Categories
Truly Free Film

Who Did What For Me When: Introductions

None of us would ever get anywhere if our friends didn’t look out for us.  Our lives are not of our own making.

Milton Berle said “If opportunity does not knock, build a door.”  But the reality is you need some tools to be able to build; your bare hands won’t suffice.  Certain tasks too really are to big to tackle on your own. Someone sometimes has to hand you that hammer.  Fortunately, I have had some generous people in my life, who have helped me to connect the dots.

This is a time for giving thanks. Perspective comes with offering gratitude.  We need to be reminded of our good fortune.  We did not make it on our own.  Our lives are complicated habitrails, where others build our ramps, rooms, and wonderballs.

I have hesititated in my life fearing that if I displayed thanks, I would inevitably make a mistake and leave people out.  Like me, this is a work-in-progress.  I will make a mistake.  I will leave people out. But we have gratefully left that analogue world of completion and perfection, and here in the land of digital, everything is constantly evolving.  We are free to fuck up. So….

Thanks (in alphabetical order by the introducer’s first name):

Ann Goulder put me in touch with

Categories
Bowl Of Noses

Change Your Shirt

You probably know Michel Gondry from either his Lego videos or solving Rubik’s Cubes with either his feet or nose.  He also is responsible for popularizing “swedes” — the home made lo-fi versions of popular films.  He’s been making movies and videos forever and is always great.  Here he takes a simple idea — a shirt with one pattern on the front and another on the back — and weaves a very complicated dance out of it.  Make sure to stay to the end as it gets close to glorious.

Categories
These Are Those Things

Wanted: A Lifetime Subscription To Michel Gondry’s Work

If we could, we would subscribe. Michel’s work is so consistent, so mind-blowing. So joyful. So inventive. If we could bestow a “World Treasure” certification we would. He and his work would certainly have their own wing in The Ted Museum.

I can honestly say I have never learned how to see the world differently as well as I did the time I got to spend by Michel’s side as he directed “Human Nature”. He sees the world — and how to rearrange it — like no other.

Even a young mind absorbs this is something else afoot, with Michel’s brain. My son watched his work at a very young age, and holds him, like Charles Chaplin, as someone who does it all quite brilliantly — and makes the world a better place to live as a result.

This is his latest video:

Categories
Truly Free Film

Adventureland: What We Wanted From The Script

Part 3 (of 3) of the NY Film Academy Discussion on Greg Mottola’s ADVENTURELAND is predominately on the script and what we wanted to do with it. Towards the very end I get around to talking about a new micro-budget culture that is emerging and the hopes I have for it.

Categories
Truly Free Film

1000 True Fans

Kevin Kelly’s articulation of survival on the long tail was one of the essential readings this year for anyone trying to figure out a new paradigm for Indie and Truly Free Filmmaking.  It may be old hat out in blogland, but it is a concept that still hasn’t been discussed enough among indie filmmakers.  It promotes the notion that: 

A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author – in other words, anyone producing works of art – needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.
As a fan of a great deal of diverse artists, I regularly marvel at how musicians in particular do a good job of maintaining an ongoing dialogue with their fans.  Filmmakers, outside of Kevin Smith, don’t seem to embrace this necessity.  I suppose it can be argued that prolific artists working in multiple formats, like Michel Gondry, do it well too.  The Safdie Brothers are another good example amongst the more emerging set.  But as Kelly points out:
The key challenge is that you have to maintain direct contact with your 1,000 True Fans. They are giving you their support directly. Maybe they come to your house concerts, or they are buying your DVDs from your website, or they order your prints from Pictopia. As much as possible you retain the full amount of their support. You also benefit from the direct feedback and love.
To ignore this advice and still hope for the industry to simply discover you and reward you, limits your options to mainstream tentpole pictures.  This may well be some filmmakers’ dream, but they might as well plan to win the lottery.   What is so exciting is that there has never been a better time to plan on building the apparatus that allows you to be a Truly Free Filmmaker.  The tools to build your 1000 True Fan circle are there.  Kelly illuminates:

 The technologies of connection and small-time manufacturing make this circle possible. Blogs and RSS feeds trickle out news, and upcoming appearances or new works. Web sites host galleries of your past work, archives of biographical information, and catalogs of paraphernalia. Diskmakers, Blurb, rapid prototyping shops, Myspace, Facebook, and the entire digital domain all conspire to make duplication and dissemination in small quantities fast, cheap and easy. You don’t need a million fans to justify producing something new. A mere one thousand is sufficient.
… This small circle of diehard fans, which can provide you with a living, is surrounded by concentric circles of Lesser Fans.

I have frequently feared that it is the dream of stardom and wealth that fuels both the indie production cycle and film school enrollment lists.  Maybe that is because the possibility of survival and being a true artist seemed so impossible.  But that does not have to be so, if you invest some time and energy in building your own support system.

Young artists starting out in this digitally mediated world have another path other than stardom, a path made possible by the very technology that creates the long tail. Instead of trying to reach the narrow and unlikely peaks of platinum hits, bestseller blockbusters, and celebrity status, they can aim for direct connection with 1,000 True Fans. It’s a much saner destination to hope for. You make a living instead of a fortune. You are surrounded not by fad and fashionable infatuation, but by True Fans. And you are much more likely to actually arrive there.

Any way, read the article and take it to heart.  And for those of you who already know this gospel, please help to promote the word.
Categories
Bowl Of Noses

A Cardboard Hope: (Sweded) Star Wars

Michel Gondry has changed culture many times over.  His Lego video may be the greatest video ever.  And his Rubik’s Cube series are among the YouTube Hall of Fame.  I look forward to the day when “Sweded” films take over from the corporate.  Homemade always tastes better.  This Star Wars trumps any thing Lucas did after the first three (and that is the TRUE first three, not the alternately titled first three).  And the soundtrack ranks with John Williams’ best work.