Be A Movie Producer for $100

An interesting article from “The Economist” (thanks, Jason and “A”!) about how India’s rapidly growing movie industry is thinking differently:

Thanks to a boom in urban multiplex cinemas, the economics of Bollywood filmmaking is changing. Small-budget productions, often made by debutant directors experimenting with genres-such as “Being Cyrus”, a twisted tale of a dysfunctional Parsi family in Mumbai-are now finding audiences and critical acclaim. Big Bollywood players are taking notice: “Iqbal”, another recent release, was financed by Subhash Ghai, a powerful producer.

One group of aspiring directors hopes to avoid Bollywood altogether. The makers of “Betelnut Killers” are using a website to solicit “investments of as little as $100” to raise $1m for their film about an Indian shopkeeper in a small American town who plots to get rid of an unwelcome rival. The word “investment” suggests an eventual pay-off, and indeed there is, according to the site-a credit at the end of the yet-to-be-made movie, a T-shirt crowing “Co-producer, Betelnut Killers” and exclusive rights to contribute to a blog. By early May, contributions totalled almost $14,000.

The website actually offers a fairly complete proposal on many aspects of the project. So if you ever want to put “Movie Producer” as a credit on your resume, this is the time to do it… 🙂

On a related news, Patrick has decided to let his hair grow until he sells his next movie script (or so he threatened his agent). Apparently Hollywood is a bitchy industry to be in… His wife, Ee-bin, said Patrick’s hair is now growing nice and long. I told Patrick if he still has his hair by Christmas, I’d buy him a dress! Hah!