Archive for the 'distribution' Category

We’re excited to announce that Fissure can now be watched on Amazon Prime.

Here are some of the reviews from viewers:

“Well done! Actually left me thinking at first it was another haunting so I was pleasantly surprised with something different. Would make a pretty neat series.”

“A Lot of Twists and Turns, Held my Attention.”

“One of those, not sure what’s going on but you have to keep watching movies and then you go OOHHH now I understand, kinda!! Probably need to watch it twice.”

“Interesting concept. Enjoyed it.”

“Worth watching.”

“Pretty good movie but you really need to pay attention. Made no sense through most of the movie but you could tell something wasn’t right.”

“This is a very convoluted sci-fi movie with a much different twist on it than I have ever seen before, and it is so well done; especially the CGI, that it is spellbinding for a low-budget Indie production and proves how imagination can blend into a story-line to keep the audi9ence deeply involved right tup to and including the rolling of the credits! Good Job!”

“Engaging twisted plot.”

“Excellent movie that keeps you thinking. It took a very long time to reveal what was “wrong” but that made it worth watching. If this could only be real, it would give you a a chance to be forgiven and be to forgive, start life over if you should ever mess up. Awesome movie.”

With our movie, Fissure, we utilized a variety of online services and tools to market our film. Below is a list of the things we tried, along with what worked and didn’t work for us.

Website

This is one of the most important online tools you need for your film. Websites are easy and cheap to get online. They are working for you 24/7, and can reach all the way around the world.

Your movie website should have the following:

• An easy to remember name like GoneWithTheWindMovie.com
• Your trailer should be very, very easy to find.
• A synopsis or summary of your film.
• Prominent display of festivals, awards, recognition, etc.
• Photos from both the movie and behind the scenes.
• Cast and crew information, with links to IMDB.
• Registration page to gather fans and email addresses.
• Links to other social media and online resources.
• A very clean, easy-to-use interface.

We used WordPress for the Fissure TV website. WordPress was perfect for what we needed:

• It’s free.
• It allows viewers to post comments.
• Embedding YouTube videos is easy.
• We could skin the system with our own themed template.
• It comes “out of the box” SEO ready — Search Engine Optimized.
• Oh, and did I mention it was free.

Facebook

Facebook has been a solid success for us regarding marketing. Using a Facebook Fan Page (http://www.facebook.com/FissureMovie), we’ve been able to communicate to fans, post events (screenings, DVD release, etc.), and keep a good general awareness of the movie.

Using Facebook Ads, we were able to fill up an otherwise empty theater for a screening in Portland. We created an ad to promote a “Free screening of an award-winning, indie film”. Then, we targeted film enthusiasts and sci-fi fans in the Portland area. We limited our spend to $10 a day, and paid about $0.50 per click. We had quite a few impressions.

Here’s a chart of our Facebook Ad metrics:

Impressions: This is how many times the Facebook Ad ran. As you can see, the ad was in front of more than a quarter million people at a cost of about $100. That’s cheap advertising!

Clicks: This is how many times the ad was clicked. This is where we paid. Each time the ad was clicked, we paid about $0.50 per click. But, even when the ad was clicked, the clickee still hasn’t taken action, which for us was to register for the free screening event.

Actions: This is the action that was taken–register for the free screening.

While you may think the number of actions is small (a total of 6), there is a lot of exposure and impressions going on. Again, all for about $100.

Twitter

We also had some great experience with Twitter. We setup a custom-themed Twitter page for FissureTV and started following anyone connected to, or related to the entertainment industry. And, a quite a few followed us back.

With those who followed, we would often DM (direct message) to give updates, especially when we released a new webisode each week. Twitter was very successful in helping us get the word out.

We also setup a Twitter “retweet” (RT) contest. Retweeting is where you take a tweet and re-send it with the name of the person who originally tweeted the message. Each week, when we released a new webisode, we tweeted the following from the @FissureTV Twitter account: “Check out this week’s episode, ‘The Call’ at http://fissure.tv and RT to be eligible for prizes.”

Those who retweeted the message were automatically entered into a drawing for a variety of prizes — iPods, DVDs, autographed headshots, etc. The retweeted message looked like this: “RT @FissureTV Check out this week’s episode, ‘The Call’ at http://fissure.tv and RT to be eligible for prizes.”

Using Twitter’s Advanced Search combined with an RSS feed, we were able to capture everyone who was talking about FissureTV on Twitter. And, it was all free!

