I would like to have a hundred million United States dollars.
That is, $100,000,000. That's a lot of zeros.
Why do I want that? I think that's the amount it would take to make and distribute an excellent film.
I'll explain how I came to that number.
Initially, I had hoped for about $7,000,000 to make a movie about a young black man in America and his relationship with God. Then I learned that most movie distribution companies, when marketing the film, spend about the same on marketing as they do on the budget for the film's production. So if I want people to see my movie, I have to tell people about it. So that bumped the number to $14,000,000.
A quick note about marketing my movie: I would like to improve upon current methods of advertising so that I can spread the word about my movie without being invasive, bullying, or manipultive.
Then I realized the morality of charging for my movie. There is no morality in charging someone for an act of love. I began to see that I espouse the values of the gift economy.
From a very young age, I asked myself questions about charging money. Most people start making money when they are between 14 and 20 years of age when they get a job. But I spent many years before my first job at 14 thinking about the dynamics of selling something and charging a price for that thing. How would someone decide to charge $13 instead of $10 for a book. Why does everying have the "and 99 cents" at the end of the price like "it's only $19.99!"? Why not just charge $20. Isn't that easier? As I looked into economic questions deeper, I found that there was a lot of manipulation in business. Making a product or offering a service frequently had more to do with how much one person could extract from another as opposed to how the service or product would actually help and affect the beneficiary.
As someone who embraces the values of the gift economy, I now believe that going into business to receive funds to live should either be the last motive on your list or no motive at all. Among the first motivations for offering a good or service would be
1. to exercise your gifts
2. to stretch your wings and use your God-given talents and abilities
3. to participate in the world
4. to belong to a community
5. to engage in the beautiful and joyous act of creation
6. to offer a good or service to someone as an act of love to help them and give them joy
So, if I want to espouse the values of the gift economy, how will I make a movie? After all, I do live in a world where money is attached to the access to resources. How will I acquire the services of a production company, acting talent, and producers if I have no money?
Under the current paradigm, most people in the movie business fund a project with the expectation that a return will be made on their investment. "I give you money and own a share of the returns." That would be thrown out the window because I expect no returns. So I would not be looking for investors.
I could only then look for donations. No price would be charged to get a ticket to see my movie. The only restriction on watching the movie would be how many people can fit into a theater. And yes, by the way, I do want to place my movie in theatres. After a run in theatres, I would place it free on the internet.
So then, should I call up the cinema companies and ask them to show my movie for free? Well, there may be a few who would agree to do that but in this world as it is currently, not many would.
I would have to strike a deal with movie theatre companies. I want 100 million people to see my movie in its theatrical release. When considering what a fair amount of money would be to offer movie theatres to show my film, given the fact that they have to take no risk and they receive an amount up front, I landed on the value of $80 million. That's about one dollar per person in all the parts of the world where the movie will be shown. I think that's fair.
So now we have
$7 million for making the film,
$7 million for advertising/marketing
and
$80 million for this new way of distributing
So I want about $94 million dollars. And I round that up to say,
I want 100 million dollars.
So new question. Um.... who the heck is gonna give me, Theo, an unknown, 100 million dollars? Why, How, and When will they give it to me... are also good questions. I guess why is the biggest question here.
I don't expect one person would give me that amount. I assume many people would. I might do some kind of crowd-funding campaign. I would certainly employ different means to accept it.
But why would they give it to me? The simple answer is because they believe in the project. They believe in what I and others are trying to do to bring this about.
I haven't told many people that I want a hundred million dollars to make a movie. I usually tell them I want $7 million for the production budget. Many will then proceed to tell me that no one will give me such an amount especially when I don't have a background in successful projects. I understand their feelings but I don't go so far as saying it can never happen. I wonder what people would say should I tell them I actually want $100,000,000.
When I think about my project, I think about myself. I talk to God and pray about my life. I think about my motivations for the film I want to create. I think about the fact that I have not yet written a script, have very little experience working with people, have never made a feature-length film, know very little about negotiations, am a major procrastinator, more often than not get down on myself, more often than not believe that I can't complete this project and so many other thoughts.
