Obsessed ?

One of the themes of our comedy, MEGABALLS, is obsession. Our lead character allows his obsession to get the best of him and cloud his better judgement.

Tell us how you've dealt with your obsessions?

Growing Cast...

We're pleased to welcome Rick Zahn to the MEGABALLS cast, playing the limo driver. Rick requested we give the character name, so the limo driver is now 'Anthony'....those who know the script realize th added joke.

Keeping at it!

Lawyer up!

We've begun the necessary step of creating a financial document - aka the 'offering' - in the form of a Private Placement Memorandum (PPM). We should be "all in" be the end of the week. Fortunately our lawyer is working with us allowing us to make several payments instead of all the fees upfront. We are very confident in his skills and look forward to having the PPM ready for distribution in mid-January 2012. Out total budget is $700,000.

Once the PPM completed we'll be knocking on doors of investors who have expressed their support and, of course, we'll be open to additional investors.

When all the ducks line up we'll be ready for production of MEGABALLS in late Spring.

By Design

We're very please to welcome Sanna Choe Lund to our MEGABALLS team as production designer.

Sanna began her design background with a double BFA from the Royal Academy of Architecture of Denmark, and a BFA and MFA in film/theater/TV design from the Danish School of Design. She has worked all over Europe including with Lars von Trier's Zentropa Film Company. Here in the US Sanna continued her studies at the NY School of Visual Arts. Her work as a production designer, art director include; He's Way More Famous Than You with Ben Stiller, Jesse Eisenberg and Vanessa Williams, Willa with Clayton Watson (The Matrix), the Italian feature film One Two Who's Who, Joy de V featuring Claudia Cardinale, The Family, the award winning European TV Max. Her work has also include video games, music videos, numerous TV commercials and short films.

Florida again...

We just returned from another trip to South Florida. It was great to see some old friends and make some new ones....while lining up new investors.

The highlight was visiting the Dezer Collection - 220,000 square feet with over 920 collectible vehicles, many from the movies.  The Collection is preparing for re-opening after expanding its space. The new space will include a section devoted to James Bond, and a large event space. We look forward to visiting again when it's in full swing - soon.

We're excited to announce that Ellen Jacoby has agreed to cast MEGABALLS. It's always great to see Ellen, and this time was no different - where we discussed ideas for casting the main roles. She'll review the roles we've pre-cast and we'll then talk about any ideas she may have, if needed. Ellen was yet given another award in recognition for her 25 years of casting. Some of Ellen's casting credits include BUR NOTICE and CHARLIE'S ANGELS (redux).  Ellen will also sponsor Oroloro's membership into the Florida Film Production Coalition. If you haven't been following, two of our films - LOVE OF A LIFETIME and HOT PROPERTIES - will shoot in South Florida. We were originally introduced to Ellen by the then-Broward Film Commissioner, Elizabeth Wentworth. Both were enthralled by our screenplays. Elizabeth has since gone on her own, and is part of our team as an associate producer.

Music to my ears

Tony award winning, Emmy and Grammy winning composer/arranger/conductor Don Pippin has attached to provide the original music/scoring for MEGABALLS.  Don has been a kind friend for many years. The Lambs will be doing a retrospect of Don' career in December...and we're proud to have him on board or film effort.

Casting a wider net...

We're pleased to add more additions to the cast of MEGABALLS.

Rick Zahn is on board to play the role of the "tough" limo driver
for the Mastelucci family. We're looking forward to working with Rick.

Rebecca Damon will play the voice of the Megaballs Lotto Girl.

Keith Randolph Smith will play police officer Greene

We're truly pleased to have them on board....and there's more to come!

Growing our Cast...

We're very pleased to announce additions to the cast of MegaBalls:

 

      Joe Gannascoli, best known for his work as Vito Spatafore in the HBO hit series,
      The Sopranos, has signed-on to play Tony 'Donuts'. Joe will soon be seen in
      Men In Black III.

         Joyce Randolph, best known as Trixie from the classic TV series, The Honeymooners        
         will play the role of the lead character's mother.

