THE MICROBUDGET CONVERSATION: THE JOURNEYMEN

By John Yost

As most of us receive our early morning Sundance rejection email (which literally makes us the 99 percenters…again.) we should all take a moment and reflect: what drove us to this? What brought us to this moment where a single email is either enormously heartbreaking, or just another bump on the dirt road of DIY/micro filmmaking? I’ve asked fellow columnist, and bi-coastal filmmaker, Gregory Bayne to shed a bit of light on his practice of treating each project as the first uphill battle of many, and how that journey is essential for the career independent filmmaker.

We have an almost perverse obsession with the idea of overnight success in this country. It permeates the network television line-up, which provides an un-ending stream of opportunities for under prepared, starry-eyed dreamers to embarrass themselves on a national (perhaps international) stage. In creative communities we constantly talk of getting that “big break,” and if the numbers are correct — 11,700 submissions this year — it appears we filmmakers still believe that a birth at Sundance is the end-all to launching our very lucrative filmmaking careers.

This obsession is like some strange disease for which the only cure, truly, is staying the course long enough that you finally realize there is no “one big success,” only a series of little successes and small triumphs, intermingled with some failures and the occasional tragedy. The brass tacks are, if you are going to make your way as an independent artist, you are committing to a life’s work that will always be, in one way or another, a sustained campaign.

I know this all too well, as I currently embark on my next film and with it another public funding-campaign to get it off the ground. The film is BLOODSWORTH: An Innocent Man (http://kck.st/vpqcgc), a feature documentary about Kirk Noble Bloodsworth, who after being charged, convicted and sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit, became the first death row inmate to be exonerated by DNA evidence in the US. Even though I begin this work with some level of track record behind … Read the rest

TIFF 2011: THE YEAR OF THE DOC?

The buzz word at this year’s TIFF is “doc.” For the first time in its 35-year history, the Toronto International Film Festival opened with a documentary: Davis Guggenheim‘s From The Sky Down, which profiles the world’s most popular rock band, U2. Filmgoers and critics are also buzzing over Crazy Horse, by verite legend Frederick Wiseman;  Samsara (by Baraka‘s Ron Fricke); Tony Krawitz‘s The Tall Man,; and Girl Model by Ashley Sabin and David Redmon.

The doc vibe was in the air on Monday morning at a breakfast launch for Focus Foward. Sponsored by Cinelan and GE, Focus Forward invites big-name documentarians such as Morgan Spurlock (Comic-Con: Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope), Nick Broomfield (Sarah Palin: You Betcha) and Jessica Yu (Last Call at the Oasis) to make three-minute socially conscious docs that A-list festivals like Sundance, IDFA and Tribeca will screen. It was a rare bit of good news in an otherwise tough documentary business climate.

A lot of the talk that followed at Doc Conf, TIFF’s annual doc pow-wow of panels and keynotes, focused on raising money, finding distribution and getting eyeballs in front of screens. Idealism vs. cold, hard cash. A weak economy and broadcasters slimming their funding envelopes have forced documentarians on both sides of the border to launch crowdfunding campaigns on platforms like Kickstarter.com and find new ways of knocking on doors. Or rather, find new doors to knock on.

At the Focus Foward breakfast, Spurlock remained undeterred, but realistic: ”There will always be people who’ll give you money. You got to find them. When I made the Greatest Movie [Ever Told] I called 650 companies and we got 15 to say yes. It was ten months of just cold-calling, meetings, more cold-calling and meetings…. There’s a private financier for every idea, but you gotta find that guy who’ll say, “Oh my God! This is the greatest idea I ever heard! Where have you been all my life?”

For the sake of disclosure, my co-director and I last year raised Kickstarter seed money for our own African amputee … Read the rest

WHEN SHOULD YOU CALL BULLS@#T?

By Gregory Bayne

I’ve been pondering Scott Macaulay‘s post WHEN SHOULD YOU GIVE UP? as it’s a question I’ve asked of myself on several occasions, quite recently even. It’s a question that hangs heavy on the psyche of anyone with a will to create and grow beyond the confines of their own feeble inheritance. I know this because I know that anyone who has ever made any attempt to do, or create, or make, anything, ever, has failed. Many times miserably and likely to the point where it feels as if hope has not just vanished from the horizon, but has finally revealed itself to be the self projected mirage it truly was.