Interestingly, here’s something that didn’t work for us. We had a grand prize giveway — a flat screen television. All you had to do was register at FissureTV and simply gave us your name, email and zip code. Then, you were entered into this free giveway. After 10 weeks of this, we gathered a whopping 20 names. Twenty! Fail.

Here’s what I learned: anytime you give away something for free, people either don’t believe you, don’t believe they will win, or there’s a catch. People have been burned by “free this” and “free that”. It’s near impossible to rise above the clutter. One way is to give away something cool, like a new MacBook Pro, but now we’re talking expensive.

MySpace

We setup a MySpace page (http://myspace.com/FissureTV), and gathered some fans and friends, but in all honesty, I don’t like MySpace–too busy, too cluttered, too hard to find the good content there. So, we didn’t spend a lot of time building our MySpace network.

YouTube

As we got ready to launch the DVD, we used YouTube to post all of our videos on the movie: trailer, behind-the-scenes and the webisodes. And, right before we started posting videos, YouTube added an HD option, which was great because Fissure was originally captured in High Definition.

We also tried running a YouTube keyword ad to see if would have any success. The “action” was simply to watch the movie trailer in hopes of getting them over to our movie website.

First, we chose our keywords: “film, movie, indie, thriller, drama, etc.” and then created the add. We started monitoring the impressions. At first, it was pretty much the same, averaging about 15,000 to 20,000 impressions per day, with a few clicks. Then, one day, all of sudden, the impressions jumped to 950,000 impressions! Almost a million impressions in one day.

What was going on? I couldn’t figure it out until I went into the keyword details and saw that one keyword was driving all those impressions–thriller. It was the day Michael Jackson died.

When we launched our film this summer, we used both traditional marketing methods (press releases, radio, news, interviews, screenings, etc.) and Internet-focused methods (blogs, webisodes, social media, etc.). Which is the winner? Hard to tell. Here are some of my observations on the two approaches to marketing your indie film:

Traditional Marketing

We had some great exposure through traditional marketing. Our PR firm was able to secure lots of interviews and press events. Our movie was featured in a variety of media outlets, including a blurb in the Hollywood Reporter. And, reviews were positive. Out of the 30 or so reviews, we only had one that was negative. The rest of them encouraged folks to see the movie. So, it was a success. But, did it generate sales? Did it affect how many DVDs Netflix or Blockbuster bought? I’m not sure it did.

The difficulty for most indie filmmakers regarding traditional marketing is the cost. PR firms aren’t cheap. Media buys are expensive. Newswires, screenings, posters, post cards, advertising–all are very expensive. And most indie budgets don’t make room for these kinds of expenses.

Another challenge for traditional marketing is the ability to track how effective this kind of marketing really is. The metrics are hard to measure, the impressions hard to track. So, there’s no easy way to measure your Return on Investment (RoI).

Note to filmmakers: when you start budgeting your film, don’t forget to include a budget for marketing. When I was in the corporate world, we would allocate between 25% and 35% of a budget for marketing. Do the same for your film. And then guard that money. When you move into post, you will be very tempted to use that marketing money to polish and tweak your film. Don’t do it.

Here’s a list of some of the traditional marketing methods we used:

• Filmmaker Interviews
• Movie Reviewes (screeners)
• Postcards at Comic Con
• Theatrical Screenings
• Cast & Crew Events
• Film Festivals

Internet-based Marketing

We also decided to leverage the Internet and variety of web-based tools to marketing our movie. And, we had some very positive success.

One of our key methods for promoting the film was through a website we setup called Fissure TV at http://fissure.tv. On this website, we gave away the first part of the movie for free in the form of webisodes. We took the first 35 minutes and created 9 short webisodes, each building upon the other. We used YouTube to host and stream the webisodes and embedded them into the site directly.

One of the key benefits of using Internet-based marketing methods is the ability to track very specific information about those who you market to. On YouTube, for example, we can see how many people watch the videos, where they are coming from and which videos they watch the most. Also, we used WordPress to create the Fissure TV website. It also has tracking metrics that allow us to see even more detail about our visitors. The RoI is immediately measurable. This is huge, because we can make immediate decisions on how to adjust certain online marketing campaigns.

Another key benefit for Internet-based marketing is cost. While certain Internet marketing methods can be costly, there are also a lot of free and low-cost marketing solutions on the web. Websites, social media, web video, email–there are lots of options out there. The key cost for these is time.

