The Beginning of the End -- Again

The Beginning of the End...Again
    On the 26th of June I wrote to Martin London to tell him about our financial situation and ask for advice.  He wrote back to me on the 27th.
Debora: 
    I just read your email and I can well appreciate and understand your financial situation. In addition, I am most impressed with the manner in which you expressed yourself and that is by being totally candid, honest and humble in discussing your situation. Although, you know me as being the President of a funding institution I feel much more confident in addressing your situation as a Certified Public Accountant who has had over 20 years in this field alone. During this period I dealt with many situations similar to yours. And because you have taken the time to write me in regard to a very personal problem I will also take the time to offer whatever advice or thoughts that come to mind. Very likely you have pursued some of the suggestions that I will make because in situations like this there really aren't too many options. 
    For openers, I am sure you have thought of a bank loan in which you would have to pledge some of your assets as collateral for the loan. This is the most obvious and I am sure you have given this much thought. Next, there is family and friends. I don't have to embellish upon this because it is really self-explanatory. The only additional thought that I have in regard to this suggestion is that you might offer them "a piece" of one of the movie projects that you feel will come to fruition. This may be something that can entice either a relative or a stranger. Furthermore, you can even offer this person some type "equity" or some type participation in the picture. Lastly, at least for now might be asking some of the Producers for an advance against your script. If I am correct you are the story writer for some of these films. 
    Debora, I can promise you that I will continue to give this a great deal of thought. I don't know whether Larry Withowski or his attorney know of your situation but you can rest assure that I will keep it confidential. I will do all I can to help you in any way possible, if it is possible, and at the same time I feel that by helping you I will be helping Larry. And by the way, Larry has proven to me to be an outstanding person who has spoken very highly about you and has shown me on many an occasion his dedication and commitment to help anyone whenever and wherever he is called upon. 
    Wishing you the very best, I remain, Marty London, CPA
    That was a nice letter, although obviously not of any use.  On the 29th I heard from David Fairman, who sent me the agreement offered to him by SFG.  It contained $95,000 in upfront fees.
    Toward the end of June, Scott and I tried to get a handle on what was happening with the ‘live’ developments and who had been jettisoned.
Debora,
    In an effort to catch up on activities with everyone else on Go West. I wanted to ask, do Tomas Krejci and his people have the required equity or deficit funding at hand or available in support of the Go West funding with ML - once everything is together on the budget and other details. Or, has he determined a plan for that with LW?
Scott
Hello, Scott – 
     He does have the financing; basically everyone who doesn't have it has beenthrown out at this point, or Larry has moved them over to the 100% financing people (Neil Chartier and Aaron Shuster). If we do this again for 2008,.we'll have to be a lot more careful up front.  William Nunez has enough funds on-tap for both his outside projects and THE CHOCOLATE SPY, and he is certainly moving more quickly than the others, considering he only entered the fund at the beginning of June and he already has the LOIs for both this outside projects, CARNAVAL and THE LAUREATE.  The budget for THE CHOCOLATE SPY has begun today, and will take about three weeks -- he'd probably have it finished by now, but he had a hard time choosing between Chocspy and A GHOST AMONG US, which will be much moreexpensive due to special effects.  I spoke to him on the phone today, and he wanted one change in our fee agreement; one line removed. I asked Robert Harlow to do this and send him new agreements, but I haven't heard back from him yet...also he said there are only minor changes he and his business partner need made in the LOIs.  It's probably been easier because in addition to London and Majorca, he has an office in New York -- he came around the middle of the month and said he'd stay until everyone is signed -- even for THE CHOCOLATE SPY.  I've already had a number of telephone conversations with him.  Been difficult, but looking good...Debora
    Debora: 
    More questions: Understanding the budget for GO WEST will be next week. Would that represent the extent of project preparation that Tomas Krejci and his people will volunteer to short of funding? In other words, will the project then shift gears with Tomas to set a firm timeline of funding? I ask because I would think Milk & Honey would not want to proceed much closer to FY 08 on this preparation phase.  Has this been brought into the project dialogs yet. Honestly, I'm not thinking so much the money - as getting the project up on to the rails and moving towards physical pre-production. Its shaping up to offer good film and I'm anxious to see it take off. 
