Studio News from John, Part 8: Fighting Scammers

As production continues on "My Love Affair With Marriage", there's not a whole lot for me to do while Signe is drawing, except to send out the W-2 forms to the actors who performed voice-overs (and who are all legally considered employees, as I mentioned in a previous post) and also 1099 forms to the vendors like the sound studios, the film's editor and consultants.  

So I've been spending my days on other matters - like getting stills and work-in-progress photos sent out to someone who wants to write about the making of "Rocks in My Pockets" in his book, or making sure that Signe's recent trips were properly credited to her frequent-flier mileage accounts.  And it seems a good portion of my day is now spent fighting spammers and scammers.  

Spammers are easy, I can deal with unwanted e-mail by marking mail for my "junk" folder, or by unsubscribing from as many lists as i can.  Then there are the phone calls, and I can't remember the last time someone called the studio and didn't offer to get us a better deal on our internet service, or get us to the front page of some Google list in some way or another.  

Do you remember the last time you were excited to get a phone call?  I think back about 20 or 25 years ago, when everyone started getting cell phones, for a while the attitude was, "Hey, someone's calling me on my cell phone, isn't that great?"  But these days it's more like, "Who the hell is calling me on my cell phone?  They've got some nerve..."  

Then there are the e-mails you get when your web-site has a contact form of any kind.  The spambots travel the interwebs, looking for these contact forms, and when they find one, they send you an e-mail that says something like, "Hi, I saw your web-site and I like it a lot!  But I can help increase your traffic by adding a link to it from my site.  Will you please do the same?" and these are pretty easy to spot because they're so generic, they don't make any specific references to WHAT they saw on the web-site, and the marketing they're offering is incredibly vague as well.  

But Signe got a spam that offered her $500 per month if she would run ads on her web-site, and she asked me to look into it.  She said she had a dream where somebody paid her money every month to do nothing.  I had to tell her that I didn't think it was real, that it was probably a scam just to get her to follow a link, and that spammers prey upon people like independent filmmakers with fantasies of easy money.  God knows what could have happened if she followed that link, the next thing we know, her computer could be infected with malware and her bank information's been passed off to Albanian hackers who will gladly transfer away all of her money to Russia. 

So now we've circled the wagons here, and we're trying to defend ourselves as best as we can, but the struggle continues every day.  Last month we were had an issue with the new scanner, and Signe asked one of our interns to find out if the scanner could output directly to Photoshop, which would speed up the process (and with 145 scenes to scan, any streamlining of the process would be an incredible help.)  The intern Googled "Epson scanner" and called the first phone number that came up, then before we knew what was happening, she had granted someone remote access to Signe's computer, and they were telling her that the computer was full of viruses and we needed to pay $100 for software that would clean it up.  Great, except that wasn't the issue she was asked to research, and I don't think she called the real Epson help line.  Thankfully, we didn't give out Signe's credit card number.  

These days, you can't trust a link that will protect your computer from viruses - when chances are good that following that link will GIVE your computer a virus.  What a scam, right?  First they infect your computer then they charge you $100 to get rid of it.  It might even be funny if it weren't so horrible.  The internet is like the new Wild West, it's a lawless place.  Having unprotected sex with a stranger is probably more virus-free than following a link on your computer. 

Sturgis got an e-mail reminding him to renew the domain registration for KickstartMarriageFilm.com - which is a URL we used during the Kickstarter campaign last year to help promote the fundraising efforts.  Since Sturgis is away in Portland, Maine appearing in a play, he asked me to look into it and renew the domain, since we may need it again in the future.  I'm going to re-print the e-mail here as a public service to illustrate our problem.  Can you spot the indications that this e-mail is NOT legit? 

The first tip-off that something wasn't right was that link at the bottom - I clicked on it and it led me nowhere, to an invalid page.  I know, I shouldn't have even clicked on a strange link, I was really living dangerously there!  But what the heck is "Sochi2018"?  The winter olympics were held in Sochi, but in 2014!  And Sochi's in Russia, does this mean that Russian hackers are really trying to trick us?  

The second clue that something wasn't right was the return e-mail address, which has an "AU" at the end, short for Australia, and looks like it comes from some kind of travel club.  What does that have to do with domain renewal?  