With our film, Fissure, we tried a variety of online marketing methods, some with success, some with failure. In my next post, I’ll describe each method we tried, and what worked and didn’t work for us.

Regarding distribution, everything has changed and continues to change. The entertainment landscape is vastly different than it was was just a few years ago. The Hollywood business models that worked for years now don’t work like they used to. The Internet changed everything.

The internet created two key paradigm shifts when it comes to media consumption: instant and free.

Instant

No longer do I need to hop in my car, drive down to the local DVD rental store, pick out a movie, drive back home, pop it into my DVD player, sit back down into my recliner and press play. That could take half an hour, at best.

No, today is different. Here’s what I did last night. While sitting in my recliner, I pulled out my iPhone and browsed some movie selections on Netflix. I found a show I wanted to watch, and moved it into my instant queue. Then, I turned on my HD Plasma screen and XBox, scrolled down to the new show and started watching it. 4 minutes. Never left the recliner. No extra charges for that show–just my monthly Netflix and XBox service.

Things are definitely different. DVD’s are dying. DVD rental stores are dying. Distribution as we know is changing.

I read an article yesterday about how media is being consumed with this new generation. It’s no longer the purchase of CDs and DVDs. It’s not even really the purchase and download of music of movies. Today, it’s all about streaming and media services.

What does that mean for indie filmmakers? Well, it’s a blessing and curse, a doubled-edged sword.

A blessing because anyone can tell a story. Equipment to make movies and tell stories is almost negligible. A few hundred dollars for a camera, a few hundred dollars for a computer, an Internet connection and a free YouTube account. It’s basic, but it’s possible. That’s a blessing.

The curse is that everyone and their dog and make a video and post it on YouTube. Everyone. That’s a lot junk out there. And, going the more traditional route (raise $2 million, make a movie, secure a sweet distribution deal) just doesn’t work any more. It’s way too hard to recoup money on indie films, unless of course, they are done really, really inexpensively. Then, there’s a shot.

The key is a well-told story. That’s what makes the difference. You’ve got to know your audience and you’ve got to focus on your audience. If you shoot for the masses, you’ll miss. But, if you focus on a niche, and know the audience of the niche, then you’ll hit your target. Avoid the shotgun approach, and go with a sniper rifle approach. Focus equals impact.

Free

This is another paradigm created by the Internet. Everything is free. It’s not, but that’s the perception of those who use the Internet. Free searches, free music, free pictures, free everything. So, when music and movies were digitized, uploaded and shared, everyone just thought they would be free.

While the “instant” aspect of the Internet can probably be adapted to, this aspect of “free” is far more challenging because it takes money to create content.

So, what’s the answer? Immediately, industries started going after pirates using copyright law, and technology specialists tried creating better encryption, but that’s not going to solve the problem. Ever-changing technology will make it near impossible to digitally guard content, and it’s sad to say, but people won’t change. They will continue downloading pirated content.

Even with that, I still believe there is answer. No one has really found it yet, but there is a business model built around “free”. How much did you pay for your Google search this morning? Nothing. How much did you pay for the YouTube video you watched last night. Nothing. Yet, Google is one of the most profitable company in existence today.

Chirs Anderson of Wired Magazine just wrote a book called Free, the Future of a Radical Price. In his book, he describes this new economy of Free. There is a business model around free, but what that looks like for indie films hasn’t really been tapped yet.

We are making incredible progress in getting the webisodes ready to launch for our June 15th start date. Very exciting!

In the mean time, check out some of our “Behind-the-Scenes” clips from the movie:

• Behind-the-Scenes Featurette 1, The Story
• Behind-the-Scenes Featurette 2, James Macdonald
• Behind-the-Scenes Featurette 3, Russ Pond
• Behind-the-Scenes Featurette 4, Crystal Mantecon

We’re also getting some wonderful press about our launch:

• Fissure recently got picked up by the Hollywood Reporter. Read it here.
• Fissure was recently featured in an article on Sci Fi Wire, a press release site from the Sci Fi Channel. You can read the article here.
• Fissure.TV was featured in SciFiScoop recently: “The best science fiction films are those where the sci-fi elements take a backseat in favor of a great storyline involving a premise and characters you can get emotionally invested in. Though I’m yet to see the full film, it certainly seems the story of Fissure contains exactly those elements.” Check out the full story here. Or, follow them on Twitter.
• Fissure.TV was recently featured in Web Series Magazine. Read the story here.