    Scott
    The rest of July was pretty much a repeat of June, possibly of May as well.  The producers circled around us, attempting to cut us out or chivvy their own projects in front of ours.  The bottom line appeared to be that the offerings of SFG were bogus – at least useless – in that they had so many conditions, clauses and upfront fees that no one was willing to complete one.  Tom Krejci and Daniela Humlova of Milk and Honey Productions finally finished the budget for GO WEST, YOU IDIOT! In compliance with what SFG wanted.  On the 23rd David Fairman sent the Executive Summaries for his outside project CARMEN’S KISS and my solo script SOUL MATES.  The budgets were submitted to SFG.
    The middle of July William Nunez literally disappeared.  After several face-to-face meetings with Larry and Martin London, he was just gone.  Eventually I wrote him a short note to ask him what was going on, and this was what I received in return (I have had to rewrite the letter here as some other places in this book due to the extremely bad grammar, mixed syntax and poor writing skills):
Dear Deborah: 
    In response to your email asking why we have pulled out of conversations with Lost Myths; this can be described in one word: uneasiness. There were many things in conversations that I had with all parties (Larry, Marty, and yourself) that were contradictory, and that raised a red flag with my partners and me. For example, you just stated you spoke with Martin London recently, he says he has not spoken to you in two months and that he does not want to do business with you or Larry.  He does speak with Harlow but about other transactions and not my films.  So I don't know what is going on with your group.  And there was an email chain that I had to have been mistakenly on where you guys basically trashed me and said that I was stalling for a deal, and that I don't want to sign an agreement with you guys and that my deal with Martin runs out at the end of the month. I never had any deal with Martin that runs out this month, and I wasn't stalling in the agreement with you, but with deals as complicated as this one, we need to make sure all parties can deliver. It is my reputation on the line when I get my share of money from people with a track record in this business, and we have to pay retainer fees to a variety of people with no guarantee of money. As for SFG, Martin has given me an agreement for us to look over that in the end may or may not work for us because there are a lot of fees to pay and it is an essence a bank loan (regardless of what Robert Harlow tells you). I have given you some of my thoughts. I realize you want to get your scripts produced, so do I. But you have to be careful in these things or your first film may be your last. 
    Best regards, William
    Talk about a shock.  I did respond, and naturally never heard from William Nunez again.  And my supposition was correct; he tried to get a deal from Martin London for months after this occurrence.
    Dear Mr. Nunez,
    Actually, if you read my letter again I said "I have talked to Martin London on the telephone"...I didn't say when I talked to him. I received a letter from him on the 18th, so I am surprised by what you wrote below, and I am amazed that he would say he doesn't want to do business with me or Larry Withowski -- he has never indicated that to me in any way, and has always been very friendly and encouraging -- and he has been friends with Larry for about nine months. and has always praised him to me. I never once said you were stalling about signing any agreement; I never urged you to sign anything. As far as 'trashing' you, the only thing I can find in any of our emails that could even be construed as mildly critical was when I told Robert Harlow that I frequently don't know what you're talking about in your emails, and I was referring to your dealings with M.L., and I put that on myself by saying I'm just a screenwriter and probably that was why I didn't understand a lot of the references. 
    Here is my take on what is going on; you are still thinking of working with Martin London on your projects, but are using this method to avoid producing THE CHOCOLATE SPY. If that is your plan, go ahead with it -- I wouldn't want you to produce my script if you never wanted to, and basically used me to see what you could get. It would definitely be best if you never contact me again.
    Larry was, perhaps, a little less diplomatic.  This letter to William Nunez was a little too meandering in so far as syntax was concerned, so I’ve left it pretty much intact.
William,
    Where is my agreement? I have never received a signed copy back from you. So how would you like me to proceed with other funding sources that I have? Mr. Nunez, I tell it how I see it & the following is how I read you, sir.  At this time I am utterly mystified as to what is going on in Mr. Nunez's head. Doesn't he read? ML 's agreement clearly states a time factor of three (3) weeks from inception (ML extended it by one (1) week).
    ML has never stated he does not want to work with me.
ML does have the capacity to Borrow the money from numerous Banking Institutions, so yes it is a loan, DRAWN ON SFG's CREDIT @ BANKS. Can Mr. Nunez obtain the same financing? If so then why does he need us? This, I had written in a prior e-mail, so maybe that is what he thinks is "trashing" him. Sorry, this business is for big boys, Grow Up Mr. Nunez.
    He states that this is a complicated deal, very simply put, Producer comes in with his share 15% - 25%, ML comes in with 35%, balance tax credit, pre-sales, distribution. If his lawyers know how to read, then this is an easy transaction.
    If Mr. Nunez had directed some (or all) of his questions to the proper parties (ML, RH, LW) then maybe he would have received the answers that he needed.
