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Venture Capitalists, Movie Producers, What's The Difference?
from the not-much... dept
Plenty of people in Silicon Valley (though, most often, VCs themselves) refer to venture capitalists as the "movie producers of startups." As in Hollywood, the VC supplies the money, gets lots of credit, and often provides connections and guidance (whether good or bad). So, it's really not a huge surprise that some would consider crossing the line from one to the other. Over in India, it appears that some Bollywood filmmakers are targeting Indian VCs to produce movies instead of funding startups. At least the "exit strategy" has a shorter horizon.
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What's the diff? A world.
Most notably, VC's are known for what they don't know: in other words, it's quite common (IMHO) for a VC firm to know little-to-nothing about the particulars of their investment. They're "business people", not wonks, so their detailed understanding of the physics of the business they're invested in is not typically that deep.
Film producers, on the other hand, tend to have a lot of actual production experience in one capacity or another. This highlights another difference where producers are often managers as well, whereas VC's tend to be distant from the day-to-day operations of a company. Producers are often involved directly in the day-to-day physics of filmmaking.
A good producer is also skilled at relationship management, as they are the buffer between the money (executive producers) and the talent.
Of course, i've witnessed exceptions to both of these scenarios; it's more of a broad generalization.
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Or perhaps this isn't so strange after all...
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Re: Or perhaps this isn't so strange after all...
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HELP!
I am sending you this email because I have found your address of the Internet.
Thank you for taking the time to read it and feet free to share it with anyone who you think might be able to help me in my time of need.
To Whom It May Concern, Advocates, and Humanitarians:
If you have already received this email, please read it again.
If you have a Supervisor/ Boss or Superior- I desperately urge you to show it to them.
I have been looking for help for a very long time.
I grew up in Uniack Square what I call Maniac Square; the poor side of the city where drugs, violence shootings and crime were everywhere. When I was 5 years old my mother sent me to the store to by milk and I was beat up and robbed, my sister had to carry a stick up her sleeve for protection.
My parent’s house was burnt down.
My father was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenia and given shock treatments and committed suicide at the age of 45 on September 11, 1987. I can remember going to visit my father in the hospital when I was 5.
My mother was abandoned when she was a baby. My mother took an overdose of pills when she was pregnant for me. She was pronounced dead at the scene but my father insisted that she be taken to the hospital and she was revived.
She was diagnosed with depression and anxiety, and was given as many shock treatments as they can give a person, she also has diabetes.
My mother and father were too sick to look after their children so the Children’s Aid Society stepped in and my family was broken up and went into foster homes when I turned 8.
At the age of 30, my younger brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia and now lives in a Residential Care Facility.
He could not look after himself and when he was on medications, he would drool and shake, and he turned to me for support and help all the time. He now comes to visit my mother and I everyday with his foot through the heal of his socks and ripped shirts.
My older brother was also diagnosed with schizophrenia and given shock treatments; and now he laughs and talks to himself and waves his hands around his head and is hard to talk to and cant keep his concentration, he also has a huge lump on his head. He likes to walk the streets looking for money, checking cigarette pack and check out dumpsters. He too lives in a Residential Care Facility.
I would pick up my brother every Sunday and bring his to the house for an overnight visit. I bought him a coat one winter when the one he had, had a broking zipper, and bought him shoes when the ones he had had the heal falling off and the his heals of his feet hitting the ground. I have also bought my other brother clothes. They don’t receive very good care in the homes they are in.
My younger sister became a runaway. I have not heard from her in years and I am very concerned for her safety.
When I was 8 years old, I went to live with a minister and his wife. I was an alter boy and went to church twice a week. They would make me drop my pants and whip me with a belt for things I could not help like wetting the bed, and sometimes for things I did not do. They would give me the communion wine to drink at home. Their two girls did no wrong and were very seldom punished.
After three years, I ran away from there and went to live with my older sister; there when
I was 11, I encountered a man who seduced me and gave me beer to drink and he performed oral sex on me and photographed me.
I went to live in another foster home; after a number of years I was told by my foster sister, I should leave there as my foster father was accused of child molesting and might be up on charges so I left.
I was homeless for a while then I went to live with my parents and looked after them, trying to hold down jobs, buy food, cook, clean, buy clothing etc.They would keep kicking me out because they were afraid that their Social Assistance would be cut off; end up sick and in the hospital and it starts all over again.
I have lived in many low- income-housing places and at times worked two jobs.
I have spent my life helping my family and have come to the conclusion that helping people that have had Shock Treatments is like looking after people that have brain damage. They certainly can’t function and look after themselves.
My mother and I have lived in some dives, with mold and mildew and rats.
The last place my mother and I lived in was frustrating. The 7 tenants upstairs in a three bedroom flat partied all night, every night usually until 3 or 4 in the morning. The music was so loud that the pictures fell down off the wall. When I banged on the wall they turned the music up louder. The place also had mice and our cat had to be put down as it became very ill.
My landlord cashed postdated checks and sent my checking account into collections. My next-door neighbor had his friends coming by and shooting needles.
My mother and I decided to move to the country in hopes of a better life.
I found a job working at Clearwater and after working there for a while I have been diagnosed with carpal tunnel from trimming 400 pds. frozen scallops/day; which is what we were told me must do or be let go. It was so bad I couldn’t squeeze a tube of toothpaste in the morning.
I have had surgery and it was unsuccessful. The Specialist has told me that I should do part time work at a job that does not involve physical labor or repetition or a home business, which I can’t think of anything to try which would be successful.
