Indie
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The Microbudget Conversation: Unpaid Crew Vs. Under-Paid Crew
In our last post Anna Rebek briefly touched on one very important aspect of sacrifice when it comes to making microbudget films…crew. I think we often have to get past the feeling of incredible guilt in pre-production when asking friends and family to come along on yet another microbudget adventure. However, we learn to compensate with understanding, attention and compassion, making micro budget a unique testing ground for new methods. No matter what happens after these films are made, we are left with lessons that some big-budget filmmakers have never had to learn. Perhaps instead of wondering when to give […]
by John Yost on Sep 13, 2011 -
When Should You Call Bulls@#t ?
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 […]
by Gregorybayne on Sep 5, 2011 -
The Microbudget Conversation: The Art Behind Sacrifice
Picking up right where we left off; Anna Rebek says nuts to embracing limitations; start sacrificing everything to make all the details important. One great thing about being micro is that no one but ourselves are breathing down our own necks, asking for results, and pushing the timeline. You often have as much time as you allow to problem-solve any limitations that you give yourself, so why would you cut corners and allow your film to be anything but what you realized at the script stage? Perhaps the best time to know how far you can push it is […]
by John Yost on Sep 1, 2011 -
The Microbudget Conversation: Script vs. Story
I have come across many folks who have allowed the completion of a perfect script to derail their entire production. I have also sat through (I’m including my own films here) more films that I can remember in which the filmmakers hoped improv will create something magical. In microbudget the latter is a necessity, in large indie films, it’s risky, and in Hollywood, no one but a select few can pull it off. I recently started a conversation with an Austin filmmaker in the very thick of making her second feature film, What’s the Use (pictured below), and this battle […]
by John Yost on Aug 3, 2011 -
You Have no Business Being In This Business
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 […]
by Gregorybayne on Aug 2, 2011 -
IT’S ALL UPHILL FROM HERE
“It’s always a battle. Everything…everyday. It’s like,…can I just get off the battlefield for one day? Step out of the war-zone for a minute?” – Jens Pulver from JENS PULVER | DRIVEN This confession from Jens has rung through my head almost daily over the past year as I’ve worked to make, complete and subsequently market and release our film, JENS PULVER | DRIVEN. With the film being fully crowd-funded, having garnered festival play and just released nationally on nearly every major VOD network in North America it can be legitimately counted as a marked success in the micro-budget independent […]
by Gregorybayne on Jul 27, 2011 -
The Microbudget Conversation: Social Change
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 […]
by John Yost on Jul 5, 2011 -
The Microbudget Conversation: Crowdsource… Not Outsource
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 […]
by John Yost on Jun 28, 2011 -
The Microbudget Conversation: Perspective
So last week we presented one type of manifesto knowing full well it’s almost impossible to define what this all is. The feedback was wonderful and I want to take a moment before I present the next two manifesto perspectives to comment. I think some people are completely right about the fact that sometimes the point of micro-budget is to NOT be part of a group. However, as humans, we group ourselves, and others, together so that we can quickly categorize and compartmentalize the world around us. Which is the very reason I started thinking about a rule book. Groups […]
by John Yost on Jun 22, 2011 -
The Microbudget Conversation: Call To Arms
Our last few posts have really sparked a great conversation and it seems to be one of definition. Not just of micro’s structure, but definition of our stance on art vs. commerce, and our perspective of micro’s purpose. A while back I made a half-joke on this column that someone should write a manifesto for micro-budget filmmakers. The more I thought about what it would contain, the more I realized I was writing one of my own. I immediately contacted one of our column alums Jamie Heinrich. Jamie is in the process of financing and shooting his next feature via […]
by John Yost on Jun 15, 2011