The third clue is the "call to action" with the tight deadline and the veiled threat - if we don't respond to this notice by January 20 (and it was sent on January 19) we could LOSE THE OFFER, and by implication we could then lose the domain if we don't act RIGHT AWAY.  

Finally, after staring at this e-mail for about 10 minutes, I realized there was nothing legitimate about it at all.  Nothing added up, it made no sense and I had to conclude that it wasn't real, just spam.  Somebody looked up the domain registration via WHOIS and found a web-site that was up for renewal in a few weeks, and decided to send an e-mail to the owner on file, Sturgis, and try to get him to follow a link, or maybe renew the web-site with THEM instead of the company he initially registered it with.  

I went to the file cabinet and found the receipt from the initial domain registration, which was made through GoDaddy.com - and not some travel club site in Australia, as it turns out.  Sturgis gave me his GoDaddy account information, and I signed on to find out that the domain was due to expire on February 5 (NOT January 20) and was already scheduled for automatic renewal, so there was no need to panic, or follow strange links from spam e-mails.  

Right now we're not really using that domain, and going there just re-directs the user to Signe's main web-site.  But we could use the domain again in the future if we run another fund-raising campaign.  So we don't want to lose it - we could transfer it to Signe's SquareSpace account, but that takes about 12 or 13 steps, you have to unlock the domain, request an authorization code, review the DNS and privacy settings, etc.  It's easier just to let automatic renewal happen and then we can re-visit the hosting issue this time next year. 

On a related note, after the Kickstarter campaign was over last February, Signe and Sturgis wanted to move forward with making a new web-site for the film "My Love Affair With Marriage" and they decided that the simplest URL to register would be www.myloveaffairwithmarriage.com - makes sense, right?  Only they found out that this URL was already taken.  How was this possible, was there another movie being made with the same exact title?  

This is where I stepped in to do a bit of internet sleuthing - because we can use the WHOIS domain look-up in reverse too.  I found the name and contact information for the person who registered that domain, and they just happened to do that right in the middle of the Kickstarter campaign.  I also found out this person had registered several other domains, all of which had names similar to projects that were hot on Kickstarter last January.  She saw the KS campaign for the Yobo Hammock Stand, and she registered yobohammockstand.com - she saw the KS campaign for HANA Luxury Playing cards, and she registered hanaluxuryplayingcards.com - she saw the KS campaign for Tempus Spin Coin and she registered tempusspincoin.com.

Ah, so it seemed we were dealing with a Domain Squatter, someone who buys up a bunch of domains cheaply in hopes of selling them back to companies for a profit.  It turned out she had registered 57 domains, none of which were active.  She may have registered the URL discodogvest.com but the makers of that product decided to sell their merchandise with the URL "http://discodog.nyc" instead.  Good for them. 

Signe called the Domain Squatter (I won't print her name here), who said she needed that domain to help promote her line of pet food.  Right, because you see a lot of dog food these days with names like "My Love Affair With Marriage"... Does that sound like it comes in beef flavor, or maybe chicken?  Anyway, Signe offered her $100 for the domain name, but it seems like there was a difference in opinion over the URL's value, the Squatter figured it was worth $8,000 instead.  Again, it's the Wild West out there, with no laws against this sort of thing. 

Signe declined the Squatter's offer, she figured we could always use a slightly different URL, like www.myloveaffairwithmarriagemovie.com, or another similar variant.  But the good news is it's almost one year later now, and that domain will be coming up for renewal, so perhaps she won't renew it.  Since we last spoke to her, the Squatter appeared on ABC's "Shark Tank"  to pitch her line of dog food.  I haven't seen the episode yet, but maybe the Sharks offered her a deal, and she can now get out of the business of shaking down filmmakers and hammock makers by buying up the web-sites they might want and selling them back at 80,000% mark-up.  We should find out in a couple weeks.  

No lie, as I typed this up, there was a knock on the studio door.  Someone's knocking on every door in the building, handing out his business card for his printing services.  Compared to the people who are sending us phony e-mails and robocalls EVERY DAY, there was something about this guy that was refreshingly honest.  Unless, of course, he was casing the building for places with no security systems that he could come back and rob later.  Am I being too paranoid? 

