Dinner With Dames San Francisco #5 – With Michele Turnure-Salleo (Recap)

Dinner with Dames Case File

Who: Michele Turnure-Salleo co-founder, Principal/Producer at Feracious Entertainment and an Executive Producer for the Feracious One Film Fund. Turnure-Salleo was also the founder of the San Francisco Film Society’s Filmmaker360 (now SFFILM) where she provided more than $5 million in funding to incubate and support innovative and exceptional filmmakers and films, including Sorry to Bother You, Songs My Brothers Taught Me, Fruitvale Station, and Beasts of the Southern Wild. Two new Feracious Entertainment films, The Sound of Silence and Before You Know It, will have their world premieres in US Competition at Sundance Film Festival 2019.

The event was hosted by Cinefemme Dames SF Program Directors Cameo Wood and Monica West, and sponsored by Wood’s Charming Stranger Films. The event was held at SFFILM FilmHouse, a venue Turnure-Salleo helped design. Attendees included Chelsea Christer, Ryan Lynch, Maria Mealla, Arie Sandhu, Liz Anderson, Liz McBee, Sheena Miraftabi, Steffany Ramirez and myself, Catherine Craig.

What: The dinner meeting was a detailed discussion on film financing, how to assess our needs as filmmakers and present our projects to interested parties.

When: Monday, November 5, 2018

Why: To further develop the burgeoning talent of the Cinefemme members in the Bay Area.

I was excited to attend the dinner and re-connect with award-winning producer and founder of Feracious One Film Fund, Michele Turnure-Salleo. I first met Michele when my film project Suspended Belief was a finalist in the SFFS/Rainin Grant program.  I wanted to learn about Feracious Entertainment and, I looked forward to telling her Suspended Belief was accepted into 2018 The Writers Lab sponsored by Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman.

Our evening began with champagne, delicious bites provided by SF caterer PotLiquor and a round table discussion on film financing. We talked about the differences between working with private investors vs. a fund. Through the experience of filmmakers at the table we learned that a positive aspect of working with private investors is that they may seek a lesser premium than a film fund. A negative aspect is that they may want to have a creative influence over your film. In the case of Michele’s fund, Feracious One, private investors do not control a filmmaker’s creative vision. We talked further about the films Michele is interested in investing in: high quality lower budget films in a variety of genres. Michele also took the time to give advice to documentary filmmaker Arie Sandhu who is currently seeking finishing funds.

Michele has a gift for teaching filmmakers how to best represent themselves and their projects. While we enjoyed crispy fried chicken and veggie pot pies, Michele gave us some clear cut ways to do just that. We started with pitching and worked our way though writing great bios, synopses and creating look-books.

As a filmmaker, whether you’re talking about your project over coffee or presenting it in a written pitch, Michele suggests using this simple structure: state the name of your project, what it is (doc/narrative/short), and then give a brief synopsis (around 350 words). Something like, “My project, Suspended Belief is a narrative feature about…”

As for the synopsis, Michele recommends omitting any exposition and situational language and to instead jump right into the story through your characters with a beginning, middle, and an end that leaves the reader hanging.

When we talked about bios, Michele let us know that the overall goal is to create a picture of who you are as an artist and to intrigue the reader to want to know more about your project. She suggests starting with the big picture of what you do to situate yourself in the reader’s mind. For example, “Catherine has over 30 years of experience working in film as an FX camera woman…” The next important element is your greatest achievement (no matter when it happened in your career.) It was refreshing to hear her say that your bio doesn’t have to be chronological! Michele also suggested to include something unique about your life as it’s connected to your work – perhaps an interesting former career – and to finish the bio with your education.

Over delicate lemon chiffon desserts, Michele gave us some great advice about look-books as well. I found it really helpful to know that she prefers them to be online — and concise at about seven pages — with a simple but evocative design. Regarding comps, Michele suggests including them for tone rather than budget, and to choose comps that are well known, so as not to alienate a reader who may not have seen an obscure film.

Before the evening’s end, Michele took time to focus her attention on each filmmaker at the table. She helped each woman identify her needs to move her project forward and encouraged us to say what we need out loud. For instance, in my next steps on Suspended Belief I am looking for allies in the form of a producer and investors.

Michele is a generous mentor and an indie producer at the top of her game. I found Michele Turnure-Salleo’s Dinner with Dames one of the most beneficial programs I’ve attended in my many years as a filmmaker.

Footage and Photography by Deana Mitchell / Editing by Veronica Moscoso

About Catherine Craig

Catherine Craig has over 30 years experience working in film. She was the first FX camerawoman hired by George Lucas’s Industrial Light and Magic. She has over 30 major film credits, working for ILM, Francis Coppola, and Phil Tippet. Her screenplay, Suspended Belief was one of twelve selected from an international pool for the Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, NYWIF, Tribeca sponsored 2018 Writers Lab.