A YEAR WITHOUT RENT, PART SIX

By Lucas McNelly

I wasn’t supposed to go to Europe. You can’t really drive there (unless you’re the Muppets) and flights across the pond are expensive, but when a production comes calling, I listen. This one made it easy, asking would I come to the UK if they covered the plane ticket?

A no-brainer.

Which is how I ended up in Newcastle upon Tyne, a small city near Scotland, serving as gaffer in a country where I have absolutely no idea how the electricity works. And when I ask how much I can put into a circuit, I’m told that, well, that depends on the wiring. In other words, no one knows. My solution? Start plugging stuff in until the circuit trips, unplug the last one, and see how much is left. There’s the answer.

The United Kingdom (England?) is only my second non-US country on A Year Without Rent, but one thing that seems to be evident is that the American DIY mentality, the one that says “fuck y’all, we’re making this movie whether you like it or not”, isn’t nearly as prevalent as it is in the States. Oh sure, it’s there, but it’s on a delay. There’s no Gregory Bayne overseas (hell, there’s only a handful in the U.S.). Or if there is, I haven’t heard about him, which might be all the proof you need.

Follow me on a tangent. I’ll get back to my trip to Europe in a minute. Honest.

It’s been a couple of years since indie filmmakers in the U.S. could rely on studios or the festival system or pretty much anyone to take care of them. Oh sure, Sundance used to create careers more or less out of thin air, but anyone who’s been paying attention knows those days are long gone. Kevin Smith said recently that CLERKS probably wouldn’t get into Sundance if he made it now. I’ll go further: he probably wouldn’t even bother submitting it, and if he did, I doubt it’d get much serious consideration.

Every month, more indie filmmakers come to the conclusion that no one’s going to … Read the rest

THE MICROBUDGET CONVERSATION: SOCIAL CHANGE

By John Yost

In keeping with a bit of our theme from last week we tackle the subject of using our films to make a larger audience aware of a subject or group, and in turn gain a network of people we would have never come in contact with. If crowdsourcing is a way to gain a new following and engage an audience in the filmmaking process, then social change can do the same thing, but also give back to a community or group in more ways than just one narrative film can. It can also serve to engage a larger network in a very specific community need or cause. This was the very idea that had Marty Lang so excited, and me so intrigued. I was curious how micro-budget films could spark such awareness. I now realize not only is it possible, but almost necessary if we are to grow as a grassroots film community and human community.

When I went to DIY Days in New York this spring, I heard a great talk by Brian Newman called “Reclaiming DIY.” Newman argued that art, and especially film, used to be a strong part of the cultural conversation, and needs to become strong again. He reminded us that both art and revolution help people see that the future doesn’t have to be as the present appears. He also said that with the birth of social media, crowdfunding and transmedia, feature films now have an opportunity to reclaim the mantle of social justice from documentaries.

It’s an interesting idea, that one type of storytelling has dominance over another when it comes to advocacy. So that got me thinking about microbudget filmmaking, and how we could be a part of this reclamation. After talking with some of my friends, it turns out we can be a pretty big part. By adopting a cause to fight for alongside our work, we can help feature films to be as socially relevant (or more) as documentaries, and can also harness resources to assist us in every phase of our filmmaking.

BUILDING AN AUDIENCE

Adopting a cause for your … Read the rest

THE MICROBUDGET CONVERSATION: CROWDSOURCE…NOT OUTSOURCE

By John Yost

I first met Jesse Borkowski back at RIT in 2002, and we became fast friends. His interest in experimental filmmaking mirrored my own, and soon we were the dynamic duo of cinematographer and assistant on over ten short films. Our verbal short hand and similar visual language made it easy for us to work together, but it wasn’t until now that we’ve collaborated on a project as co-directors; It was bound to happen. The film I’m referring to is Engram. This “epic” micro budget is an experiment in many things, one of those things being crowdsourcing. My last few attempts at crowdfunding have been met with mixed reviews, and I’ve always wondered how to reach a larger audience. Jesse himself has an MBA and a BFA, which in my opinion makes him a micro-budget force to be reckoned with. When I asked him to write for the column he had but one thing on his mind…the best use of crowdsourced material and how that can build a network.

