Perhaps making it a movie about setting a vision or leaving a legacy, and it just so happens that one of the major facets of the subject of leaving a legacy is AlMaghrib.

It’s not the insititue that should be the focus, rather its the underlying principles and goals that are to be relayed to the audience, which I hope are more than just AlMaghrib students. — AlMaghrib students only account for 24,000 people. That’s a very small number considering the market that exists out there.

I’m sure Belal already has a few tricks up his sleeve.

I’m not talking about the academic student, rather the students who are an extension of their teachers who are fundamentally carrying out the vision of the founder?

I would think that in the end of the day, what the students are doing (outside of the seminars themselves) are fulfilling the vision and purpose that the founder established the institution for – wouldn’t you think so?

Perhaps a story that could begin with the founder and ultimately end with people such as yourself?

(finally some real dialog)

Right now I don’t care which brother had the longest beard at his first Almaghrib class, or which sister volunteered till she fainted. What’s so different about Almaghrib students compared to other Muslim students?

I want to know about the man himself, Shaykh Muhammad Alshareef. Now there’s a man with vision, someone I can look up to and follow. That’s a documentary I am willing to pay to watch.

Some students give themselves too much credit.

You need to understand that show-biz is just that. Half craft, half business. Without an ROI you’re simply spending resources in the form of people, time and money. The greater the potential ROI the greater and more movies you can make. I’m currently developing 2 courses in message mastery. One focusing on Financing and the other Focusing on the Business development of a film company.

Making the movie in itself is an amazing skill and craft. The ability to leverage, other people’s money, time and other resources is a whole other skill that fuels this type of work.

Perhaps I’ll write an article for Muslim Matters laying how why there aren’t any real Muslim Spielbergs and how I intend to become one

:: :: Can you make a movie for under $2,500? :: ::
Sure you can. Robert Rodriguez did in today’s standards. He made a movie for about $7,500, out of which $7,000 was for the film stock. Today he can spend the $2,500 on a broadcast quality camera (James Langly did for his movie Iraq in Fragments — the camera that is).

Understand that when Rodriguez finished his movie, Columbia bought it for $80,000 after which they spent another $250,000 for remastering it for theatrical release. — If you think about it from a business POV, Rodriguez got paid $80,000 for about 2.5 years of relentless work. That comes out to be a little over $2,600 a month. Judging by what he stated in his story of making his first feature he easily spent at least 60 hrs a week on average working on his movie. Do the math, the guy was making about $10/hour.

That’s okay if you’re a college kid, but if you want to run a professional business so you can continously make movies you’ll need to learn how to leverage other people’s money (investors, state and federal grants, etc).

You need to understand what you’re aiming for and you also need to understand the business and the process and systems you will follow to get to where you want to go.

:: :: ARE YOU AIMING FOR ONLINE/Self-Service RELEASE? :: ::
If you’re aiming for making videos to simply release online/digitally or simply sell the DVDs yourself through your own creative marketing methods without much overhead, you can surely do that. I did that for my first DVD (The Strangers).

Outside of my own time and effort, Once I made the final cut of the movie in mid June 2006, I spent about $600 on producing the DVDs, marketing material, etc. In about 2 months time I made back about $1,500. It was a great learning experience and if I were to do it again I could probably bring able 100X+ the results knowing what I know now.

If you want you can take rebel/micro-budget methods to produce a movie at $0 financial cost (I recommend having some money set aside). Learning rebel skills is important in the craft. Learn them through experience and then apply them to a professional work.

:: :: ARE YOU AIMING TO GET INTO AMC LOWES? :: ::
If you want to get professional distribution in the mainstream market there are a few things you NEED or no distributor will touch you:

Understand that there are about 8 distribution models when it comes to mainstream movie business:

– 1 — Theatrical >> Home Video

– 2 — Service Deal Theatrical >> Home Video

– 3 — Top 3 Film Festivals >> Theatrical >> Home Video

– 4 — Top 3 Film Festivals >> Home Video

– 5 — Top 3 Film Festivals >> Self Theatrical >> Home Video

– 6 — Self Theatrical >> Home Video

– 7 — Self Theatrical >> Theatrical Pickup >> Home Video

– 8 — Home Video >> All other markets

The issue with this proven setup is that there are costs many filmmakers don’t anticipate once the movie is made. If you want any sort of professional or mainstream distribution for your film then you need to get it MPAA approved which costs $2500-$5000. You also have to get Errors and Omissions Insurance coverage or else no distributor will want to touch you. This costs ~$13,000-$18,000.

Once this is done, you’ll need to also pay for submissions to the film festivals which come in Tier 1, 2, & 3. Tier 1 includes the top 10, the top 3 of which are Toronto, Canes, and Sundance. Tier 2 and 3 are all the other festivals. Expenses to cover submissions, marketing for getting your film covered can run anywhere from $5,000-$15,000 on the average.

Understand when it comes to film festivals your objective is to develop buzz around your film like its the next greatest thing. This requires creative “take the bull by the horns” marketing and PR. Getting involved with the local news papers that are covering the festival. Getting in touch with festival organizers and what not. On the day of getting the attendees excited about this film that apparently everyone is buzzing about.

If you want to go for classic distribution you’ll need ~$20,000-$28,000 in your budget to spend once your movie is finished to get real distribution.

:: :: WHAT ABOUT MAKING THE PROFESSIONAL GRADE MOVIE :: ::

When it comes to the business of film, your objective is to give your film the perception of having high production value and it being worth a lot of money so it can sell for a lot more. Learning how to get the million dollar look on the thousand dollar budget or getting the thousand dollar look on the zero dollar budget should indeed be a strategy to keep in mind, but know that that skill doesn’t come without practice.

PRACTICE…start making videos and movies on the $0 budget today. Learn to leverage your resources and make excellent work. Exercise your business ideas along w/ your craft ideas.

You can take the volunteer approach in making a movie, just make sure you have the RIGHT people on the bus. If you’re making a movie aiming for something that is theater-worthy that is something that will take up quite a bit of your time. Imagine all your weekends for the next two years. That’s great time spent if you really love this sort of work (I do).

If you don’t want to get into it professionally, but still want to get involved into the business “on the side” you can do that too. Key thing is to start. heck, even if you have no money. You have a camera? You have a story? A computer to edit it on? Great! go make your movie!

If you talk with an entertainment accountant or entertainment lawyer, they’ll all agree thatn $10 million is “low-budget”

If you go under $50,000 then you’re talking “micro-budget” or “rebel” film-making.

NB: Low budget? “$10,000,000″?