THE EMERGENCE OF A BALTIMORE FILM PRODUCTION COMPANY
A group of I.A.T.S.I. local 487 union members are tired of waiting for projects to come to Baltimore, and have formed their own company. You can’t blame the companies who have always been fond of Baltimore as a movie venue but were lured away by the obvious better deals and financial packages offered by other cities and states. However rather than bailing out, leaving Baltimore for the more plentiful work elsewhere we are sticking together and staying in Maryland. We're forming our own company and filming our own projects. Many of us have been in the industry for years working together on projects like HBO’s The Wire, Homicide-Life in The Streets, and on all the John Waters films. This is our Dream Works (DreamWorks began in 1994 as an ambitious attempt by media moguls Stephen Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen to create a new Hollywood studio.)
We have already produced a film short by Wade Tyree, a fellow union brother, and eletrician on The Wire. Wade wrote, and directed his 10 minute short. It was produced by fellow Wire/ union brother Brook Yeaton and produced completely by a local crew. The experience was a great one. We have worked together on so many things that the same Baltimore movie making magic was there, hard work, expertise, enthusiasm and most of all TEAMWORK.
LIFE AFTER LISA SEEKS FUNDING
LIFE AFTER LISA will be using this crew- the crew from The Wire. Brook and Greer Yeaton, children to the Emmy-Award Winning casting agent, and Baltimore native Pat Moran will be producing together. Perry Blackmon, owner of the security company that watched over the sets of The Wire, and casting agent will be casting and assisting in the producing of Life After Lisa. And I, Elena Moscatt ran the craft services department on the set of The Wire all five seasons. I started writing the screenplay to Life After Lisa when I was actually at Goucher College in the mid 80's. (My bio is included in the press kit).
We have hired Rap Star and Actor, Method Man to play Lisa's inspirational Poetry Professor. We have also hired Shane Van Dyke (Dick Van Dyke's grandson) to play Professor Boller, and to assist in the writing of some of the future webisodes. We have also approached A.J. Lamas, son to Lorenzo Lamas, Lydia Hearst, daughter to Patricia Hearst, and Terri Nunn, lead singer of the 80's band Berlin to play other roles. This is going to be an incredible cast! We are also hiring many local Maryland, New York and other East Coast actors, and actresses. Our Lead, Stephanie Danielson was born and raised here in Maryland. She just moved to New York to pursue an acting career and it looks like she gets her biggest job right back here in her home state.
We are seeking funding to film our first three webisodes. Our cast and crew are waiting and ready to film for six days in November. We estimate that we are going to need $30,000 to $50,000 to film the first 24 pages of our series. The average cost of an online webisode such as ours – with SAG actors, and a professional union crew would cost over $40,000 per webisode. We will take whatever we can get – whether it’s a smaller amount like $1,000 or over $5,000. Anyone who gives us over $2,500 will be listed as an associate producer in the credits of our show (those particular webisodes).
Those companies interested in being listed as sponsors could have banners on our website. And the companies that give the most will be mentioned in the front of our credits of that particular webisode. For instance: “Webisode One: Jessie Moves In is being brought to you by the Little Shop Of Hardware.”
Once we have completed our first three webisodes, we will be marketing them to networks such as HBO, Showtime, and M-TV. But first, we want to put this show together the way we all know how, created, filmed, and funded in the city and state we all know and love - Baltimore, Maryland.
Please help us out. We're looking for backers to invest in our production. We are looking for sponsors who could put their ads on our website as well as commercials edited into our webisodes. Brook Yeaton and I could come in and meet with you at any time to talk more about our project. Thank you so much!
Sincerely,
Elena Moscatt
(443) 801-3368
Life After Lisa
Kapri Productions
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