Come to think of it, he did look a little bit Albanian...

Studio News from John, Part 7: Let's Learn About Latvia!

Most everything I know about the country of Latvia - which I admit, is not much - I only know because I've known Signe for so long.  I know that the capital of Latvia is Riga, and it's located between Estonia and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea, and that it was part of the Soviet Union from the start of World War II until it declared independence in 1990.  

I joke around with Signe by telling her that if weren't for a certain basketball player on the New York Knicks, Kristaps Porzingis, she'd have a real shot at being the most famous Latvian in NYC.  Who knows, maybe someday he'll be traded to another team and she can move up in the local rankings.  

Kristaps Porzingis, at 7'3" the most famous (and tallest) Latvian in NY. (Sturgis Warner added to photo for size comparison)

If you've been following Signe on Facebook, then you know she and Sturgis have been in Latvia for the last three weeks, and she'll be back in New York just in time for Christmas.  But it hasn't been a vacation, they've been supervising the Latvian recording of the dialog and songs for "My Love Affair With Marriage".  

If you remember Signe's film "Rocks in My Pockets", there were two versions released theatrically, one with English dialogue and the other with Latvian dialogue.  Her film was so successful in Latvia that it won Best Screenplay and Best Animated Feature in the Latvian National Film Competition, and also the Best Feature Film Prize at the Riga International Film Festival. Then it was chosen as the official Latvian entry to the Academy's Foreign Film category, which was a great accomplishment for an animated film. 

Obviously, with a story based on Signe's family history, which was set in Latvia, that film had a strong connection with the people of Latvia.  Since part of Signe's next film is set there, too, it makes sense to see if lightning will strike twice, and make a Latvian version of "My Love Affair With Marriage" also.  

This means that the dialogue and songs that were recorded in English earlier this year have to be re-worked and re-recorded with Latvian actors and singers.  So that's what Signe and Sturgis have been doing in Latvia, working with the film's Latvian co-producer, Locomotiv Productions.  

At MUTE Studio in Latvia with Arnis Racinskis and LMND / Limonade

For the songs, they called on the Latvian trio known as LMND/Limonade, which consists of Ieva Katkovska, Kristine Pastare and Iluta Alsberga.  They filled the roles of the Mythology Sirens, who sing advice to the main character about how to behave and fit in with society.

Signe and Sturgis in the studio with voice actor Kaspars Znotins

And now they've moved on from the songs to recording the dialogue.  From what I hear, the work schedule has been very intense, but it's also been very exciting to hear the film's soundtrack coming together, now in two languages. 

So while we've all been rushing around here in New York., getting ready for the holidays, Signe and Sturgis have been hard at work!  I hope that they've allowed themselves a little time to relax and enjoy the trip, and I wish them safe travel back here on Christmas Eve.  

There's always time to play a little game of "Fetch" with a dog.

Studio News from John, Part 6

I'm sorry if I got you all excited with photos of sets and props here at the studio.  Today's topic is going to be a LOT more boring - it's time to talk about accounting, specifically taxes and insurance.  No, I'm not trying to sell you a policy, so don't worry.  But part of running an animation studio is making sure that everyone there is properly paid, and covered by insurance policies in case something bad happens.  You hope that you never have to use these policies by filing a claim, but that's something you can never predict, so in the end it's better to have them and not need them than to need them and not have them.  

Part of my job when I signed on as office manager was to make sure that the studio was in compliance with all of the payroll and insurance requirements, even though I was the only employee, that meant that Signe had to be registered as an employer with all of the federal and state agencies, so that payroll taxes could be withheld from my pay, and deposited in the proper ways.  And then Signe needed to get worker's compensation and disability policies for her one employee, because those are required by law.  Again, you hope that you're never going to need them, but you still have to have them.  

There's general liability insurance for the studio, which covers property damage and things of that nature, but it doesn't specifically extend to employees who might get hurt while at work, or even on the way to work or the way home.  And that's where worker's compensation and disability come into the picture.  They're not only required by law, but they're worth the extra expense to get piece of mind, just in case there's ever some kind of accident in the studio, where there are things like power tools and electrical equipment, or through a basic slip-and-fall, which can happen anywhere.  So I had to make sure that the studio was in compliance with the law by having these policies. 

