I've been producing and directing feature films for more than 10 years now. I created my first feature film in 2008. Shooting Heroin will be the fourth feature film that I've directed, written and produced. 

I've also produced additional films, including a movie that's coming out on Sept. 14, called Warning Shot, which stars David Spade, Bruce Dern, James Earle Jones, Guillermo Diaz, and Tammy Blanchard. I have my own directing company. In 2011, I created our mother company, called Hard Faith Films. We make films that wrestle with real-life questions often in a PG-13 or R rating, dealing with pressing topics like this opioid epidemic. Our last film, Generational Sins, tackled suicide and alcoholism. My second film was a loose homage to Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

This movie was inspired by the place where I grew up, which is central Pennsylvania, often referred to as the Rust Belt of America. I spent all my elementary and high school years here. I’ve lived away from this area for about 10 years now, but every time I return home I see the devastation and wreckage of this epidemic that didn't exist when I lived there. This past Christmas when I visited, I saw just how awful and heartbreaking this situation has become in my hometown and across the nation. It inspired us to actually change course from making another movie to making this film because it's such a pressing topic.

The opioid epidemic is devastating the heartland of America. It started in cities, or at least it was known to be in cities, and now it's devouring small towns. There are more deaths in one year related to opioid overdoses than car accidents. In fact, there have been more opioid-related deaths than all war-related casualties since World War II. This movie is addressing a lot of the pent-up rage and frustration that people have over this issue. Lives have just been completely shattered because of losses related to these drugs, especially in small towns where there's not a lot of finances or government aid to go around. This issue is sort of prowling in the shadows and just devouring so many people, and it doesn't discriminate. There are people from all walks of life, all income levels, that have been victim to this addiction and this epidemic. 

So the movie starts there -- with the current situation as it is today in America. It's a group of townsfolk who come together to form a volunteer drug task force and work with the one town cop to fight back against the spread of drugs by whatever means necessary and save their town. 

It's not a cure film nor proposing one resolve, it's just dealing with the situation as it is. But I believe at the heart of this epidemic is a lot of despair and hopelessness. I've studied with some of the experts in the field and learned firsthand about the economic and criminal justice situations, how the stars have just aligned for it to be so horrific. I think with any big societal issue like this, there are a lot of simple solutions that may be proposed and enacted to try to address the issue. But even people who see this issue as quite black and white -- people who deal drugs or do drugs should face consequences -- even the people who would stand by a statement like that can see that, today, America’s jails are full and overflowing. We can't arrest away this issue as much as people might want to.

I actually wrote the first draft of this screenplay in one night. I started at 7:00 PM and I didn't leave my writing space until 5:00 AM. It was a very rough draft, but it had the bones and the structure that still exist. The film came together quickly, especially since we transitioned from making another movie that was supposed to take place in Nevada. I feel like the story has been percolating for about a year and a half now and then it all came together at the beginning of this year when I started getting words on the page.

Making a movie is an incredibly complex, miraculous thing. I attended NYU for my MFA in film. I attended many other film schools, whether certificate programs or month-long courses, around the country and around the world. Any time anyone has made an actual feature film, there is a whole level of respect and honor given to those individuals, because so many people talk about making movies but never actually make movies. And just to make a feature film, even if it's barely long enough to be considered a feature film or it's absolutely awful, just that feat alone, it's miraculous.

The process starts with development, which is whenever you create the screenplay, the story, you start putting together what the genre will be like, what your target audience is, who this film is for and why it needs to be made now. Development can last years. In fact, it can be nicknamed often for many movies as development hell. For every one movie that is made, even in the studio system in Hollywood, there are 100 films that aren't made because most people never get out of development hell. 

Whenever you have a script that has gone through multiple revisions -- I think Shooting Heroin is now in version 4.6 -- whenever you get to a script that is locked, or close enough to being locked that the bones, and the structure, and the characters are in place, then you send it out to a line producer who will budget and look at a shooting schedule to figure out how long it might take to film all the different scenes and all the different locations. The budget is based on those logistical questions plus the genre, if there's stunts or other complications, if there are a lot of extra scenes. You can make it precise down to hair supplies and makeup. When you actually start making the movie, you want to have a guideline so that you don't overextend your budget. 

In development, you also put together the legal entities required. You set up an LLC for each movie, often based on tax incentives or based on what state you're making the movie in, so that you can take advantage of any film benefits of filming in that state. For example, in Pennsylvania, you can potentially get 20 cents back on the dollar potentially if you fulfill other requirements. Many states, like Georgia and New Mexico, have even better tax incentives. So you create your LLC, and you create an investor contract and an investor brochure and a PTM so that you can sell off equity ownership of your movie.

We are selling shares now to bring this movie to life. We have not finished casting. We have a casting director and we make five to seven offers a week to actors. We shoot for the stars, and for a low-budget independent film, you hope you hit somewhere nearby. We have great leads and we know these actors -- they're not blind offers. These actors are interested in the cause, they're available during the weeks that we're filming, and they'll work within the budget range that we are proposing. And then they read the script, you give them a week or two weeks, and then you hear back if you can move on to the next stage of negotiations.