         Veteran actor Tom Ligon will play the building super. Tom has a wonderful long
         and varied career that includes theater, television and film.

More announcements soon!

Festival Fun

Oroloro partner Marc Baron has been a guest judge two years running for a start-up film festival in NY called the NYC Filmmakers's Festival...and has been sked to judge a start-up festival in Laughlin Nevada next June. The  Leftovers in Laughlin Film & Entertainment Festival is more than just about film, it includes music, fashion, photography and more.

Tale of 2 Hollywoods

Returned after a short trip to Hollywood/ Los Angeles. I was there to attend a SAG Plenary (national board meeting) and stayed an extra day. I was able to have several meetings about our films, and meet up with a few friends as well. Revised scripts for MEGABALLS along with its venture plan were given out, waiting to make follow-up calls.

Now we're planning our next trip to Hollywood, Florida....we're we've got 4 meetings in the works, possibly a fifth.

We just keep moving and building, and hopefully we'll fund. We're examining the reality of finding a large number of investors using a private placement memorandum (PPM) as the financing document. A PPM can costs about $5,000 and we don't want to make that outlay until we're sure it's the way to go. So, we're calling up all our friends to get a sense of how many we can count on, and then we'll decide.

Also, an acquaintance pointed out today that a Google search for "MegaBalls" brings Oroloro in first position. Nice.

Adding Up

Just completed revenue projections for our comedy MegaBalls and the results are very encouraging. Now on to the final touches for the venture plan - in preparation for trips to Los Angeles and South Florida.

John Bruno has joined our team as the production coordinator (and possibly as our line producer)....

More to come soon!

Still active

Our budget is almost completed, and it cam in higher than hoped - at $700,000. We're waiting on the schedule and breakdown, then we'll complete our business plan and go back after funding. That should be in hand by the week's end. We also will be having a meeting with a production designer who is interested in joining the team.

Our camera test/editing experiment is done. The 'teaser' can be viewed HERE. Comments are welcome.

Soon we're off to Los Angeles for a few days of meetings, then back to New York, then down to Florida for more meetings.

We're pleased to add Rosemary Ponzo to our team as the wardrobe designer. Rosemary's extensive industry connections will certianly get us good rates (and maybe free?) wardrobe. Visit Rosemary's web site by clicking HERE.

We've been able to secure a new URL for our web site - now it's simply www.Oroloro.com
We can be followed on FACEBOOK ... TWITTER .... and YOUTUBE

Budget

We have our project "MegaBalls" now with a line producer who will create a budget, schedule and script breakdown. We looking to see how close to our estimate of $500k will be, or if it can be filmed less money (or if we under-estimated and need much more...). Once that's done we will turn attention to a simple venture plan and approach/re-approach private equity armed with a better defined package.

We are pleased that the line producer like the script...found it funny and well written...and sees it to be a very viable project.

And happy birthday to Joe Cirillo!

Cliff Robertson

We mourn the passing of actor Cliff Robertson. Cliff was an Oscar and Emmy winning actor who's work included film, television, stage and voice-over. He served the Board of SAG for almost 30 years.

A chance encounter 11 years ago created a running acquaintane with Cliff, who was not only a staunch support of the struggling actor but also one who believed in being pro-active with one's career. He read one of our projects, Hot Properties, and liked it enough to write a Letter of Interest to play the role of Max Conrad.

Goodbye, Cliff. Your friendship, support, talent and integrity will live with us always.

Still working on it...

Today I worked out a long synopsis of our project Hot Properties. The completed screenplay is based on a play I directed sometiem ago in New York, as written by Richard Wolf; we share the screenplay rights. We did three staged readings to packed audiences, and got a standing ovation each time.

Joe and I have also been taking bids to have a budget prepared for MegaBalls. We're need to see how low the porject could be shot for (the minimum), and then to have 2nd budget for the $500k projection (the maximum). This will also gives us a shooting schedule and script breakdown, and be added to the development package to appeal for financing.