Fast-forward a year or two - when production began on "My Love Affair With Marriage" I got to do this whole set-up again for The Marriage Project, LLC so that the same withholdings and insurance coverage could be extended to the film's voice cast (I covered this back in Studio News Part 3).  Even though each actor worked in a recording studio for just a day or two, it's not worth taking any risk, in the event an actor could get injured while in the studio, or even on the street while traveling there or going home.  In the worst-case scenario, if someone filed a claim against the production, it could be up to a judge to determine whether someone was under the supervision of the film's director or producer at the time they were injured, and therefore able to collect compensation for their injury.  

Thankfully, no actors were harmed during the recording of "My Love Affair With Marriage".  (See, we told you guys that everything was going to work out OK...)  Now, the problem with a lot of insurance policies is that you have to estimate the number of employees you're going to have in the first year, and the premium gets based on that.  However, the insurance companies will likely base their premium for the second year based on what happened in the first year - and in this case, with 26 actors employed in the first year, and zero expected to be hired in the second year, this could mean paying a lot for unnecessary coverage.  So, the solution is pretty simple and elegant - just cancel the policy after the first year is over.  Anyone working on the production after that point - on editing or sound, for example, would probably fit the definition of an independent contractor, rather than an employee, anyway.  

We do have three new hires in the studio - though they're all working on the new film, officially they're employees of Signe Baumane, not the LLC.  So for the purposes of payroll and insurance policies they'll fall under the policies that cover the studio, not the production, and this will allow us to keep their salaries, liabilities and coverage separate from that of the actors.  But what goes into hiring new people and then paying them from month to month?  

If you've got a (legal) job somewhere in America, you're no doubt familiar with the fact that you don't get to keep all the money you make at your job - somebody has to make sure that all the correct taxes get withheld from your check, for federal tax, social security, medicare, state and local (NYC) tax.  Years ago, when I was just starting out in the film business and working for a small production company, a wonderful office manager showed me all of the ins and outs of running a payroll, and how to calculate each employee's net from their gross, and then how to make all the correct deposits to the federal and state governments.  What an tremendously valuable gift she gave me, because I've been doing this consistently for 27 years for a variety of companies.  Since every company needs to do this, once you learn how to run a payroll you can find work just about anywhere - it's a valuable skill, sort of like knowing how to type. 

Now, way back in the day, deposits were paid by check and we used little coupons to make the federal deposits at the bank, or send them in the mail to NY State - the coupons looked like this: 

These days, of course, the whole process takes place on-line, so there's no chance of losing the little coupon in the mail or dropping it on the way to the bank.  It's so much easier to make the monthly deposit deadlines this way, too.  (You kids today don't know how good you have things.)  So now at the end of every month I add up the various amounts that were withheld from each employee's pay, log on to two web-sites, and the money gets sent straight from the company's bank account - we don't even have to write checks any more.  

Then at the end of each quarter, there are forms that reconcile the amounts that we DID withhold against the amounts that we SHOULD have withheld.  Now, most of the time these amounts are the same, assuming I did everything right - but just in case there was a slight mistake made, there's this opportunity to correct it every three months.  For the Feds, this means filling out form 941, and for NY State, it's form NYS-45.  Both essentially serve the same function, to reconcile and double-check the last three months of withholding, and make sure everything adds up right.  But on this state form, we also calculate the New York State unemployment due for each quarter, which is based on a small percentage of every employee's pay, or the first $10,900 of it at least.  

(Federal unemployment tax, or FUTA, works a little differently.  Each company owes a small percentage of the first $7,000 each employee makes during the year, and you can deposit this quarterly, or at the end of the year with Form 940 if your company doesn't have a large payroll.  I prefer to do this every quarter so ideally, there will be nothing due at the end of December.)  

