Hi, everybody! Gabe Diani here (writer/producer/actor) to answer any questions you might have!

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Please stay on topic/s–in this case tonight’s film The Selling, actor/producers Gabriel Diani and Etta Devine, ghosts, spooks, haunted houses,horro movie tropes and tricks, Ancient Unnamed Evil, and other other related topics. If you’d like to discuss today’s newsworthy matters including Hurricane Sandy, please find a post elsewhere on FDL to do so. Despite the levity of tonight’s film, our thoughts are with all those affected by the storm witin the FDL family and beyond. And to our friends at FDL, Southern Dragon and Scarecrow, much love.

Thank you. And yeah, I tpye badly…

Hi Gabe, sorry for the delay, despite being on the west coast and far from the storm, I am having some computer issues

Also Etta Devine (co-producer/actor).

But I kicked the machine’s ancient unnamed evil, and now it’s behaving!

Oh, good! Thanks for having us, Lisa! Excited to be here!

Hi Etta!

That always works with technology. It’s why my phone is full of dents.

So in general, horror films are waaaaay too scary for me–at least any made after like 1965 (though I saw The Exorcist). But this was one of the MOST enjoyable horror movies I have ever seen.

Thank you! They are too scary for Gabe too. Hence a child safe horror movie.

The humor helped. A lot. And it wasn’t *win*wink* like Scream franchise–way less self-conscious.

Aw, shucks! I’m not big on gorey horror films either. This movie was really a love letter to all the great Abbott and Costello horror comedies I grew up with.

I laughed so hard when Dave was possessed and Richard had to fight him to save Ginger. The climax of that scene was GENIUS. I laughed out for real!

Or stuff like The Ghost and Mr Chicken.

Good because Jonathan Klein really suffered for that. I believe it was oatmeal and Aloe juice (the lumpy kind) and he found it so disgusting he was really gaging.

YOu packed a lot of horror film tropes into the film!

That’s great to hear (read?)! We really wanted to avoid parody and treat it like a serious ghost story with the humor coming from the very real and cowardly way most people would react.

So have either of you been real estate agents–in Los Angeles there are a lot of actors in real estate.

We really wanted to address all those tropes of the genre but hopefully give them a fresh comedic spin.

Never sold real estate but both of us were temps at real estate agencies when we first moved to LA.

We haven’t worked in real estate (other than some temping in Malibu Coldwell Bankers) but we did watch a lot of house flipping shows. The film was written before the crash so there were still a lot of people encouraging everyone to dive into real estate for easy money.
We thought the horror aspect followed naturally from that…

Boo!

And we’ve had a lot of real estate agents be really excited about the film. Even some from the area where the house is in LA. The West Adams district. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Adams,_Los_Angeles It’s a really stunning historical area.

It works really well post crash too, especially now that that interest rates are so low–and health insurance is still a serious issue for many!

Yikes!

Is that where the house was–that house is AWESOME!

Yikes!

How long was your shoot?

Horror movies typically tap into the fears of society so all that was definitely floating around in the background as I was writing.

It’s stunning. The stained glass especially right when you walk in. We were talking to a lovely group yesterday who live in the area and are very passionate about preserving it and they were saying that there are more historic homes left in that couple block radius than anywhere else in LA. It’s a fantastic time warp.

We shot for 14 days. Not long for a feature film. We would shoot about 10-13 pages a day where the typical studio picture would shoot only 2 pages. Not ideal for perfectionists like us but that’s what you have to do when you’re a small movie!

You had a couple great cameos, Barry Bostwick as Fr. Jimmy and Simon Helberg (aka Howard Wolowitz from “Big Bang Theory”). How did you get them involved?

Another great (or not so great depending) thing about the area is that after the 10 freeway went in the socioeconomic status of the area plummeted. The silver lining is that a lot of the houses were never “improved”. No 80′s kitchens and whatnot. So now that historic preservation is more important to a lot of people the houses that were never touched because people couldn’t afford to fix them are getting restored instead of improved.

If your a house person buying something in that area is surprisingly affordable.

As an LA native I love West Admas, and am so thrilled it is preserved.

We lucked out with Barry! We knew we wanted a “name” actor for that juicy role because (let’s face it) names help sell movie. So we put out what’s called a “breakdown” for the role to agents and managers. Barry’s manager contacted us, we made an offer, and Barry liked the script so decided to do it! He was really wonderful to work with and has been a huge supporter of the film. We feel very lucky to be able to call him a friend now.

I actually looked in that area when home buying. I opted for a smaller home from 1921–which sadly had a gross 1998 kitchen (granitte tiles, the shoulder pads of kitchen design) but still had all the built ins and pocket doors–in an area better suited for a single woman, more centrally located.

Simon Helberg (the great Wolowitz) is a friend of ours. We are members of the same theatre company http://www.antaeus.org/a2.html along with his wife JocelynTowne (our main ghost).
We’re also in their fantastic movie http://iamithefilm.com

There are so many treasures there! I backed a cool kickstarter devoted to taking pictures of West Adams homes. Some real beauties in his video. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jettloe/untold-la

Ha! Shoulder pads of Kitchen Design!

Welcome Gabriel and Etta, and thanks for being here. Congratulations about getting the movie made! Can you talk a big about using kick starter for financing? I know a lot of people are trying to do that.

Also the house looks gorgeous, like an old Green & Green. Great choice.

Your supernatural”facts” were pretty accurate, too. And actually using a goat and rope and alcohol is not that far off from santeria cleansings.

Gotta say, it’s exceptionally impressive what you all accomplished in so short a time.

I’m actually watching the DVD while I’m working today…as we speak…

Thanks Jane.
I mentioned I Am I by Jocelyn Towne that was funded on Kickstarter. (we’re in the video!) http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2115598587/i-am-i-feature-film This was our introduction to kickstarter.

After being involved in that one we did our own http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dianidevine/replacing-the-n-word-with-robot-in-huck-finn “Replacing the n-word with robot in Huck Finn”. We were very lucky and it went viral.

Hi Jane! Thanks for your question. It’s difficult for independent movies nowadays as studios buy fewer and fewer small films. Without big name stars or a Sundance premiere we had little chance for a theatrical (movie theater) release. But all the festivals we played at audiences would come up to us and say they wish there were movies like this in the theaters so we decided to send our little baby out into the word with a limited theatrical release ourselves. Crowdfunding is wonderful but it is also very difficult. We came up with some funny campaign videos and had some help from Barry, Simon, Janet Varney (the voice of Korra on the Legend of Korra) to help get the word out. The amount of support has been amazing but it is a lot of hard work. I think a lot of people don’t realize that. Crowd-funding is a full time job.

Doing a Kickstarter is an amazing way for artists to get funding but it’s not free money. Running a kickstarter is a full time job and very stressful.
I’d highly suggest that people do A LOT of research before they dive in.

We talk about it a little in these @FilmCourage videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIhEqOv9BqU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEU8NAJol9A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pVFS0UfZeE

That’s great! Thanks, Alltwistedup! A lot of people worked very hard to put it together.

That’s great!

Etta, Gabe, was it difficult to fund this the “old fashioned way” without crowdfunding?

I was obsessed with ghosts in high school and did a lot of research into ghost-hunting, haunting theories, and the like.

That was a very sweet goat.

What other projects have you written that we might know of Gabe? this film is so well thought out and way funnier and clever than most heavily promoted mainstream releases.

Yes, it was difficult. As hard as making a movie is the hardest part is finding the money to put it all together. We had some private equity investors who funded the movie…but those folks are few and far between.

Thank you. Well, 14 days of shooting but years of everything else!

It really helped that since we cast all our friends we didn’t worry about the acting or performances for a second. We knew exactly what everyone was bringing to the table and knew we’d love it.

What were some of the (non-financial) challenges? And do either of you believe in ghosts?

with private investors, how does it work? do they get a recoup on their investment before any profits are shown?

Thanks for the kind words, Alltwistedup! If you go to our youtube channel (www.youtube.com/dianidevine) you can see all of our smaller online work including our web series Mary Olson and our Huck Finn [Robotic Edition] videos we wrote and produced. We’ve got some other feature scripts that we’ve written that we’re looking for funding for. Once we get it we’ll be making another movie!

It works different for everyone. Lawyer stuff.
Often the investors will essentially get shares in the movie like shares in a company. Then if money ever comes in they get their percentage. Hopefully it’s more than they put in! If the movie keeps making money they keep getting their percentage.

Movies are a terrible investment. Also if you’d like to invest in a movie we have several scripts ready.

Sometimes the investor will get paid back before anyone else. Often there are many investors with different payback priorities.

HAHA!!! Man, if I had the cash I would love to! Anxious to see what other gems you and Gabe can deliver.

So do you believe in ghosts?

After the remaining screenings of The Selling what is the gameplan? Move on and wait to see how the home market receives the film?

I used to believe in ghosts but have become more skeptical as I’ve gotten older. Most supernatural phenomena can be explained scientifically (read “Spook” for more info). I do believe there are things that cannot be explained however.

As to the non-financial challenges: the lack of time shooting was a real challenge because you only have the footage you got on set once you get into the editing room. So there were times when we just weren’t able to get the shots that we wanted and had to get more creative in the editing room. Also, the fact that we’ve had to pretty much do everything on our own with our fellow producer Emily Lou (the director) has been very challenging. We shot the movie 3 years ago and it’s just now coming out!

