What happens in Vegas doesn’t stay there long if it’s a film by Mike Conway. Mike has been making independent films for over 20 years. In that time he’s created over 30 short films and is currently working on his fourth feature length film. His goal is for his Las Vegas based production company, Midnight Sun Entertainment, to become “something along the lines of a Cannon Films type studio that produces outside the Hollywood system.” From his experience, Mike knows about independent filmmaking from concept to exhibition and knows all about the challenges facing filmmakers today.

When asked what is the biggest challenge is for making a feature film, he’s quick to answer that time and money are the two main obstacles. “If you don’t have one, you’d better have the other!” he says and cites two of his most recent works as examples. His film The Awakening had a very small budget but they were able to film it over 43 days of shooting during an 8 month period. In contrast his newest film, Exile, had a straight 22 day shoot that was made possible by a significantly higher budget.

Surprisingly, Mike admits that having a bigger budget isn’t always a blessing. The investors were nervous about Exile’s character driven story. “They [the investors] insisted on a more traditional body count story. We parted ways, so my wife and I financed Exile, ourselves.” This isn’t always the case for Mike’s films but when his investors try to push extra “saleable” exploitation elements on his work it’s time to part ways. “If you are really lucky and can find someone who believes in you and the script, that's the ideal.”

Of course the challenges don’t end even after post-production. Once the film is done, it still has to be seen. Mike has learned to take advantage of the internet to help with that. “I'm finding out about the power of YouTube, forums and dedicated websites.” Forums allow readers to click links back to the film’s website, and trailers gain a lot of exposure through the web on sites like YouTube. Mike admits though that you obviously need some substance to what you’re hyping “your job will be 100 times easier, if you actually make a good movie. Better known sites and festivals aren't going to give awards to crap. They have a reputation to uphold”.

Getting a film noticed, even with the help of the internet, is not an easy task. One thing that helps is the originality of the product. “My movie, Exile, is going to be different than the 1,000 zombie flicks out there.”

Equally important when it comes time to find a distributor is the film’s production value. “Production value is huge, especially when buyers descend upon something like the American Film Market.” Mike speaks from experience. “They [the film buyers] look at the concept artwork and, if interested, will watch the movie in fast forward mode. If the production value (lighting, camera work, pretty actors) look professional, they will often make their offer.” This means that the elements that can be seen easily become very important to catching the distributor’s attention.

When making a film, Mike also considers how the film will be exhibited when he considers how to shoot it. “George Lucas and Robert Rodriguez shot several recent High Def movies and set the tone.” The choice of media also affects other areas. “If I'm shooting film, I'm going to shoot a minimal amount of footage, because it is so costly. However, film bias still exists with buyers, so it is a better sales bet.”

Mike feels that “technology-wise, this is an awesome time for the independent filmmaker” with all the different formats available independent filmmakers have more options available now than ever before. “Exile is my first HD video movie. I'm confident that the resolution of HD is good enough for the big screen, let alone any smaller format.”

While the “how you shoot it” is important, Mike knows where the real heart of the film is. “I believe in making something as dramatic as possible, but drama should be more than people talking. Give me some real conflict, with pizzazz!” In the end it is the quality of the film that matters to Mike. “Regardless of format, you should write the best script that you can”. If you do that and work hard, distribution will fall into place.