Beyond the taxes and contributions withheld from each paycheck, and then the state unemployment and the federal unemployment, the next items that the employers have to be responsible for are worker's compensation and disability.  I mentioned these above, and these are in case anyone gets injured while working, or on the way to or from work, and again, you hope that nobody ever needs to file a claim against them, but the company still needs to have the policies, just in case.

Staying on top of these policies is a constant battle - it seems one of them is always sending a bill for an installment that has to be paid, or at the end of each policy year there's some kind of audit procedure for verifying the actual (not estimated) payroll during that year.  And just the other day we got a notice in the mail asking for both an audit AND a payment on one of the policies, but there was no bill showing the correct amount to pay.  So I called their customer service line, and I was told there was a balance due, and they would e-mail me the audit statement to fill out, and that would determine the billing amount. 

That's all fine, but when they sent me the audit form, it was for the previous year, and I had already filled that exact form out and sent it in over 12 months ago with a payment.  (This is why it's always good to keep a scanned copy of every filled-out form on your computer.)  The customer service rep asked me for the check number of the payment, then confirmed the payment was made, and that there really WASN'T a balance due on the account, that the letter had been sent in error.  But since it had been more than 12 months since that payment, I asked "Shouldn't there have been a new payment due in October, which was last month?"  Yes, but in fact they didn't send out the new bills when they should have, because they're making some kind of adjustment related to the Family Leave Act.  So this year's disability policy payment is now two months late, but it's not our fault, since the insurance company can't seem to get their act together and send out audit statements on time.  Instead they (apparently) decided to bill us again for the year ending October 1, 2016, even though we already filled out that audit form, paid the balance and have the cancelled check to prove it. 

Now, for these three new employees in the studio, working on various aspects of the production of "My Love Affair With Marriage", I've been handing out those W-4 forms which help me calculate each person's withholding, and also the I-9 forms, which are the ones that verify each employee's identity and prove that they are legal to work.  It just so happens that all three new employees are resident aliens (the kind that come from another country, not another planet, come on now....) so this is another part of employing people that is often very confusing.  If they have foreign passports, are they allowed to work in this country, and what do we do if they don't have a Social Security Number?  

Thankfully, technology has now made this part of the process much simpler as well.  We found out that the U.S. Census and Immigration Services has now put this whole process online, with a service called eVerify.  Back in the day, I guess you would just sort of photocopy someone's documents and put them to work, and cross your fingers in the hope that you weren't breaking any laws - but now I can sign on to this eVerify web-site, type in their document IDs and in just a few minutes, I get an on-screen confirmation that this person is cleared to legally work in the U.S. - so no more guesswork is involved, and that's great. 

We're getting close to the end of the year, and that means I'll have to generate W-2 forms for myself and the other employees - if you've never been employed, these are forms that break down exactly how much each employee earned during the calendar year, and also has totals for how much money was withheld for each federal and state tax or contribution item.  This way when each employee files their tax returns next year, this document shows how much money has already been put aside to pay their federal or state tax.  If everything was done correctly, then they shouldn't owe very much tax or get too big of a refund - either of those results could mean that the right amount wasn't withheld, either too little or too much.  

Essentially, what all of this withholding is designed to do is allow people to pay their taxes in advance, if they want to.  Let's say I withhold $300 from the year for federal tax for an employee, then when they do their tax return in April and they find out they owe $300 in tax, it's already taken care of.  That's how it's supposed to work in theory, but it almost never works exactly right, the odds against this are staggering.  To get this right, you'd need to have a crystal ball to know all your deductions, somehow be able to calculate what you owe 12 months in advance, and then be incredibly lucky on top of that.  So nobody ever, ever hits this right on the nose, they either withhold too much and get a refund or withhold too little and have to make up the difference.  But if your situation is somewhat stable from year to year, you can tweak this process, little by little, to get pretty close.  

Then there's the matter of personal preference, some people would rather have a little bit more taken out from their check each pay period to guarantee they get a refund, while other people would rather have more of their money now, and risk having to pay money with their return in April.  Over time it all tends to even out, but that's the beauty of accounting, its debits and credits, checks and balances.  I've come to appreciate it as something of an art form, especially in those cases when all the numbers line up and there's nothing owed and nothing due back.  On those days, math starts to look a little like something magical.