    In closing, I also have worked out some better arrangements with SFG & ML in the "upfront" fee, but Mr. Nunez does not choose to speak to me in regard to this.
    Larry
    So, the end of William Nunez in our lives.  We were beginning to understand that we were absolutely better off without about 95% of these people, but it would be years before we were able to sift out the 5% that were actually on the same wave length as us, not to mention the same planet.  But like many other bombastic and self-important people, he couldn’t let it go and was so eager to have the last word in the situation, in his next letter he threatened us with legal action if we dared to respond.  We didn’t...what was left to say, except that he was a lying fucktard?
    Dear Deborah (he never did learn how to spell my name),
    Let me once again explain to you and your unprofessional colleagues what is going on. My partner and I were intrigued by Deborah Hill's first email back in February about Lost Myths and the opportunity to produce a Lost Myth Screenplay If we kicked in 15%, the fund would finance the rest or so it said. After several conversations and emails with Deborah, she got me in touch with you. Despite my initial reservations (car salesman talk and a phony million dollar bill as a calling card does not impress as well as having to pay a retainer) I continued discussions in terms of a slate deal. The slate included one of Deborah's projects and two of mine. THIS WAS AGREEABLE TO ALL PARTIES!. 
After I sent my screenplays to Lost Myths for their review, I received a deal memo for your services. We did not want to employ you as a finder of money! Either this source can provide 85% or it can not! I spoke with Robert Harlow and told him this. Then you guys start peddling other sources of finance available.
    Deborah (who has told me has never met you in person) started acting like she did not know what was going in any particulars and there was another project on the verge of falling out from London. All this started raising suspicions. Earlier in the month, Martin London called me! I did not call him! We had a nice conversation and he set up a conference call with myself and my partner. He or you (I can't recall right now) sent me a first copy of a deal memo. My partner and I read it. We had the conference call. First words out of Martin's mouth were if you want to deal with me, Lost Myths and Deborah Hill can not be part of this project, they are liars. Perhaps it was fall out from the other producer situation, I don't know. We talked some about their requirements, we stated our hesitation about it being a bank loan, upfront fees, and the time frame to produce the 15% on our end so close to August and the European vacations. A deal like this can not be produced in two weeks. Martin agreed. He then gave us a full contract for us to look at. That date of July 31 means nothing, he just put that there. In my talks with him, he knows when we are ready, he would execute. I told Deborah in the meantime, if we decided to go with Martin's method let us try going with one project (since it was the most ready to go) and see if it works. If we go with Martin's method, I would have worked out an arrangement fee with yourself and Lost Myths. I WAS NOT GOING TO NEGLECT YOU. Martin has stated many times including just a few days ago, he wants you guys out of it. He has not spoken to Deborah in two months, in Larry in quite some time, and with Robert Harlow just other transactions not your project. WHO AM I SUPPOSE TO BELIEVE! Well, Martin has a bit more credibility when I am part of an email chain that says I am stalling, and I am receiving emails from Deborah saying you are all in dire straits for money and want to sell off her projects in one big umbrella funding. I stated last week that I do not want to pursue this further including SFG, but you persist in harassing me with emails. I finally responded to Deborah a couple of days ago and received another delusional response. Let me say it again: I WILL NOT BE PURSUING ANY FURTHER MY PROJECTS OR LOST MYTHS PROJECTS WITH YOU OR YOUR CONTACTS! If you persist in contacting me further, my next communication will be through my attorneys.
    Respectfully yours, William Nunez
    More people passed in and out of the life of the film fund during August, most of them no more than brief blips on the radar.  The shock of William Nunez was beginning to wear off, and we realized that the pain of what had happened with Anthony Whelan and ShadowHawk was not to be the last – there are a lot of nasty people in the film industry, people who have developed an advanced sense of their own self-importance and don’t like it when things don’t go their way.  I never found out what happened to Nunez, but I do know he never worked a deal with Martin London, even though he tried to do so for a long time after we left the arena.
    For a short period there was a man named Tim Tortora who was an independent producer with Mandalay, who was interested in financing GO WEST.  But, he wanted to lower the budget by an extreme amount and instead of A-list actors go with some B-listers and European up-and-comers, which would mean essentially that the money the four partners who owned the script would also receive less money.  I attempted to explain this to Larry Withowski, but he was often particularly dim about financial arrangements other than the actual funding particulars.
    Tim Tortora disappeared one day without a word or an explanation, which seemed to be everyday business for some of these people.  GO WEST was still in the running, but Tom Krejci couldn’t seem to raise his 15% of the budget.
