Philip Sarnecki never imagined he would have anything to do with an illegal poker tournament run by an Amish farmer in rural Indiana.
Granted, the illegal tournament is pure fiction; it’s the central plot point of the recently released screwball comedy, Hitting the Nuts. But Sarnecki never imagined he would be involved in movies either. After all, this LAS alum graduated in political science from the University of Illinois in 1992 and spent over 20 years building his investment firm, insurance group, and employee-benefits company.
Sarnecki still operates as managing partner of his successful 250-person business, RPS Financial Group, Inc., in Overland Park, Kans. But for the past two years he has suddenly found himself in a whole new world, surrounded by improvisational comedians, film festival promoters, and screenwriters. Toto, he wasn’t in Kansas anymore.
His adventure started innocently enough when a friend suggested he consider investing in an entirely different business enterprise—movies. This friend recommended that Sarnecki meet with Joe Boyd, an improv actor and pastor of a large Cincinnati church, who was looking for investors in his new movie, a comedy called Hitting the Nuts.
“Originally, I wasn’t going to meet with him,” says Sarnecki. “I thought, ‘Investing in movies? You’ve got to be kidding! There’s no better way to throw your money away.’”
But Sarnecki agreed to see Boyd anyway, and he was impressed by his background as an actor in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Boyd had even worked with Second City, the acclaimed comedy group that produced a long line of Saturday Night Live icons.
Sarnecki was assured that the movie would be created with high production values and with solid comedic actors, drawn from Boyd’s comedy connections. But his decision to invest hinged on one thing: How likely was it that the film would find a distributor? So he put it to Boyd point-blank and asked, “In your heart of hearts, do you think this movie has a chance to make money? Will it get distributed?” Boyd convinced him that it would, especially with all of the interest in poker.
“I walk into Barnes & Noble, and they have nine different poker magazines,” Sarnecki says. “Then I turn on ESPN, and they’re showing poker, for crying out loud.”
So Sarnecki came on board as the executive producer of Hitting the Nuts, and his mother even joined the fun, landing a small part in the movie. She plays a woman who discovers, at her husband’s funeral, that he was married to a second woman. As a result, Sarnecki not only gets to see his mother act a little, but also fight.
The movie features an ensemble of oddballs who become embroiled in an illegal poker tournament in Scott County, Ind. It’s a documentary spoof—a “mockumentary” in the spirit of The Office and Christopher Guest movies, such as Best in Show and Waiting for Guffman.
As Sarnecki took his traditional business sense into the untraditional world of film, what shocked him was the number of people working on small, independent films. New, affordable digital cameras, such as the Red, can produce images comparable to traditional, highly expensive 35 mm film, and easy-to-use editing programs are accessible for filmmakers on a low budget.
“The technology today has lowered the cost of making films, and I had no idea,” he says. “A year and a half ago, if you had told me how many people were out there, all over the country, trying to make movies, I wouldn’t have believed it.”
The title Hitting the Nuts is a poker term that means you’re a sure winner. And although the movie wasn’t necessarily a guaranteed success when Sarnecki first heard about it, he says it appears that the movie will make money, a rare feat for any production, particularly a small, independent film.
Hitting the Nuts won the top prize in the only two film festivals it has entered so far—the Cincinnati Film Festival and the Derby City Film Festival in Louisville, Ky. The filmmakers also have had offers from interested distributors, but Sarnecki says they are not going to make any decisions until they find out if the movie is chosen for the Las Vegas Film Festival this July. The Vegas festival would carry the movie to the next level.
“I’ve been quite spoiled having this much success with my first investment in a movie,” says Sarnecki, who is already mulling over other movie options with Boyd. “People find out I’ve done this and suddenly I’m getting calls from all kinds of people trying to get me to invest in their movies. It’s an interesting world.”