The MicroBudget Conversation: Crowdsourcing

My take on utilizing crowdsourcing with regards to micro-budget filmmaking is not about how to use it as a business model to reduce production costs and save money. To me, that falls under outsourcing. Instead, I am interested in exploring how crowdsourcing can be used to create opportunities for audience participation and how the power of the crowd might be leveraged to bring more diversity and collaboration into the filmmaking process.

Engram: Crowdsourcing Memories

Engram is an alternative-narrative, micro-budget, sci-fi epic that explores human emotion through a combination of both fictional and documentary storytelling. The film takes place in the post-Future and focuses largely on the discovery of the Engram 2000, a satellite that contains recorded emotions and memories from all of humanity.

In the film, the Engram 2000 serves as the holy grail of emotional content, and for the storyline we need this satellite to contain dozens of on-board memories for our main character to experience. However, as we began developing the script and structuring the film, we decided not to write the memories ourselves. … Read the rest

IS AMAZON STUDIOS A THREAT? JIM MCKAY AND I DISCUSS

By Scott Macaulay

After posting last week about the new Amazon Studios, director Jim McKay and I have had an email discussion about this new crowdsourced development entity. There’s been much criticism — from me but many others around the web — of the minimal protections given writers, who grant Amazon an 18-month free option and the right to have the tech giant’s online community give input to and even rewrite their original work. (Read my earlier post here.) Jim isn’t as alarmist as some about the new venture; his take is rather nuanced. Here’s our conversation, reprinted with permission.

McKay: I liked your article on Amazon Studios. My two cents: it seems to me like what they’re doing pretty clearly isn’t for or focused on the community of filmmakers as we know it. They’re looking for the next “double rainbow” guy or the next Blair Witch idea so they can exploit it, which is kind of fine because the people who come up with those ideas are most likely not filmmakers. They have nothing to compare the scale of the contractual agreements to, and they will just be happy to get chosen.

Filmmaker: Why do you think it won’t attract people who self-identify as filmmakers?

McKay: Artistic collaboration is cool, but no artist really wants to have a web-wide world of strangers giving input into their idea — unless they’re doing conceptual art and that’s part of their project. Read the comments page on any random article on-line and you’ll see what kind of feedback and input you’d be dealing with! The whole thing is just another interesting marketing idea from the business world but another distraction for real filmmakers.

Filmmaker: I get what you are saying although I’m not sure I totally agree. I would if the final destination wasn’t Warner Bros. If this were any other kind of a company, or a non-profit arts organization, I think the experimental approach to development would be more laudatory. But I think someone who comes up with something as good as a Blair Witch or Paranormal Activity should be afforded the base-level … Read the rest

STRATEGIZING YOUR CROWDSOURCING CAMPAIGN

By Scott Macaulay

I discovered a couple of excellent posts at the Coffee and Celluloid blog that will help you if you are contemplating or in the process of a crowdsourced funding campaign through a site like Kickstarter or Indiegogo. Written by Joey Daoud, the posts chronicle his experience researching and enacting a campaign to raise $9,000 for his documentary on high-school combat robots, Bots High. The campaign was successful — he raised $9,100 — but, as always, the devil is in the details. In the first post, “How to Figure the True Cost of a Kickstarter Project,” he breaks down not only the cost of the commissions (5% to Kickstarter and about 3% to Amazon) but also the costs involved in manufacturing and distributing the various rewards he offered to his supporters. In the second post, “My Kickstarter Experience — the Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” he deconstructs his own success, revealing that he had to appeal to a relative for a loan in order to push himself over the $9,000 barrier and not lose all the money pledged so far. He’s also drawn conclusions from the experience, such as that he should have come up with a lower goal, like $5,000, and that it would have been easier if he had gotten on a high-profile blog. File Daoud’s account next to Miao Wang’s on her Kickstarter campaign and you’ve got a running start on most people launching projects there.

While I’m discussing Kickstarter I’m going to throw some attention on a project I’ve been hearing about for a while from trusted sources, Todd Chandler’s Flood Tide . Here’s how the filmmaker describes it:

It was the summer the gas stations closed. The summer they played music in the old mill. The summer they built a boat. The summer they left.

Flood Tide is a road movie on a river. It tells the story of four musicians who create extraordinary boats out of ordinary junk and set out for open water, fueled by dreams, desperation and a sense of adventure.

The film’s quiet narrative unfolds through fragments of memories, songs,

… Read the rest