At the same time we're working on the details of a true MegaBalls 'teaser', and how to finance it(probably for about $5,000). Then we can hire a DP w/ camera and shoot one or two pieces of scenes that will give an idea of what the story is. The money will allow us to hire SAG actors for the teaser - hopefully the actors we'd like in the feature film. We'll add narrations about the back story, and edit the teaser to 3 minutes.

Thanks to Elizabeth Wentworth, we've connected to a producer/line producer in Florida, Elayne Schneiderman. She has great credits and was a pleasure to chat with - and she also knows our casting director, Ellen Jacoby. Elayne has asked to read the 3 synopsis - for "MegaBalls," "Love of a Lifetime," and "Hot Properties." I hope we'll be working with Elayne on the two Florida-based films, if we're lucky!

Test results

I finally have some time to report my impressions of the Pentax K-x DSLR used in the test I did earlier this summer...and on the use of the Sony Vegas HD Platinum editing system.

I used a simple tripod and followed the user guide to get the best adjustments for the image. I was limited by my tripod which did not have a ball-head, but we made due. We did not use any form of a script, just a small shot list - so I could see if I could assemble the shots into a cohesive bit. One downside of DSLR cameras is you must use the rear screen in the video capture mode. We had a very sunny day, so I needed to find ways to shade the screen to better see the image. I focused while in the photo-mode, zooming in close to get a good tight focus, then zoomed out to the frame I wanted and switched to video-capture mode.  Considering we had no crew it was a challenge, but we managed.

I did notice one issue with the camera. It has an internal warning system to indicate if the camera is overheating. When the camera gets too hot it will shut down and take 5-10 minutes to cool before you can shoot again. I was pacing how frequent I shot, and limited the length of each shot. But, the outside temp plus direct sun overhead seemed to make the camera heat up faster. The solution was to just pace ourselves, and shade the camera when we could, especially in between takes. We only filmed for about 70 minutes.

Since we had no dialogue, we did not record sound. In retrospect, I wish I did do a sound test, using both the camera's built-in mic and my Zoom H-2 Recorder. Maybe some day I'll do a sound test just on something like passing traffic.

It was easy enough to load the 'footage' into the editing sytem using a USB cable connection to the Pentax. The Vegas HD program worked very well. I am impressed on what it can do for such an affordably priced piece of software. When I needed to fix/adjust something it was easy enough to find a solution by posting a question on Google, often leading direct to instructions. I experimented with adding wild track sound and SFX, music, and titles/graphics...all were easy to handle.

The final result was 50-secs of edited footage, plus opening credits, end credits and text totaling 104 seconds. The image was very good, even thought the Pentax shoots only in 720P but its 24FPS gives the image a smooth look. Pentax has released a newer version with many improvements, including able to shoot in 1080i. But this test showed the limitations of the unit, and in any future use I'll be better prepared.

We have not yet determined if we would use the Pentax to shoot the full 5-min teaser - I may be better served if I find a DP with a Canon. Both the camera and DP would be an improvement, and it would free us up to focus more on the directing. That, of course, will add some cost to the budget. In addition to the DP, we will need to sign the SAG Demo agreement (so we can use actors we want in the actual film)...add to that insurance, we'll need about $5k to shoot an effective teaser.

Over the next few weeks we'll go through the full length script to see what bits we could pull out that would not only indicate what MegaBalls is about - while being funny - but would be easy/practical to shoot and not require too many actors (and no extras).

It's a challenge, but it's part of our development plans. First the camera test, then a 5-min teaser, and then hopefully funding...and then the full project. We are giving much thought to each step, because there is much at stake.

Stay tuned.

Test fallout

It's really a shame. In an effort to pull together a project, MegaBalls, which would create jobs for NY based SAG members, we took certain steps. The first was a camera/edit test. To see how the Pentax K-x DSLR would handle, and to test/learn the Sony Vegas editing system. a 50-sec piece was put together, filmed without sound, no dialogue, no crew, for $0 ... and if all went well we'd then try to raise funds to shoot a more extensive piece to help attract investors. We added in SFX, titles, etc. The test went very well. We were pleased with the result. The full 5-min teaser would be shot under SAG terms using some of the actors we'd use in the actual film.