    August was enough of a desert to convince us that we needed to leave Larry Withowski and SFG and find a broker with more experience in the film industry, who had investors that actually wanted to fund films.  On September 5th I wrote to Robert Harlow.
    Dear Robert;
    If Lost Myths Ink wishes to work with another film fund, will we need to end our agreement with Mr. Withowski?
    Thank you,
    Sincerely, Debora Hill
    He felt we would still be able to work with Larry if we also worked with another broker, so for a couple of months he remained in the background.  In September I joined Film Gravity, a networking site for film professionals, and I received a number of interested connections who wanted to work with us.  One of these, Michael Currie of Rushlight in Canada, seemed the most promising at the time.  Even though his deal was much the same as Larry’s, there was no dealing with a company like SFG – Mike handled everything having to do with the investments through his company.  Would this prove to be a better deal?
    Frank asked me this on the 22nd.  Deb, when do they make the decision what project they want to finance? 
    Frank;
    I'm just starting the process with them, but since so much progress has been made on Go West, if Tom K. decides to go with them, I'd say it would be the first they'd choose. Our others aren't as far along in the process, although since they are in Canada, if Aaron Shuster still wants to direct DREAM LOVERS it would be among the top contenders because he films in Canada. 
I should know more on Monday, but I also have to work out what we will need to do with Larry. I wrote to Robert Harlow today for details on how to proceed.
    Debora
    And Frank replied, It's probably not good idea to cut off Larry. Maybe the other investors might co-finance with him or we might need him later on. He's got good contacts and actually delivered what he promised. Let me know how it's moving with the Canadian investor.
    On the 26th Michael Currie offered us a contract with Rushlight.  Tom Krejci was our most important possible producer at that point, so I wrote to him on the 27th.
Dear Tom; 
    We have been invited to work with Rushlight, a film fund in Canada administered by film producer Michael Currie. I am attaching his last communication to me. If you are interested in working with Rushlight, Michael is interested in working with us on a joint deal with SFG for our films. If you are still interested in producing GO WEST, YOU IDIOT! Please let me know and I will have him send you their 36-page breakdown of the fund. Rushlight can put together a three-film funding deal for us, so please get back to me as soon as possible.
Sincerely, Debora Hill
    Larry Withowski and Martin London evinced interest in working with us if we worked with Rushlight.  I wasn’t certain about that; everything with Larry had foundered for a number of reasons like upfront fees, heavy demands and insufficient explanations. I wrote to Michael on the 26th, and he replied on the 27th.
Dear Michael;
    Of our two current producers in England, I am certain (at least that's what he told me) that P.M. has 50% of the financing. I'm not sure about D.F. but I know he was working on it. Do we need three films for the fund? Our producer in Los Angeles, Aaron Shuster, was approved for partial financing by our New York financier and he is a Canadian citizen and films in Canada.
    Are you not interested in our international film which may be produced by a company in Los Angeles, Buenos Aires and Prague? They also have been approved for partial financing by our New York financier.
    So, shall I write to them and give them the scoop? Shall I have them contact you directly -- it would be so much easier, don't you think?  Also, could you please write to me directly at my att address? Film Gravity cuts off the paper when I print it! The address is: debhill@att.net.  Thank you! Hope to talk to you soon...
    Blessed Be, Debora Hill
    Debora,
    Thank you for getting back to me. We have a full 36 page breakdown of our fund, but we want to make people are interested before we send out everything and find out they werent interested in working this way.efore we chat, Please explain this to your producer(s)/Investors. You don't have to have 3 films, depends on the budgets, If you have 2 films at 10 Million (with 50% on each) that works or. We just put in another film from another producer. In order to get the fund to work to its full potential we need to have 11 15 Million.  The big question is... Is the producer/ investor willing to put money through our fund?  They must not only see it a film investment but as a business investment as well.  The fund spreads the money over the films budgets and some fixed assets, thus guaranteeing the 17% - 25% rate of return. If the film does not do well, the investor/producer still makes money back, If the film does well then rate of return will be higher then 25%. It is a win-win for everyone.  As for what films, it does not matter, but they have to at least be commercially viable, and they must already have 40-50% of the money.  If you have anymore questions or you and your investors feel you are interested in moving to the next level please feel free to get in touch.
    Michael Currie, Producer
    Rushlight Entertainment
    So I started to hear from a flood of producers who had dropped out with SFG and Larry Withowski.  I wrote to ask if they were still interested in working with us, and the first I heard from was Chad Davis at ScriptBroker.
