Meet Kyle Alvarez, a young, ambitious Chicago filmmaker who is officially launching his first feature film, Easier With Practice, at CineVegas Film Festival in Las Vegas. I learned about Kyle through an acquaintance. And I plan to follow his exploits because I'm sure his journey will be chock-full of instructive lessons for other creatives looking to launch their work.
Kyle wrote and directed Easier With Practice, a film about a young writer on a desperate road trip to promote his unpublished novel. Kyle also hustled the financing. "We were lucky, in a way,
that we financed the film before the economic downturn because there would've been no way to raise the money we did a year and a half ago," he says.
Once he had financing, Kyle had "this fantasy in my head that things would fall into place, but there was still a lot of struggle because most actors' agents don't see the value of their clients doing low-budget films, not to mention with first-time directors."
Film festivals are critical for gaining momentum, Kyle explains. "We have two goals for the festival screenings. One is to get as many locals into the theater as possible -- we want to sell out our screenings! Second, we want to make sure as much industry and press are there at the screenings, too; they have a lot of options."
Ultimately, Kyle wants to sell his film for distribution. "But nowadays that takes time," he tells me. With a glut of entertainment options strewn before movie-goers, distributors must be convinced the film will find its niche. "The buyers need to see the film with the right audience and get a sense of what the appeal could be," Kyle tells me. No one expects a little indie production like this to find a mass market. Unless, of course, it explodes like The Blair Witch Project did.
What was the biggest challenge of making his first feature film? "Watching your back, because no one else is in charge of what ends up on the screen." Kyle explains, "Owning that responsibility can be stressful, but it's rewarding." The first-time filmmaker will find out just how rewarding when Easier With Practice premieres this weekend in Las Vegas. Stay tuned.
Watch the trailer: