MegaStorm?

We're slowly recovering from the affects of hurricane Sandy. Although we have sustained some damages we're grateful that our friends and family are safe. We certainly hope you are all well!

In short time we'll continue our efforts to promote and finance our comedy film, MEGABALL$...and we're keeping as active as circumstances allow.

We're pleased that over the past week interest continues to grow and our 'numbers' are up. Our Twitter account nears 300 followers and our Facebook group has 282 followers.

Our video "The Story Behind MegaBall$" has 16,665 views. The video 'Teaser'  has 14,736 views from 82 different countries; our YouTube Channel has 171 subscribers. Please feel free to encourage your friends to view these videos and to ask them to follow our progress on Twitter and Facebook....and ask the same of their friends

The film's website continues to attract good traffic and we've added a page for comments from persons who have read the screenplay. We frequently review and edit the screenplay - to make the film 'tight' and filming efficient.

We have gotten our first estimate on a MegaBall$ APP, which will help promote the film throughout the various stages of production and sales. The design of the APP is not only for marketing, but it will randomly select numbers for lotto games while 'speaking' a line from the film. We also hope to add a similar feature to our web site. We plan to have the APP running before we begin production, and all our supporters and investors will be the first to receive the APP. (FYI the APP is featured within the film!)

The damages and costs associated with hurricane Sandy will limit interest from local investors for some time....so, as we continue to set up meetings we'll need to depend more on networking to find other potential investors. We are also looking for other sources of funding, such as grants and 'crowdsourcing,' to combine with private equity financing. We have responded to encouraging requests from the Tribeca Institute and submitted for one of their grants. There remain several interested individuals considering financial involvement.

We greatly appreciate your support and faith!

 

Best regards,

Marc Baron & Joe Cirillo

Oroloro Entertainment, LLC / MegaBalls Movie, LLC

www.oroloro.com

www.MegaBallsMovie.com

We hope all our friends and followers have managed to get through hurricane Sandy safely.
To to the demands of the damages here, we'll be off line for a few days....but we'll be continuing our efforts to produced MEGABALL$ soon.

A recent trip to Los Angeles included a few meetings, but overall plans were changed because of problems with return flights to New York. We'll report on those meetings soon.

We're proud to announce that our casting director, Ellen Jacoby, has received more awards and recognition. She received the Lifetime Achievement Award from Franklin College, Indiana, and last night was awarded the "Iconic Woman" and "Casting Director of the Year" by the Women in the Arts in Miami Awards, and Ellen will be a guest juror for the Bahamas International Film Festival.

Past awards for Ellen include the Casting Society of America Artios Award Nominations (for Excellence in Casting) for the films "The Bird Cage" and "The Truman Show, and winner of the Artios for "Parenthood"...and in 2000 Miami Metro Magazine named Ellen the Woman of the Millennium. Her credits include "Burn Notice," "Rock of Ages," and "There's Something about Mary." In 2011 Ellen was presented with the Key to the City (Miami).

Visit Ellen's web site at www.EllenJacobyCasting.com

We're honored to have Ellen as the casting director for "MegaBall$." View a short video of Ellen talking about how much she likes the Screenplay of "MegaBall$," the video can be found on YouTube or on our web site.

You can the bios of other other team members here.

IFP Film Week

Each year the IFP (Independent Filmmaker Project) holds a film week/Conference. This year's Film Week is at NY's Lincoln Center, with some satellite meetings at other venues....and this year Oroloro was in attendance. We had done our homework in researching the listed speakers - some of whom we have already been in touch with.

The first panel was comprised of the filmmakers who made Beasts of the Southern Wild, an ambitious indie film made for only $1.5 million.

The second panel was about the art of the pitch - how to entice people to want to know more about your project in 2-3 minutes. This panel was moderated by Darrien Gipson, the head of SAGIndie, with Winnie Lau (ExVP of Acquisitions for Fortissimo Films), producer Lisa Cortes, and casting director Paul Schnee. This panel had four people in attendance give their pitch, then highlight the good points of what they said and make recommendations of how to improve it. Two of the pitches were fairly good! Based on what we saw, we're convinced our pitch for MegaBall$ is solid.

The next panel discussed writers and screenplays that were good yet not produced. The Black List was started only a few years ago by Franklin Leonard of OverBrook Entertainment (who moderated the panel), and titles on that list went on to win major awards. Here writers talked about their struggles and successes, and how being on the Black List helped them.