Deborah,
    We are always interested in trying to progress your films with our help.  We too have fallen on some financial tough times which we hoped that SFG would help with by keeping up with a fair deal; however, that did not materialize. In fact it did the opposite.
    Have you been in touch with SFG?   Last we heard from them, they were unwilling to give us references of previous projects or even literature to show their general standing within the business community. We researched them to no avail and have found nothing to validate them. We had even gone so far as to find companies willing to give them an upfront 40 k to get progress rolling. All they needed to do was provide a little background on themselves via email which they wouldn’t comply with.
    Because of this we lost our other investors and the project Odessa which these companies were ready to move on. This would have meant a good chunk of change for you as well.
    So the only conclusion that we have so far for SFG is that they wanted to take the 40K and disappear. They weren’t even listed in the yellow pages. This is quite common in LA.
    We will review what we have but we also wanted your input on how to proceed should SFG not be in the picture.
    Thanks for keeping up with us. Ahmed and I have been traveling a lot trying to salvage relationships with some of the companies initially interested in a joint effort with SFG.
    Thanks, Chad Davis
Hello, Michael;
    I have already heard from one of my producers, Chad Davis of ScriptBroker. They are located in Los Angeles and last January they asked to produce our script, THE DANGER CLUB. This was originally going to be done through SFG in New York; Chad explained some matters to me today as to why this fell through. He feels, however, that the investors who were originally brought in by Scriptbroker would still be interested in a better deal (a more straight-forward one).
    I am attaching the script and the budget prepared by Scriptbroker, for THE DANGER CLUB (there is also a short novel involved). Please contact Chad Davis directly and send him the prospectus for Rushlight.
    Sincerely, Debora
    David Fairman evinced interest as well; he was going ahead with the filming of CARMEN’S KISS with a much reduced budget.  We never heard anything about it being released in the states, though.  It was pretty clear from the beginning that the Rushlight program would never work with SFG – their operations were similar, the differences having to do with the fact that Michael Currie was much more forthright and didn’t work through an intermediary like Larry Withowski.  My first tentative attempts to separate from Larry started on the 28th, and became progressively messier until it was finally Michael Currie who made the decision.
Hello, Larry,
When we started working with SFG in January, you told us and our producers that they only had to come up with 15-25% of the budget. Now you're saying Martin will never provide more than 35% of the budget. That falls far short of 100%. If SFG is looking to raise the remainder of the film budget the same way Rushlight is, they conceivably cannot work together. Perhaps it will not work for us to work together any further, and we should end our association at this time with no bad feelings or recriminations so that we may be able to reconnect in the future.
    Debora
    Larry, quite naturally, fought this idea.  I wasn’t certain why he did, however, since every one of the producers who started funding through SFG had dropped out for one reason or another.  Unfortunately it became very quickly evident that Rushlight wasn’t going to work for us or any of our people either; they wanted even more of a percentage upfront – around 40% – and Michael Currie wasn’t willing to work with the producers in any way to assist in obtaining that; basically, just like SFG, what they wanted were producers who already had a few million invested in their films who were also willing to take on an onerous amount of debt and give up a large percentage of those films.  Rushlight did have the one advantage of a 35-page prospectus, but apart from that, Michael Currie wasn’t really willing to do any work himself.  He did expedite the end of our relationship with Larry, however – this was the letter he sent me regarding their correspondence:
Debora, 
    I just wanted to let you know that I passed on talking with Larry. I find it very unprofessional that he wrote in ALL CAPITALS. I mentioned I don’t time to chat with him and was not interested in any further contact but I wish him well in his projects. I did not mention anything about you or anything about what you told me. I also found him quite slimy when he said " I tried to call your number and it does not work". I emailed him back to say "I actually I did not give you my number" 
    I just thought I would let you know what I said if he happens to come back to you. I would suggest that you keep away from people like this, the business is hard enough without people like this slowing you down. 
    Michael
    Dear Michael; 
    Right you are...we've had some really bad run-ins with people in this industry, although Larry W. did try hard for us. We have attempted to sever our association with him on the best of terms; don't know how that worked out! And just as you have told him nothing about what I shared with you, I haven't told him anything about you or Rushlight except that we may be working with you. None of this concerns him. 
    And you're right, he should definitely not have attempted to telephone you before you indicated it was acceptable. One of the bad things about this industry (perhaps most industries now) is the lack of courtesy or respect for 'space'. 
    At this time, all we would ask of you is that you send your prospectus to the people we send you, and hopefully some if not most of them will work out for us both... 