But I know about the Law of Cause and Effect.
Let's put it this way. If it were up to me, I would have everyone in the world go vegan. If I somehow had control of what people ate, I would feed people a diet exclusively vegan. But that's not how things work.
People do what they want to do. People want to eat meat and that's why so many people do. Hell, I DO! And even though I have a goal of becoming a vegan one day, I still wrestle with my desires for lasagna and pizza. I am currently thinking about the Popeye's chicken restaurant across the street and how I might go there. Trust me, I am not going there for the side dishes.
People eat what they want to eat. So when you see McDonald's and Subway and KFC making oodles of revenue year after year, you know that that's because people love those restaurants.
Now, while the food climate may be disappointing, there are positive developments. People seem to be embracing organic food and home-grown food more. People are looking for vegan meat alternatives and plant-based milks like coconut and almond. More and more people are trying veganism and vegetarianism.
But the important thing to see is that people still want a bacon double cheeseburger and McDonald's is still successful because they have the desire to meet the needs of the customer.
Everything works on desire. That's another law - The Law of Desire. I can feel the resistance in people when I write that. "Give me a break, Theo. What makes you think that there are these laws?"
I'm not here to convince you but to me it's simple. It's even a principle in economics. It's called supply and demand. If people want burgers, they're gonna find a way to get them. The more burgers people demand, the more burger joints pop up. Makes sense.
But there is another part of this. It's how desires work in the individual and how the desired event materializes or manifests in one's reality.
The Law says you will surely get all that you desire. If you say you want popcorn and never get it, that means you have fear. Fear is another way of saying, "I don't want this." Because when you have fear you are deactivating the mechanism of desire in your soul.
So when I say I want to make a movie but fear any selfish motivations I may have or fear the response that my movie will have, I am saying, "I don't want my movie to be made MORE than I want it to be made." It's not that I have no desire to make this film but the desire that I do not make it is stronger.
I say I want it to be made but I also say if I don't make it and no one knows who I am, then people won't attack me.
Does that make sense?
And that's why I can't make anyone vegan.
I made a blog post where I talked about the laws I would institute if I were king of a country. I can have the most trained police officers imagineable to manage my population's obedience to the law but if their hearts are on the side of the people, I have no power. Someone can come and assasinate me and the fact that that happens and was allowed to happen is a reflection of every citizen in that country and their desire.
I can't make anyone vegan. I can't even make myself go vegan. My desire is that I don't. If I don't look at my desires and release the ones that prevent me from my dream, I will never get there.
So if I really want the world to go vegan, I wouldn't engage my desire with force. I would make tools and knowledge available through education. Because I know that every human being has a soul and exercises its own soul's free will through desire.
I can't change the desire of others but I can change my own desire. We will still see animal flesh burger joints up to the moment people stop wanting to eat animals.
And as for my own individual desire to make a movie, I realize that I am having a hard time making my point here.
In brief, the universe that God has made responds to my desires. It responds with even more strength when I have a loving desire because all of God's laws are moving to bring that event to me. If I have an unloving desire like eating the flesh of a cow in the form of a burger, the universe will still bring that to me but I have to desire harder and sink lower to get it.
If God wants to fulfill all my loving desires, then when all my soul's longing is fixed on making a beautiful film about a young black man's relationship with God, thousands of people will appear out of no where sending me money to bring it about and make sure people get the chance to see it. That's just how it works. I didn't make the laws. My loving Parent did.
And I think that's awesome. Even if I never make this movie (because I may find out in the process of trying to make it that it isn't my biggest passion), I may one day see myself developing my desires to a high enough degree to see their instant manifestation in my reality over and over again.
I want some popcorn? I turn the corner and there is someone making popcorn offering it to people. I want a bicycle? Someone across the street is fixing bikes and offering them to people. I want romance? My soulmate just took a shower and sent me a text asking me what I'm doing right now.
The world can be a beautiful place if you believe and if you desire it enough.
