The Movie Release, Part One
Without a doubt, we had no idea of what we were doing once the movie was finished and ready for release. There was no internet—not for us anyway. But even without Google, we somehow found the names and addresses of 100s of distributors and broadcast and cable channels. Call after call was made (and rarely returned). Dozens of distributors. HBO. Disney. ABC. Flyers were made and distributed.

Eventually one did show interest. And with no other options, we signed a 3-year deal, sending off master quality tapes and hoping for the best. 3 years later there was no news, no sales and no cash, so we moved on, putting the movie behind us.

The Movie Release, Part Two
But then, something out of the blue happened. While showing a short trailer made to promote a movie script at a film convention in New York City, Dennis mentioned to the audience, that in addition to the script that was being pitched, he also had a fully-produced family film available. A few months later a new deal with Panorama Entertainment was signed.

After a few months, Stuart, our agent at Panorama called. Hemdale Home Video wanted to distribute “A Stranger in Time.” That was a big deal. Hemdale had released Oliver Stone’s “Platoon” a few years earlier. They were even going to pay a $20,000 advance along with 20% of sales. The advance alone was more than the film had cost to make. At their sales goal of 17,500 units we (along with our distributor) stood to make $93,000. And that all sounded like a lot of money to us. A LOT.

But the deal required we button up all of our loose ends. Bios were needed. Full credit lists. Ownership documents. Fully accurate scripts. Music contracts. Actor releases. Non-dialogue versions for foreign releases. On and on… But the most work came a couple months later when they “rejected” the quality of the film.

Technical Failure
Without dropping into a technical rabbit-hole here, the major problem they had with it was a “film-effect” that Doug had developed. These days, one of the key ways that video emulates the look of film is by being shot at 24 fps (frames-per-second) versus the original video standard of 30 fps. But in the mid-1980s, years before cameras had that option, Doug—a bit of a mad technologist—had figured out how to alter the 30 fps rate of video and display it at roughly 24 fps. Using our available broadcast gear (a switcher, a chyron, a couple time-based correctors and some fancy rewiring) he was able to make the shot-on-video movie look like film. And it did fool people—many a distributor who screened it would ask if it was shot on 16mm or 35mm film.

But it did not fool the Quality Control people who Hemdale hired to test it.

So the film had to be re-edited in it’s entirety, without the film effect. And on tape. Nonlinear Adobe Premiere or Avid systems were not available (at least to us). So frame by painful frame we recut it, often looking for shots amongst the dozens of boxes of tapes (proper labelling had sometimes eluded us during the shoot). After that, more time and money went into new digital masters, remixes, PAL dubs, creation of marketing materials and on and on. Eventually we delivered everything. And then waited. And waited. And waited.

Other Kinds of Failure
Finally, Dennis called Stuart. “What’s happening with the Hemdale deal?”

“Oh,” he nonchalantly replied, “Hemdale went bankrupt last month.”

After a moment of stunned silence, Stuart follows up with, “But this is a good thing...”

What? Watching $113,000 fly away at that moment felt like anything but a good thing.

“…We hadn’t sent them the master tapes, so we still have those and that means we’re not tied up in litigation trying to get them back.”

Silence. After a long beat, Dennis finally replied, “…Okay, I’m going to hang up now.”

Eventually, Panorama did get our movie broadcast in a few countries including Poland and South Africa. And it was picked up by a “family-oriented” distribution company and saw a small release on VHS.

All the Money We Made
So, even with those modest deals, we certainly made some money, right? Well, no. There was a line in the contract with Panorama Entertainment that we didn’t fully grasp. It stated we would receive our 50% share of the earnings after they had fully recouped expenses from marketing the film. And while the movie did make money for them, Panorama received 100% of it until they had recouped $25,000 in expenses. And that never happened. So, like so many filmmakers before and after us, we never saw a dime. Eventually you just move on with your life.

But then one day, a strange thing happens—and you end up listening to a podcast radio show out of NYC and surprisingly, you hear your name mentioned.

Along with the names of Andie and Sarah, and all of those characters you scribbled words about so many years ago.

So here we are, 30 years down the road from those summer days spent in the forests and small towns of Oregon, shooting our sweet little movie—an experience that connected us all together. And somehow, it just keeps going on.