By Julia Sagar
OFFF 2015: 18 things you can learn from Postpanic's auction of viral short 'Sundays' to Warner Bros.
Last year, director Mischa Rozema and Amsterdam-based hybrid studio PostPanic released a mind-bending teaser for their sci-fi film, Sundays, at OFFF Barcelona.
The stunning 14-minute short, which evokes films like Inception, is the latest in a growing trend for emerging film-makers to wow global entertainment companies with proof of concept and a slick showcase of their skills.
It was shot in Mexico with money raised from a successful KickStarter campaign and released to the world in March 2015.
This year, the team are back in Barcelona – with Warner Bros on-side. The media conglomerate won an auction for the right to create a feature film out of Sundays, just four days after the short went viral.
Last night PostPanic premiered Sundays in Spain at OFFF 2015. We caught up with Rozema and the PostPanic team afterwards to find out how a first-time feature director persuaded one of the world's biggest studios to support his film - and how anyone with a good idea but no budget can their project off the ground…
01. Get serious on social media
"We've developed our name as PostPanic over 17 years through an online community of creatives worldwide, who have supported us, so we knew there were people who would be interested in seeing a film coming out under the PostPanic brand," says producer Ania Markham.
"That was a good position to launch a Kickstarter campaign. Then, it was all about very intense social media and keeping people informed."
02. Share the vision
"We shared the vision throughout the Kickstarter campaign," continues Markham. "We'd have been happy just with 10 dollars but we were humbled by the whole experience - some people went as far as five thousand. I mean, that's unbelievable... The belief and that absolute kind of generosity to make this vision happen was staggering."
03. Respect your investors
"Something that we didn't expect was our feeling of responsibility towards the community that was facilitating our dream coming true – to be able to film in Mexico City," adds Markham, "You know, if they're going to give us the money then we need to create something that's worth the trust they've given us, so we had to put the bar really high."
04. Accept help when it's offered
"The other thing that was unexpected was how many volunteers came out of that community. It was made out of creative professionals around the world, many of which were visual effects specialists – and their expertise was offered voluntarily."
"We had this huge community of volunteers. For us, the whole Kickstarter experience was very, very positive - but it was hard work, it really was," says Markham.
05. Tempt Hollywood with proof of concept
"One of the first edits we made was already 40 minutes long," recalls director Mischa Rozema, explaining that the team initially made a complete short that rounded up the whole story.
"That completely defeats the purpose of making a concept short for a feature film, because the goal was to create attention and raise questions for people who have watched the concept short, making them want more, to be able to actually see a feature film made out of this."
06. Know your audience's attention span
"We figured out that 14 minutes would be the maximum attention span for the internet these days," Rozema continues. "I mean if I look at myself, I don't even watch short films on the internet that much because they take a lot of time. Time is pretty valuable when you're on the internet, so 14 minutes was the maximum."
07. Create a "two-step rocket"
The idea behind Sundays was not to give away much about the story. "It was to create the world, and the look and feel of what you're buying into if you want to see the feature," says Rozema. "I always call it a two-step rocket: one is the proof of concept, which shows the look, feel and texture of the film; and the second is the actual feature script."
"The feature script was finished in November 2014 and then we had the proof of concept. So together these two things would sell the idea to studios and production companies."
"That was the plan, but it kind of blew up in our faces – in a very good way – because the concept short itself created so much interest. We were able to sell this whole thing without the actual story attached. But the story is there and it did what it was meant to do."
08. Learn to maintain a volunteer workflow
"We have our own in-house team at PostPanic, but we needed extra people," explains Markham. "We had an amazing army of volunteers: some of the best visual effects artists out there who all donated their time for the love of it - we weren't paying them."
"That was amazing, but when you've got volunteers you can't put pressure on them from a deadline point of view. So one of the biggest challenges was how to maintain a workflow that accommodated volunteers with day jobs and commitments on commercial projects. We had to offer a degree of flexibility, while keeping the pressure on internally to make all these shots."
09. Find time in your commercial schedule
"People have said to us: 'It took you two years to make the post'. Well yes – we have a commercial production division, so we were doing Sundays in between jobs. The whole team would get stuck in and try to push Sundays as far as possible before the next commercial job started. It was a lot of juggling," admits Markham
10. Auction your feature film with a short
"One of the main advantages [of auctioning your feature film] is that you can visually make your ideas explicit," explains producer Jules Tervoort. "Alongside developing a good story outline or scrip, this is the perfect opportunity to visualise your idea. You get a really strong case: it leaves little room for individuals with less imagination to have different interpretations about the script, story and visual ideas."
11. Apply your skills to a new platform
"The motivation for us is intelligent sci-fi films - we want to see more of them," says Markham. "For us, it's all about how we can apply the skills we've learned over the past 17 years in the commercial world to a feature film platform."
"We've learned our craft slowly and passionately, and we're ready. For us it's the beginning of a new chapter where we can put into play all these plans we had all these years ago. I really hope it opens doors for other filmmakers to take the same route, because there is enough room for everybody in Hollywood."
12. Surround yourself with the right people
"There is always a danger [to auctioning a feature fiim] of course," points out Tervoort. "From my perspective, it's really important to have the right people surrounding you on a business and strategy level, to keep the ideas in tact – as well as the integrity of the idea."
13. Prepare for the long haul
"Don't take things lightly," adds Tervoort. "Especially if you're going to raise funds through Kickstarter. It takes a lot of effort. You really have to campaign your idea and put a lot of time in it, find the right people and be committed and determined because it's not going to be easy – it's going to take a long time. You're basically depending on a lot of favours." "I really can't calculate how long it's going to take," adds Rozema. "I know it's going to be a big production. The filming itself and the post-production will take a good part of two years, I guess."
14. Have a business structure
"At the end of the day, it's a business," says Markham. "Hollywood is a business: it has to make business sense – so aside from the creative promise there has to be a business structure underlying it that ' going to make people think it's worth investing in."
15. Look further than the creative idea
"You have to make it sound on a business level. Think about what the next step will be, and what will be the step afterwards, because if you just focus on making something that's a nice creative piece - that's not enough," says Markham.
16. Find the best writing talent
"Right now I'm reading a lot of screenwriters," says Rozema. " We're trying to team-up with some of the best writing talent out there, which is very, very exiting. Once we've found a writer, we'll start re-writing what I've written, 'furnish the house' and get some people in there - that's the analogy I would use." "That will probably take about three months and from that point on we'll have a first draft. That's a very important moment because that's where the studio actually decides if they want to go for this or if they want a second or third draft and so on."
17. Connect talented creatives with great concepts and stories
"The next step for PostPanic Pictures is actually very, very exciting," explains Rozema. "We just came back from Hollywood where we pitched. Alongside Sundays we're working on six other feature film projects – one of them is actually going into production as we speak. It's in development."
"The idea is that over the years we've gathered some of the best creative directorial talent out there, who operate outside of the Hollywood system. It turns out that every director we've talked to has a passion project – they all have their Sundays."
"We're trying to connect good directors with great concepts and great stories, and work them out much in the same way we did with Sundays, by making a proof of concept and having a script."
18. Start producing your own projects
"For years we've been working to get into a position to start producing our own projects. We have great production and post-production values inside Amsterdam, and a network of some of the best talent out there on many many levels, so we're completely ready for this. It's just the start of a new phase, a new chapter for PostPanic and PostPanic Pictures in particular," says Rozema.
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