How I Financed, Produced, Finished, and Delivered a Feature Film to the Global Marketplace in Just 210 Days

Seven months ago, Key of Bones: Curse of the Ghost Pirate existed only as a screenplay.

Two hundred and ten days later, it screened in Cannes.

Whenever I say that, I think it's important to explain exactly what I mean.

The film was not an Official Selection of the Cannes Film Festival. Those films are selected by the festival itself and compete within the festival's official programming sections.

Key of Bones: Curse of the Ghost Pirate screened as part of the Fantastic Pavilion's Gala Screening Series during the Marché du Film, the Cannes Film Market.

For those outside the film industry, the Cannes Film Festival and the Marché du Film - Festival de Cannes operate side by side during the same two-week event. The festival showcases films selected by Cannes. The market is where producers, distributors, sales agents, financiers, streamers, exhibitors, and buyers from around the world come together to discover, finance, buy, sell, and launch films.

The Marche’ du Film, literally translated from French is “Film Market”. This is where the business of filmmaking happens. At the largest, most prestigious film festival in the world.

And that's really the point of this article.

The achievement wasn't that the film was selected by Cannes. It wasn’t.

The achievement was that a screenplay became a completed, market-ready feature film and was presented to the global film industry in just seven months.

While filmmaking is always a team effort, this article isn't about taking credit away from the talented people who helped bring Key of Bones to life. It's about sharing what I learned from leading a project from screenplay to market-ready feature film in just 210 days and the lessons that came from that process.

Click on the play button below to watch the official trailer!

More importantly, this wasn't the first time.

In 2017, while attending Cannes, my friend Marty Poole, who had just sold a film to Lionsgate called me up. Lionsgate told him they were looking for a family-friendly movie centered around a marine mammal. He didn’t have one, but told them, “I got a guy.” We sat down in my pavilion and wrote the treatment on my phone, right there in Cannes. Seven months later, we had cameras rolling in Clearwater, Florida on Bernie the Dolphin. Before production even began, Marty had secured worldwide distribution. Based on that distribution, I raised the funds. That film ultimately led to a sequel, Bernie the Dolphin 2. Which we were shooting before the first film ever came out.

Now, after completing and screening Key of Bones, we're already discussing a sequel to this project as well. When something happens more than once, it’s not luck. It’s a process.

I didn't start writing Key of Bones until September 2025. Four months later, we were filming in Key West.

Four months after that, it was screening as one of seven films for the Fantastic Pavilion’s gala screenings at the Marché du Film in Cannes.

I had been thinking about the film for a year. I’d flown to Key West to location scout. I did a lot of research and met with people in the Keys about the great haunted history of the area. When I finally decided to sit down and write the script, I was ready.

Before I wrote a single page of the screenplay, I wrote a white paper explaining why the film made business sense. I researched comparable films, audience demand, distribution opportunities, market trends, and potential sales strategies.

In many ways, I was building the business plan before I wrote the movie.

When I started writing Key of Bones, I already knew exactly what the goal was.

This wasn't a "maybe someday" project. This wasn't a screenplay I hoped someone would discover.

The goal was clear from day one: write it, finance it, produce it, finish it, and bring it to market as quickly as possible.

The Biggest Problem in Independent Film

After more than twenty years producing films, running the Sunscreen Film Festival, working as a film commissioner in Florida and Texas, and helping filmmakers navigate the industry, I know that independent filmmaking doesn't suffer from a shortage of ideas.

It suffers from a shortage of execution.

Every year, I meet talented filmmakers with great scripts, great concepts, and genuine passion for their projects.

After reviewing thousands of film submissions through the Sunscreen Film Festival over the years, I've learned that completing a film is still one of the most difficult things a person will ever do. Everyone has an idea or a script.

Most of those projects never get made.

• Not because they aren't good enough.
• Not because they aren't commercial.
• Not because they lack talent.

They simply never move forward.

People spend years waiting for...

• The perfect cast.
• The perfect investor.
• The perfect distributor.
• The perfect budget.
• The perfect timing.

