EMILIO FERRARI: It’s a small independent film. Most movies I produce are pretty much just me. I don’t like to have too many people on board as far as producers or executive producers. I go raise all the money and my company guarantees the film. As a distributor, my distribution company—

EMILIO FERRARI: Everything. We do domestic—

EMILIO FERRARI: No. Only if I raise the money beforehand. If I don’t have all the money then I’ll go and pre-sell a part of it. I have the same formula I use for all my movies. I do about three a year, two or three. If I can get all the funds raised, then great. We go shoot it and I guarantee the film so my investors don’t lose their money. Then my distribution company will come on board at pretty much the same time I come on board to produce it and they’ll do whatever they need to do. So production and distribution can go side by side.

EMILIO FERRARI: Right, we don’t do that because are a distributor so we want to make money as a distributor. Giving up all your rights, you don’t make any money. You just give up your rights. I have pre-sold. That’s what we call a pre-sell. I do pre-sell films. The one I’m doing next I’m pre-selling part of it. It’s a bigger one. This movie is only a six million dollar movie so it’s not really that big of a budget for me to go out and pre-sell it because I already had most of the money in place before. In that case, I want to hold on to all the rights. As distributors, we sell each country separately. We have clients in every country. So I don’t really go out and sell the entire foreign rights. Then they’re making money and not us. As a producer I make some money, but really, the cheese comes from distribution. That’s where I really make my money.

CHRIS NEUMER: On something like this film, where do you expect this film to make its money? Domestically or overseas?

EMILIO FERRARI: It’s a comedy. It’s a romantic comedy. We’re trying to make it a physical comedy as much as we could. It’s something that Brian [Herzlinger] and I sat down ahead of time and talked about it. It was something that we worked on in the script. And we’re still working on the script as we go along, we’re still changing it. Comedies don’t do very well abroad because of the language barrier. But physical comedies do well because they transcend all language barriers. And that’s something we were really sure about, that we want to have enough physical comedy in the film so that I don’t have a problem when I go abroad. I think that most of the money is going to come from North America but with the dollar being so weak I think that we have a better chance that 70 percent of the money is going to come from abroad, 70-80, and the rest of it is going to come from North America.

EMILIO FERRARI: Honestly, when I first read the script I hated it. I didn’t like it and one of the deals I made with my executive producer was, “I’ll come on and do this with you but I get to fix the script.” So I came on and fixed the script. First I did a pass on it. Then I had Brian do a pass on it. Then he and I sat together and took another pass on it. And we’re still working on it as we go along. And it’s gotten better and better and better as we go along. That’s what happens when you shoot a film. It’s a process. You go through the process and your actors give you input. And you pick the things that you feel work with the script. And we’ve done that pretty much all the way through and Brian and I have been pretty cool with each other.

EMILIO FERRARI: I hated it.

EMILIO FERRARI: The idea of the script, the story, was great, but the way it was written was bad.

EMILIO FERRARI: The executive producer was also one of the writers, so it’s really hard to go to him and say “Your script sucks.” Because the script actually—the way it was written sucked, but the whole message and idea of it was really funny. And that’s what I told him. I said, “Look. This has to change.” But it’s really hard when a first time writer can’t change his script, especially when he’s putting up a lot of money [to get it made] too. So, what I did was, I changed half of it, and I let the director come in and change the other half, so it didn’t look like it was me trying to change the guy’s script. I had to be really careful. I didn’t want to make him feel bad because he had a bad script, but I liked the idea of the script and I liked him, and I thought the movie could turn out to be really good. And the other thing is, as a distributor I would never put my clients’ money in a movie that I think would lose money. Obviously I’m not psychic, I can’t tell you how much it’s going to make, but it’s still a calculated risk. As a distributor I can still calculate, bottom line, how much money I’m going to make. I can still calculate that part rather than just being a producer and just going out to make a movie just to make a buck. Distribution is really the key for any movie I make, whether I produce, direct, or write. And I do pretty much all of them.

EMILIO FERRARI: Cast is really important. When your budget is under six or seven million your cast is pretty much the key. You also need a good script and a good story and you want to make sure you make a movie where the budget qualifies for the actors you have in the film. If your budget is higher than the actors, then it’s an uphill battle and you will lose money. Even if the movie sells you’ll still lose money, which is a big problem. So you want to make sure that your cast qualifies for the budget. A movie like [Baby on Board] where the cast does qualify—again, it’s a comedy and comedy is pretty much the riskiest type of movie to make. I personally don’t do that many comedies. I’ve only done one comedy before this and that one did really well. I was really lucky.

CHRIS NEUMER: Am I correct in assuming that action and horror would be the two easiest to make money on?

