up on the big screen at a place we hold far more dear to our hearts than any Mann Chinese Theatre.

With a sales/producers rep in place the game changes. We have at least one that's really gung-ho for festival participation as part of a focused marketing strategy. Of course this means the money still has to come from somewhere but the issue is far more manageable as a deferred kind of thing where it's not immediately having to be footed by us directly.

Long story short, we aren't sure this is going to happen but it's now a much more real possibility (the festival thing). Additionally, as we were hoping, we're getting interest from companies that aren't just interested in this film but our next and even tenth. We've got many more stories to tell, full scripts, treatments and then the little narrative inspirations that have been rolling around in our heads for years that just need fleshing out.

That's a hell of a lot of graft. It takes a big pair of hairy nuts to march on.
If there's any justice in the world, you'll do alright.
I genuinely hope that it all works out for you and have every faith in you guys. And

[BurnetRhoades]

Well thanks, we truly appreciate all the support we're getting. And we're looking forward to more folks getting to see SICK BOY. Skye and Marc and Debbie and Cas and everyone else did a really great job and we had (when the pressure wasn't completely terrifying, lol) a lot of fun.

[10-31 Halloween]

looks pretty good.