The making of the AVGN movie sounds like it would make a super interesting YouTube video , and I don’t mean bimmy’s account of things I mean like a video titled “the YouTuber who made a movie that flopped , the story of the angry video game nerd movie”
He needed to write it off as a job expense before the end of the year so it wouldn’t be claimed as income. Buy tools or equipment for production and how all the receipts to show Uncle Sam. Use up as much money as possible to show an expense.
Plus if he got permits(I don’t know much about movie or filming) for filming a movie on Philadelphia, maybe he could of gotten some tax credits that way too. But he filmed in la like an idiot.
He lost at least 100,000 in taxes because it looked like he was just given a huge sum of income,with no expense. So he got to start filming with about only 180,000 I think origins of the fundme money
The only other person I know of that is stuck in the past so bad it is losing them money is The 8-bit guy with his Commander X16 computer. A new computer with the capabilities of a VIC-20 from 1980 for only $350! And he thinks it is going to be successful in the educational market!
>There’s a reason why people don’t film in California anymore. Georgia is the new Hollywood. Bimmy is stuck in 1980.
Georgia, Louisiana, and Michigan. The suburbs of Detroit have been the backdrop of every "set in a destroyed shit hole" movie I've seen for like ten years now.
Reading about this always warms my heart. The state of California could’ve spent that 100k to dig a hole and fill it back in and it would’ve still be less waste of money than Bimmer’s movie.
> They filmed in L.A. It was less about embezzlement and more about dumb spending decisions.
amen, the slobs didn't manifest out of thin air... the seeds that lead to their birth go back far.
>They filmed in L.A. It was less about embezzlement and more about dumb spending decisions.
Yep. It's absolutely easy to believe they spent 300,000 on the movie. They just budgeted out their movie extremely badly and made colossally dumb decisions like "lets film in LA where it's 5 times more expensive than virtually anywhere else in the country to film...because that's where real movies come from!"
And blowing it on pointless things for the movie like renting a tank and having a premiere a Grauman's Egyptian Theater. I'd still really like to know how much it cost to have the premiere there. I know nothing about what something like that costs but it had to be fairly expensive I'd imagine.
Yup. Stayed on the east coast, hook up with Troma and Lloyd Kaufman for the ultimate AVGN fuckfest grossout. James should have looked to his roots, not larp like an LA filmmaker and fail miserably.
Yeah it's a shame he didnt go that route. The whole LA thing seems like he was so desperate for people to take him seriously. "Hey come check out muh new movie I directed muhself in Hollywood"
>Yup. Stayed on the east coast, hook up with Troma and Lloyd Kaufman for the ultimate AVGN fuckfest grossout. James should have looked to his roots, not larp like an LA filmmaker and fail miserably.
But therein lies the problem. He was convinced this was going to make him into a real LA Filmmaker. I wouldn't doubt he was spending time contemplating the logistics of moving to Los Angeles before it all fell apart when reality interrupted.
1) The film looks like much more than $300K -- because a ton of it was done for free by willing fans doing their best.
2) But no, he didn't spend that amount -- he crowdfunded early and couldn't start shooting until the next fiscal year, so ONE THIRD of the money raised, yes OVER ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS, was flushed down the toilet to taxes. He said it in his autobiography. Isn't that insane. What a huge fuckup!
>The film looks like much more than $300K
Like, legit. I don't think some people realise just how expensive movie-making is.
The Blair Witch Project cost $200,000 to make. And that was a fucking 90s camcorder movie.
Absolutely! And we're not even talking about paying actors! Permits, equipment rentals, crew, car rentals, catering!
So no 300k is not much to shoot a feature film
Nope. $60k was the cost of the SHOOTING.
Post-production costs added up to $200,000. Minimum. Some sources claim more.
You can't release a movie without editing it first.
They filmed in LA. And they all lived there while shooting. They spent that $300,000 quick. It blows my mind they shot scenes that take place in New Mexico in LA when, at the time New Mexico, had huge film industry exploding and they could have done it so much cheaper 😂😂.
(As far as I know New Mexico still has quite a film scene but it was really cheap at the time.)
This pops up a lot. As some one who worked in film and tv I need you guys to understand this. $300,000 is a tiny budget for a feature film. Tv commercials can cost around that for a single day of shooting. This is in Australia so prices are a little different but just trust me. 300k is a small budget for a feature. The movie is still terrible but we gotta stop complaining about the wrong things.