EMILIO FERRARI: Well, it depends, but genres help you. Comedy’s not exactly a genre that helps you unless you’re making a huge comedy with huge stars, in which case it does. If you have Eddie Murphy or Jim Carrey then you can get away with it, but comedy is the only genre where names don’t help, the movie actually has to work. None of these names are big enough individually for a movie of this size, but collectively as an ensemble they really help. But individually, I couldn’t sell either of them separately. I could never sell Heather Graham on her own. It’s just not going to work. I could never sell Jerry O’Connell on his own, it would never work. Or John Corbett. Or Lara Flynn Boyle. Together they make an interesting cast, and they’ve never been together in a movie. So I thought it would be an interesting mix. John Corbett has never played the part he’s playing in this film. It’s the complete opposite of what he plays, so I thought it would be interesting. And putting that cast together, bringing Brian on board, it just kind of came together. And we’re shooting this movie really fast. We’ve been going boom, boom, boom. We’re shooting in four weeks. A movie that should have taken six weeks to shoot, we’re shooting in four weeks. It looks great. Chicago is very cold. Not crazy about the weather. We have a great crew and I handpicked all of them, especially the keys.

EMILIO FERRARI: My key people, obviously my First A.D. [assistant director] and my director of photography are really important to me. My director of photography, I’ve done two movies with him before. I brought him in and hooked him up with Brian because he’s someone that works very well with first time directors. He’s someone who will advise the director to take extra shots. He’s a crafty guy. He’s kind of a director himself in a way. He’s worked with me on bigger stuff. I did a movie with him with Kristin Dunst [Luckytown], so I know the guy really well. I brought him in from LA. I hired the First A.D. who was the best A.D. I could find and these are the two most important parts to me as far as having a first time director. Because I have to cover my ass you know? Even though Brian is good, actually physically making a movie is very different than thinking about it or being creative or being talented. They’re two different things. So those are the things that he came and helped and made Brian’s life easier.

EMILIO FERRARI: I have a production supervisor that I hired. I brought her on. Carrie. And I have a production manager, Omar, whom I brought on. But unlike most movies where your production supervisor and your production manager have a lot of control, on this movie I pretty much have the control because I’m on set every day. So I sign for everything.

EMILIO FERRARI: On a movie of this size I can’t take a chance. As a producer I’m not on set all day every day, that’s not what I do. My job is to put it together and let them go out and shoot it. But on this particular movie, a lot of my movies that I’m personally involved in, I’m there to make sure that I’m not going over budget because I personally guarantee these films.

CHRIS NEUMER: Give them the Ferrari grant?

EMILIO FERRARI: I’ve done about two dozen films, and I didn’t bring these guys on until later because I was able to put it together without them. Someone was saying that when I first came to Chicago that I hired my production coordinator before I hired a PM [production manager] Because I didn’t need him at the beginning. I don’t want to spend money giving someone $5,000 a week for something I already know how to do. So I came on board early because I had the time and I put the whole thing together without a PM, without a line producer, because I didn’t need it.

CHRIS NEUMER: Sort of old school.

EMILIO FERRARI: Yeah, I wanted to save money. I want the money in the movie and in the actors, rather than just paying frivolous people. Even though I need the people I need, I have a national agreement with all the unions with my company, so I have to go union no matter where I go and that’s great, but there’s certain areas where I can save money and I will, and I do. Another key position is my production manager, because he’s the one taking care of a lot of the stuff…

EMILIO FERRARI: The AD and the DP are more important for me for the director, to make sure we’re getting what we need. Because at the end of the day they can cover my ass if the director misses something. I have a really good editor that started the day we started shooting.

EMILIO FERRARI: Every time we miss something we come back and get it. And we’ve missed a few things.

EMILIO FERRARI: We’ve made mistakes with the eye lines and come back and fixed it. You couldn’t do that if you don’t have an editor on staff. I brought my editing equipment from LA because I have a lot of AVIDs and stuff and post equipment stuff and I brought it in and set it up here. I have my own equipment here and brought the editor from LA so we can shoot as long as we want and it’s not costing us any more because it’s all my own equipment. I’m not talking about using FinalCut and all that stuff, that’s very amateur. I’m talking about using the big AVIDs that we use in all our films. The studios use it. So we’re doing that right now and by the time we finish shooting, we’ll have a rough cut of the film. It’s not going to be exactly what the director wants or what I want but at least it will be all compiled and not just sitting around. Timing is very important to me. Six months from the day I start to the day I finish everything is the most. And then while I’m finishing I’m going on to my next film. I’m directing that so the post production will overlap the preproduction of my next film. And at the end of the year I start my third film which will overlap the next film in exactly the same way that this one will overlap. So it’s kind of the same kind of timing thing where I make sure that the timing matches. And my budgets are all between five and 10. I’ve never crossed 10 million. A lot of my movies stay at 10.

EMILIO FERRARI: Yeah, there’s a reason for that: control. The bigger the budget, the more compromises you have to make. Brian pretty much has free reign to do whatever he wants and the reason is that I gave him the opportunity because I don’t have a bond on the movie. If there was a bond on the movie, people would make his life a living hell. I don’t have four producers telling me what to do. I don’t have to go to four people to discuss it. So I try to stay within 10 million because I can own the movie outright. I’ll own the distribution rights outright, which is really important. On a movie under $10 million, you can cut all the frivolous expenses, like five executive producers, ten producers, co-producers. Those are all bullshit credits.

EMILIO FERRARI: There’s one executive producer, there’s one producer, and that’s it. There’s nobody else on it.

