Friends Like These
Genre: Dramatic comedy
Date: The film was completed in Spring 2019
Director: Zoran Dragelj
Producer: Zoran Dragelj
Writer: Josh Romyn and David Q. Laurence
Cinematographer: Bryn McCashin
Editor: René Fontaine, Connor Morrison
Sound: Willy Irawan, Connor Morrison
Production Company: Blitzcinema Entertainment
Case Study: The Making of Friends Like These
What is your film about?
Zoran Dragelj (ZD): After his relationship falls apart, Sal and his two best friends decide to rent a house on the island, in an attempt to get him out of his slump. The girls’ attempt to help Sal results in excessive drinking, late nights, and mild debauchery.
Tell us about the festival run, marketing, and sales?
Zoran Dragelj (ZD): Friends Like These was completed in April 2019 and in late April 2019, Friends Like These embarked on a festival run and premiered at Universe Multicultural Film Festival in Los Angeles (in Rancho Palo Verdes). Later in the year, in mid-October, Friends Like These screened at The Kansas City Film Festival where it was a runner up for a cinematography award. In early April 2020, Friends Like These was selected and nominated in several categories (Best Feature, International Feature, Soundtrack, Producer, Film Poster, Ensemble) at MMXXI Foreman Empire Productions International Film Festival in Atlanta, Georgia. This successful festival run landed us a few distribution offers. After reviewing each and every offer, we decided to go with the distributor who had pretty clear and realistic proposals/ideas. Soon after, that strategy and direction led us to VODs, first on Amazon Prime and shortly after on Amazon Canada.
Narrative/Dramatic Features
Budget: N/A
Financing: It was privately financed (Zoran Dragelj’s investment).
Production: We filmed on Bowen Island, British Columbia for a week.
Shooting Format: RED Scarlet Cam 4K
Screening Format: 4K as well 2K
World Premiere: Universe Multicultural Film Festival, LA (Rancho Palo Verdes)
Awards: Cinematography Runner Up (Kansas City Film Festival) Fall 2019, The MMXXI Foreman Empire Productions International Film Festival in Atlanta, Georgia (Cinematography – Bryn McCashin, Best First Time Producer for Motion Picture – Zoran Dragelj and Festival Director’s Choice – Zoran Dragelj, as well runner ups for The Best Feature, International Feature, Soundtrack, Film Poster, and Ensemble cast).
Website: Facebook, Instagram
Give the full Official Synopsis for your film?
Zoran Dragelj (ZD): After his relationship falls apart, a twenty-something Sal and his two best friends decide to rent a house on the island, in an attempt to get him out of his current slump. The girls’ attempt to help Sal results in excessive drinking, late nights, and mild debauchery while slowly revealing secret crushes and other life events.
Development & Financing?
Zoran Dragelj (ZD): The project started as a collaboration/mentorship with a young Vancouver based writer, Josh Romyn. Josh had an ideal concept for a feature film project, so I encouraged Josh to write the script but to keep few things in mind, like the size of the cast, and the number of locations. Josh also invited his Dublin based writing partner, David Q. Laurence on board to help him out since they both collaborated on a few previous web projects. Remotely they worked on the script for little over two months. Soon after we had a full feature shooting script ready for production. As an executive producer, I was able to finance the whole production outright. I carefully budgeted all of the costs involved needed for the production, which included the salary for the cast, the crew, the equipment rentals, the props, transportation cost (gas and ferry tickets), the craft service, the location, and other needed expenditures. This way we were able to go into production right away and have full control.
Production?
Zoran Dragelj (ZD): Putting together Friends Like These, was a true labor of love. It is a collaboration between many creative minds in Vancouver. It also stars some of Vancouver’s young and upcoming talents like Kiran Madahar, Jillian Zavazal, and Josh Romyn. As well features Matreya Scarrwener. It was lensed by multi-talented cameraman Bryn McCashin who also co-owned and operated RED Scarlet 4K camera and professionally miked by multi-versatile Willy Irawan.
As soon as the script was locked we started to break it down and schedule our production days. Bryn worked on the shoot list. While we were getting the shoot list ready, we also started location scouting. From the beginning, the plan was to shoot on Bowen Island due to its proximity to Vancouver. We had a few location leads but still needed to secure them properly. Through some carefully searching and talking with few colleagues, we were able to secure an amazing location that perfectly fitted our aesthetics needs. Also, we were offered to book it through an online location booking site (an owner’s suggestion since she liked the project and was willing to help out) which saved us on location insurance cost.
The Official Trailer for Friends Like These by Zoran Dragelj
We filmed the whole 76-page feature film on RED Scarlet camera on location (on Bowen Island) in 6 days. We scheduled the production for 8 to 9 days, but on the second to last day of filming, we were caught in a snow flurry and had to make up for those remaining few scenes on our last day after we returned back to Vancouver Mainland. We shot 13 pages on an average a day during 12 to14-hour production days. The key here was willing to listen to our amazing crew and cast, seeing what works for everyone and what doesn’t and how we can work around it. We found our groove and it worked out perfectly.
Friends Like These is also fortunate to feature some of the amazing Canadian, original independent music from Harlequin Gold, Jenny Banai, Daev, and The Little Coyote.
Festival Preparation & Strategy?
Zoran Dragelj (ZD): During the post-production, I started planning out the film festival circuit strategy. The first obvious question was where shall Friends Like These have its premiere internationally, in North America, in Europe, and elsewhere? So once Friends Like These IMDB pages were updated and mentioned that the film was completed I started getting invitation emails from a few festivals. Also, few distributors contacted me, offering their distribution services. Since Friends Like These is both a comedy and drama it fitted with many different festivals. I narrowed it down to a dozen potential festivals I wanted to go with. Shortly after, in late April we premiered at Universe Multicultural Film Festival in Los Angeles (Rancho Palo Verdes) to an amazing screening and audience support.
How important the film festival strategy is, well in 2017, I associate produced an independent Canadian feature film, “Dark Harvest” starring Cheech Marin along with James Hutson (who was writer, director, producer, talent) Tygh Runyan, AC Peterson, and Hugh Dillon. James and I worked on a film festival strategy together. “Dark Harvest” screened at 7 major international film festival garnering 11 top festival awards. Soon after, “Dark Harvest” secured both US and Canadian distribution. Over the years I worked on several award-winning European co-productions where I learned a lot and I am still learning something new every time.
The Release?
Zoran Dragelj (ZD): In late April 2019, Friends Like These embarked on a solid festival run, and premiered at Universe Multicultural Film Festival in Los Angeles (Rancho Palo Verdes).
Advice from the Filmmaker?
Zoran Dragelj (ZD): Be well prepared and organized from day one. Preplan almost everything in the pre-production stage. Have a back-up plan as well just in case something goes unplanned. For example, one of our actresses couldn’t get her days off so we had to recast just days before the production. Also think of social media sites as the key to your film’s success since you can share many aspects of your film (both crew and cast profiles, behind the scene photos and footage, interviews, trailers and teasers, short clips, and film stills). Build your audience and support. Keep them informed regularly.
As an independent filmmaker, I am constantly open to learning new skills. You can learn any bit of information or skill from another peer or simply from your previous experience. Also, being receptive and listening is another great advice and a key at times. All these lead and can be tied to collaboration on many levels.
Tell us what you think of the Case Study for “Friends Like These” What do you think of it? Genre? More genre? Let’s have your comments below and/or on Facebook or Instagram! Or join me on Twitter @oladapobamidele
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