That's terrific, Scott. Congrats on getting the rights to the script! Best of luck moving forward with this project. Obviously you're passionate about it and that's contagious when looking for talent.

I found this series fascinating. Thanks for writing out and sharing the whole story. I'm curious about the budgeting process and the distribution process. Without going into too many details, how does one come up with the 500K and the 1.5M-2M figures? Is it arrived at by comparison to similar movies which you happen to know the fanacials for, or is there real number-crunching involved?

I've got a very similar project, but in the revenge thriller genre with supernatural overtones. I main interior locale; many of cast don't have dialogue, so it's about getting reaction shots and visual actions taken over talky talk scenes; lotsa of low light and shadowy shots, so high production / glamorous-looking shots aren't called for; hits the demo groups of teens, college age and 30s-50s; and it has a strong visually - driven narrative, so it transfers easily across global - cultural boundaries as well as hitting the genre, graphic novel and dark comic book audience groups. It really is about looking at every possible penny spent and numbers crunching as well as storyboarding all exact shots, so you know exactly what you want and need and can get. I producer thinks it can be done for 200 k - 800 k; another thinks it can be done for 1 - 2 mil. Lotsa variables, but if the heavy lifting is done in pre prod.; money isn't wasted on the editing room floor. We're casting for doing a trailer next to go with concept art, posters and some boards. Breakdown budget's already been done by an experienced UPM. Now we know what to cut.

[...] The Business of Screenwriting: Low-budget filmmaking [Part 3] [...]