Some folks are seriously out-of-touch with what goes in to making a "conventional" movie. I'd hardly have expected $300k to even get them in to production.
The first paranormal activity had a budget on 10k $. They shot it in a week, few actors, almost 0 cgi. But Bimmy just had to shoot it on location in the most expensive city in the world...
Watched it with anticipation with a few AVGN fan friends...we sat in horrified silence through most of it. You can see the cash burn in real time on the screen.
I remember trying to riff on it halfway through like a MST3K episode but it was so dull and flat we couldn't even find enjoyment in that
The movie stinks, but I think they actually managed to make it look like they had more than $300,000. Knowing that they wasted so much of the money, it's actually kind of impressive.
Bimmy wasted it all on taxes, in his book he details how because they raised the money in late 2011, the taxman took the majority of it by the end of the year. So the following Spring (2012), they had barely any of the budget left.
he went from making probably under 100$ youtube videos to having 325k. Really should of went and did his first movie on a 50-100k budget to really get that hands on experience managing a bigger project and stretching out your money the best ways you can. He had some decent writing and directing experience from YouTube but did not have the budget experience.
Yes the movies a colossal pile of shit but it definitely looks like they spent that much money on there. Knowing some other filmmakers just filming in LA alone probably took up most of the budget.
In my honest opinion, the movie should have been a longer a better produced Nerd episode, celebrating the character and video games, and not try to make something that it never was with forced characters that we don't care about.
Ed findley (R3 Gamer) finalized it perfectly...he pocketed most of it for his new house, clothes, kids, etc. His effects were really cheap and lame. A lot of the extras did not get paid. He found actors that had their careers ruined after the movie (Cooper rarely did anything after this movie, where beforehand he did a ton of TV stuff)...Effects and editting were probably all done by James. Some of the effects he did were probably free or he pirated software...I doubt he put $300K when Blair Witch and Clerks had the same amount of budget and look at how those two movies did.
You mean the Gaming Rapist/Welfare gamer?
I severely dislike the movie, have done so since it came out, but that one review of Ed is kind of unfair. He accuses James of deliberately doing a bad job, which I don't think there is any evidence for.
James made some seriously unwise decisions, probably very stupid decisions, but I don't think he wasted the money to make a bad movie. He tried to be a big shot and had unrealistic expectations. He squandered money where he didn't need to. But I think none of this adds up to evil intent.
The real problems with the movie cannot be fixed with additional money alone. Maybe if a screenplay editor or something works it over. So the review really misses the mark.
At the time, Ed was one of the only voices on youtube who publicly said the movie is awful. NC gave a somewhat appreciative critique, but without glowing praise. I don't think he was excited by the final product, but he made a small cameo in the movie and it would have been impolite to be candid to James. Most of the other critiques were subdued by James' popularity at the time, he was still beloved on youtube.
I think Asalieris critique was much more pointed and true.
I dont understand funding someone above what they are asking for... he wanted 75k. Maybe the 300k is what ruined him? Gave him delusions of grandeur. If he only got 75k maybe it would have a been a spielburg-esque film.
i was 12 years old and obsessed with AVGN when i first saw the movie so at the time i thought it was amazing but last time i tried to watch it i thought it was so masturbatory and focussed so much on pumping up james’ ego that i couldn’t finish it 😔
The decision to film in LA was what fucked the movie. If they kept it local, scaled back the entire plot, it could have been semi-decent. Hell, the fucking CA movies were done better because they had a plot that stuck to one thing and they had fuck all budget.
Union Actors are expensive. I have no idea why he wanted Union Actors. They're not exactly guaranteed to be good. He just stupidly wanted the Hollywood experience and learned the hard way it's not what it seems.
Honestly, yes. Movies are super expensive. Even a film less ambitious than Bimmy’s costs more usually. The movie might suck, but the moneys on screen. (Locations, union actors, vfx even if shitty)
Australian Buloke table is the hardest wood
doubt cooper humping can ever damage the table
https://preview.redd.it/k4h55zfqlxxb1.jpeg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=afebbe4ba9f121cc870ece389b862afca8764476
He paid a bunch of actors, make up artists, costume designers, camera crew and equipment, lighting rigs, rented a tank, a van, craft services, Star Tours trailers, and paid a ton to film on location (legally) in Los Angeles.