However, we are now in SAG elections and there are those who have labeled me a non-union producer for political gain. Seriously?  So, because of these vitriolic attacks, we've suspended the efforts for the full teaser until further notice. No matter what we do next, our actions will be twisted into fodder against me.

For the record, should anyone bother - no movie has been made (Union or non-union). No money has been earned...nothing has been sold...nothing has been distributed...or viewed by investors. A simple 50-sec camera test (no dialogue, no sound) has been turned into some bizarre political attack against me. I'm Marc Baron. I'm on the SAG Board and running for re-election. Please don't let these lies poison the pool.

Test 2

The camera and edit test went well, and we are satisfied with the results. The total piece edited to 50 seconds, plus text at the ends making it a total of 104 seconds.

We'll do second test using sound. (The first test was shot without sound because there was no dialogue.)....This will be a test about synching/editing the sound from the camera to match that of an external digital mic/recorder.

If all goes well, then we'll beging writing a teaser, and look find a samll amount of funding so we can sign with SAG and shoot a teaser with the actors we'd like to use in the feature film.

IMDB

Oroloro Entertainment now has a preliminary listing on IMDBPro:

http://pro.imdb.com/company/co0344369/

Test

We've found the perfect location for our camera and editing test. The B-roll looks great!! We've found two actors willing shoot on Sunday.  It'll take a day or two at most to edit and post , which will run under 2 minutes. The purpose is to see how ell the Pentax k-x works (in my hands) and if it's viable enough to shoot a longer teaser for our film MEGABALLS.
We've also located some very good candidates for the 'hero' house - the home of the brothers Mastelucci; three in the Victorian Brooklyn section just south of Prospect Park, and one near the Brooklyn Promenade.

Location...location...location

We continue our pre-scouting of locations for our comedy film, Megaballs, today. The photos of ideal locations will get posted to the applicable page on our web site.

We are planning is to shoot a 'teaser' for the project. It's a very simple scene that should intrigue viewers (and financiers), which we'll shoot/edit/post soon. This is not a trailer but rather a simple 1-minute shot that sets the overall comic tone of the film. In fact, we were so pleased with the teaser scene that we've incorporated it into the full screenplay.  If we raise the funds we'll shoot in NYC and make work for SAG actors here.

We've also applied to post our projects and company on IMDB. Once accepted we'll add the names of those involved with the individual films and with the company.

Welcome Elizabeth Wentworth!

            We're very pleased to welcome Elizabeth Wentworth to our Oroloro entertainment team. What's more memorable than her impressive history is her positive attitude and infectious spirit. I'm sure we'll all agree that Elizabeth will be a great asset to our film development and production efforts.

            Elizabeth Wentworth is a recognized leader in film and television development and proudly served as Broward County’s Film Commissioner for 20 years, where she was responsible for the growth and retention of the film and television business in Greater Fort Lauderdale.  Encouraging a continuous flow of “on location” film projects to infuse the community with new money was her main responsibility.  But  equally important to any film commission’s success was  designing, implementing and enhancing an ongoing program of “film friendly”  initiatives aimed at  government entities, property owners, and the community–at- large.  

            A few of the feature film projects and their executives that she had the pleasure of assisting were Cape Fear, Martin Scorsese and Barbara DeFina; Striptease, Mike Lobell and Andy Bergman; Donnie Brasco , Mike Newell; There’s Something About Mary, Bobby Farrelly and Peter Farrelly; The Hours, Stephen Daldoy and Scott Rudin ; In Her Shoes, Curtis Hanson; Confessions of a Shopaholic, PJ Hogan; and Marley and Me, David Frankel.  Current television series that Wentworth worked to bring to Greater Fort Lauderdale are USA’s Burn Notice and A & E’s The Glades.  
          
            Wentworth is an untiring advocate in the development of Florida’s Film and Entertainment Industry Financial Incentive Program, working with industry members and the Film Florida organization to convince legislators of the importance of passing and increasing Florida’s film incentive. 

            A twenty-year board member of the Fort Lauderdale International Film Elizabeth is well versed on the advantages and intricacies of exhibiting independent features at Film Festivals.   Her film festival knowledge was further developed through the participation in national and international film festivals:  Cannes, SXSW, Tribeca, IFP New York and the Miami Film Festival.  Enhancing her industry expertise, she annually exhibited at trade shows such as the American Film Market, Show Biz Expo, NATPE and Association of Film Commissioner’s International’s Location Expo.

            Wentworth’s background includes expertise in the interrelated areas of community, government, industry and media relations.  As an executive with the City of Hollywood (FL) and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce she successfully crafted programs that increased the organizations’ effectiveness. Her expertise includes defining goals and using collaboration with the total community to achieve results.  

Quotes

(Originally Posted June 23, 2010)

We thank actor Keith Randolph Smith for his quotes on our new comedy screenplay, MegaBalls. We may reconsider our overall strategy to produce MegaBalls first (at a budget of $350-$500k)...and then pursue the higher budgets needed for Love of a Lifetime and our other films. We also thank Rachel Kadushin (Best Friend Productions) for her helpful critique of MegaBalls, allowing to us fine-tune the screenplay.
    And...we're now working on an idea for short film just to keep the creative juices flowing while, at the same time, we continue our quest for funding all of our projects.

Venture Plan Evloving

(Originally Posted September 20, 2010)

    We keep updating and improving our Venture Plan to better lead us to funding. After reviewing with persons of experience we found one item was missing from the plan, "Revenue Projections."
    We had reliable research to provide "Film Comparables" of box office results for other films in this budget/genre/rating, but failed to show the projections specific to our project. We were confident that Love of a Lifetime had a good market , so we reached out to a business associate who is an active film sales representative with years of experience.
    Based on the sales rep's generous guidance we've been able to create revenue projections on our minimum/maximum budgets and add them into our Venture Plan (while eliminating some of the comparables).
    We are pleasantly surprised that our expectations were lower than the projections. The sales rep made it clear that these are "very conservative...and based on a very limited success at the box office." In simple speak, the numbers reflect all sales possible for all markets after a small theatrical release, which is our goal....and sales could easily exceed the 'conservative' projections.

MPAA Update

(Orginally posted February 28, 2011)

The 2010 MPAA Theatrical Statistic Reports are out, and we're pleased the data supports our claims regarding trends for films such as ours. The data is great - and our revenue projections are solid.
You may download the report from the MPAA Site - click here.

The First Florida Trip

(Reposted from February 25, 2001)