We will have special, free screenings around the US starting in Portland, Oregon on Monday, June 15th. Check out our Facebook event for more details on the Portland screening.

For a list of other screenings, check out our Fissure TV Screening Page.

Our DVD launch is set for Tuesday, August 11th. We’ll have more details as the launch date approaches.

In my last post, I shared four steps you can take to improve your chances for successful distribution for your indie feature film.

In this post, I want to talk about the various types of distribution deals that are out there for indie feature films. It’s a bit confusing and very subjective at times. So, you have to be careful.

Before jumping into the actual distribution deal, let me take a moment to talk about what exactly can be sold.

Territories
First, you have territories. Often, a distributor comes in and wants to distribute your film worldwide. That’s every territory, every country, every region. Other maybe, they want just foreign rights (which is everywhere in the world except the US or US and Canada). Or vice versa, they may want domestic rights or North American rights.

For Fissure, we received a few worldwide offers. The foreign distribution company that we signed with initially approached us wanting worldwide rights, but we wanted to keep our domestic rights, so we negotiated out the US and Canadian rights, and let them distribute our foreign rights.

Rights
Next, you need to understand what can be sold within those territories. Here’s a list of the rights that can be sold within each territory:

• Theatrical
• Broadcast
• DVD/Laserdisc (yes, Laserdisc!)
• Online/Download
• Pay-per-view
• Airline

Most distributors will bundle all of these in their contract. Sometimes, a distributor may come in and just request “Domestic Broadcast” or “Foreign DVD”, but usually they want all of them.

If you wanted to, you could literally carve out different variations based on territory and rights. For example, you could sell the Bulgarian PPV rights or the Thailand Broadcast rights. But honestly, you need someone who knows what they are doing and has the relationships in place to secure those deals. That’s why is common to sell all of your foreign or all of your domestic rights.

The Offer
Now that you understand territories and rights, let’s jump into what an offer looks like. There are typically three things that are the focus of most distribution deals:

• The advance
• The marketing expenses
• The royalty

These are often the three first questions I ask when an offer would come in on Fissure. What kind of advance are you paying? What are your marketing expenses and are they capped? After expenses are paid, what is our royalty?

The Advance
Today, with such a saturated market, advances are becoming more rare. I’ve heard that advances can often be your only revenue for your film. Exaggerated marketing expenses and hefty administrative cost can sometimes keep you from reaching the royalty stage.

I have a friend who received a good advance on his foreign deal and good advance on his domestic deal, but he told me that it’s really all he’s expecting in the way of revenue. There’s a royalty deal in place and even a cap on marketing expenses, but he’s convinced that the advances will be all he gets on the film.

Marketing Expenses
Marketing expenses were always the subjective part of the deal where most filmmakers were taken. I hate to say it, but this area is the most dangerous, yet the most needed.

Marketing is essential for the success of a film. You need to get the word out. Posters, advertising, PR, website, social media, box art, viral campaigns, trailer, contests, screenings, give-aways, tee-shirts, etc. It’s all needed.

The problem comes when distributors manage that. First, they mark it up to cover their management and administration of the marketing. So, if the bottom line costs for the trailer creation is $5K, they may market it up 40% and charge you $7K for the trailer. Now, they don’t charge you directly, but pull the $7K from the first money that comes in.

And, here’s the kicker–they don’t pay off marketing expenses until after they pull their royalty. So, for example, if the first order from Blockbuster comes in and it’s $50K order and the royalty deal is 50/50, and the marketing expenses are $20K, here’s how the numbers work. First, the distributor calculates his 50% off of the $50K. That’s $25K to the distributor. Then, they pay the marketing, $20K. That’s a total of $45K, and now your profit on the $50K order is $5K. It sure doesn’t feel like a 50/50 deal.

So, marketing expenses can be tricky. The two things you can push for in the contract are: a cap, so that they don’t spend more than they need and secondly, request that all marketing expenses must be agreed upon by the production company. In other words, you have approval over what they spend on marketing. I’m not sure if this is possible, but I know of a distributor who is doing this now.

Royalties
This is what is paid to the production company after all marketing expenses have been and all replication costs have been recouped. We’ve had a variety of royalty offers come our way:

• 70%-filmmaker / 30%-distributor
• 50%-filmmaker / 50%-distributor
• 30%-filmmaker / 70%-distributor

There are quite a few different deals out there.