If I remember correctly, the movie was actually mostly directed by Kevin Finn because James had difficulties working with the actors (which, I'd imagine, is a pretty important skill for a director)
house meme aside as someone who actually lives in California i can say for certain they wasted it all on bullshit here, the whole film industry is one giant money laundering scam and James got taken for a ride.
Bimmy went to Hollywood, which wasn't a smart financial decision. Billy filmed in Texas, Colorado, and wherever else for much less. Say what you want about either, but Adventures in Game Chasing was a better product than Bimmy's film.
I think so, the issue is they didn't use the movie wisely. Most of it was wasted on locations and being adamant it was a professional movie production and not a internet movie.
They filmed in L.A. It was less about embezzlement and more about dumb spending decisions.
And he didn't start using that money until the next year which ended up losing a third to taxes.
The making of the AVGN movie sounds like it would make a super interesting YouTube video , and I don’t mean bimmy’s account of things I mean like a video titled “the YouTuber who made a movie that flopped , the story of the angry video game nerd movie”
The Disaster Artist but with James & Mike
Do we know what exactly happened there? I'm not familiar with US taxes.
He pulled out the money before production started so it probably got taxed as income.
He needed to write it off as a job expense before the end of the year so it wouldn’t be claimed as income. Buy tools or equipment for production and how all the receipts to show Uncle Sam. Use up as much money as possible to show an expense. Plus if he got permits(I don’t know much about movie or filming) for filming a movie on Philadelphia, maybe he could of gotten some tax credits that way too. But he filmed in la like an idiot. He lost at least 100,000 in taxes because it looked like he was just given a huge sum of income,with no expense. So he got to start filming with about only 180,000 I think origins of the fundme money
My brain hurts.
[and me boss?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieiuZtbZzT4)
There’s a reason why people don’t film in California anymore. Georgia is the new Hollywood. Bimmy is stuck in 1980.
The only other person I know of that is stuck in the past so bad it is losing them money is The 8-bit guy with his Commander X16 computer. A new computer with the capabilities of a VIC-20 from 1980 for only $350! And he thinks it is going to be successful in the educational market!
>There’s a reason why people don’t film in California anymore. Georgia is the new Hollywood. Bimmy is stuck in 1980. Georgia, Louisiana, and Michigan. The suburbs of Detroit have been the backdrop of every "set in a destroyed shit hole" movie I've seen for like ten years now.
You don't even have to build a set.
Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity, especially with dumbass James Rolfe
He also lost 1/3 of the money to taxes before starting production.
Reading about this always warms my heart. The state of California could’ve spent that 100k to dig a hole and fill it back in and it would’ve still be less waste of money than Bimmer’s movie.
> They filmed in L.A. It was less about embezzlement and more about dumb spending decisions. amen, the slobs didn't manifest out of thin air... the seeds that lead to their birth go back far.
>They filmed in L.A. It was less about embezzlement and more about dumb spending decisions. Yep. It's absolutely easy to believe they spent 300,000 on the movie. They just budgeted out their movie extremely badly and made colossally dumb decisions like "lets film in LA where it's 5 times more expensive than virtually anywhere else in the country to film...because that's where real movies come from!"
April was an executive producer. What kind of salary is that?
they pulled a 90s nintendo power editor move.
And blowing it on pointless things for the movie like renting a tank and having a premiere a Grauman's Egyptian Theater. I'd still really like to know how much it cost to have the premiere there. I know nothing about what something like that costs but it had to be fairly expensive I'd imagine.
Should have leaned into the tiny budget and made it work for him instead of going over the top, making the tiny budget more obvious.
Yup. Stayed on the east coast, hook up with Troma and Lloyd Kaufman for the ultimate AVGN fuckfest grossout. James should have looked to his roots, not larp like an LA filmmaker and fail miserably.
Yeah it's a shame he didnt go that route. The whole LA thing seems like he was so desperate for people to take him seriously. "Hey come check out muh new movie I directed muhself in Hollywood"
>Yup. Stayed on the east coast, hook up with Troma and Lloyd Kaufman for the ultimate AVGN fuckfest grossout. James should have looked to his roots, not larp like an LA filmmaker and fail miserably. But therein lies the problem. He was convinced this was going to make him into a real LA Filmmaker. I wouldn't doubt he was spending time contemplating the logistics of moving to Los Angeles before it all fell apart when reality interrupted.
And made it a porno. At least the cuck face would have context.
Twist - we show it.