The problem is that perfection rarely arrives. At some point, execution has to take over.

Budget Changes the Strategy, Not the Possibility

One of the biggest misconceptions in filmmaking is that projects don't get made because there isn't enough money.

Budget absolutely matters. But…

A $6,000 movie is different than a $250,000 movie. A $250,000 movie is different than a $2 million movie.

The scale changes. The resources change. The opportunities change.

But the ability to get a film made doesn't disappear because you don't have a large budget.

My first feature film, Mandatory Overtime was made for approximately $6,000. It wasn’t good. It was film school. It was also an accomplishment. So many people want to make a feature and never do. Once you’ve done it, people ask you to help them make their feature.

Looking back, even though the movie wasn't very good, it taught me something incredibly valuable: finishing a feature film puts you in a completely different category than talking about making one. People notice that. Who do you want to work with, the person that has made thirty short films? Or the one with three shorts and a completed feature?

We shot only on weekends for four months because everyone had jobs. Every weekend. No weekends off. Pre-production during the week after work, prepping for two days of filming. Rinse and repeat for months.

Friends volunteered their time. Cast and crew believed in the project and wanted to help bring it to life. We built a production model around the resources we had available.

What do we have access to that we can put in the script? Shoot at my house, my friend’s house, our friend’s workplace. You know a motorcycle stunt group? Write it into the script. Shoot through four hurricanes? Yep, you find a way.

It wasn't glamorous. It wasn't easy. But it got made. It sure was a lot of fun.

Years later, I've worked on projects with larger budgets, professional crews, distributors, sales agents, international markets, film commissions, and more complex financing structures.

After spending a decade as a film commissioner, first in St. Pete Clearwater, Florida, and then Dallas, Texas, I watched hundreds of projects come through the system. Some had money and never got made. Some had very little money and somehow crossed the finish line.

What I've learned is that every budget level requires a different strategy.

The difference was rarely the budget. The difference was leadership and execution.

The filmmakers who consistently get projects made aren't always the ones with the biggest budgets. They're the ones who figure out how to maximize the resources available to them and keep moving forward.

Hard Work Still Matters

When people hear that a film went from script to Cannes in seven months, they often assume there must be some secret shortcut. There isn't.

What they don't see are the months leading up to that screening.

The seven-day workweeks. The 16-hour days. All day, every day. Sleep, gym, eat, work on the movie. That’s it. Seven days a week for months.

• The early mornings.
• The late nights.
• The fundraising meetings.
• The scheduling calls.
• The budgeting sessions.
• The production challenges.
• The post-production reviews.
• The festival strategy.
• The marketing decisions.
• The thousands of emails. (Not an exaggeration)

For months, filmmaking wasn't something I worked on. It was my life.

It was the work, seven days a week. Every week. Relationships matter, experience matters, and strategy matters. But none of those things replace effort.

The reality is that every project encounters obstacles.

The difference is whether someone is willing to keep pushing the project forward when those obstacles appear.

Start With the End in Mind

One of the biggest mistakes I see filmmakers make is that they focus entirely on making the movie and don't spend enough time thinking about where the movie is going.

Before we shoot a single frame, I'm already thinking about:

• Who is the audience?
• Who might buy it?
• Where could it screen?
• What materials will be needed?
• What distributors might be interested?
• What market opportunities exist?
• How do we position the film?

Too often, filmmakers wait until the film is complete before asking those questions. By then, they've already lost valuable time. Market strategy shouldn't start after the film is finished. It should start before page one of the screenplay.

Relationships Matter

People often ask how projects move quickly. The answer isn't just experience, it's relationships. The ability to move quickly today is the result of relationships built over decades.

Through producing films, co-founding the Sunscreen Film Festival, serving as a film commissioner, helping launch Film USA, attending markets around the world, spending time right here in the Stage 32 Lounges, and spending years in the industry, I've been fortunate to build relationships with filmmakers, distributors, financiers, sales agents, exhibitors, and industry professionals.

Relationships don't replace hard work, but they open doors, create opportunities, and solve problems faster.

