Fwd: Budget discussion and sincere regrets for this evening

Begin forwarded message:

From: Lisa Troland <
Subject: Fwd: Budget discussion and sincere regrets for this evening
Date: January 20, 2017 at 4:21:12 PM EST
To: Jeffrey Epstein <

Lisa, please send this to Jeffrey Epstein's office as soon as you can along with our sincere regrets that we just can't join him this evening, unfortunately, but will ask for a rain check, as soon as we can all get together.

Jeffrey --

Thanks for your interest in the Dick Cavett episode of American Masters. I know I'm prejudiced, but I believe my husband is a genius who deserves special recognition for his impact on the cultural history of the U.S. during his decades of tv work, moviemaking, and writing. His brain should be studied by scientists but quick, before it's available to them, we should encapsulate this history. American Masters is the best way to do this. Of course, I can't say any of this to the producers, so this will be our little secret.

Your interest has gone a long way toward helping us make progress on this, because in the last few weeks, I've learned a lot about funding, and about production for American Masters. I have spoken with three potential producers. I have an appointment next week with Michael Cantor, who leads the American Masters series, and who has expressed interest in producing the "Dick Cavett" episode. Technically, the donors and subject (in other words, you and Cavett — or me) cannot have any influence on the film itself, to protect the integrity of the "documentary" process, even though of course we can be advocates. We also believe this can be done at a very high production level for lower cost than might be the case for two reasons: (1) We have reason to believe we can direct all the budget directly to producing the show, and none of it to general PBS funding coffers, and (2) We own all the shows and have knowledge about them that makes working with them efficient.

Here's where we are:

The American Masters episodes are production dependent for budget, of course. Some episodes (e.g. Johnny Carson) cost about $1,000,000 in production, thanks to estate ownerships, music licensing, and PBS taking an "overhead" charge. In my recent research, the highest number I heard was $1.4 million for "Bing Crosby." Others (e.g. Willa Cather) have cost about $250,000 because they are primarily about a few interviews, basic writing, a voice over and simple video of photos and papers, with little to no PBS markup.

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Here's what we envision for The Dick Cavett episode:

We already have spent a ton of money collecting, salvaging, restoring, digitizing, and annotating over 1800 programs from ABC, PBS, and CNBC. The legal work on ownership is finished. The Writers Guild, the music licensing, etc. has all been paid. Although we currently charge about $9,000/minute in licensing fees for use of show clips, which will not recoup the costs of the archival work in our lifetime, we can release the use of any and all footage to this special project because the producer (PBS) is a non-profit organization. But we can't just give it gratis (although we'd certainly be willing to) because that contribution would constitute a violation of the separation of subject and donor. So we will have to charge a little — how little we can get away with has yet to be determined, but we will likely need 45-ish minutes of clips in a 90-minute show, and the production budget must allow for a person or crew to sift through MANY hours of shows to set up the story; fortunately our annotation makes that efficient.

Additionally, we will need

• Researching and writing the script

⚫ Directing

• Production interviews (with camera/audio/etc.), with 8-10 people such as Woody Allen, Alec Baldwin, Stephen Colbert, Eddie Murphy, Whoopi Goldberg, the author of The Late Shift, Jimmy Fallon, Steve Cohen, DC's NYTimes editor, etc. Although we would not be offering pay to any of the interviewees, we may need to cover some travel expenses, green room, make up etc. for folks of this caliber.

• Voice Over work. Alec Baldwin has already offered to do this gratis.

• Interviews with Cavett, which should be done on location in Nebraska, at Yale, in New York City, and in Tick Hall at Montauk. Even a lean production crew will carry expenses.

• Editing

⚫ Post-production

So, we keep coming back to approximately $500,000 (and possibly more, but a little bird tells me Michael Cantor can get that, maybe). We are thrilled and delighted that someone you know may want to support this effort. And if that support can only come at half that level (250K), we are still thrilled and delighted. The first money in is the hardest, and once we have that, PBS is likely to find the rest of the support, the way they do. (And maybe we can donate the clip footage for a really low price.) I'm told that this is about as far as we can go on budget specifics until PBS officially decides to produce this, and a director is named (We are leaning toward Stephen Ives, Insignia Films, as Director, with Robert Bader as Executive Producer).

Is this enough information to take to your potential donor? Woody's made a lot of movies, and should be able to confirm these projected costs. Let us know what else you need from us.

Yours, etc. Martha Rogers (Mrs. Dick)

Martha Rogers, Ph.D. Founder, Trustability Metrix (Trustability Group LLC) Founder Emerita, Peppers and Rogers Group Chairman of the Board, Suite CX Co-founder, CX Speakers Co-Author, Extreme Trust, 2016 and eight additional business books, all best sellers Co-Author, Managing Customer Experience and Relationships, 3rd edition, 2017 Adjunct Professor, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University Phone 212.737.2820 Executive Assistant Lisa Troland

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