Recently, I have seen a new type of distribution deal emerge based on a unique combination of the three areas.

In the past, most distribution deals looked like this:

• Advance: $5K to $50K
• Marketing Expenses: Capped at $20K to $50K
• Royalty: 30% to 70%

This was how most of the deals were made–an advance, with a marketing cap and a royalty.

Today, there’s a new type of deal being offered, what I call a “first-dollar, royalty deal”. It looks like this:

• Advance: $0, no advance
• Marketing Expenses: No marketing expenses
• Royalty: 30% to 50%

It’s becoming more common to have no advance, no marketing expenses and then a straight royalty. This a good for both the distributor and the producer. There is no fluffy accounting that can happen. The distributor pays the production company on the first dollar that comes in. It’s seems to be a very clean deal compared to previous distribution deals.

Our foreign distributor, Boll, offers a straight, first-dollar deal. This deal is even promoted on their website:

Our offer to you is better as what other worldsales company offers: we sell your movie for 30% but in that 30% are all our costs (from legal to marketing) what means from every sale you get no matter how small the deal is your 70%.

Closing
So, there you have it. Independent film distribution in a nut shell. Sure, there are many variations and details to film distribution, but this should give you a solid overview on the distribution process.

Now that we are coming the close of our movie project, I want to take a few minutes to share some of the learnings along the way, because there are many!

To start with, I want to talk about independent film distribution, because of all the various steps of this process, distribution has been the biggest mystery of them all. In all honesty, finding the story, raising the funds, assembling the crew, producing the film, and finalizing the edit were all quite easy compared to distribution.

There are certain steps you can take to increase your chances of having a successful independent feature film. Here are four key areas that you need to focus before you shoot your first shot:

1. Name talent: It’s the number one question I was asked when I told distributors that I had a feature film for sale. “Who’s in it?” Name talent is an essential ingredient for financially successful independent films. Is it always the case? No, not always, but if you want to increase your chances of success, then you can instantly move through the clutter of films by casting name talent. Your investment into a well-networked casting director will pay the highest dividends on your project.

2. Strong Story: Second to name talent comes story. Story is so important, so essential. It’s where every film project must start–with a good story. And not just a good story, but a well-structured, well-thought out, fully developed story. There are so many good books out there today on screenwriting. It’s easy to learn good story structure. Everything they talk about becomes so important in filmmaking–act structure, inciting incident, plot points, character arcs, beats, etc. All of it is needed for a good story.

3. Solid Production Quality: You can have name talent and even a good story, but if the production quality is not there, then you leave your audience with an inability to suspend their disbelief. If your audience keeps getting pulled out of the story, then you’ve lost them.

I remember going to see a movie at a theater in a small Texas town. They had forgotten to put on the projector mask that masks out the 35mm print into it’s correct aspect ratio. With nothing masked, I saw boom mics, camera flags, cables, everything. It was terrible. I can’t even remember what the movie was about.

Anything that pulls the viewer out of the story is detrimental to your film’s success. Some of the key areas to focus on that will increase your production value are lighting, acting, camera framing and movement, editing and color, sound design and music.

4. Distribution Plan: Before your first day of shooting, you should have a solid distribution plan in place. And, it needs to be realistic. If you’re thinking your film will be different, your film will be better, your film will break all the rules and be the next Blair Witch Project, then you are setting yourself up to be one of the thousands upon thousands of indie films that never see the light of day. You’ve got to plan. You’ve got to think ahead of time.

We’re in the process of putting together our next film project. Distribution is the number question to be answered before we get started. It will determine what genre we shoot, what script we select, what actors we cast, what locations we scout. Distribution will be the filter through which every decision will be made.

Obviously, there are others steps that can be taken to increase your chances of success, but in my experience on Fissure, these four areas are the foundation of success.

We are proud to announce that Fissure’s foreign distribution has started. We signed an agreement this month with Uwe Boll. Boll will be managing all of our foreign distribution—theatrical, DVD and broadcast.

This past Friday, we delivered all of our audio and video masters, along with all of our current marketing material. We’ll keep you posted on how Fissure is doing throughout the world.

As for our domestic distribution, we are still digging through a few different offers. We’ll keep you posted.

The more I learn about film distribution, the deeper the rabbit hole goes (to quote The Matrix). It’s amazingly complex and diverse. It’s never as simple as “Here. Buy my film.” There are so many degrees and levels and territories and rights and agents and rabbit holes.

