Case #13:Bigfoot's Motivation

CASE #13: BIGFOOT’S MOTIVATION Bigfoot Entertainment, distributor of such large soundstages, fully equipped editing suites and diverse films as Midnight Movie (a horror flick) and 3 sound-mixing studios, and the latest in high-tech Needles (about the worldwide AIDS crisis), was cameras and other equipment. Gleissner’s goal is to founded by German serial entrepreneur Michael turn Cebu into a destination of choice for filmmakers Gleissner. Gleissner is in some ways a model for the who want to cut costs by shooting and finishing sort of creative and motivated people that Bigfoot likes movies outside the United States, and when Bigfoot to back. He was certainly the model for the hero of Hui Entertainment finds a film suitable for financing and Lu, a 2007 Bigfoot film that Gleissner wrote and development, the deal usually requires the director to directed about a highly successful young entrepreneur do some production work at the Cebu facility. By the who sells his company but finds himself pushed to the time the studio opened, the Philippines was already an edge despite his millions. “What was I going to do,” attractive location for animators looking for cheap Gleissner replied when asked about his unusual career post-production help, but the pool of talent available move, “buy more boats, buy more houses? I for work on live-action films was quite limited. discovered there’s a creative side in me.” Indeed, Gleissner’s solution? He founded the International Gleissner is personally motivated by a variety of Academy of Film and Television (IAFT), not only to different things. staff Bigfoot Studios but to train what executive director Keith Sensing calls “the next generation of Gleissner was an e-commerce pioneer in global filmmakers.” IAFT, says Sensing, looks for Germany, where he founded Telebook, Germany’s creative people who “have a desire for adventure” and number-one online bookstore, and WWW.Service “an education that will set them apart from people who GmbH, the country’s first, and one of its most have a strictly Hollywood background.” They also successful, Web-hosting companies. He eventually want hardworking, dedicated, and highly motivated sold Telebook to Amazon.com, where he served two students. years as a VP before cashing in and moving to Asia as a base for a new round of entrepreneurial activities in IAFT enrollment is currently 60 percent 2001. When he bought Bigfoot, it was an e-mail international and 40 percent Filipino, but “all of our management firm, but Gleissner quickly recreated it as students,” says Sensing, “have the opportunity to an international entertainment company whose main participate in real projects going on at Bigfoot business, according to its mission statement, is Studios.... Many IAFT graduates,” he adds, “have producing and financing “innovative entertainment gone on to write, produce, and direct their own films” content, including independent feature films, and often follow in Bigfoot’s steps by finding television series, and reality shows.” As head of distribution for their independent features on the Bigfoot, Gleissner served as executive producer on international festival circuit. Three recent graduates Midnight Movie and 3 Needles, as well as on Irreversi, landed jobs on Gleissner’s most recent project, a his second effort at writing and directing, and on Philippinesset thriller revolving around a female diver. Shanghai Kiss, in which he also tried his hand at Gleissner not only co-wrote and directed Deep Gold acting. but drew on his experience as an underwater photographer to shoot key scenes in Bigfoot’s Bigfoot maintains offices in Los Angeles and specially designed, 170,000-gallon Underwater a small production facility in Venice, California, but Studio. the centerpiece of its operations is Bigfoot Studios, which opened in 2004 on the island of Mactan, in In order to bolster its ability to get its films into Cebu, home to the second-largest city in the theaters (most of the company’s features have gone Philippines. The stateof-the-art facility features six straight to DVD or were sold to cable TV), Bigfoot has CASE #13: BIGFOOT’S MOTIVATION also become the largest shareholder in Carmike CASE QUESTIONS Cinemas, the fourth-largest theater chain in the United 1. What factors motivate Michael Gleissner? How has States. It also purchased the historic Majestic Crest that motivation factored into his decision making? Theater in Los Angeles. The acquisition, says Andrews, goes hand in hand with Bigfoot’s purchase 2. What factors motivate people to seek employment of Ascendant: “We wanted a great theater to showcase at Bigfoot or to enroll in IAFT? our films—not only ones we produce but ones we plan to acquire. Everyone knows the Crest,” she adds. “It 3. Compare and contrast how Orpheus, Bigfoot gives us a lot of prestige.” Studios, and IAFT motivate people. .

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