The only way I've ever made a movie is by putting a date on the calendar, as arbitrary as it may seem at first. You have to keep sprinting towards that. With my last movie, I distinctly remember my executive producer on that film -- it was about three months before we went into principal photography and there were a lot of moving pieces and some things weren't coming together as smoothly as we hoped. My executive producer was looking at breaking contracts, and changing locations, and pushing back the film three or six months so we would have more time for pre-production. That would have been fine, but with our budget, and with all the commitments that we had already made, it wasn't feasible and it wasn't practical. So I said, "Thurman, this movie will be the best movie that we have ever made, but it is not the best movie that we will ever make. To get to that next film, you have to make this one." 

So here’s the timeline for Shooting Heroin. We begin principal photography on October 14. We have locations, insurance, SAG deposits, PGA, everything in place, and we continue to seek additional funding to make the movie the best it can be. And when that date comes, we will have all the money in place to make the film on set. We're just about to enter into the official stage of pre-production, whenever you start getting department heads on location and doing location scouting and technical scouting. Then comes principal photography, when we actually are on set filming the actors at the locations and shooting the script. And then you go into post-production, which is an additional area of needed funds to make the movie the very best it can be because people in Hollywood at post-production facilities make movies look and sound how movies are supposed to look and sound.

My hope for the release date would be July 2019. Post-production typically lasts three to six months. I've budgeted and planned for three months in post-production on Shooting Heroin in one of the major studios in late winter and early spring.

As much as I believe this movie can bring hope to this very desperate situation, our first priority is to our investors and making them whole and getting everyone's money back with additional funds. Our highest budget projection is $1 million. That would include a much more robust post production and cast budget. Our lowest projection -- a level at which we can make the film and still make a great movie, but without any fluff or padding whatsoever, very lean -- we’re looking at $400,000 to $500,000. For this film, as much as possible, I've done the groundwork here in Pennsylvania where we're filming to save money any way we can. Soft money, sweat equity, to do as much as possible so that the money that we spend is spent well, to make the film as excellent as it can be and as sell-able as it can be, and to be in a position where we can repay our investors sooner.

With distribution, there's a lot of different ways that you can go about that. For our previous film, we sought distribution beforehand. For this movie, we've already reached out to distributors, we have a couple of distribution agreements and deals that we can use almost as a backup so we know we can have proper theatrical distribution for this film, which is a great advantage. Distribution is one of the most difficult things to secure in the film industry. And then, too, working with good distributors that pay on time, that they have clean receipts, transparency, and that you don't have to audit them to get the money that you're owed. The more distributors, the wider your reach. 

I have several distributors I’ve worked with in the past. We're making new relationships with new distributors as well and had a distribution call last week. I can't talk about the name of who it is, but they're very eager about our topic and about our film and the storyline. This opioid epidemic is really opening up people's eyes. There'll be a point in cinematic history in the next decade where audiences will be tired because there'll be so many movies made about the opioid epidemic, but today there are almost no movies that tackle this issue directly like Shooting Heroin does. We'll be one of the first movies to market. 

Even studios are starting to pick up on this trend. 20th Century Fox announced last week or the week before on variety that they're adapting one of the books about the epidemic into a movie, which will likely not be out until 2020. We'll be to market a whole year earlier.

Today, because there's such an overstimulation of content -- you have Netflix, Amazon, all the cable providers and even cell phone providers and tech companies creating their own content -- that more than ever you have to first and foremost have a really great, compelling, unique story. An entertaining, compelling story that captures your audience and doesn't let them go for the entire duration of the film. There's never one moment in the movie where they're checking their watch or their phone. That's a really tall order, and that requires a great script. Thankfully, we have that in this movie. Part of that too is looking at the genre. There are hundreds of distributors in the United States. Some distributors are genre-based. The easiest genres to sell are action and horror, because they translate well internationally. You don't need to have really thought-provoking dialogue to see violence displayed on the screen and know those emotional reactions. One of the hardest genres to sell is drama. This movie, Shooting Heroin, is an action, almost revenge, thriller. So that plays well. 

Historically, star power has been important, but it’s less important today than ever before because there are so many big-name Hollywood actors who come in and out of fame. It’s kind of a rollercoaster as far as who’s valuable and who isn’t. But something that I think a lot of independent filmmakers don't know, and also a lot of actors don't realize, is that every actor has almost a price tag and a range on their head as far as how much they're worth internationally. So you might have the hottest new actor who was on this new show on Netflix, but no one knows about them whenever you ask the person at the diner in middle America or in other countries. They might be a great actor, they might be a perfect fit, but they're probably not going to move the meter on your recoupment and how much money your film can make. I’d say 10 years ago or 20 years ago, star power was almost kind. You could make an awful film with a great actor and it would sell, and still that can be true today. There are some kingpins that can really make or break a movie, like Dwayne Johnson, but it's much rarer today.

