I feel it is important to report another dream crusher and abuser of filmmakers' and screenwriters' hopes and dreams and exploiting their naivity with promises of potential funding, in the process wasting their money and time.
I ran across a fellow on myspace in the film forum under the name Ovation Financial Group. This fellow who after further investigation I learned goes by the name of Dennis, encourages and invites filmmakers to submit their screenplays and contact details for reviewing and funding by his company Ovation Financial Group.
I'm an independent filmmaker who had written a screenplay I had worked 5 years on, and Dennis had me (and I later learned other screenwriters and filmmakers) submit our work to him so he can review it and fund the projects he deemed appropriate.
Independent filmmakers and screenwriters have very limited money and resources, and we do not take kindly to people wasting that by making us put together presentation packages only to find out they had no intention to review it seriously and then storing our information for advertising and other purposes.
After weeks of submitting my screenplay and not getting any response, I had trouble getting Dennis to respond to my emails. And after more months, I realised I must have been duped and moved on.
That is until a thread appeared on the myspace film forum entitled Ovation Financial Group a scam. Within minutes, many other writers and filmmakers posted that they had bit their tongues long enough, and that they were very unhappy with "Ovation Financial Group"'s unprofessional manner and lack of response to their submissions and demanded an explanation.
It is then that Dennis, in a rather agressive and emotional manner, did a complete turnaround and posted a false statement that he never said anything about providing services to us and that his company does not provide "ANY" services to independent filmmakers and screenwriters. When confronted by people who provided him with submissions who were agitated by this, he did acknowlege that he had received the submissions, provided no reason for not having responded to them until now, and then in an agitated manner promised to send letters of rejection to the people who submitted their projects to him (and telling some that they can do something rather tasteless with their scripts).
When asked about his past credits of films he had financed, he evaded the question and could not name any.
But in a forum post he made a few days later, he pretended to be reviewing scripts and posted, "... I'm not going to finance any of them. Do you know why? - Stupid characters!.." He then went on about how stupid the characters and stories are that have been written about in the scripts that were submitted to him.
Another filmmaker who's a regular visitor to the forum and expressed unhappiness with Ovation's service (thereby making himself a victim of Dennis' rage), also claimed that Dennis had used the confidential information and contact details he submitted to "Ovation Financial Group", to later defame him and slander his film projects. This is true - I have seen repeated posts by Dennis referring directly to web pages of this guy's project, calling the guy by name and providing his address and phone number and adding derogatory comments, remarking that the project is "filmed incredibly shitty" and that the filmmaker is a criminal etc.
This scared me a great deal to know my proposed project is in the hands of a person with no intentions for it of anything good, and that he had harvested my personal contact details and addresses.
He has since deleted his myspace account, and thereby posts he made under that name has also disappeared. He is however back under a new account, and copies articles from the film trade magazines to give the impression of professionalism and gain trust among internet surfers.
I therefore just want to warn filmmakers and screenwriters not to fall victim to Dennis or "Ovation Financial Group", providing details of yourself and your project that he may use for his own agendas, and wasting your money and time waiting for a response from someone who has no intention of taking your submissions seriously or responding at all, or providing any funding as he claims he's harvesting your submissions for.
My project's ideal window of opportunity now has expired, thanks a great deal to having been lured into waiting too long for potential funding that was bogus by a scammer with a fake air of professionalism.
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