Studio News from John, Part 5

I'm back with another update on the production of "My Love Affair With Marriage".  Last time I took things really easy, I just re-printed what Signe and Sturgis wrote for their Kickstarter update, called "Anatomy of a Set", which was a great breakdown of everything that goes into making just ONE of the approximately 50 sets that will be built for the 150 scenes that will make up this feature film.  (This is a very rough estimate, right now we're assuming that each set could be used for about three separate scenes, but this is just an estimate, and is likely to change.)  

While I was on vacation, my wife and I spent a couple days in Dallas and on our way out of town, we stopped at the famous Southfork Ranch, which is where they shot the TV soap opera "Dallas" back in the 1980's.  Do you remember the Ewings - J.R., Bobby, Sue Ellen, Jock and Miss Ellie?  From 1978 to 1991 (and again on a recent re-boot) these characters lived in a big house on this ranch outside Dallas - but it turns out that they only filmed the exterior shots there, since they didn't have permission to shoot inside the house.  All of the interior scenes were filmed months later, on a soundstage in Los Angeles.  

We were a little disappointed, I mean, we got to see where the Ewings ate their breakfast on the patio next to the pool, but the other rooms of the house didn't look familiar at all.  I got to thinking about how much of a hassle it must have been to shoot this TV show, and to keep track of what each character was wearing, or how they styled their hair, because if a character was seen outside and inside in the same episode, those two scenes were filmed several months apart, and in two different cities, hundreds of miles from each other.  Plus, it seemed like a very inefficient and expensive way to make a TV show, especially since they had to fly everyone from L.A. to Dallas and back, and then keep track of what everyone was wearing every day, for the sake of continuity.  

What does all this have to do with "My Love Affair With Marriage"?  Well, you might think that the easiest way to make a movie or TV show is to start at the beginning, film the first shot first, and the last shot last, like a staged play. And some productions may do that to make things easier for the actors to have real reactions to things, but in most cases movies film their scenes out of order, to either work around difficult actor or location schedules, or just because it makes more sense logistically.  The mysteries of scheduling are probably different for every project, and nobody wants to waste time, money or materials any more than they have to. 

For "My Love Affair With Marriage", Signe is going to be filming background plates for the animation, and since these are real physical sets, with real (miniature) props, it's going to require an incredible amount of organization to keep track of everything.  What if Sturgis builds that hallway scene and they film the backgrounds for two scenes there, and then after breaking down the set they realize that there were really THREE scenes that needed to use that set?  That's a lot of work to have to re-build sets, again and again.  So once that hallway is built, it just makes sense to shoot all of the scenes that use it, and then the set can be broken down and those materials can be used for another set-up. 

Then each scene is going through a number of different phases which involve drawing and animating the characters, doing line-testing, scanning, coloring, compositing and editing.  I'll try to cover these steps as topics in later posts. 

But the point is that we've got to be very careful about what we're doing, because things could get very confusing very quickly.  To make sure that everyone will know what's been done and what hasn't been done, Signe made this chart:  

For every scene from 001 to 150, thanks to the filled-in colors, everyone can now see the progress, what stage each scene is at in the production process.  And slowly over the next two years we'll watch the chart fill up with color.  When everything is green, then the movie will be finished.  

There are a few more sets that have been built recently, in addition to the classroom set that we posted before on Facebook and Instagram, and the hallway we showed you last time.  Now there is also a train car set:

Currently in front of the camera is a carousel in a park with trees:

And the most recent set under construction is what will become Zelma's apartment:

Hmm, I wonder what she pays in rent for that space.  It looks like it still needs a little bit of work.  But at least she's got hardwood floors, maybe she just needs a little bit more furniture, maybe a painting or two would really brighten up the place. 

Every set needs a few props, it turns out, and we now have three people (Margarita, Fiona and Masha) building them, so let's take a look at a few that have been built in the last couple of weeks.  Some of them are self-explanatory, while others are a lot more mysterious....

In addition to the small carousel horses, we now have this larger black horse: 

And this large cat's head, which looks like it's eating a television set - but that's just an image on some paper.  

Here are some rocks - (whatever you do, don't put them in your pockets...)

And this looks like it might become a bathtub, but you never know...

