Expert: Phil Nemy - 3/23/2007

Question
QUESTION: Dr Phil

--- I am also "Phil" but I go by Martial to protect my REEL identity.

See, I’m living an imposter’s life. I got involved in REEL Estate nearly 20 years ago (I think it was a Tuesday) but it wasn’t MY idea. Since then, all I have been doing is getting deeper into the hole and looking for exit strategies. If it was a business partnership, there would have been such exit strategy but it isn’t. If I don’t produce, I don’t make money and now I’m finding that even when I DO produce I STILL don’t make any money because, on one case, the buyer and seller collaborated behind my back and cut me out of the commissions ($20k) so I sued and THEY WON! Long story.

Anyway, it seems everything I try to do in REEL estate is like a block. I have a hard time sleeping at night (even with sleeping pills) and I’m 60k in debt not including my mortgage. And subsequently I’m looking really old lately too. The other night I was out walking my dog by the graveyard and two guys came running after me with shovels!

The good news is that I think I’m pretty creative. I have produced a popular sailing video that is being distributed worldwide through a California distribution company for the last 5 years.

They only give me a small portion (15%) but they do all the marketing and work and I still have the rights to sell it myself so I thought I don’t have much to loose.

That little (first) video averaged over 30k a year gross to the distributor for at least 5 years! At 15% I’m not ready to give up my day job just yet but I'm planning to make a series from it.

I built an edit suite (PC based - do you think I should have went with Mac?) its an Adobe system and it works pretty well I guess but there is lots of conversions necessary sometimes with various codecs etc.

So I spend lots of time editing now. I edited a wedding and some corporate training videos (shot by others cause I cant afford an XL2 - yet)

Can I get a job at Disney editing? or am I better off freelancing? Do you know of anyone that needs some edit work (they can send the files on email or raw footage on tape) At lease we have something in common - Disney and I are both avid sailors.

I need some work fast cause the bills keep piling up. I bought the edit system on credit, then paid off the credit company with a credit card, which I made payments on from my line of credit (which is at 60k now).

I'd really love to make a feature film. I had a dream back in '78 (when I used to be able to sleep) that I thought would make a great movie script. It was on the same day that Elvis, our King, died. I wrote it down but lost the notes but I still have the concept in my head.

And I’ve got some other ideas too - what’s better? - to pay to publish a book and reap the rewards (if any) or get a publisher and take what you can get? I have about 200 pages of notes on another topic that I would like to put into a book format. You wrote a book -- Where would you start with that?

Any hope for a dude like me? Any suggestions would be good thanks.

best, Phil (aka M)
ANSWER: Dear Martial,

Thanks for your note. Sorry to hear about your financial troubles. That cannot be easy to deal with. I'll try and answer your questions for you.

Is MAC a better format for editing? Without question, yes!

Can you get a job at Disney editing? Probably not. You're not a member of the editor's union and Disney is a signatory to the unions. This means they can only use editors who are members of the union. You're better off continuing to freelance.

Do I know of anyone who needs editing work? Unfortunately, no I don't. Try listing your services on craigslist.com.

With respect to book publishing, if you don't have the money to spend on proper marketing and publicity, then it's better to let a publisher sell your book and take whatever percentage from them you can negotiate. However, if you have the time to hustle your books around the country, and you have the money to spend on marketing, advertising and publicity, you'll see a greater share of the profits.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

Phil

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Phil

How do you get on to the editors union? I diden't know there was one.

2 - How do you go about getting a book publisher?

best, M/

Answer
Martial,

To get into the union, you'd have to move to Los Angeles because 95% of the work is here. Then, you'd have to volunteer to work as an un-paid intern in an editorial office for a few months. Once you've proved your willingness to do the "grunt work", you'd probably be offered a production assistant job paying about $500/week before tax deductions. For this you'll work about 60 hours a week without overtime.

After working on four or five films, assuming you've built up a good reputation and have developed some relationships with a variety of editors, one of them may take a chance on you and help you get into the union as an apprentice editor.

That's how it's done.

As far as publishing, purchase a copy of the 2006 or 2007 Writer's Market Book. It will list all of the publishing companies in the USA. Look through it and see if there is a description of a company that publishes your kind of book. Then send them a galley of your book and ask if they would be interested in publishing it. You'll probably be turned down by most companies, but keep at it and sooner or later, someone will say yes.

Good luck!

Phil