A Film Funding No-No?
When it comes to film funding, it is a lot harder to finance your film from jail!
Film producer arrested in Los Angeles in suspected movie-financing scam
From the Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — A film producer has been arrested on suspicion of using bogus contracts with foreign distributors to help secure more than $35 million in loans to finance movies, federal authorities said Thursday.
Gary Howsam, 56, was taken into custody Monday at Los Angeles International Airport on a criminal complaint accusing him of bank fraud, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said.
He was released on $500,000 bond and placed under house arrest with an electric monitoring at a friend’s residence in Los Angeles. If convicted, he could face as many as 30 years in federal prison.
There is more to this story on Film Funding at the Sacramento Bee
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Jason Q
This post may be slightly off-topic; it’s about a particular (possible) scam from the 70′x. Don’t remember exact year, but would appreciate any info anyone could give me about this.
There was a film called SRO (or S.R.O. or S. R. O.), for which large numbers of extras were recruited via public media, such as short articles in general-interest newspapers. This film was shot at least partly in Dallas, TX, in the early 1970’s or very late 60’s.
There was some significant controversy about the film and its financing, but I don’t remember the details clearly. It _may_ be that the film was planning to make its money back by recruiting such huge numbers of extras who so badly wanted to see themselves on screen that they would pay to see the film, regardless of its reviews. I don’t recall, for sure.
I was an extra on the film, and very well might have gone to see it out of sheer curiosity about the controversy, except that it played for only (literally) 2 or 3 days. We got paid $10.00 for our day’s work, which we were asked whether we wanted to donate to the “success of the film”, when we lined up to get paid and to sign release forms. …And that’s all I remember about it, except that one of the key players was a minor acting success from previous years; perhaps Rory Calhoun?
I’ve searched on IMDb for the title in all permutations I can think of, and found nothing. Anyone know anything? I’d just like to fill in the blanks, out of personal curiosity.
Thanks.
Dec 2nd, 2007
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