PART II: Well, now what?

    So there we were.  Finally finished with the edit.  We had been set up in a temporary location at the time for a big client.  We (and by we I mean the editor) were editing in an airplane hanger that at night was pretty creepy.  But he stayed there all night just to finish up this amazing trailer.
    The following day I arrived back to the edit bay and watched what he had accomplished.  It was magic.  I couldn't stop watching it.  Over and over I would play it.  I would stand across the room with the speakers at full blast just immersed in it. After a while I realized OK well now what?
    So there it is.  I had the trailer.  After nearly two years, a grip of cash, and one failed relationship later there it was.  Just a bunch of ones and zeros sitting on a hard drive.  Well I didn't know what to do really.  I mean in film school they teach you a lot of things.  You learn about MIES-EN-SCENE, which is really just a fancy dancy way of saying editing.  You learn metaphor, camera moves and how movies are a lot more phallic then they should be, (you know sometimes a banana is just a banana guys!) But you don't really learn how to pitch a reality documentary.  So that is what I set out to do.  And you know what? Its not that easy.  Even though there are some shows out there now that you think, "how in the hell did that POS get green lit?" But they are out there.
    I actually believed that this was a total shoe-in.  How can anyone deny this show?  Or so I thought. I sent it to quite a few agencies out there and most just never responded.  Some were an all out no.  But a few, and I mean TWO, were actually interested.  Without going into names the first one was not really a seasoned vet when it came to selling a show.  They talked up a good game but I was not too convinced. The other was the total opposite.  It was an independent producer and show runner with an extensive list of shows under his belt.
    "I couldn't lose with this guy." I thought.  He immediately saw the potential of this show and he made a deal with me.  After that it was like that Hollywood freight train we all hear about.  It was meeting after meeting.  Going to all the big agencies in town.  Every door seemed completely opened.  Now all the big production companies were asking for us to come in to talk.  One after the other would praise the trailer.  This was a real compliment because these guys were seeing hundreds of other show reels weekly and ours was sticking out far and above the rest.  Man did I feel great.
    Finally it came down to a few companies that had offered a great deal.  And in the mean time I and the agent had been talking with the LAFD lawyers and reps and we struck a deal with them as well.  As a matter of fact the lawyer for the LAFD was so in love with the project that he helped us to maintain the full option on being allowed exclusivity with them. All the pieces were following in place.  The momentum of the project was moving forward.  Soon enough we had a deal with one of the larger reality production companies in town.  They gave us an option on the show.  That means that they now take it to the networks and broadcast companies and pitch it to them.  They paid us for the option, created a package and went to work selling it to the big guys. One day turned to two.  Then a week, then two weeks, then a month, and another month, and then another.  We continued to have meetings so we were never really out of the loop.  But they just kept telling us they were working on it.  Another month and another month.  By now it was eight months and we were no more ahead then when we had started.  My hope never really dwindled but that light at the end of the tunnel was starting to fade.  Eventually, believe it or not... as soon as our optioned dried up, so too did their answering our calls.
    Man what a hit.  What a disappointment.  Although I want to consider myself a strong person I went into a bit of a depression.  I mean all that work, all that trust and nothing, it just disappeared. Eventually my agent stopped calling me too. So there I was all alone standing, holding this trailer. Full circle. Now what?
    So months and months go by.  And through out it all some guy had put up the trailer on YouTube that he grabbed from the LAFD blog.  And I say "some guy" with the upmost appreciation. Once I realized that it was there because the editor found it, we would monitor how everyone reacted to it.
    Everyone would comment these amazing comments.  Soon enough our email and site to my company was out there too.  I was getting emails everyday from people asking where they could find it.  How could they see the show or the documentary.  I tried to respond to as many as I could.  I was getting hundreds weekly.  Some emails actually got lost in our spam folder and I had to spend an entire day sorting through them to extract the emails.... Forgive me if one of those email addresses was yours.
    I would read those emails and it was very hard to stay on top of this.  By now there were a lot of other companies that had heard of this project.  But since this show was not being bought they were not too interested either.  Many reasons eventually came to light, like the networks not being too into highlighting the "skid row" aspect of the show.  It was just too depressing for them and depression doesn't sell.  I would call and call and no one would even answer.  The ones that did were not too favorable.  One actually told me quite honestly they just don't want "sloppy seconds."
    So what do you do?  Well in my case you just keep going.  I kept my hopes up with Station 9 but in the mean time I worked and tried to build my own company.  I have since been producing other pilots and sending them out there as well.  I have been working on numerous documentaries that have been taking up quite a bit of my time and I started creating narrative short films. Filmmaking and documentary is where my heart is. Its why I moved to LA.  I'm here to follow my dream, just like so many others here in this town.  The one thing that separates the successful from the lost is determination. Something that I was trying to hold on to desperately with this little trailer about this little firehouse in this little forgotten part of this very very big city.