Nichelle Nichols Comedy Thriller Lady Magdalene's Pioneers New Indie Film Distribution Model
Submitted by: The J. Neil Schulman Living Trust
2011-11-06 00:00:47
The triple-film-festival-award-winning suspense comedy, Lady Magdalene's, starring the original Star Trek's Lt. Uhura, Nichelle Nichols, has just been released for free viewing on both YouTube and broadcast television, including an up-front infomercial by the nutritional supplement company, Life Enhancement Products. The strategic business alliance between Life Enhancement Products and the independent film company, Jesulu Productions, demonstrates a new distribution model for independent films, whereby the new revenue stream created by the movie's sponsored distribution is shared with a film's producer, repaying movie investors for the costs of production.
(OPENPRESS) November 6, 2011 -- This business model for sponsored independent film distribution was conceived by Lady Magdalene's writer/producer/director, J. Neil Schulman, also an award-winning novelist and journalist, who in the 1980's and 1990's founded and operated two eBook publishing companies, SoftServ Publishing and Pulpless.Com, which were the first companies to make books by bestselling authors available for download to personal computers, first as SoftServ in 1990 via the General Electric Network for Information Exchance (GEnie), then beginning in 1995 from the world wide web as Pulpless.Com.
In this suspense comedy, Lady Magdalene's, Nichelle Nichols plays Lady Magdalene, the colorful and determined madam of a legal Nevada brothel — relocated from New Orleans after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita — and in tax default to the IRS. However the talented but disgraced federal agent, Jack Goldwater (Ethan Keogh), sent as the federal receiver to manage the brothel, soon uncovers evidence that Lady Magdalene's is being used by al-Qaeda operatives as a meetup for a plot leading to the tunnels under Hoover Dam. But Agent Goldwater and a female federal agent he soon meets up with (Susan Smythe) can't figure out what al-Qaeda is really doing until they seek help from Lady Magdalene and the working women at the brothel.
Lady Magdalene's: Free Web Edition was released on YouTube as a single high-definition video, available for web streaming or download, on October 22, 2011; and on Halloween, October 31, 2011, Lady Magdalene's had its world television premiere on KPVM TV, Pahrump, Nevada, the town in which most of the movie's principal photography was shot, using both familiar locations and many locals in the cast. The movie broadcast was preceded by the thirty-minute Lady Magdalene's KPVM TV Halloween 2011 Premiere Pre-Show (also available on YouTube), hosted by cast member Mara Marini ("Nurse Gretchen"), and featuring interviews with star Nichelle Nichols, writer/director J. Neil Schulman, cast-member Mark Gilvary (who plays two different roles in the movie), and features on Pahrump local actors who were selected from a local casting call.
A second thirty-minute video,Lady Magdalene's Pre-Show, intended for TV broadcasts elsewhere, is also available for viewing on YouTube.
Lady Magdalene's has won three film-festival awards: "Best Cutting Edge Film" after its premiere at the 2008 San Diego Black Film Festival; " Audience Choice" at the 2008 Cinema City International Film Festival shown on the Citywalk adjacent to Universal Studios Hollywood; and, most recently, "Special Jury Prize for Libertarian Ideals" at FreedomFest's Anthem Film Festival at Bally's Las Vegas in July 2011.
Life Enhancement Products is the exclusive distributor of the nutritional supplement formulations of New York Times bestselling authors, Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw, and the infomercial seen in both the movie and the pre-show features Mara Marini interviewing founder, president, CEO, and editor of Life Enhancement Magazine, Will Block.
J. Neil Schulman and Will Block have been friends since they met at a New York libertarian meeting in 1972. Block was the videographer at Schulman's 1985 wedding to Schulman's ex-wife, singer/songwriter, Kate O'Neal, two of whose songs are featured on the soundtrack of Lady Magdalene's.
