If you won the lottery, would you do this?

From TheWrap:

If Megan Ellison shows what a very, very rich person with a yen for moviemaking can do, Cynthia Stafford is determined to show what a “a mini-mogul” who got her funding from a big lottery win, can do.

In the last few months, as Ellison, daughter of billionaire Larry Ellison, has counted the profits and losses from such high-profile films as Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The Master” and John Hillcoat’s “Lawless,” Stafford has seen three of her own films come to the market.

With a smaller fund and less experience in the business, the former single mother of five from Hawthorne, Calif., has backed indies that haven’t made much of a mark on the critics or at the box office. But she’s enjoying the ride, Stafford told TheWrap.

“I love stories, and I love to see how people view the world,” she said. “I remember watching movies at home with my dad and saying, ‘What if we did this? If we had the money, could we?’ And I would always say, ‘Yeah, we will one day.’

Here three movies thus far: The Brass Teapot, Polish Bar, and Holla II. Not exactly a winning slate of movies, but it’s a learning curve, right?

How much did Stafford win in the lottery? Over $30M.

If you won $30M, would you become a Hollywood producer-financier? If so, what business strategy would you take?

I know what I’d do. I’d recruit talented filmmakers who had great micro-budget story concepts (I would cap production budgets at $100K), take each of them through The Quest so they’d be grounded in character-based storytelling, end up with a slate of strong scripts, set the filmmakers off to make their movies, and hope one of them would make enough money to cover the costs of all the others. If just one struck nominal gold, do the whole damn thing again.

Meanwhile I’d use the community we’ve created through GITS and The Black Board to set up some sort of online self-distribution network, plus same day iTunes and DVD releases. All user supported marketing [one-sheets, DVD cover art], music [original songs], just like Edward Burns.

How about an annual online Quest microbudget film festival?

Anyway that’s what I’d do with $30M. Heck, $5M would work. Try to open as many doors as possible for talented screenwriters and filmmakers outside the Hollywood system.

New Voices. More Choices.

Hey, there’s the slogan!

How about you?

For more of TheWrap article, go here.

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