The IPG Welcomes 2025!

In this Issue:

1. Opening Words for 2025

2. Support & Join SSI and IPG Now

3. How To support SSI & IPG for Free

4. Thanks to SSI’s Early 2025 Sponsors

5. 2025 IPG Overview Prospective

1. The IPG Opening Words for 2025

Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. – John Wooden

To this, I will add: do what you can, when you can, without delay.

I encourage you to take the above quote from the legendary coach John Wooden, to heart. Follow his advice, and do it every day, and 2025 will be an amazing year for you.

 As creatives in an industry which is involved in dreams and wishes, it is easy for us to be discouraged by the many who pretend support for us, but who do not follow through. The many who treat your profession as a quaint hobby. It seems that there are myriad people who will pretend to support you, encourage you to commit to a path, then disappear the moment they might be called on to make good on their promises.

 I started my career(s) in music, then went into banking, then law, and finally arrived at film making. Over the decades, I have worked with many founders and visionaries from all walks of life, many different businesses. I am here to tell you that no industry is any different, in that people seldom follow through on their intentions to support you.

 Understand: as a filmmaker, you are an entrepreneur. You are one of the very few in society who takes charge and works to turn a vision into a material fact. to transform an idea into a product that people pay for.

 One of the challenges you face, that other entrepreneurs don’t necessarily face, is that most of the people you need to go to for funding, investment and other support, have the same mindset as the general public, which is that film is a “dream factory” and not an actual business. Many, if not most, industry people - at every level and function - exhibit this same attitude. They have the mindset of dabblers and hobbyists, by definition. They see themselves as being within a group of artists involved in labors of love, who don’t appreciate real business (even if they themselves should know better). They see themselves as associating, in other words, with amateurs. It is inescapable that they see themselves, therefore, as an amateur as well, and that they will often judge you accordingly. They will often treat you accordingly.

 But YOU are a professional. YOU know that, while you are engaged in artistic expression, you are doing it within the context of a very tough and very lucrative commercial industry. This does not make you better than those other people. But it makes you smarter about the industry. Recognize their amateur attitude, and you will be freed from any need you might once have felt for validation. You will be freed from reliance on their support as a supposed “insider.” You will begin to see them for what they are: some are good and serious business people whom you should consider working with, others are incapable, or worse, and should be avoided.

More importantly, you will begin to see yourself for what you are: a professional with a professional industry. You will understand that the film “community” is not necessarily the film “industry” and that the film industry is not something you must break into. You will realize you are already here. It is YOUR industry and you have a say not only in what your project should be like, but how the industry should be.

 In 2025, the IPG will be taking the next steps to help it’s members take full control of their careers and their industry. I invite you to join me in the IPG and in SSI, and make your mark on your industry. There will be a lot to do in the coming year. Some of it will be discussed at our Virtual Open House the week of January 13, 2025. Register for the link to attend, free, at stagescreen.org. The agenda will be published later this week. We want to see you, and hear from you, there.

 Meantime, do something daily to advance your career. Do not even think about what you cannot do. Focus on what you can do, today.

•  Start or finish your script TODAY.

• Contact that potential funder TODAY.

• Work out your film budget TODAY.

• Call your potential sponsor, look at that possible location, start casting, TODAY.

• Someone said yes, then disappeared on you? Look for another resource TODAY.

 Thinking about what you cannot do is pointless. It wastes your time. It creates depression. When you do something today, you prove your worth to yourself and others. You prove that something can be done. What you cannot do is irrelevant. What you can do will lead to final success.

 2025 will be an amazing year for the IPG and its sister organization Stage And Screen Innovations. It will be an amazing year for YOU.

 2. Support SSI or Join the IPG TODAY!

I have say it here, given the words above: If you have been planning to support SSI or join the IPG, do it TODAY.

Support today is always more important than future support. Involvement today is always more helpful than at some future time. At the IPG, we will do what we can do, every day. We can always do more with your support in time or finance, no matter how small, than your well wishes, which are always appreciated (Remember: donations to SSI are tax-deductible).

 3. How to support SSI and IPG for free

• Volunteer your time - a couple hours a week online is worth a lot.

• Spread the word - tell others directly about the IPG and SSI, our open house and our programs.

• JOIN our YouTube channel: @StageAndScreenInnovations - we have just created this channel and will begin posting in late January. Subscribe to the channel and help us grow!

• JOIN us on Instagram - SSI is @stagescreeninnovation and the IPG is @independentproducers

• Repost, Like, Commenty, Share our social media and YouTube posts, mention us and repost, or put links to our initiatives in your own social media.

• Donate your unwanted items - SSI and IPG can use certain items, and your donation might even qualify for a tex-deductible receipt (tax rules apply)

• Organize a fundraiser or event

• Have an idea to bounce off us - reach out and let’s talk about it!

4. Thanks To SSI’s Early 2025 Sponsors

Under the leadership and hard work of Artistic Director Diamond Monique Washington IPG, Stage And Screen Innovations has come from an idea in January 2024, to bringing on its first aspiring producers through the new PUNC program. It has also refined and structured the nascent Virtual Theatrical format and planned the first slate of VT productions! SSI has already attracted important corporate sponsorship. Here we acknowledge the valuable support beginning in 2025 of: Google/YouTube, Monday.com, Buffer.com, Givebutter.com, and Goodstack.com. These are just the start of our corporate sponsorship!

5. 2025 IPG / SSI Overview Prospective

1. We will move from Beehiiv as a newsletter platform to KIT in January, 2025

2. Virtual Open House - the week of January 13, 2025. Sign up for free at stagescreen.org.

3. IPG Member Referral Program starts in February 2025 - promoting IPG members services.

4. PUNC Program begins first seminars and workshops, expands with sponsors and industry partners

5. IPG sponsored & created seminars and workshops, aimed at independent producers, begin

6. IPG Members Handbook - expanded resources with contract templates, checklists, updated procedures, best practices, etc., to be disseminated to the film industry at large.

7. FilmPods launch - the first operative iteration of the FilmPod paradigm which will help independent producers get to a global audience without paying industry gatekeepers or parasitic middle actors (ie. any party who does not add to your bottom line)

8. Film funding program starts, in association with FilmPods

9. Website updates for independentproducersguild.org, stagescreen.org, virtualtheatrical.com are always ongoing

10. IPG member services structured to begin late 2025 - for discounts on insurance, rentals, P&H plans for IPG members, et al.

 Want to join the IPG or get involved in any way with the Guild or SSI? Contact Shadow Dragu-Mihai at [email protected]