We’ve got some scripts were really excited about.
We’re really just interested in making stuff that we’d like to see. And we’re big nerds who’s favorite TV shows always get cancelled so you KNOW that they’re good.

The movie is just now out there in the world for people to purchase so even after the screenings wrap up we’ll continue to tweet, do interviews, and try to get the word out. But we would like to step back so we can focus on creating something new in the next year.

No way.
The actual world is amazing enough. A storm is eating New York right now! Who needs The Marshmallow man?

So between shooting and finally getting it released what did the time schedule look like? How long for editing and post (effects and audio and such)?

YOu can find the movie for sale here: http://www.thesellingthemovie.com/store/ and on Amazon and iTunes.

I know Gabe is answering this right now but there is that saying
Good, Fast and Cheap. Pick two.

We chose good and cheap.

Post production took over a year and a half to finished for various reasons. We wrapped shooting at the end of June 2009, the movie was finished towards the end of 2010, we premiered at San Francisco International Film Festival in May 2011, we played over 25 film festivals over the next 18 months or so, came out on digital platforms in August 2012 and now on video in Oct. 2012. So it’s been a long haul!

what was the best reception of the film so far? any particular area of the country more receptive than another?

and what does the demographic of the live audiences look like so far?

Editing took a while. We lost about 6 months with an editor who didn’t work out. Our lead editor Chad Meserve then came on the team in January 2010 and worked until that summer. VFX took about month of work after the picture was locked. Sound about the same. It all started blending together at that point in terms of final sound mix, online edit, color grading, and all that stuff I’d never heard of before.

It’s so hard to make a movie. For real. Going to so many festivals over the last year and a half we’ve seen tons of AMAZING films that might never see the light of day. There really are good movies out there that we’re never going to hear of. I know sometimes scanning netflix it seems like there is nothing to watch but it is out there!

Supporting good independent film is so important. It’s how we get more good stuff. Attending your local film festival and then blabbing on social media and reviewing stuff on Amazon and iTunes (if it makes it there) is super important. It really makes a difference.

The demographics are really all over the place. I’ve actually been surprised at that. Kids, older people etc. It’s kind of amazing that they all like it! Both coasts, midwest, my parents friends.
We even went to Singapore for a festival. I was worried about the reception but it was fantastic. They speak english there so they got the comedy (it’s hard to translate wordy jokes, they often don’t work in other languages) except for the pop culture stuff and were very excited about the movie.

Best reception. That’s a good question. We’ve been very fortunate to have a wide variety of places embrace the film from New York at the Friar’s Club Comedy Film festival where we won the Audience and Jury Awards for best narrative feature to the midwest at the Ohio International Film Festival where we won the Grand Prix award for best picture to the Los Angeles Comedy Festival where we won in five separate categories. I guess that doesn’t really answer your question but I think wherever there are geeky people like us who like Ghostbusters, Doctor Who, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer you’re going to find people who like our movie.

personally, I’m doing my best to push for the film. Telling people about it and spreading the word. It’s great seeing an indie come out by talented folks and have that film turn out so great (honestly, I’m not just saying that). I only spread the word if something is worth it…

That’s awesome. Sometimes we get wary of jumping up and down all the time screaming “look at us”. Someone else’s endorsement is priceless.

I love it because it’s SMART. And well acted.

That’s so wonderful to hear, Alltwistedup! We depend on people like you spreading the word. It’s very difficult to cut through the clutter and when people are spending their hard earned dollars on entertainment it’s hard to take a chance on something with actors they may not have heard of. Recommendations from friends really can make the difference in someone renting/buying the movie or not.

The vibe of your film is similar ( for me at least ) to films like The Frighteners, Shaun of the Dead, …kind of like the quirky foreign flick I catch late night and feel like “What was that!” wow that came outta nowhere! a pleasant surprise….

“similar to Shaun of the Dead” is the best compliment we could dream of.

Thanks, Lisa! We’re big fans of smart comedy and we’re living in the age of the R-rated comedy where story takes a back seat to the gags. There’s nothing wrong with those movies but it’s not the stuff that we make and we’re always of the opinion that there’s a market for more than one kind of movie to be popular at one time.

any plans for Redbox, Hulu or Netflix or other rental avenues ( aside from the digital downloads already stated)?

Being actors in LA we have no shortage of talented friends! Not casting everyone we know was the hard part.

Indeed. Love the “Frighteners” and “Shaun of the Dead.” They were big touchstones during the writing of the movie.

From the moment the screen went red for the opening titles I knew you knew how to put a film together….

The opening titles as well were very clever…kind of Pink Pantherish…a good tone was set very early on.

The physical movie is currently available from Blockbuster and our distributor is still working on trying to get Redbox, Family Video, and the other big buyers to take the film. Our streaming rights are tied up elsewhere so it won’t be instant watch on Netflix or Hulu for quite some time.

