Wednesday at Cannes

Logistics is a bit problematic we are staying 30 kilometers from Cannes in Grasse, the perfume capital of France and perhaps the world, We park the car under the Palais (the convention center) and walk to our meetings. Some meetings are in close proximity to the Palais and some are many blocks away. Some meetings are in booths and some are in hotels that dot the Croisette, the crescent shaped sea wall where Cannes meets the Mediterranean Sea. Do I lug my 35mm camera with me, or my laptop bag, or my satchel of presentation materials? I don’t always have the key to the minivan do changing modes is not always possible. So there are times that I am making presentations, and really wish I had my camera with me. In those times I will snap something off with my iPhone camera and post it to my Facebook page.

The weather is perfect today. I guess it is 75 degrees and there are no clouds today. The sea splashes up on the beach and I regret not bringing my swimming suit with me today. At least once I must take a dip in the Mediterranean before I return home but it probably won’t be today. It’s almost 1pm here and my meetings begin at 2pm with Moonstone, then 2:30 with Echo Bridge. I have a followup meeting with TriCoast, and then I have been invited up to Shoreline for cocktails at 6pm to pitch Saving The Farm to Sam Eigen, their director of distribution.

Most of the buyers have gone home from the festival, so now is the best time for me to make time to see people. We are all a bit beat up from the frenzy, but I am finding that doors are standing open and if you present a project of merit they are open to listening to what I have to say and offering genuine feedback.

We are promoting The Austin Fim Commmission, Spiderwood Studios, Austin Studios, Ranch Studios and Baldillo Music all we can here at Cannes. I dropped by the Layfayette booth yesterday and they gave me an education on the the tax incentive programs that Lousiana has to offer. They also told me about where to get free expressos and a booth to get a free massage! I am going to give that a try later today.

Speaking of incentives, the Texas legislature recently passed an incentives program to draw film production to Texas. A company called Entertainment 7 put the incentives to the test by applying with their $30 million picture called “Waco”. The project was refused by the Texas Film Commission on the grounds that it is somehow unfactual and it will paint Texas in a bad light. The project and the money will probably be heading to our neighbor to the East who are bringing in millions of dollars from their very successful incentives program. Texas crews and facilities are still waiting for the incentives to start working for them.

I stopped by Entertainment 7’s booth yesterday and met with Tara Wood, director of sales for the company and recent Austin resident. She is devestated by the news and said the screenplay is terrific, based in actual fact, and she really had her heart set on bringing the film home to Texas. We will have to leave Texas history feature up to Louisana to tell and let them have the jobs and income as well.

Shreveport offers $6M to Entertainment 7’s Branch Dividian production.
http://www.wacotrib.com/news/content/news/stories/2009/05/19/05192009wacwacofilm.html

http://buzz.yahoo.com/article/waco_tribuneh140/http%253A%252F%252Fwww.wacotrib.com%252Fservices%252Fcontent%252Fnews%252Fstories%252F2009%252F05%252F19%252F05192009wacwacofilm.html By Carl Hoover Tribune-Herald entertainment editor

Until next time,

Richard

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