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What to do as a writer if your film likely isn't getting released?

3 weeks, 1 day ago - Darren Roberts

Hello

My name's Darren and I've found myself in a very frustrating position.

I wrote a film which was produced and completed, unfortunately due to a very long and complicated series of events, including legal proceedings, it's looking like the film will never be released in any form.

Due to the legal proceedings I mentioned, the film has no real online presence, not even an imdb page.

So my question is, how do I go about trying to get work or find an agent or manager, when the only film I've had produced, basically doesn't exist?

I can hardly expect people to simply take my word it that I've had a film produced.

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3 weeks ago - davina brown

Hi, you need to appeal to the director and producers individually and informally to sneak you a viewing copy. It doesn't matter if the film hasn't completed post. If they can't give you the whole thing then ask for specific clips for your showreel.

3 weeks ago - Darren Roberts

Hello Davina, thanks for the suggestion, for a bit of backstory, the director is partly responsible for things going wrong, he was fired for his attitude and behavior, including leaking footage on his personal social media account during filming and he is, to put it mildly, a scumbag.

The legal proceedings happened because the exec producers, who were co-owners of the production company, screwed over a lot of people including myself and the producer, they were refusing to pay people and were prepared to release the film and not give us any share of profits, we managed to stop this from happening and things were settled out of court (as they knew they'd lose everything in court)

What was mean't to happen after that, was for the producer to get the film sold and released but the exec producers are still stalling and being unreasonable and basically stopping things from moving ahead out of spite.

If I could get any footage, I could possibly share it privately but it couldn't appear anywhere online.

2 weeks, 6 days ago - davina brown

I thought your issue is that you need to include the project in your CV and to prove it's an actual film. You don't need to upload clips to social media to prove you wrote the script and the film was made. You should be satisfied with sending private links to producers, etc. when seeking work. Uploading clips online before the film's been released would never be allowed even if the film isn't under dispute.

2 weeks, 6 days ago - Darren Roberts

It is about having it on my CV and to show the film exists, I wasn't planning on put anything online (I never do anyway) I just meant that if the production company had released a trailer or promo footage, then I could direct people to that, but not actually post it myself. but as you suggested, just sharing things privately should be fine.

18 hours ago - George Wright

Have you considered listing it as still in post-production on IMDB? That way you can explain that the project has stalled but still utilise the credits maybe...