When should you give up? It’s a scary question. It’s a question that by simply asking it, you’ve admitted to failing on some level… and that sucks. Over the years though, I’ve come to realize there is a question that precedes this one. It’s an equally honest, pragmatic and logical question in the face of presumed failure, impasse or impending doom. It’s this. When Should You Call Bulls@#t?

Don’t mistake this as a ‘fight the power’ fueled question, I mean it goes there for sure, but the first bulls@#t to call out is your own. Our biggest threat to individual growth as artists and to achieving any level of success in our careers is often times rooted in our complete lack of objectivity. About our work, about our abilities, and so many times, about the full scope of what it actually takes to create, complete and ultimately share our work with others.

Look, here’s the hard truth. Your movie most likely sucks. If it’s genuinely your first film, and you’ve yet to live, therefore been beaten up by, life, and aren’t some one in a million filmmaking savant, yes, it’s probably garbage. Your friends and family aren’t going to say it to your face, so I will. Trash it, move on. Hopefully you at least had the sense to not spend too much on it.

Over the past 2 decades, I have personally made 4 ‘first’ features, before finally landing on … Read the rest

A DAY AT THE SUNDANCE SHORTSLAB

A few weeks ago I attended the third Sundance ShortsLab, a day-long event about short filmmaking organized and conducted by the folks from Sundance (primarily, from what I could see, from the festival side of the house.) Sundance has previously put on two other Shortslabs, one in LA and one in Chicago. This was their first event in New York, and those of us in attendance spent the day in an auditorium at the Brooklyn Academy of Music as a variety of speakers and panels unfolded, and several short films were shown.

The day started with Trevor Groth, Sundance’s director of programming, addressing the audience with an overview of the history of Sundance (the festival and the institute) and describing how they had determined to start running these ShortsLabs. Groth said that shorts are always important to Sundance, both as part of their programming blocks and, I gathered, because of the importance they play in the industry as both a proving ground for directors as well as an art form unto themselves.

Groth said that while he loves the “purity of shorts” and the “pure passion” they evince, that of the thousands of shorts submitted to Sundance each year, he and the other programmers were seeing many of the same pitfalls over and over again. Thus they were inspired to create Shortslabs events in which they could provide insight for short filmmakers about honing their crafts.

He also acknowledged that in this single day, with almost 200 people in attendance, that Sundance was reaching more people in one fell swoop than they do over several years of their narrative labs (which tend to take about ten writer/directors per year, though they have several other types of labs as well.) He said he felt that Sundance wanted to democratize the learning and outreach part of their mission and create a more accessible event (again, than the labs, which are extremely competitive to get into.) Entrance to the Shortslab event cost $150, and there was no application process.

The day’s panels were interspersed with short films, both within the panels themselves, as … Read the rest

YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS BEING IN THIS BUSINESS

By Gregory Bayne

I have been thinking about Kevin Smith quite a bit lately. Beyond the obvious happenings with his film Red State and his decision to follow in my footsteps (wink) by embracing the Topspin platform to go about his business of building a media empire, I’ve been a bit in awe of how this guy from New Jersey, who began his journey with a $27,000 ’90s Sundance hit that many in the artistic film world passed off as garbage, has weathered many a storm, some arguably manufactured, to be quite possibly the last man standing and perhaps most forward thinking in an independent film industry that can’t seem to get fully back on track.

I know there are many a ’90s & ’00s Sundance alum out there still working, making films, making TV, making it, but none (that I’m aware of) have taken such distinct advantage of their first outing to have turned it, and/or themselves, into such a full force media-making machine so in control of their own destiny that if they cut off ties with everyone they know in the industry today they would be able to continue working, making exactly the type of film/tv/art they want to, while making a very healthy living at it. Smith and Co. have done that.