That is, $100,000,000. That's a lot of zeros.
Why do I want that? I think that's the amount it would take to make and distribute an excellent film.
I'll explain how I came to that number.
Initially, I had hoped for about $7,000,000 to make a movie about a young black man in America and his relationship with God. Then I learned that most movie distribution companies, when marketing the film, spend about the same on marketing as they do on the budget for the film's production. So if I want people to see my movie, I have to tell people about it. So that bumped the number to $14,000,000.
A quick note about marketing my movie: I would like to improve upon current methods of advertising so that I can spread the word about my movie without being invasive, bullying, or manipultive.
Then I realized the morality of charging for my movie. There is no morality in charging someone for an act of love. I began to see that I espouse the values of the gift economy.
From a very young age, I asked myself questions about charging money. Most people start making money when they are between 14 and 20 years of age when they get a job. But I spent many years before my first job at 14 thinking about the dynamics of selling something and charging a price for that thing. How would someone decide to charge $13 instead of $10 for a book. Why does everying have the "and 99 cents" at the end of the price like "it's only $19.99!"? Why not just charge $20. Isn't that easier? As I looked into economic questions deeper, I found that there was a lot of manipulation in business. Making a product or offering a service frequently had more to do with how much one person could extract from another as opposed to how the service or product would actually help and affect the beneficiary.
As someone who embraces the values of the gift economy, I now believe that going into business to receive funds to live should either be the last motive on your list or no motive at all. Among the first motivations for offering a good or service would be
1. to exercise your gifts
2. to stretch your wings and use your God-given talents and abilities
3. to participate in the world
4. to belong to a community
5. to engage in the beautiful and joyous act of creation
6. to offer a good or service to someone as an act of love to help them and give them joy
So, if I want to espouse the values of the gift economy, how will I make a movie? After all, I do live in a world where money is attached to the access to resources. How will I acquire the services of a production company, acting talent, and producers if I have no money?
Under the current paradigm, most people in the movie business fund a project with the expectation that a return will be made on their investment. "I give you money and own a share of the returns." That would be thrown out the window because I expect no returns. So I would not be looking for investors.
I could only then look for donations. No price would be charged to get a ticket to see my movie. The only restriction on watching the movie would be how many people can fit into a theater. And yes, by the way, I do want to place my movie in theatres. After a run in theatres, I would place it free on the internet.
So then, should I call up the cinema companies and ask them to show my movie for free? Well, there may be a few who would agree to do that but in this world as it is currently, not many would.
I would have to strike a deal with movie theatre companies. I want 100 million people to see my movie in its theatrical release. When considering what a fair amount of money would be to offer movie theatres to show my film, given the fact that they have to take no risk and they receive an amount up front, I landed on the value of $80 million. That's about one dollar per person in all the parts of the world where the movie will be shown. I think that's fair.
So now we have
$7 million for making the film,
$7 million for advertising/marketing
and
$80 million for this new way of distributing
So I want about $94 million dollars. And I round that up to say,
I want 100 million dollars.
So new question. Um.... who the heck is gonna give me, Theo, an unknown, 100 million dollars? Why, How, and When will they give it to me... are also good questions. I guess why is the biggest question here.
I don't expect one person would give me that amount. I assume many people would. I might do some kind of crowd-funding campaign. I would certainly employ different means to accept it.
But why would they give it to me? The simple answer is because they believe in the project. They believe in what I and others are trying to do to bring this about.
I haven't told many people that I want a hundred million dollars to make a movie. I usually tell them I want $7 million for the production budget. Many will then proceed to tell me that no one will give me such an amount especially when I don't have a background in successful projects. I understand their feelings but I don't go so far as saying it can never happen. I wonder what people would say should I tell them I actually want $100,000,000.
When I think about my project, I think about myself. I talk to God and pray about my life. I think about my motivations for the film I want to create. I think about the fact that I have not yet written a script, have very little experience working with people, have never made a feature-length film, know very little about negotiations, am a major procrastinator, more often than not get down on myself, more often than not believe that I can't complete this project and so many other thoughts.
