#360

4.21.23

7:05p

Here’s what I would do if I got 100k to make a documentary about my dad:

I would immediately reach back out to my VA, scheduling a call to assign him lots of work. I would reach out to a new VA to take up the other half of my work.

I would put $50,000 into a high yield saving account to earn interest while I work on pre and post production.

I would ask my friend Hunter to be my producer.

I would storyboard, write a script, and preproduce as much as I can. I would ask my film mentors for help.

After shooting, I would spend $25,000 for coloring, sound mixing, sound designing, and editing. The rest of the $25,000 would be for marketing and distribution if needed.

Hopefully this film will do well in prestigious film festivals, garnering a name for myself and for the brand.

I would start a company (name already picked) focusing on small crew documentary filmmaking. Selling the films we make would be the main source of income. We wouldn’t get that much at first, so that’s why I have the full time job to fall back on, essentially making me passive income. I would start crews in strategic cities around the world to adopt the brand into their culture to make films. Bangalore, Paris, Rio, Shanghai, Seoul, Tokyo, Moscow, Mexio City, Atlanta, Tehran (of course this would take a long time). As the company scales and grows, more income will come in.

I could also make a company encouraging and empowering regular people to interview their loved ones. The company could be a nonprofit, it could train regular people on basic filmmaking skills, so they could interview the people in their family (like me interviewing my Dad for the feature above). All of these interviews can be compiled into another feature length doc or shown on this company’s platform. It would be boring to random lay people, but fascinating for the people who took the time to interview their loved ones and then everybody in that family and go there to watch. This could also be a podcast.

The company that grants me the $100k would help with accountability, networking, marketing and distribution, entrepreneur training, motivation, and having a platform to promote and publicize.

AI can be used for animation, helping animators with the heavy lifting for the documentaries. AR can be used for the documentary I shot in Europe (shifting with strangers).

Another route with the documentary company is, people can start up their own companies as long as they focus on story and character. And then they would be posted on their respected YT channels and then the big company would repost the really good ones. Just like TEDx and TED.

Kiubon