        
As you may know, 2010 was a tough year personally for both Joe and me. The demands of the year - in time, emotions and money - made it difficult to fully pursue our filmmaking goals. We did manage to add another project – a comedy called MegaBalls to our library of feature film projects in development.
         At the end of the year we added another member to our support group, Allan Scholnick, who is based in LA. Allan has been in the film industry for many years and is talking up a storm attracting some interest in Love of a Lifetime. Thanks to Allan the project’s revenue projections are being researched by Overture Films . Hopefully, the next step will be them asking for the screenplay.
         After the bitter cold of the NY winter, Joe and I decided we needed – no, deserved - a break so we headed to southern Florida. The primary goal was to relax while seeing what we could do to make movies. The weather was Florida-perfect: Clear blue skies, balmy breezes and comfortably warm, which was a big and welcome change from the snow and ice of gray New York. We visited many friends and some of Joe’s family, ate well and way too much. We drove over 700 miles in 8 days, between Miami and Jupiter – and all points in between. We re-visited locations and looked at new ones.
         We visited Ellen Jacoby, the casting director who attached to Lifetime early on. It’s been far too long since our last visit and this was our first to her new office in the recently renovated Eden Roc Hotel on Miami’s North Beach.
         The big challenge was getting through traffic on Collins Avenue because of the Yacht show about to open. 1000’s of ships were moored in the river – we’re told the cumulative value was $1 billion!
         We were inspired, and developed two funding plans. First, create bright colored bean-bags imprinted with “Movie seeking cash captains” and tossing them at/into every yacht, Bentley, Rolls or other high-end toy. Second, make up t-shirts with our company logo, and on the back print “Why put your money into a hole in the water when you can put it in our movie?” and wear them around the yacht show…..We bought lottery tickets and made two trips to the Hard Rock Casino. The bean bags are beginning to look like a good idea.
         Ellen’s impressive industry experience - such as casting the USA TV show Burn Notice, – with her many local contacts will prove invaluable when we get into production. Ellen’s trusty sidekick, Skippy, may look sweet, but inside he’s all animal and after some tough negotiations, we agreed to find him a role. Ellen graciously bought us lunch and gave us a tour of new her offices and the hotel.  We found it to be the perfect location for Hot Properties. Those of you who have not read it,  Hot Properties is set during a film festival, primarily in/around a glamorous hotel. Ellen also gave us some good suggestions on avenues to pursue regarding possible financing. We walked away energized – but Ellen has a way of doing that to everyone she works with. Ellen requested to read our ‘library’ in – all the projects that will, or could, shoot in Florida in addition to Lifetime.
         Next stop: Jupiter. We traveled north to just have lunch with a mutual friend, an actor and would-be filmmaker….but at one point it seemed that we would be getting a chance-meeting with Burt Reynolds through that friend. It didn’t happen. Disappointed…we move on.
         We met with Noelle Stevenson, the new film commissioner of Fort Lauderdale.  For years we had been dealing with Commissioner Elizabeth Wentworth and the Broward Film Alliance. Elizabeth was very helpful – she introduced us to Ellen, and also helped us in pre-scouting locations. Once we had those locations we revised Lifetime and the story became much richer. Elizabeth had written a great letter that we include in our venture plan, extolling the screenplay and declaring her support. But there was an overhaul of the office structure, and now it has a new name and a new commissioner, Noelle. We found her to be just as upbeat and supportive as her predecessor and we look forward to working with her. Noelle also requested to read the library, and offered to supply a letter for our venture plan.
         We also met with very successful businessman and friend who will begin spreading some buzz to gain interest [hopefully] from private investors. Our creative energy sparked and we made some revisions to two scripts.
         So, in the coming days, we’ll send out copies of the library – projects that could or would shoot in Florida; Hot Properties, Love of a Lifetime, Conjurer, and MegaBalls (though we still feel this was better for NYC). And we’ll return to one screenplay we shelved for a while, to revised it (an easy job) for the area, and find a better title for it. We’ll mail the library to Ellen and Noelle, and get Noelle’s feedback on the venture plan, and update the plan with her letter of support.
         Oroloro is a Florida-registered LLC, and along with these contacts and our library of projects, we are slowly moving in a very positive direction. Looking ahead, there may be a trip to Los Angeles and/or Florida again in April. We’re also looking into attending the Sarasota Film Festival this spring.
        In the next few weeks we’ll pre-scout NYC locations for MegaBalls and possibly create a mock-poster for it.  We appreciate the faith and support of everyone on our team as we keep pushing forward

Photo Journey

Today we will be scouting and shooting photos of ideal locations for our comedy, MegaBalls.

The purpose is to not only do as much advance work we can prior to financing, but to also create a visual identity for our projets. We have extensively scouted and photographed locatinos for another film effort, "Love of a Lifetime" and they have proven useful in building interest. The images are used in our website and in the venture plan for that romantic comedy. So, we now do the same for MegaBalls and, in short time, for Hot Properties.

MegaBalls is based in New York City. Our search will be for a tight, old lottery store...a broken down warehouse along a river or railroad tracks...an old-world home in Brooklyn...among others. In addition to posting the photos, they'll have an additional function.

We're seriously considering doing a reading of the screenplay for an invited audience. Photos of locations would be projected during the scene, helping those attending better see our vision.