My “history” with Smith begins all the way back in Vancouver, B.C., where we both attended film school in 1992/’93. He in Class 23 with my fellow Idahoan David Klein, and me in Class 24. Our only interaction was being on an elevator together and only connection was my friendship with Klein, who shot Clerks and many other of Smith’s films, and Scott Mosier, who produced them. When they hit in 1994, I was back in Idaho attempting to wrangle together my own ’90s indie hit to no avail. After the requisite amount of youthful envy, I stepped back and just enjoyed watching these guys capture early success and in that was able to witness the early steps toward where Smith finds himself today. Say what you will about the films — I know I’ve … Read the rest

SUNDANCE ANNOUNCES NEW ONLINE DISTRIBUTION INITIATIVE

By Scott Macaulay

At a Los Angeles press conference today, Sundance Institute Executive Director Keri Putnam announced an expansion of the organization’s Artist Services Initiative that will bring independent films to digital platforms. Exclusively partnering with aggregator New Video, Sundance is offering its festival and lab films distribution opportunities on iTunes, Amazon, Hulu, Netflix and SundanceNOW. Filmmakers will retain ownership and control of their titles, will be free to publicize and market them, and Sundance will conduct its own marketing efforts as well as leverage the potency of its brand to gain the films wider audiences.

Commented Putnam, “By acting as a conduit between filmmaker and distributor, we are presenting an alternative to traditional distribution while building knowledge about online distribution strategies that will benefit the broader field of independent film. We’ve worked with these leaders in online distribution to make it easier for filmmakers to present their work to the widest audiences possible.”

Also announced as part of this initiative is a deal with Topspin Media, who will provide filmmakers with direct marketing tools and fulfillment services.

Today’s programs are part of the Artist Services Initiative, which supports filmmakers engaging in “creative distribution” as they seek new ways to finance, produce and release their films. At the festival in January Sundance announced other components of the Artist Services Initiative, including a collaboration with Kickstarter and a relationship with Facebook.

Commented Sundance Institute Founder and President Robert Redford, ““When I founded the Institute in 1981, it was at a time when a few studios ran the industry and an artist’s biggest concern was whether their film would get made. Technology has lessened that burden, but the big challenge today is how audiences can see these films. The Artist Services program is a direct response to that need. We’re not in the distribution business; we’re in the business of helping independent voices be heard.”

Today’s announcement makes a Sundance selection even more valuable. In addition to the visibility a festival berth brings, and the education and mentorship provided by the Labs, the Sundance imprimatur now means eligible Sundance filmmakers have not only a fast … Read the rest

HIGH OCTANE

By Michael Tully

For Evan Glodell, surviving a bad breakup by making a movie wasn’t enough — he also built the camera it was shot on and the car featured in its story. Dubbed the mad scientist of this year’s Sundance, he takes Septien director Michael tully through the apocalyptic fever dream that is BELLFLOWER. Photograph by Henny Garfunkel

SUNDANCE INSTITUTE ANNOUNCES THIS YEAR’S CREATIVE PRODUCING INITIATIVES

By Jason Guerrasio

The Sundance Institute announced today the participants for its annual Creative Producing Labs and Creative Producing Summit, which will take place in Sundance, Utah starting July 18.

From the 18-22, ten projects will participate in the Labs (five narrative, four documentaries) and receive ongoing support throughout the year. Following the Labs, from the 22-24, leaders in the independent film community will partake in the Summit that will include case study sessions, panels, roundtable discussions, one-on-one meetings and pitching sessions.

Summit panelists include Josh Braun (Submarine Entertainment), Victoria Cook (Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz), Liesl Copland (William Morris Endeavor), Eric d’Arbeloff (Roadside Attractions), Marian Koltai-Levine (PMK*BNC), Alex Kruglov (Hulu.com), Tim League (Alamo Drafthouse), Susan Margolin (New Video), Celine Rattray (Maven Pictures), John Sloss (Cinetic Media), Dan Steinman (Creative Artists Agency), Ricky Strauss (Participant Media) and Nancy Utley (Fox Searchlight). Click here for a full list of panelists.

The Fellows and projects selected for the Labs are:

Narrative

Ad Inexplorata
Producing Fellow: Danielle DiGiacomo
Captain William D. Stanaforth is a NASA pilot alone on a one-way mission toward the unknown. (Writer/Director Mark Elijah Rosenberg)

In the past decade, Danielle DiGiacomo has worked as the Community Manager at IFP and Head of Documentary Acquisitions at IndiePix Films, produced the first two Cinema Eye Honors for Nonfiction Film, and associate produced Jennifer Venditti’s Billy the Kid (Best Documentary Feature, Los Angeles Film Festival 2007 & SXSW 2007) and Samantha Buck’s 21 Below. In 2010, she produced three short films (two premiered at the 2011 Cannes’ Short Film Corner) and Associate Produced one feature, Andrew Semans’ Nancy Please. She is currently producing Chris Kelly’s documentary The Cause of Progress and Samantha Buck’s Best Kept Secret. (Mark Silverman Honoree)

