Sage Sweetwater Goes For the Gold in Self-Tutelage of Cowboy Poet Waddie Mitchell. Don't be surprised to see a famous cowboy in one of Sage Sweetwater's Lesbian Westerns.
Why Firebrand Sage Sweetwater studied Cowboy Poet Waddie Mitchell http://www.somagency.com/waddiemitchell/ for years incorporating his poetry style of spinning tales into rhyme and meter into her New-Age Lesbian Western Poetry and Storytelling turned to Film. She heard Waddie in Elko, Nevada over twenty years ago and it was his second recording from Warner Western, Lone Driftin’ Rider with the cut "When They've Finished Shipping Cattle In The Fall" that is credited with her inspiration to write western tales based on her poetry under her self-tutelage of Waddie Mitchell's storytelling style. Listed are the cuts on Waddie Mitchell's Lone Driftin' Rider CD.
1. Lone Driftin' Rider
2. Introduction Of Waddie Mitchell
3. The Whole Load
4. Waddie Talks About His Cowboy Life And Cowboy Poetry
5. Cat-Tasrophy
6. A Story With A Moral
7. Brahma Steer
8. Thanksgiving Day Argument
9. The Riders
10. Judgement Day
11. When They've Finished Shipping Cattle In The Fall
12. What Will I Tell Him
13. You Haven't Sold Your Saddle Yet
14. Lone Driftin' Rider (Reprise)
True, in 2008, the bottom fell out of Indie Film Financing. Today, we have moved out of the Dark Ages of Independent Film Financing. For a period of more than two years buyers weren’t buying, banks weren’t lending, investors were scarce, bonding companies weren’t bonding, and U.S. studios weren’t acquiring independent movies for distribution. But at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, things began to change and gradually there was a turnaround for where we are today, where Sage Sweetwater and The Sundance Wives are today.
There are presales again. But the pre-sales are only for better movies with name casts, there is financing, but the financiers are much more sophisticated and demanding. You have to be much more precise about how you put your film together and The Sundance Wives know what it takes, meaning, having a strong script, some seductive elements (stars, a known director) and a well thought out financing strategy that includes all the elements, including the cost of money, completion bonds and the flexibility to withstand delays in production.
Before the recession, buyers might make a deal just based on a star or director being attached to a project but that is no longer applies. Distributors and buyers are so much more sophisticated and the strength of the script is just so very important for a film deal in 2012. If your film isn’t worthy of a theatrical release, there’s relatively no chance at all of a sale. If your film will not automatically attract some box office, there is little chance it will be financed at all in today's high cost of producing and marketing a film. And options are very sketchy. If a film company only offers you an option, there's not much of a chance that funding will ever be secured to actually produce your film.
Another reason why Sage Sweetwater films are being financed is that we have many more viewing choices today. It is driven by the digital age, in other words, the advent of online and mobile distribution which makes all kinds of content much more easily available than in the past. Add that to the fact that Sweetwater isn't a one-film wonder, but a career writer with no less than ten finished and polished film scripts in pre-production with a bankable name. How long the films stay in theaters before moving to electronic distribution is a lot shorter than it used to be. Distribution continues to be squeezed down to a shorter and shorter period between a big screen release and the same movie on small screens. Used to, there was a window of 180 days or longer from theatrical release to home video. Then that dropped to 120 days and now it is 90 days. Independently financed films that get a day and date release in theaters, will almost immediately be available on video on demand, and a month later on all kinds of electronic and physical home video platforms. Sage Sweetwater is hoping this is the case in her numerous films, but at the same time says "it is highly ironic that digital media can be released that soon after a theater release of a film when it has taken me over twenty years to even get a film made. It's magic and a lot of hard work. Thank you The Sundance Wives for all you do. I appreciate you greatly. Business artists who help get the films made because the enterprise and branding is strong."
