Complaint Review: Moving Pictures Medias Group - CA Los angeles

We wish we had never met MPMG or any of these people.  Several years ago, someone referred me to Ray Ellingsen.  Through him, my partners and I met with Ray, and Rene Leda, regarding help with securing funding for our project.  

Ray and Rene convinced us they could absolutely get funding for our project, and told us how commercially viable it was.  We spent a sizeable amount of money on the pitch materials they said they needed which included a script breakdown and budget, power point, analytic package with Film Profit, and much more. 

When we met, they told us they should have funding within 6 months, a year at most.  That was well over 5 years ago now.  In that time, NOTHING has happened, and they've basically disappeared.    

After we spent tens of thousands of dollars, Ray claimed he needed more funding for "other things" and when we declined, as we had given him everything he had already requested, that was the last we heard from him.  Ray and Rene rarely returned calls, if ever.   Every so often we'd catch one of them on the phone.  Ray claimed he had "quit the business, but was going to do our film and a couple of his own" 

Shortly thereafter, I saw a post on a fimmakers formum asking about MPMG and when I reached out, they said they had spoken to Ray, and he was absolutely still seeking projects.  In other words, he lied to us.

Ray claimed his "funding sources have dried up" but he could help us get a small business loan.. not what we had ever signed up for, nor agreed to. 

Ray even had the audacity to ask us for a referral for his website.  We said we'd be happy to once funding was secured for our project. 

Rene was supposed to be pitching the project around town.  We could never get any viable meetings set up with us, and he never gave us a list of where it was supposedly pitched, even though we repeatedly asked. 

When we complained to Ray, he agreed with us and claimed he thought he might have to "split" with Rene... that never happened, Rene is still with the "company". 

When we persued other avenues for funding, we discovered the following:

The budget we paid Ray to have done was completely useless.  A professional UPM looked at our budget and commented that whomever had done it, obviously had not been working in the industry for at least a decade or more because they referred to equipment that was no longer in use.  Certain line items were way over what they should have been (like producers fees) and other areas were completely missing.  In other words, our budget that we paid for, was useless.   

The "analytics package" was repeatedly rejected, and no one we spoke to had even heard of "Film Profit" or Jeff Hardy.

Other things we've noticed in following the company.  

The company staff constantly rotates.. at one point Ray's girlfriend was part of it, until they stopped dating.  Another woman came and went as well.  Ray, Rene, and a few others seem to be the consistent players.   

There's no company address.   At one point there was, but it disappeared from their webiste. 

We believe it was likely just a PO box somewhere in LA.  We also believe the "company" is really just a bunch of people who are scamming others and making money off of "investment packages" that usually go nowhere.  

The "movies we worked on" on their website is completely misleading.  They didn't FUND the majority of those films.  The "players" in MPMG may have worked on those projects in SOME CAPACITY... meaning, if one of them was a sound composer, set PA, or even an extra on a film, that film got listed as a "credit".  But in most cases, they had little or nothing to do with the funding or producing of those major films.   

We would never do business with MPMG, or anyone associated with it.  We are out tens of thousands of dollars, wasted over 5 years with their BS, and MPMG appears to be pulling the same old "film financing scam" that is rampant in LA.  

I hope Ray, Rene, and the rest of them go to jail for fraud, because we believe that's what MPMG is.