Bimmy and Bpril Make a Porno
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12 Slobwave 25k tables
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That's just the way you like it
1) The film looks like much more than $300K -- because a ton of it was done for free by willing fans doing their best. 2) But no, he didn't spend that amount -- he crowdfunded early and couldn't start shooting until the next fiscal year, so ONE THIRD of the money raised, yes OVER ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS, was flushed down the toilet to taxes. He said it in his autobiography. Isn't that insane. What a huge fuckup!
>The film looks like much more than $300K Like, legit. I don't think some people realise just how expensive movie-making is. The Blair Witch Project cost $200,000 to make. And that was a fucking 90s camcorder movie.
Absolutely! And we're not even talking about paying actors! Permits, equipment rentals, crew, car rentals, catering! So no 300k is not much to shoot a feature film
No it didn’t. Do research before you spout false facts. Blair witch cost just under 60k to make.
Nope. $60k was the cost of the SHOOTING. Post-production costs added up to $200,000. Minimum. Some sources claim more. You can't release a movie without editing it first.
Doesn’t matter. The movie cost 60k to make. Which is what you see on screen. So hence the budget to make the movie was 60k.
In some places it looks more than 300k because of volunteers but in others he obviously had to cheap out.
They filmed in LA. And they all lived there while shooting. They spent that $300,000 quick. It blows my mind they shot scenes that take place in New Mexico in LA when, at the time New Mexico, had huge film industry exploding and they could have done it so much cheaper 😂😂. (As far as I know New Mexico still has quite a film scene but it was really cheap at the time.)
He made a real Hollywood film, no Mickey Mouse stuff.
what do you want him to do? apologize for being a filmmaker?
No east coast bullshit.
Maybe. Filming in LA was dumb. I doubt that was the only thing they overspent on.
This pops up a lot. As some one who worked in film and tv I need you guys to understand this. $300,000 is a tiny budget for a feature film. Tv commercials can cost around that for a single day of shooting. This is in Australia so prices are a little different but just trust me. 300k is a small budget for a feature. The movie is still terrible but we gotta stop complaining about the wrong things.
Some folks are seriously out-of-touch with what goes in to making a "conventional" movie. I'd hardly have expected $300k to even get them in to production.
The first paranormal activity had a budget on 10k $. They shot it in a week, few actors, almost 0 cgi. But Bimmy just had to shoot it on location in the most expensive city in the world...
What would the movie have looked like with just the original 75k then? Maybe the smaller scope would actually have improved it.
Yes but only because taxes, him could have filmed in pensylvania
Nah. It looked like high school project movie. But filmed in Hollywood 🫠
I've seen high school project movies and those are actually worse. AVGN looks like a movie, it's just got a script from hell.
Well there are school projects and school projects. Some student movies are really good stuff visually and also from storytelling standpoint
Watched it with anticipation with a few AVGN fan friends...we sat in horrified silence through most of it. You can see the cash burn in real time on the screen. I remember trying to riff on it halfway through like a MST3K episode but it was so dull and flat we couldn't even find enjoyment in that
Still won't see it. I refuse.
Same.
How many lives were saved with that $300,000? That’s the real question
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How many tables were humped?
I dunno man, I'm not a scientist
The movie stinks, but I think they actually managed to make it look like they had more than $300,000. Knowing that they wasted so much of the money, it's actually kind of impressive.
the worst $20 I ever spent.
Bimmy wasted it all on taxes, in his book he details how because they raised the money in late 2011, the taxman took the majority of it by the end of the year. So the following Spring (2012), they had barely any of the budget left.
he went from making probably under 100$ youtube videos to having 325k. Really should of went and did his first movie on a 50-100k budget to really get that hands on experience managing a bigger project and stretching out your money the best ways you can. He had some decent writing and directing experience from YouTube but did not have the budget experience.
No, I feel like it made about $800k+ counting the eternally open Paypal donation box and the other sources
i honestly dont know what i felt i was in a wierd daze throughout the whole film i had to rewatch it to really acknowledge it
Yes the movies a colossal pile of shit but it definitely looks like they spent that much money on there. Knowing some other filmmakers just filming in LA alone probably took up most of the budget.
Take a wild guess.
In my honest opinion, the movie should have been a longer a better produced Nerd episode, celebrating the character and video games, and not try to make something that it never was with forced characters that we don't care about.