But I know about the Law of Cause and Effect.
Let's put it this way. If it were up to me, I would have everyone in the world go vegan. If I somehow had control of what people ate, I would feed people a diet exclusively vegan. But that's not how things work.
People do what they want to do. People want to eat meat and that's why so many people do. Hell, I DO! And even though I have a goal of becoming a vegan one day, I still wrestle with my desires for lasagna and pizza. I am currently thinking about the Popeye's chicken restaurant across the street and how I might go there. Trust me, I am not going there for the side dishes.
People eat what they want to eat. So when you see McDonald's and Subway and KFC making oodles of revenue year after year, you know that that's because people love those restaurants.
Now, while the food climate may be disappointing, there are positive developments. People seem to be embracing organic food and home-grown food more. People are looking for vegan meat alternatives and plant-based milks like coconut and almond. More and more people are trying veganism and vegetarianism.
But the important thing to see is that people still want a bacon double cheeseburger and McDonald's is still successful because they have the desire to meet the needs of the customer.
Everything works on desire. That's another law - The Law of Desire. I can feel the resistance in people when I write that. "Give me a break, Theo. What makes you think that there are these laws?"
I'm not here to convince you but to me it's simple. It's even a principle in economics. It's called supply and demand. If people want burgers, they're gonna find a way to get them. The more burgers people demand, the more burger joints pop up. Makes sense.
But there is another part of this. It's how desires work in the individual and how the desired event materializes or manifests in one's reality.
The Law says you will surely get all that you desire. If you say you want popcorn and never get it, that means you have fear. Fear is another way of saying, "I don't want this." Because when you have fear you are deactivating the mechanism of desire in your soul.
So when I say I want to make a movie but fear any selfish motivations I may have or fear the response that my movie will have, I am saying, "I don't want my movie to be made MORE than I want it to be made." It's not that I have no desire to make this film but the desire that I do not make it is stronger.
I say I want it to be made but I also say if I don't make it and no one knows who I am, then people won't attack me.
Does that make sense?
And that's why I can't make anyone vegan.
I made a blog post where I talked about the laws I would institute if I were king of a country. I can have the most trained police officers imagineable to manage my population's obedience to the law but if their hearts are on the side of the people, I have no power. Someone can come and assasinate me and the fact that that happens and was allowed to happen is a reflection of every citizen in that country and their desire.
I can't make anyone vegan. I can't even make myself go vegan. My desire is that I don't. If I don't look at my desires and release the ones that prevent me from my dream, I will never get there.
So if I really want the world to go vegan, I wouldn't engage my desire with force. I would make tools and knowledge available through education. Because I know that every human being has a soul and exercises its own soul's free will through desire.
I can't change the desire of others but I can change my own desire. We will still see animal flesh burger joints up to the moment people stop wanting to eat animals.
And as for my own individual desire to make a movie, I realize that I am having a hard time making my point here.
In brief, the universe that God has made responds to my desires. It responds with even more strength when I have a loving desire because all of God's laws are moving to bring that event to me. If I have an unloving desire like eating the flesh of a cow in the form of a burger, the universe will still bring that to me but I have to desire harder and sink lower to get it.
If God wants to fulfill all my loving desires, then when all my soul's longing is fixed on making a beautiful film about a young black man's relationship with God, thousands of people will appear out of no where sending me money to bring it about and make sure people get the chance to see it. That's just how it works. I didn't make the laws. My loving Parent did.
And I think that's awesome. Even if I never make this movie (because I may find out in the process of trying to make it that it isn't my biggest passion), I may one day see myself developing my desires to a high enough degree to see their instant manifestation in my reality over and over again.
I want some popcorn? I turn the corner and there is someone making popcorn offering it to people. I want a bicycle? Someone across the street is fixing bikes and offering them to people. I want romance? My soulmate just took a shower and sent me a text asking me what I'm doing right now.
The world can be a beautiful place if you believe and if you desire it enough.
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