The finally panel was a keynote, with speakers Christine Vachon and James Schamus, moderated by the IFP Exec. Dir,  Joana Vicente.  James coined a great phrase that best describes today's world on Internet connection as a "surveillance culture." Another panel was with J.C., Chandor, writer and director of the film Margin Call, talking about the process of getting that film onto the screen.

Dylan Marchetti, of Variance Films spoke about today's world of independent film distribution and marketing, as did Josh Braun of Submarine Entertainment. There was talk of crowdfunding by Stephen Paternot of Slated.com, Elizabeth Holm of Kickstarter, Paolo Freccero of Crowdstarter, moderated by Janet Brown of FilmBuff.

Another panel talked of methods of bringing eyeballs to your project with Marc Schiller, of Bond Strategy and Influence, Caspar Newbolt, a designer with Version Industries, moderated by Jon Reiss of Hybrid Films. There panels on self-distribution with guests Amanda McCormick of Jelly Bean Boom, Pablo Gonzales of TUGG, Erick Opeka of Cinedigm, moderated by Christopher Horton of the Sundance Institute.

On Tuesday, we had a 'speed dating' situation, where we were able meet several industry people in smalls groups to better understand what they could do, and how our projects might fit. Our meetings with Melissa Wells of United Talent Agency, Ryan Harrington of Tribeca Film Institute, Dan Berger of Oscilloscope Labs, Dylan Leiner of Sony Picture Classics, and Jon van Thaden of Magnolia Pictures all were helpful. We walked away with a better understanding of their needs and how Megaball$ would fit in - and how it was best to approach them. We handed each person a #10 envelope with our logo on it; inside was a simple one sheet on our film, a business card, and a bona fide lotto ticket. Hey, since MegaBall$ is about the lotto real tickets make great attention getter's.

After each day we'd reach out to these guest and connect via Twitter, Facebook, email and/or LinkedIn, thereby starting the process of branding our project to keep their interest. In the case of the Tribeca Institute, we were invited to apply for some of their film grants,  are filling a submission now! The grants not only include money (up to $50,000) but some mentoring along the long road to the finished film.

Overall it was a good few days that will payoff long term.

Still at it...

We spent the Labor Day weekend...laboring. Reviewing and amending the project overview (aka the Venture Plan) which outlines who we are, what the film is and how we'll make and market it. What was added was revenue projections for our maximum budget ($980,000). We already had projections for our minimum budget ($700,000) but after a meeting last week realized we should have both.

The overview is a 20 page document that includes photos and links to outside relevant source material. More links were added and some photos of our team updated. One thing that was interesting was a Daily News Report about MIT Grads who almost beat the Massachusetts lottery - and that report is now an attachment to the overview.

This week we'll begin to focus on preparing for the upcoming IFP Indie Film Market in Manhattan on Sept 16th. We've got our admission tickets! The event will include seminars on financing, producing and marketing films. There will also be a lot of networking and opportunities to meet people in distribution - all to brand MEGABALL$ and better position as we move forward.

What's Going on Now

Join our Facebook Group where we have fun. For example, the current trending is taking a famous line from a movie and replacing one word with "MegaBall$" .... there have been many very creative and funny posts! https://www.facebook.com/?ref=tn_tnmn#!/groups/oroloro/ You can also follow our progress on Twitter @Oroloro.

Our videos are gaining some momentum. The 1-minute TEASER now has over 14,660 hits, the Story Behind the Story has over 16,600 hits! Check them out!

Our Web Site has had some fine-tuning - there's even a donation page should anyone feel generous and helps us continue all our efforts to finance the film. We spent many thousands of dollars out-of-pocket and feeling the 'pinch.' There's still much to do, such has attending the IFP Filmmaker Week in New York this September.

Yasoo YouTube?

We've been pushing viewers to our MegaBalls teaser...and it's been paying off. As of today we are just shy of 14,200 views! 151 Likes, 112 comments, and 128 channel subscribers.

If you haven't watched the 1-minute teaser yet - CLICK HERE
You can also watch a video about the story-behind-the-story CLICK HERE

And a short video where casting director Ellen Jacoby tells how much she likes the script, along with positive comments by Elizabeth Wentworth, who was the Ft. Lauderdale/Broward County film commissioner for over 20 years. CLICK HERE

For those who truly want to support us but find investing out of reach, we'll be adding a donate button to our web site. We've spent more than just time, and there's more needed ahead. So any and every dollar is appreciated. Watch this addition in the next few days! (And all the videos mentioned above are on our web site.)

Keep following our progress - we need all the support we can!

Twitter @Oroloro
Facebook Group: Oroloro