Fighting with the Film Critic…

Raising money was not an easy task. Mordechai Sampson had gone to extremes to make his dream a reality. He had mortgaged his house and sold all his stocks and bonds. He had borrowed from family and friends and he had hired the best crew possible. He had gone over his screenplay with Brock Westney, one of the top screenwriters (at least that's what it said on his Linkedin profile) in North America and he was making his dream come true. It was the ultimate gamble.

Distributors said they’d be pleased to handle his film with the caveat they needed to see the final product. They didn’t care about the trailer, they wanted something that they could sit and enjoy from beginning to end.

Mordechai had run into a technical issue when the editor he hired Wembley Houston disagreed with his vision for the movie. They had been working together for a couple of weeks when things went south. Mordechai paid Wembley for his time and moved his project over to Priscilla Leung who was much more accomodating and understanding.

The day it was finished, was one of the happiest in Mordechai’s life. His company ‘’Walking In The Hurricane Productions’’ was ready to show the movie to his investors and then move it into the public.

The screening was met with a mixed response. His parents said they were very proud of him and his friends all said nice things, but Mordechai didn’t know if he had created a winner or a bomb. The congrats all seemed muted and more perfunctory than real.

When he shopped the movie to distributors he once again received a mixed bag in terms of results. He ended up making a deal with ‘’Rumble Rumble’’ Distribution who said they would work to get both a theatrical and streaming deal done. The deal was sixty forty favouring the distributor. They had nothing to lose.

Every day for a month Mordechai waited to hear something, anything and when he called the offices of Rumble Rumble, they’d say don’t call us, we’’ll call you.

Mordechai went back to work as a Real Estate Agent and he tried to stay as busy as possible, he wanted to pay people back and he needed to get his house’s mortgage paid off, he knew his film career was looking very bad. What had been a dream was looking like a nightmare.