    Blessed Be, Debora Hill
    Larry didn’t take it well at all, and tried several times to get us to change our minds about leaving him.  But after more than a year there was still nothing to show for all the work done, admittedly much of it on his part, but still...what did he want us for?  To lend him professional credibility, appeared to be the only reason.   
    I wrote to Robert Harlow to let him know about our decision. 
I never spoke to Larry Withowski again, but Robert Harlow has kept in touch by email.
Hello, Robert;
    You probably know by now that we have severed our agreement with Larry. We are hoping to work with him again in the future, but for the present we have decided it is best for all of us to move on.  We were hoping to meet you; you are definitely the balancing force in Larry's business. I hope you both can bring the film fund together -- I think perhaps we started working too early with Larry, before all the details were worked out, and perhaps at another time...Please keep in touch.
Blessed Be, Debora Hill
    We had learned that Frank had trouble letting go of people; he had attempted to hang on to Anthony long after we let him go.  Now he was anxious about leaving Larry; he thought, for some reason, that SFG and Rushlight might go in together and fund the films 100%.  We had learned by now that the reason a substantial sum of money was required from the producers had nothing to do with substantiation of their interest in the film, as had been claimed, but the fact that the upfront money would be used ‘leverage’ by SFG or whichever company did the ‘loaning’ of the remainder of the budget.  The seed amount would be placed in a pool with other seeds and the proceeds would then be used to fund the remainder of the film.  In other words, the funding entity would actually put up no money of their own; they would receive the money they leveraged back again plus equity in the film.  For them it was a win-win.  For almost everyone else it would be a lose-lose unless they got extremely lucky in the making of the movie.
    In October of 2007 it appeared that this was the only viable method, however.  Perhaps there was another way, but we hadn’t yet encountered it.  I attempted to explain this to Frank.
Hello, Frank;
    We have severed our relations with Larry Withowski. On Friday he basically told me he didn't want to work with any of the producers we brought to him this year. I have been contacted by several of the producers who dropped out of the SFG process, and I now have an explanation of why.
    Chad Davis of ScriptBroker requested a prospectus from Rushlight on Friday. He telephoned me and told me ScriptBroker had to drop out of the process with SFG funding because Martin London refused to give their other investors any kind of prospectus or company history -- the films previously financed, a complete explanation of the process, nothing. They said if they wanted any information at all, their investor would have to fly to New York and meet with them. He thought this was b.s., and because of it they lost another production, ODESSA, to another company. But they still want to produce THE DANGER CLUB, and with the Rushlight prospectus they can return to their original investor, who is still interested in putting up the remainder of the funding.  
    David Fairman of Grosvenor Pictures, London dropped out of the SFG process for the same reason and also because they wanted him to pay upfront fees of almost $100,000. Larry kept dicking around with him and saying they could work with the fees, but David's attorneys told him to get out. He got funding elsewhere for his other project, CARMEN'S KISS, and still wants to produce my script SOUL MATES. He requested a prospectus on Friday as well.  
    A woman named Debra Bassett, who owns Bassett Productions about two hours from us by car, requested a prospectus from Rushlight on Friday as well. She said she wanted to produce for us as long as the funding wasn't through SFG. 
    And a woman from a company in England called HoldinOn has been considering my solo script for a few months and talking to investors; she asked for a prospectus as well, and told me she feels it is enough for her to get the rest of the financing. Tom Krejci is working with some investors in Europe, he told me on Friday, and I believe the prospectus, which runs to 35 pages and has a great deal of information, will help him in that. Basically, we didn't know a lot of this before Friday; some of these people were unwilling to tell me some of this information while we were still working with Larry; the SFG funding process is apparently contrary to a lot of what is advised in film funding, particularly the upfront fees.
    How are things going with you? Do you feel that you could assist Tom in the funding process if you had the prospectus? Michael Currie of Rushlight wants to talk to producers before sending it out, but if you think you could use it, I'll put him in touch with you.
    Sincerely, Debora
    So, why didn’t things work out with Michael Currie?  From what we could deduce, there wasn’t really a prospectus.  We never received one, and I never heard from any of our producers reporting that they did, either.  Frank wrote back to me the same day.  He turned out to be the only one who ever saw the Rushlight prospectus.
    Deb,
    I will ask Tomas what he needs from me and let you know. It would be helpful if I have the prospectus so I understand the whole process. Please ask Michael Currie to email me a copy. 
I should be in Europe beginning of November and can meet Tomas in Prague if he's there then.
    Cheers, Frank