The opioid epidemic is apolitical, because addiction doesn't discriminate. It touches on both sides of the aisle. When Obama was our president, he tackled this head-on and he did as much as he could to address this, and when Trump came to power, the situation had evolved, so he tackled it in his own way to his own base. This really does affect everyone. We're trying to stay apolitical because I don't believe politics is ultimately what's going to solve this issue. Unfortunately, it's been reported that there's one degree of separation from almost anyone in America to knowing someone that's been devastated by this epidemic. This film will touch people from all different backgrounds. Our marketing plans is going to evolve as the film develops, we'll become more precise and more zoned in on who our exact target audiences are, but honestly I think this film can touch on almost all the four quadrants, all the traditional target audiences for films. I think it will be a widely released movie.

It's a really interesting progression that I'm really fascinated by because every movie that you have ever seen, you've seen it because of marketing. The trailer might have almost nothing to do with the film, and it's cut in a certain way to attract you to see the film. If you've seen it, the marketers have done their job right. It may have been more organic or more word-of-mouth, but still, someone said the right words to get you into the theater. Then they see the movie and either they're pleased, because why they went to see the movie was confirmed, or they're frustrated because they feel like they've been duped by inaccurate marketing. Marketing is a very powerful tool, and it has to be almost respected within regards to your audience that you're trying to attract. 

We started marketing early. We don't have the funds to do a marketing campaign worth tens of millions and put ads on all the bus stops and billboards like the major studios. We announced this movie about a month ago in the Hollywood Reporter. It was an exclusive announcement, just to let the film industry know that we're making this film, that we're on the map and we're in pre-production. Today it's continuing from that initial announcement with social media, community events, connecting with nonprofit organizations that are already doing work in this sphere. The Facebook page is Heroin Movie, and Twitter and Instagram is Heroin Film. And then the website is heroinfilm.com. You can see some of our press locally and nationally on this as well.

The situation is incredibly bleak, but the way humans cope with such a bleak darkness is that they often numb themselves with whatever is available, right? Or they seek entertainment, or they go out. There's actually a surprising amount of levity in the movie because some of the characters have become pretty numb to this situation and they speak about it in a very matter-of-fact way, and there's a lot of irony in what the people are trying to do. They're trying to do the right thing, but they're actually often making the situation worse, which might be apparent to an audience member but to your characters in this world it's also understandable and empathetic. There's a lot of situation comedy and a lot of witty dialogue. The key is the audience members can actually remain attentive, stay there, stay in the story, they can stay in this world. That's priority one: Keeping your audience in the world for the entire 90 minutes or 120 minutes that the film is running. Sometimes you need levity. You can't just see person after person dying. You need comedic relief, you need a breath. You need all of the emotional range so when you leave the theater you feel an impact for weeks afterwards.

My last movie, Generational Sins, came out in major cities across the United States in October 2017 and is now in more than 22 countries. We believe that all of our investors will be in the green within a year of the film’s release. For comparison, less than 10% of film investors ever make their budget back, so we're very pleased that we're on a good trajectory and that our investors will not only be made whole and get their money back, they will start making lifelong profits as we continue to enter into new countries. We're going into China next month and we just cut a big deal in South Africa for that film. 

However, Generational Sins was catering to a very targeted, specific audience, and it was also establishing almost a new genre, around adult issues of spirituality and faith. Typically faith-based movies are synonymous with family-friendly entertainment. We wanted to attack issues of the heart that are most pressing with suicidality and alcoholism in that movie. So it was a very targeted, specific audience. But again, the opioid epidemic is affecting everyone in the U.S., so we're releasing this movie to everyone. I feel more confident about this film with each new conversation that I have with investors, producers, and people in the industry. This is an important movie. It's not special interest – it's almost required. And I feel like I'm called to make this movie now because it's so pressing. I have full confidence it will resonate with all audiences and have a big impact, a positive impact.

Ownership will be based on the percentage of the budget each investor contributes. Once debts are paid off and everyone's made whole, then every dollar the film makes will be split up among our investors, depending on how much they own. They will get reimbursed for life. When we go international with this movie, whenever we cut new deals in China and the United Kingdom and South America, each of those deals will be shared based on percentage of ownership. And we can keep selling the film for decades. 

The same goes for Netflix, Amazon, and other nontraditional outlets. Those are additional channels where you can cut licensing deals and you can continue to repackage and rebrand the film that you made a decade ago and get new distribution deals all over the globe. Those channels have resulted in significant increases in long-term revenue. I believe it will become more significant as different companies continue to invest in Hollywood. Apple, for instance, is joining the playing field. No one can predict just how much they'll put into this, but they've already put in a massive amount of money and they have obviously a huge stockpile of cash. Amazon is licensing almost all movies. Any movie that you have ever heard of, you can likely find it today on Amazon. Netflix is investing more money into original content than any of the major studios, including Disney, Warner Brothers, and Paramount. It's definitely changing the shape of Hollywood.

I'm excited to raise on Wefunder because we have a lot of people who are very passionate about this issue and very passionate about supporting this film and Hard Faith. They might not have the liquidity or the resources to buy a whole unit in the movie, which is multiple thousands of dollars, but with Wefunder, what's amazing is that we can connect with our core audience and have them actually enjoy the profits that this film makes by making an investment as small as $1,000. They can become part of the team of Shooting Heroin, and then see a movie they’ve invested in come out in a theater nearby.