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Chris Moore - On Calling Harvey
Now that you have seen the episode I want to lay out what was really going on with the "Stolen Summer" budget and why Ben called Harvey. I want you all to understand that this is not normally the process.
The normal budget process has the physical production executive and the line producer fighting about the budget within a range that the studio, the producer, and the director have agreed upon. So if the range is $25 million to $30 million, then the director and his crew: DP, Costume Designer, Production Designer, and Casting Director, all try to fight for their individual budgets within this bigger number. The studio, director and producer try to settle the different needs of the departments as well as give the director what he or she needs to make the movie. Usually following the normal course of prep you head into shooting with an agreed upon budget in the agreed upon range.
On Pete's movie we had agreed to an amount, $1 million, which the panel picking the winner acknowledged was too low. However, the Miramax reps on the panel were not willing to just go with $2 million as a budget -- they wanted us to earn it. So Pat Peach, Jeff Balis, Pete and I sat down and tried to get the movie to $1 million. It was not the same movie once you cut everything that had to be cut to do this. This is where my and Pete's memos come into play.
First of all, I do get a little carried away with my memos -- but they always come from the heart. Second, I only write these outlandish memos when all other means of persuasion or explanation have fallen on deaf ears. I use a little exaggeration to make my points, but they are still valid points. Ben makes fun of me for writing these deep long overblown emails or memos, as does Jon Gordon, but truly they work and they get people's attention. I also believe in what I write. I would not have made Pete's movie for $1 million, nor would I have ever given up fighting. I knew, and Miramax knew, that there was more money available and I was going to get it. So let the record be clear: my memos are from the heart, with real facts, and worth reading. (I am writing this so my memos do not lose their power.)
Back to Pete's movie, the big issues were Chicago as the location, 1976 as the time period, shooting the swimming in Lake Michigan, burning up the house, having eight kids in the lead character's family, and trying to get as many shots with the camera moving as possible. Once we gave Miramax the budget for the $1 million version of the film (without most of these elements) we started fighting because that was not the movie we wanted to make. Again see my memo in the Paper Trail.
Now this fight began with Pete, Pat, Jeff and I arguing to the many different executives at Miramax, Kevin Hyman and Jim Glander, from the physical production side, and Jon Gordon and Michelle Sy from the production side. We did everything: calls, meetings, emails, faxes, whatever we could do to make them realize $1 million was crazy. I was particularly upset as I was in the jury room with Jon and Meryl and they knew it cost more than a million dollars but now they were not pushing the number up. When Ben comes in the office, we had been fighting with Miramax for three weeks and getting nowhere. This is key, because I would never have encouraged him to make the call if it had not been such a long time without answers. It is hard to get Harvey or Jon or Meryl to focus on a little movie and it was time to push the button in my opinion. But as think you back over the episode, remember it was after three weeks of precious prep time that Ben made the call.
The whole process was stalled due to this budget issue. So I started to panic because prep is so important on any movie but especially a first time director's movie. We were wasting our prep time fighting over the budget. This was not good in my opinion. I was frustrated. At Miramax Harvey is the boss, and we needed Harvey's approval to have the budget increase by 50-100%, which is what we were asking for. Just for the record though, at any studio if you were trying to get a 100% increase in the budget from $1 million to $2 million you would need the approval of the boss. Imagine going from $25 million to $50 million. The boss has to approve. So Pat, Jeff, Pete, and I were just stuck trying to get Harvey's approval to increase our budget. This is when Ben walked in.
I agree with Jon Gordon that it is not something to do often and in most cases the boss does just say "I need to call the executive on this project" before he will answer. And, even in this case, Harvey did not agree to a number. And the number Ben thought Jon agreed to was wrong as well. But it got the process going and within three days of the call we had an extra $500,000. So live and learn but, the ability to make that call is the silver bullet and one should only use it when truly needed.
Just remember that every minute is a valuable prep minute and every minute being wasted waiting on the budget is not a minute of prep. This is why I was so frustrated and let Ben do what he did. Wasting prep time kills me, and having no agreed upon budget number is always a prep time killer. Thankfully, Ben got us through our logjam and we could get Chicago and 1976. Pete was lucky and I was happy because he did not see the movie any other way. It is hard to make a movie with a director who does not see the movie. So moving the setting to 2001 would have really hurt the film.
More budget and casting talk to come. Thanks again for watching and reading . . .
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