The opening titles are something we are THRILLED WITH.
We were looking all over and doing a lot of brainstorming and decided we wanted something animated like pink panther etc. Something to set the tone of the movie for everyone.
Speaking of Shaun of the Dead we found this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vePeQw0RiGo Ryan W. Kimball’s alternate titles to Shaun. We LOVED them and thought something like that would be perfect.
So we just asked him. He had never worked on a movie before and lives in Atlanta. He did an amazing job. We actually just met him when he and his parents came to the LA showing at The Egyptian.

How did you two meet?

And what was the gunk for the toilet scene?

I’m sorry I missed the screening at Egyptian, but Movie and Debates locked me in for the night. BTW, for our readers, it was my cousin Patti, a realtor, who suggested the film for for, she knows Gabe. Hollywood, it’s all nepotism!

We both went to San Francisco State (just like the director Emily Lou and Witch Kendra Chell, and Ed, Cole Stratton). We had been in the same improv group at different times and met at a reunion show. Gabe had also seen me in a Chechov play at some point.

It’s been so long I’m not sure I remember what the stuff was called but it was a viscous goo that was odorless mixed with food coloring and bread crumbs to give it some disgusting texture. It did not wash off easily! The bathroom in that scene was not a bathroom. It was a back entryway to the house with a fake toiled rigged to shoot the gunk at me. The toilet didn’t quite work the way we hoped so we ended up having to CGI the shot.

And we shot the real estate office in her real estate office on Larchmont! Those beautiful desks, lamps and chairs were already there.

It is who you know! Patti’s our landlord, the real estate office in the film is her real estate office, and the apartment we live in where I wrote the movie is where Alexander Payne lived while he was making “Election”…a movie I saw five times in the theater I loved it so much.

That location was MUCH prettier than the cubicles we had in mind but I’m glad. It’s beautiful.

I was at the Egyptian screening and gladly missed the debates that night due to it…I needed something refreshing to cleanse te palate so to speak

I thought I recognized the Larchmont office, and yes I know the building you live in, and Alexander’s apt! I have been to parties there.

Ha!
I thought it was rude of them to schedule baseball and the debate during our showing.

Thanks for coming, Alltwistedup. Did we get a chance to meet?

You can’t out a user name Gabe!

Absolutely, met you and Etta at Comikaze also…we’ve spoken a bit. and now that I’m familiar with your work I kinda regret not buying a robot from you at the con!

All right all right. Don’t ruin the mystery!

That be true Etta.

Well, there are some Robot Jim’s on our website http://www.DianiAndDevine.com or more variety at Chad’s website http://www.dayoftherobot.com. He’s got Christmas ornaments!

LOL, the mysteries of Movie Night!

I was about to say my name is Bostwick!

I fyou could get one of your films made tomorrow, which would you pick–plot etc?

It seems were answering the most expensive one…

We’ve got a sci-fi comedy we’ve written called “Sorry, Wrong Planet” about an inept alien soldier who is accidentally teleported to earth where he teams up with an illegal immigrant to do day labor, falls in love with a waitress who looks like Empress of the Universe, and has to stop an alien invasion. It’s kind of like if Buster Keaton had made a Flash Gordon serial. So…that.

LOL!

If anyone has a few million lying around let us know!

Seems your film knowledge goes pretty deep…when did you really fall in love with film? any particular films or TV shows become the catalyst?

THE SELLING may be in a theater near you soon SCREENINGS

and it’s available on DVD and download (the DVDs are great gifts for the realtors in your life!)

Gabe, Etta, thaknyou for being here tonight and for making a hoor movie that didn’t give me nightmares!

Cheers folks! Thanks for the chat! Thanks Lisa for hosting!!!

I think just actually being big nerds ourselves helps.
There are some ridiculous gaps though. I absolutely wish that the film department wasn’t so impacted that a nonmajor never had a chance of taking anything. (glassblowing too)
I just saw The Godfather last month.

Good question. Loved the old Saturday matinee movies on my local UHF channel that played the old Abbott and Costello, Don Knotts, and Jerry Lewis movies. And loved Star Trek and Doctor Who growing up. But probably “Ghostbusters” is the first real memory I have of falling in love with a film.

Thank you guys for your great questions and for having us! This was a very cool thing.

I think our dog would REALLY like to be walked now.

This has been delightful! Thanks so much to Lisa and the Fire Dog Lake team for having us and for all the questions and interest in the movie.

just last month?!?!? my heart is giving out!!!

Go walk the pooch! Ciao & thanks a bunch keep on killing it at your screenings.

Thanks Firepups and Firebaggers. And for those of you on the East Coast and throughout the storm footprint, stay safe!