And they help move projects forward. Even if you don’t have twenty years of relationships, that doesn’t matter. I didn’t either when I made that first feature film for $6,000.

There Is No Perfect Time

If there's one lesson I've learned over the last twenty years, it's that the perfect moment never arrives.

There will always be a reason to wait.

• More money.
• More time.
• A bigger investor.
• A better cast.
• A larger budget.
• Another rewrite.
• A stronger market.
• At some point, you have to stop waiting and start doing.

The projects that get made aren't necessarily the projects with the best circumstances. They're projects with people willing to keep moving them forward.

Of course, not every project moves quickly. One of the films I most want to make is a project called Terminal Kill. I've been trying to get that film made for more than twenty years. There have been moments when it looked like it was finally going to happen.

We had talent attached. We had financing discussions. At one point, we were preparing to move forward in 2020 before COVID shut the world down.

More than once, I thought we were close. We weren't. Twenty-three years later, the film still hasn't been made. But that doesn't mean the project is dead.

A couple of years ago, I adapted Terminal Kill into a graphic novel because I wanted the story to exist in the world instead of sitting on a hard drive as a screenplay.

The film will get made someday. I still believe that. But Terminal Kill taught me another important lesson: You don't stop pursuing a passion project just because it hasn't happened yet.

You keep moving it forward while continuing to create other opportunities, other films, and other projects along the way.

What 210 Days Taught Me

Looking back, the biggest lesson from taking Key of Bones from screenplay to the Marché du Film in just 210 days wasn't about filmmaking. It was about execution.

• Ideas are important.
• Scripts are important.
• Financing is important.
• Talent is important.

But none of those things matter if a project never gets finished. Execution is one of the most undervalued skills in our industry.

Ideas and scripts are everywhere. People talking about making movies are everywhere. Completed films are much harder to find.

Whether it's a $6,000 weekend feature made with friends or a market-ready film screening in Cannes seven months after the script was written, the principle remains the same: A project only moves forward when someone decides to make it happen.

The completion of Key of Bones isn't the finish line. It's simply another example of what's possible when planning, preparation, relationships, strategy, and hard work come together.

Since returning from Cannes, one of the questions I've been asked most often is:

"How did you actually do it?"

The answer isn't one thing. It's dozens of decisions made before the script was finished.

• It's understanding financing.
• Understanding production.
• Understanding post-production.
• Understanding distribution.
• Understanding markets.
• Understanding how all those pieces fit together before the first day of filming.
• Over the years, I've come to realize that the biggest challenge for many filmmakers isn't writing a screenplay or even making a movie.

It's figuring out how to move a project from an idea into a finished product that can actually find an audience.

That's the part that interests me most. Not just making films. Getting them made.

This is something you can start to do right here with Stage 32 Education. Just explore the education page by clicking here or send an email to Edu@Stage32.com for curated advice on the best classes to help you reach your goals.

Or start by joining conversations and asking questions in the Stage 32 Lounges to learn from the experts and peers all around you in this supportive community!

Looking back, I think what I've always enjoyed most isn't directing, producing, fundraising, festivals, or any single part of the business.

It's taking something that doesn't exist and figuring out how to make it real.

• An idea.
• A feature film.
• A film festival.
• A non-profit.
• A new company.

Whatever it is. I've always been drawn to the challenge of turning ideas into reality. In an industry full of people talking about what they're going to do someday, I've built my career around getting things done.

If this article helps inspire someone to stop waiting for the perfect moment and start moving their project forward, then it was worth writing.

I like to be around people who do things. Filmmakers. Entrepreneurs. Real Estate developers. Artists. Community leaders. Attorneys. Doctors. Restaurateurs. The industry doesn’t matter.

The common trait isn't talent. It is execution.

They decide they're going to do something, and then they find a way to get it done. They find solutions, not problems.

And if you're working on a project of your own, I'd love to hear about it in the comments below!

Thanks to the talented cast, crew, investors, and collaborators who helped bring Key of Bones: Curse of the Ghost Pirate to life. While this article focuses on the process, filmmaking is always a team effort.

Let's hear your thoughts in the comments below!

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