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints
Producing Fellows: James M. Johnston & Toby Halbrooks
Ain’t Them Bodies Saints tells the story of an outlaw who, in the 1970s, escapes from prison and sets out across the Texas countryside to reunite with his wife and the daughter he never met. Along the way, however, his past starts to catch up with him. (Writer/Director: David Lowery)

James M. Johnston and Toby … Read the rest

“DARK DAYS” — A HAMMER TO NAIL REVIEW

By Brandon Harris

(The 10th anniversary of Dark Days will be re-released through Oscilloscope Laboratories beginning Friday.)

Things keep happening that make me feel old. No I don’t have any major age-related illnesses. I haven’t been getting copies of AARP magazine in the mail. “Are you even 30 yet?” is still a legitimate question to ask me upon any encounter. For the record, I’m not (yet) 30, but still I can’t help getting the creeping sense that, in the words of LCD Soundsystem, “I’m losing my edge.” Upon learning that the Cinema Village was going to open British documentarian Marc Singer’s seminal 2000 documentary Dark Days for a week-long run to mark its 10th anniversary reissue, this creeping feeling of age’s unceasing forward progression returned. Not that Dark Days was particularly important to me as a film, although I spent a fair amount of time watching it, in theaters, on DVDs, on Sundance Channel. For me it serves as a reminder of a bygone era in independent film and my relationship to it, one that I’m still nostalgic for despite my best efforts to live without sentimentality (like many of my pursuits, I’m proving to be a bigger failure than I had imagined).

A penetrating look at the bowels of New York made over two-and-a-half years, Dark Days profiles a number of the city’s homeless who have taken to living in small communities within abandoned sections of the MTA subway system. A Brit who was fascinated by the number of homeless in New York, Singer camped out in the Freedom Tunnel, which runs roughly from Penn Station to Harlem on the West Side, with dozens of homeless for several months before he decided to make Dark Days. The trust and intimacy he had gained in that time is evident in nearly every frame. These are decent, thoughtful if somewhat unlucky individuals who had taken to living underneath Manhattan.

Shot in grainy, black-and-white, partially damaged Kodak 16mm by the director himself, a non-filmmaker who saw the project as a way to shed light on the plight these individuals faced so as to possibly … Read the rest

MIA TRACHINGER, “REVERSION”

By Brandon Harris

Three years ago Sundance played host to Mia Trachinger’s weird, beguiling take on the low-fi, sci-fi dystopia genre, Reversion. Odd, playful, melancholy and ultimately riveting, it bounced around the fest circuit for the past couple of years without finding a home with specialty distributors, perhaps a sign of just how ahead of its time it was. A couple of years later Sundance began its NEXT section, a category for films just like Reversion; adventurous, low budget mindbenders, genre deconstructions and idiosyncratic visions that SXSW would normally be the target destination for. Trachinger, whose Bunny was a success of the festival circuit in 2000, shot Reversion in low end, pre-SLR HD, but with ideas and concepts that more than make up for its homemade fell. Like Alphaville or Code 46, the film visits a future that resembles the present, with ordinary spaces (in this case, East Hollywood) dominated by bizarre social pathologies, technological dislocation, the erosion of conventional morality, and a sub caste of outsiders afflicted with a strange, debilitating ability to see into their own futures. The picture avoids exposition altogether, throwing us right into the chaotic life of its protagonist Eva. Played by the lovely, startling Leslie Silva, who would have been 2008′s dusky answer to Brit Marling in a fairer universe, Eva spends her time stealing cars, guns and food when she isn’t haunted by visions of a murder she can’t help but commit. That the future victim is her boyfriend, also afflicted with the prophetic syndrome, sustains the narrative with some tension, while the movie sifts through with great earnestness the philosophical and ideological issues raised by the narrative.

In this way, Reversion presents an allegory for the inability of post-modern Americans to prevent themselves from contributing to their own demise. Deluged with information about the myriad ways in which we, in collusion with our gutless leaders in Washington, are polluting the Earth, destroying our international reputation with needless wars and are increasingly susceptible to disease, famine and terror, most Americans (and perhaps most humans) find themselves resigned to an increasingly bleak outlook on … Read the rest