With the advent of digital filmmaking, it has become a buyer’s market. There is so much supply that demand has dropped considerably. Let me give you one example. Horror films have saturated the market. Typically, horror films are cheap to make, require no name talent (you kill them all off anyway), and fear sells across cultures. But, horror films are a dime a dozen.

So, what are our options for our movie? The biggest challenge we have is that there are no recognizable names. We have some great talent and actors who have been in big films. James Macdonald’s extensive resume includes movies like Phone Booth, Hollywood Homicide, Space Cowboys, Stealth, Home of the Brave, Mercury Rising and Broken Arrow. His list of TV credits are even longer.

Our other actors have formidable credits as well, like Scarlett McAlister (The Missing & The Astronaut Farmer) and Crystal Mantecon (Road House 2 & Prison Break) and Todd Tyler (Walker Texas Ranger). We have some great talent! And it shows on screen.Then, there’s the story. It’s a wonderful, unique story that’s never been told before. It’s the kind of show that you can watch three and four times and still see new and fresh things. There’s an incredible science behind the story that indie film buffs will be drawn to. Those commenting on the film say it has the potential to be a cult classic.

So, how do you sell that? It comes down to marketing and being able to position your film amidst the fray.

Some of our strategies include an amazing website. This week we start work on a new movie website. It’ll focus on a lot of web 2.0 technologies, like blogging, commenting, email blasts and links to social networks. Which leads me to another marketing strategy…social networking. With explosion of tools like MySpace, Facebook, etc., it’s imperative that you start networking. There are blogs, newsgroups, networks, niche groups, and millions of others little networks–and it’s key that you plug into these groups.

I’ve now taken off my filmmaking hat, dusted off my old marketing hat from Corporate America and jumped back into the business arena. It’s familiar, yet new. Lots of the same concepts apply, but instead of selling mobile phones and services, I’m selling movies.

I wanted to take a few moments to talk a bit more about distribution. It’s interesting talking to different people about this part of the moviemaking business. Distribution does seem to be quite subjective at times, but at the end of the day, it’s a lot like selling a home. Let me explain.

First, we build a spec home (the movie). When we build the home, we make sure the location (genre) is good, and what people are looking for. As they say in the business, it’s all about location, location, location (genre, genre, genre). Then, we make sure the amenities are of great value (casting, production value, story). And, we make sure we stay on budget and on schedule (budget and schedule).

Once the house is built, very rarely to home builders sell directly to home buyers (self distribution). Rather, the home builder (filmmaker) hires realtors (sales agents) to sell the home (the film) directly to the new home owner (Blockbuster), at a commission. When it comes to films, there are a variety of rights you can sell, but it typically comes down to three categories:

• Theatrical (in the theater)
• Broadcast (cable and satellite)
• Video (Wal Mart and Blockbuster)

And, those three rights can be sold anywhere in the world in separate territories. So, there are lots of variations and combinations of sellable options. For this movie, all rights across all territories are available for purchase at this time. We are currently talking to a variety of sales agents, and we’re getting some great feedback. Many are very pleased with the story and production value. These are some actual quotes from potential sales agents:

“The film is very well made, and we very much enjoyed its visual qualities.”“It’s a well-shot film.”

And, we did receive our first critic’s review:

Fi•ss•ure: A separation or disagreement in thought or viewpointIt can certainly be said that this was true of the discussion after the jam packed premier of Russ Pond’s movie, Thursday, Nov 15, 2007! Everyone bustled and buzzed about this fantastic project! My take? Well, where do I start? Slowly at first to be perfectly honest. It began with a great view, its main character. Instantly I thought he should be on 24. His look was perfect, his acting, good. His obvious discomfort about something we didn’t quite know about yet was well portrayed. Therapy session-good start as well.It took too long to get to the juicy part. But the juicy part was really good! It was enjoyable not having a lot of different locations in the film. You could then try to figure out what you’re trying to figure out! Casting was also excellent. Each person perfectly fit their part.The movie had a lot of great issues and to hear the way everyone thought it “ought to have gone” afterwards was really a testament to the greatness of the film. The struggle over death and hence despair, the battle to heal oneself, the mystery of science, the healing between father and son, etc…. My favorite part of course, was the end. I am a woman, after all, and nothing is better than a man wanting to tell his son how much he loves him, even though… The even though?Well you have to go through to find out!– Christy the Critic

For our first review, it’s positive, and that’s very encouraging. We’ll keep you updated on the progress of our new home.