While a number of its directors have turned out high profile features over the years, bicoastal/international Propaganda Films often wasn’t directly involved in those endeavors. However, that is changing as a company initiative to take a lead role in longform has started to bear fruit.
Propaganda now has a number of film projects in development for its directors. Among them is Luis Mandoki, whose company, Hollywood-based Mandolin Entertainment, has a first-look deal with Propaganda, which also reps him and other Mandolin directors for spots and music videos (SHOOT, 9/15/00, p. 1). In mid-March, Mandoki is set to begin shooting action-thriller 24 Hours, starring Charlize Theron and Courtney Love, for Warner Bros.-based production firm The Canton Co. Propaganda and Mandolin are producing.
Propaganda set up 24 Hours with German firm Senator Entertainment for foreign distribution, and backed into a domestic distribution deal with Columbia Pictures, said Propaganda president Rick Hess. "Along the way, Luis was able to greatly increase his directing fee, which went up almost thirty percent, and his producing fee went up about the same amount. He was able to basically control the entire creative process, and did a lot of script development before we went to any financiers."
Also on Propaganda’s upcoming slate is Electric God, based on a novel by Pay It Forward author Catherine Ryan Hyde. It is to be directed by Mark Pellington, whose longform shop Pellington/Gorai inked a two-year first-look deal with Propaganda last year (SHOOT, 4/21/00, p. 1).
The Mandolin and Pellington/Gorai deals were part of Propaganda’s expansion into development and production of film, TV and Internet projects. The company took the first steps towards that initiative in 1999, when Hess and Trevor Macy came aboard as president and COO, respectively (SHOOT, 10/29/99, p. 1). Hess was the former head of production at Phoenix Pictures, the Culver City, Calif.-based feature company under the aegis of president/CEO Mike Medavoy, while Macy had been COO of the Sundance Film Festival.
Hess contends that his and Macy’s experience enables them to offer viable feature opportunities for wannabe filmmakers. "A lot of other production companies [use] a bit of subterfuge to make directors think they’re serious about helping directors build the-
atrical feature careers," contended Hess, who said that such efforts often consist of hiring a development executive to work out of the production shop’s offices.
Since he and Macy came aboard, related Hess, they have put a number of elements in place, not only to help their directors get features made, but to ensure that these directors have more control in the process.
To that end, Propaganda formed a joint development and production deal last year with Munich, Germany-based production and distribution house Constantin Films, which provides access to a considerable amount of money to finance feature projects.
Augmenting this, related Hess, is a $2 million discretionary development fund meant to reduce reliance on outside investors. Propaganda set up the fund in conjunction with Lexington Road Productions, Los Angeles, which provides financing and equity investment for various segments of the entertainment industry. It is a division of Los Angeles-based Lexington Entertainment Group, which also owns Hollywood- and Santa Monica-based Post Logic Studios. As part of the arrangement, said Hess, Propaganda has agreed to direct more business—be it from spots, music videos, digital films or features—to Post Logic, when appropriate.
It was from this fund that Propaganda bought the rights to the book Electric God and commissioned a script, which Pellington is helping to write. The fund also subsidized the production of a digital movie, Southlander, which marked the feature directing debut of video director Steve Hanft (repped by Propaganda sister shop, bicoastal Satellite Films). Chronicling the underground music scene in Los Angeles, the film is now in postproduction and is slated to premiere this month at Austin’s South By Southwest film festival.
"Having been a buyer," commented Hess, "I know how hard it is for people to take that leap and hire first-time filmmakers. By owning this material, and by bringing more control to the directors, we’re able to stack the deck in their favor, frankly. I don’t want to name names, but there have recently been several movies released where [for example,] the directors were basically locked out of the editing room. Oftentimes, strong producers use directors as a vehicle to shoot the movie the way they [the producers] want—rather than letting these directors execute their own visions."
Macy added, "The goal in each case is to put the directors in the driver’s seat more than they would be if they were beholden to another source of financing. If we can option a project for them and assist in development … set it up in such a way that we can protect them and it can be produced here [at Propaganda], then that’s a meaningful contribution to what they want to do. The goal is not to pay lip service, but to invest in the projects they’re interested in … to be a good collaborator and bring them to a stage where they can retain control rather than just work as guns-for-hire."
Among the films now in development within Propaganda are: How Life Is, which is to be directed by Propaganda’s Big TV! (a.k.a. Monty Whitebloom and Andy Delaney); Bleu Comme L’Enfer, which Propaganda’s Marcel Langenegger will direct; and Black Ajax, to be helmed by Satellite’s Kevin Bray. The list also includes Silver Arrow, which is to be directed by Propaganda’s Simon West and co-produced by Propaganda and West’s longform company, Witchwood Productions.
By handling directors in short and longform, Propaganda ensures that both aspects of a director’s career are tended to. "Traditionally, [what happens with] spot directors who are based at a purely commercial house and then have a movie agent elsewhere, is that the two sides don’t talk to each other," said Hess. "The movie agent has no interest in the commercial world, because it just prevents the director from taking meetings with studios and reading scripts. Commercial people certainly don’t like the movie side, because it takes the director away for periods of time.
"Neither entity has an investment in the other side of the business," Hess continued. "By bringing it all in-house and supporting a director in all media, we have a long-term investment in him." He added that this approach also makes more sense for directors, because Propaganda can develop material and move scripts forward for (and with) directors while they’re occupied with commercials or other movies.
Another aspect of Propaganda’s feature involvement is its revamped management division, Propaganda Management. Last year, the company hired manager and independent producer Pat Dollard, and David Flynn, formerly an agent at International Creative Management, to foster talent within the Propaganda fold, and to bring in new talent. Now headed by Dollard, who became president in September, Propaganda Management handles such filmmakers as Steven Soderbergh and Agnieszka Holland.
In certain instances, management clients have also translated into feature opportunities for Propaganda. One client, director Kasia Adamik (Agnieszka Holland’s daughter), helmed a digital movie Bark that is now being posted at Post Logic; Propaganda secured the film’s foreign financing. In another instance, Phiroze Vasunia and Michelle Taghioff, two writers under the management banner, have scripted a film titled Titan that will be packaged with a Propaganda helmer, said Hess.
"We take equal pride in and spend an equal amount of energy on helping people [in the management division] build their careers," said Hess. "If we do it by helping them navigate the waters via other distributors and financiers … that’s great. That’s just as important to us as making the movies with them in a way that we can protect them."
