Thomas Newman, a filmmaker from British Columbia, Canada, made a film with $5,000, a lot of blood, sweat and tears about zombies and pot. I haven’t seen the film yet, but remember reading about it a month or two ago. The film had been accepted to Cannes. There were some rave reviews about how the film was genius, simply from a marketing point of view. It combined two genres into one and had a name that was catchy and recognizable.

I thought about it some and agreed. The real reason I actually liked the idea of the movie was that I had personally just arrived at the same conclusion, and was kicking around in my head the idea of a movie about pot smokers, zombies and terrorists. Since Newman had come to this conclusion 5 years before me (it took him 5 years to complete this project), I naturally thought he was a genius. I kept tabs on him and showed people here in Toronto his trailer whenever I got the chance.

Recently I wrote to Newman asking him about how things were going. As I suspected, things are tough. Not only has the man finished his film, now he has to make sure that he is promoting it with all his bloody might, as well as making a living and paying bills. I was wondering if I should ask him about his deal with his distributor, but I refrained from asking him and he didn’t bring it up. But here’s what he did say:

It was hard enough to make my movie with no money, now having to promote it and keep it alive is even harder! I think the reason I’ve been able to keep the hype alive for almost 4 years is because I never give up. I promote myself and my movie daily!
…
I’ve been promoting my film since 2008 and I have easily sent out over 10000 emails to anyone and everyone who could make a difference. That’s how my film went global and is now featured in 4 major film magazines! There are no real secrets, just good old hard work and dedication. I’ve now managed to have contacted every horror film website in the world! All by spending everyday emailing hundreds and promoting myself.

 
I sincerely hope that things become even better for Newman. I hope to follow what’s going on with Bong of the Dead. I just found out while reading his blog as I was writing this, that his film has now been pirated and been released over torrent sites. In fact I just checked, and it seems like it is absolutely red hot and being downloaded and seeded by everybody.

Newman was lamenting in his blog post that such a situation is unfortunate as it does not allow him to profit from his movie and forces him to labor at his day job. I completely agree. I only hope that in the event that this movie doesn’t make him money, it at least makes him famous. Maybe that will lead to the coveted phone call we all dream of: “Mr Newman?… Yeah hi… This is Hollywood. We got a script and a budget, and your name came up…”

Subscribe to this Blog Here