I took another job working at a call center 1-hour drive away. I had to quit that job as I ran my car into the ground. It needed brakes, tires, it had a gas leak, and my carpal tunnel was not getting any better.
My carpal tunnel was diagnosed as a Permanent Injury.
I have been fighting appeals with Worker’s Compensation for the past two years, living on Social Assistance, and just recently getting an income of $488.00/month. My insurance is $50.00/month, my cell phone is approx. 50.00/ month, and I have a dog to care for which I love very much; she is adorable.
My mother is 64 years old and receives a widow’s allowance of $1050.00/month.
My mother and I live in the country and have it extremely hard.
We can hardly afford to pay the rent, which is $475.00/month, and my mother’s pills are more than $100.00/month, and she can’t afford he diabetes-testing supplies.
Our power bill budget is $134.00/month. We keep the hot water shut off most of the time except to take a bath once a week; and we have all energy efficient lights. In the winter we are not very comfortable, and use the heat as little as possible.
We don’t have a home phone because we owe past bills. We don’t have cable TV or satellite, Computer or the Internet.
I spent my life savings of ($2400.00)on a car which turned out to be a lemon and don’t work after a month.
Our well water was tested and not fit to drink, and I have to cart water from my brother’s group home everyday.
I have been going to the library and searching for help on the Internet for the past year, emailing people like The Salvation Army, The Red Cross, The U.N., Oprah, and Dr. Phil, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Charities, Bishops and Arch Bishops, etc. for help.
Most People and Organizations, which I know, have done good things to help people and I am in no way putting them down; say they will say a prayer for me or refer me to Social Services or mental health.
I will acknowledge that the Salvation Army did help my mother pay a power bill of a couple of hundred dollars and have helped once for getting her some oil, and the computer which I use at the library was donated by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
When I phoned the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, I was told they don’t help individuals; that was a huge disappointment.
I am limited to ½ hour on the computer at the library. When I go to websites and click on links, most of my emails I cant get to go through and I get error messages. Sometimes I loose all the information trying to cut copy and paste it.
I have contacted Monasteries, looking for a place to spend some time and have been turned away.
I have received very little response and those who do respond say they will say a prayer for me or refer me to mental health clinics; but sometimes a pill and a prayer aren’t enough. I say I have looked for help and have found very little.
I say a prayer every night and listen to the Sunday Gospel on my am/fm clock radio. I sure hope my prayers are answered soon.
I have moved over 20 times.
They say the middle child is the one with problems; that’s me.
This past Christmas there were no presents and I feinted and split my chin open on the counter.
I have done good things for people; I found a diamond ring and asked around and tracked down the person it belonged to. Offered a couple from out of town a place to spend the night. Leant friend money to buy his girlfriend a ring; which he never paid me back and worked 3 years at a Soup Kitchen as a volunteer. Etc. Mother Theresa I am not but I don’t have the support that she had either.
I had a friend who committed suicide and I often think that maybe he wouldn’t have if he had looked for help. Perhaps he did and there was none.
I moved my family from the city to the country, as we wanted a better life and to be closer to our family.
I would go to my older sisters house and do her dishes, sweep her floor, install a storm door, help build a fence clean up the dog crap in the yard, etc.
When my mother called her and asked her to give her a drive to the grocery store when she went, she replied, “Darren will just have to go out and fix his car”
She has two able-bodied children, but calls my disabled brother to go to the store for her all the time. She is now getting ready to move away.
I usually have 2-3 cups of tea in the morning, and a very small supper. Most of the time my stomach is growling. That’s how it has been for at least the past 20 years.
My mother and I buy most of our groceries at the corner store. A can of frozen concentrated juice, which would cost .55 cents at the grocery store costs $2.00, and a bag of French fries, which would cost $1.79, costs $4.00, they had no potatoes.
My grandmother was given an island, Calf Island, by my father’s grandparents and it was always supposed to stay in the MacKay family. It was always promised to go to my father who was the only son, but when my father died my grandmother signed the deed over to my aunt.
I have gone to the hospital and in ½ hour with a psychiatrist. He checked my blood and urine and said there were no traces of drugs or alcohol. He did not give me the chance to tell him my problems and he told me he could not help me.
I have gone out of the hospital and have had many mental health sessions.
I am 40 years old now, and my dreams of owning a house have all faded away.
Everyday I struggle with suicidal thoughts, I have called the suicide hotline and they listen but can offer no help and tell me to call 911; which I have and have gone to the hospital for help and released in one weekend. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, which I don’t think I have. I was prescribed several medications, which I took for a whole year; it just didn’t work. I think it’s just mostly financial pressure.
I usually take my sleeping pills at 9:00 pm and fall asleep at 12:00 am and wake up again at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning with panic or anxiety attacks.
I insist that I do not need to be put in the hospital and locked up on medications. A pill is not a cure and it’s not the help I’m looking for.
Perhaps I need an advocate, so please if there is anything you can do to help it would be greatly appreciated.
If there is anything you can do to help a person with mental and physical disabilities please do not hesitate to call. I have a cell phone, which I use on nights and weekends. The number is 902-874-1444, and my email address is [email protected]
I can’t go on like this much longer. If you can help a GREATLY WOULD APPRECIATE IT. If you can’t help; perhaps you can forward this email to someone who can.
Thank you in advance, and God Bless You.
Sincerely,
Darren MacKay
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Can you point me in the right direction? Respected TV entertainment production company is seeking funds for Horror film
Thanks
Richard Lenetto
Taste This Production,Inc
2005 Merrick Road, Ste 225
Merrick , N.Y. 11566
www.tastethistv.com
www.tastethisproduction.com
[email protected]
516-616-3744
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