This person looks like he's got a split personality - 

And here's a big fellow with spiky hair, carrying a suitcase and another bag:  

And here's a rather bleak tree, with no leaves: 

But wait, what are those things around the tree that look like bones?  Ah, that would be a life-sized skeleton kit, which Margarita began assembling on Halloween, coincidentally.

I like to call him "Mr. Bones", after a character in the Star Wars: Aftermath novels, but Signe's been calling him "Good Will", which I think is a reference to the guy from the music studio next door who plays a lot of music very loudly.  Sort of like wishful thinking.  Anyway, Mr. Bones is almost all assembled now, and he looks like this: 

I can only imagine what might happen if someone in the building across the street should happen to look over into Signe's studios, like with a pair of binoculars or something, and see Mr. Bones lying on the table.  What would they think is going on over here?  

But what IS going on here?  Why does an animated film need a real (OK, fake) skeleton on a table?  What does this have to do with marriage?  I've read the screenplay, so I have a few theories but I think most people will have to wait to see where Mr. Bones will appear in the final film.  Stay tooned...

Studio News from John, Part 2

I'm back with part 2 of my look behind the scenes at what goes in to making an independent animated feature.  Last time I talked about getting grant money and running a successful Kickstarter campaign, but what comes after that?  What happens after some production money comes in?  

I think most people might be familiar with the plot of "The Producers", where a Broadway impresario and his nebbishy accountant raise a ton of money to produce a play, then realize they'd be better off in making the worst play ever, and keeping all the money when it fails.  As tempting as that may seem, thankfully the world of filmmaking is not like that.  I imagine that there's more of a responsibility to spend the money wisely, because now that there's a community that has expressed interest in contributing to a film's success, the real-life producers now have a renewed determination to make the best film that they can. 

Some of the Kickstarter rewards packed up and ready for mailing...

The first few months after the Kickstarter campaign were spent mailing out as many of the rewards as possible.  I've seen other campaigns take months or even a year to start sending out rewards, but Signe wanted to get going on that right away.  So some of the pledge money that came from Kickstarter went to creating the reward items and buying mailing supplies and postage.  Then it was time to focus on production, getting things into a higher gear.  

The "LOVE CARDS" that were part of the Kickstarter Rewards sent to backers.

Most of the money raised on Kickstarter was spent on recording the film's soundtrack, which will be a combination of spoken dialogue and songs.  So there were costs for recording studios, sound engineers, the composer's fee for creating the songs, and then the actors' fees. Some of the cast members were based in Los Angeles, so that meant travel expenses for Signe and Sturgis to supervise the recording of their parts, as well as the costs of a second studio and recording engineer in California.  

Signe Baumane and Sturgis Warner during the West Coast actor recording sessions.

The production went through the Screen Actors Guild to secure the best possible voice talent for "My Love Affair With Marriage". (I could probably write an entire blog post about dealing with SAG, that should probably be my next topic...) And part of hiring union actors means payroll taxes, contributions to pension funds, workers compensation insurance, and so on.  I'll get into more detail on this next time.

Sound designer Jeffrey Roy during the voice recording session at 3rd St. ADR in Santa Monica.

18 actors recorded their roles in April 2017 in New York, another 6 were recorded in May in California, and the last two in June and August.  Signe and Sturgis were on hand for the entire sessions, to give the performers direction and the background information about the story to get all of these pieces of dialogue right, and then came the task of assembling all of these pieces into a soundtrack, much like a giant jigsaw puzzle. 

It took several weeks of working with editor Arjun Sheth to select the best takes and put them together with the temporary versions of the songs composed by Kristian Sensini (who also created music for "Rocks in My Pockets") but as a result, it seems that the film's English soundtrack is nearly complete. (A Latvian version will come later...)  

Editor Arjun Sheth putting the best dialogue takes together at Final Frame.

It's a little strange to think that right now, you could listen to the whole film of "My Love Affair With Marriage", and not see anything.  Film is a visual medium first, but the sound also plays an important role, and I guess you've got to start somewhere, right?.  Now the arduous task of creating images to go with all of these sounds can begin, but that's a good thing to talk about next time.