Finally some body has a good look inside the Multi-Level Marketing organisations using a Good Sense of Humour”

Behind the inexplicable enthusiasm and quasi-success stories of the fictional characters of BELIEVE, lies much more truth and actual experience than the uninitiated could possibly believe. And yet, as Loki Mulholland, the writer and director of BELIEVE puts it, he did three years of “undercover” research for the screenplay by becoming intimately involved with one of the most well-know multi-level marketing companies in the world.
“Almost everyone in America, if not the western world, has experienced multi-level marketing, whether they were directly involved as salespeople or it was Aunt Sally, Bob at church, or Nancy down the street trying to sell them some sort of lotion or potion,” says Loki Mulholland, writer and director of BELIEVE. “The inner-worlds of multi-level marketing companies are so surreal and filled with so many unique characters desperately seeking acceptance and success that it made for a perfect mockumentary subject.”
Ironically the inspiration for the film came from a song written by Mulholland years ago. “I wrote a song titled “Believe” with a catchy hook and inspirational lyrics with the goal in mind of selling it to a multi-level marketing company or a sports team to be used as a motivation tool,” said Mulholland. “I remembered the song and thought at first about making a documentary, which is my background, on network marketing. But after having had all sorts of unbelievable experiences with an MLM, I thought a “mockumentary” would allow me to compile all my ludicrous experiences into just a few central characters.”
Including all the undercover research, the screenplay for BELIEVE was developed over six years. Unlike other mockumentarians, Mulholland had his actors stick closely to their scripted parts since so many of the scenes and dialogues are based on actual experiences and conversations.
“We’ve shown this film to many people who have been deeply involved in various network marketing companies and without fail they say how accurate, in fact frighteningly so, we are in our treatment of the characters and events,” says Micah Merrill, producer. “In fact, audience members always remark that they know people exactly like BELIEVE’s characters from their own experiences with MLMs.”
BELIEVE turned out to be an incredibly challenging film for Mulholland as a first-time filmmaker. The film features over 67 speaking parts, 30 separate locations and even more sets, and a whole series of actual man-on-the-street interviews. “I must confess that I had no idea that a mockumentary is one of the most difficult film genres to execute well,” Mulholland said. “We put together a great cast and crew that worked incredibly hard with the screenplay.”

Check out the trailers for “Believe” here … make sure you turn the sound on!.

www.believethemovie.com

That music sounds so familiar.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 25th, 2006 at 11:03 pm by Lionfish and is filed under challenges for the church. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.