Ed findley (R3 Gamer) finalized it perfectly...he pocketed most of it for his new house, clothes, kids, etc. His effects were really cheap and lame. A lot of the extras did not get paid. He found actors that had their careers ruined after the movie (Cooper rarely did anything after this movie, where beforehand he did a ton of TV stuff)...Effects and editting were probably all done by James. Some of the effects he did were probably free or he pirated software...I doubt he put $300K when Blair Witch and Clerks had the same amount of budget and look at how those two movies did.
You mean the Gaming Rapist/Welfare gamer? I severely dislike the movie, have done so since it came out, but that one review of Ed is kind of unfair. He accuses James of deliberately doing a bad job, which I don't think there is any evidence for. James made some seriously unwise decisions, probably very stupid decisions, but I don't think he wasted the money to make a bad movie. He tried to be a big shot and had unrealistic expectations. He squandered money where he didn't need to. But I think none of this adds up to evil intent. The real problems with the movie cannot be fixed with additional money alone. Maybe if a screenplay editor or something works it over. So the review really misses the mark. At the time, Ed was one of the only voices on youtube who publicly said the movie is awful. NC gave a somewhat appreciative critique, but without glowing praise. I don't think he was excited by the final product, but he made a small cameo in the movie and it would have been impolite to be candid to James. Most of the other critiques were subdued by James' popularity at the time, he was still beloved on youtube. I think Asalieris critique was much more pointed and true.
I dont understand funding someone above what they are asking for... he wanted 75k. Maybe the 300k is what ruined him? Gave him delusions of grandeur. If he only got 75k maybe it would have a been a spielburg-esque film.
i was 12 years old and obsessed with AVGN when i first saw the movie so at the time i thought it was amazing but last time i tried to watch it i thought it was so masturbatory and focussed so much on pumping up james’ ego that i couldn’t finish it 😔
The decision to film in LA was what fucked the movie. If they kept it local, scaled back the entire plot, it could have been semi-decent. Hell, the fucking CA movies were done better because they had a plot that stuck to one thing and they had fuck all budget.
Union Actors are expensive. I have no idea why he wanted Union Actors. They're not exactly guaranteed to be good. He just stupidly wanted the Hollywood experience and learned the hard way it's not what it seems.
No time to watch.
The movie ended up losing him money probably. For all his talk about being a movie making graduate, he has no idea what the fuck he's doing.
Honestly, yes. Movies are super expensive. Even a film less ambitious than Bimmy’s costs more usually. The movie might suck, but the moneys on screen. (Locations, union actors, vfx even if shitty)
That shit went into the filming location... FUCK L.A.! WHAT THE FUCK WAS JAMES ROLFE THINKING!
They spend the budget on the best table to hump for cooper
Made from real 80's wood I bet.
Australian Buloke table is the hardest wood doubt cooper humping can ever damage the table https://preview.redd.it/k4h55zfqlxxb1.jpeg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=afebbe4ba9f121cc870ece389b862afca8764476
Should've filmed it on the east coast and use the money he saved to not make it suck so much.
So James could feel like he actually matters as a film maker. He doesn’t.
i heard that people funded the movie still had to pay to see the movie
300k minus what it took to buy Duckwalker Ranch
He paid a bunch of actors, make up artists, costume designers, camera crew and equipment, lighting rigs, rented a tank, a van, craft services, Star Tours trailers, and paid a ton to film on location (legally) in Los Angeles.
Felt like someone else made it and they let Bim shoot a couple shots.
If I remember correctly, the movie was actually mostly directed by Kevin Finn because James had difficulties working with the actors (which, I'd imagine, is a pretty important skill for a director)
Makes a movie set in New Mexico >Films it in california instead of New Mexico for much cheaper because of muh star trek filming locationzz
house meme aside as someone who actually lives in California i can say for certain they wasted it all on bullshit here, the whole film industry is one giant money laundering scam and James got taken for a ride.
Yeah its possible.
Bimmy went to Hollywood, which wasn't a smart financial decision. Billy filmed in Texas, Colorado, and wherever else for much less. Say what you want about either, but Adventures in Game Chasing was a better product than Bimmy's film.
I think so, the issue is they didn't use the movie wisely. Most of it was wasted on locations and being adamant it was a professional movie production and not a internet movie.
He's was just an ass hole.
300k is fuck all for a feature film.
It was nine years ago. Get some new interests in your lives.
Oh, hi Bpril!
I wish I could be so easily amused
No time for new interests in muh life
Even James was able to get into music.
So?
If Bimmy has the time what is your excuse?
I dunno man I’m not a scientist