Press release from Strongman Pictures Pty Ltd
Strongman Pictures Pty Ltd today announced that it has finalised its “Year One” slate of Neopulp films featuring a mixture of female wrestlers, monsters, nanotechnology, roller derby gangs, high adventure, over-the-top violence and a midget, in its plan to create film brands that excite fans.
The Melbourne-based production company has reorganised its internal structure, strengthened its long term business plan and objectives, and is in the throes of financing the growth of its operation with a three-year goal to “take over the world”.
Strongman Pictures was initially created to produce the film From Parts Unknown: Fight Like a Girl [©2009] explains Strongman Pictures Director Daniel Armstrong.
“From Parts Unknown was financed through our close personal and business network, and every member of the cast and crew is effectively an investor, having agreed to take the risk of working on deferred contract,” said Armstrong.
“It was designed to be the Company’s test case and enable entry to the market and from there generate the relevant investor interest to finance future projects. The effects of the Global Financial Crisis (slowing investment and squeezing resources) have been felt by Strongman Pictures and post-production on From Parts Unknown unfortunately has slowed to a steady crawl.”
“Our resources were depleted when things got tough, but we’ve kept working on it. It’s become a trade off between time and quality at this stage. It was very discouraging for a long time, as it felt that we couldn’t move forward until we had overcome this white whale”, says Armstrong.
Armstrong’s response to the slow down was to shift gears dramatically and dynamically.
“Post on From Parts Unknown remains a priority, but we had production assets not being fully utilised and revenue issues as a result of the financial crisis.”
Armstrong moved the Company forward into production of a new feature The Killer Luchador [©2009] – this time fully financed through personal investors. Armstrong goes on to explain that the Company has also had a restructure and is currently in the process of a share issue through which it hopes to raise capital for a range of films on its slate.
“With our first feature taking longer than expected our initial response was to focus on video production and equipment hire to drive up revenues to pour back into post production. This kept us afloat but was not providing the resources needed to take full advantage of our business plan and move forward with film production. That’s what the Company was set up to achieve (ongoing low budget genre film production) and we were not moving closer to this goal.”
Realising this, Armstrong made the decision to move confidently forward with his expansion plans and he initiated a share issue (currently underway) and production of the Company’s second feature film.
“Our business plan is very simple and has not changed that much. We make genre films for fans, mitigate the risks for investors across a range of products, and drive awareness and penetration through effective and low cost marketing communications,” explains Armstrong.
Neopulp is an exciting literary genre, the basis of which is the fusion of ideas from different “pulp fiction” sources, treated without satire or irony in an attempt to create something new. It’s not horror, science fiction, adventure, action, romance or burlesque but it contains elements of all of these.
In essence a Neopulp film is aggressively “B Grade”, but includes great love and respect for its sources of inspiration.
From Parts Unknown: Fight Like a Girl is in post-production. The Killer Luchador begins production in March 2010.
For more about Strongman Pictures “Year One” slate visit www.strongmanpictures.com