EMILIO FERRARI: I grew up with film. I was a First A.D. in high school so I grew up in the production side of it. I hand-picked all my keys myself and that’s why we’re doing well.

EMILIO FERRARI: No, they don’t. They never do, but there’s a compromise you make. The creativity and the commerciality all have to come together in a mix and mesh together because one can’t work without the other. If you get too creative, you go over budget and you don’t have a finished film.

EMILIO FERRARI: It’s funny you mention Entourage because it’s my favorite show.

EMILIO FERRARI: Italian.

EMILIO FERRARI: (laughs) That’s my Bentley watch, man. It matches my Bentley.

EMILIO FERRARI: I have a nice house, yes. I have a really nice house in the Hollywood Hills.

EMILIO FERRARI: No, not at all. I work very hard, so I like to spend money. And I make a lot of money which is good. But it is rough. You’re on set, I’m actually involved. I actually do the work, unlike most producers who come on, put it together and leave. I’m actually involved. I know pretty much everyone who works for me. I know their names. I know where all my money is being spent. I actually remember where all the money is being spent. Because I actually catch everything when my supervising manager approves something and it comes to me and I catch it. I’m just good at it. I’ve always been good at it. My accountant checks everything 80 times before she brings it to me. I always catch mistakes. Small mistakes, but a mistake is a mistake. It’s not a big deal. It’s just that that is my job. I try to save as much money as I can, because at the end of the day, as much money as I put on the screen is what I get out of it. After we shoot the movie everyone’s gone and I’m the one stuck with the film. And I actually have to sell this film so I have to make sure that I have something I can sell otherwise people won’t give me money. Nobody’s going to write me a ten million dollar check and say, “Go make a movie.” If I can’t actually sell the film—you can only do that once or twice and then you’re out of the business. But I work very hard and yeah I have a beautiful house in the Hollywood Hills, I have a lot of nice cars, I have a lot of toys.

CHRIS NEUMER: And very nice watches that match the cars.

EMILIO FERRARI: Lots of watches.

EMILIO FERRARI: I’m not a stereotypical Hollywood kind. I travel a lot. I’m in New York a lot. I go to the markets and stuff. I don’t go around telling pretty girls what I do. That’s not what I do. I kind of find that bad. There’s a certain part of LA that is extremely Hollywood.

EMILIO FERRARI: (laughs) No, I’m talking about the mentality of the people. There are a lot of great people in LA who are big stars, actors, producers, who are very mellow and low key and very chill and you try to be humble and just keep working. I’m a young guy and I want to just keep making movies until I get to a movie that actually does break out and does really well.

CHRIS NEUMER: You’ve been doing this and making movies for a while and keeping them at or under budget—

EMILIO FERRARI: Always, always.

EMILIO FERRARI: Well, in a way I am. Those are big, big, big producers. But what I do is a little bit different. I pretty much operate like a studio does. I have my own production entities, I have my own distribution entities, I have my own post-production entities, and I own all of these. And I have a stockbroker. So, I can pretty much start something and finish it in house. I don’t have to go get anyone else. That is different from all the other big producers do. They just produce from the studio and then take their check and go home. I actually own my stuff.

EMILIO FERRARI: Yeah. Money is really irrelevant. A good movie is a good movie, regardless of the budget. I look at the film and the best I can do to make that movie so that it looks good on screen.

EMILIO FERRARI: Sure, money’s important. And I go out and I look for money and I do what I can. Having a studio, you don’t have to worry about money. But you give up owning the film. At a certain point in my career, I’ll probably… the movie I’m doing next is a $10 million movie. And I’m directing, I wrote the script, I’m distributing it. It’s pretty much all in-house. The budget didn’t come because I wanted to make a bigger movie. The budget came because that’s what I needed to actually make the movie. So, money’s important, but I don’t just a movie based on how much it cost. I judge it based on what I need below the line and how big of actors can I attract to a film like that. And sometimes if I need to I’ll go up to 20 or 30. I have another film that I’m trying to make called Waco with Rupert Wainwright, who directed Stigmata and the producer is Lawrence Bender, whose the producer of pretty much every Tarantino movie. And it’s a bigger budget and hopefully towards the end of the year that’s going to come to fruition, but again you put so many things in the pipe line and you don’t know what’s going to click.

EMILIO FERRARI: I would love to make a bigger movie if the right elements come together, but what’s more important to me is to work with people that I actually like. I hate to work on a film where I hate someone. I want to work with someone I like and I have a great time when I make my movies. Go on the set and ask anyone if they had a good time.

EMILIO FERRARI: But I don’t want to. I want to have a good time when I make movies, and this film has been a really good time for everyone that’s worked on this film. I don’t think anybody… I think you could go and speak to anyone, even the PAs and I don’t think anyone had a bad experience. Sure, it’s rough, but in the end everyone gets along and there are no assholes making people’s lives difficult. I’m not the kind of guy that will go on set and fire people. This is not an egotistical trip here. I feel if someone’s not doing their job, or someone else is doing his or her job. And that to me is unacceptable. I either need to fix it or get the hell out. There’s only two ways of handling it.

Chris Neumer