In September 2015, I launched a Kickstarter campaign—a tongue-in-cheek effort to raise $308 to make 12 hats embroidered with the word “movies.” Three years later, I find myself president of Movies Brand, a company that has released more than 30 products emblazoned with the word “movies,” worn by the likes of Mel Brooks, Josh Safdie, Ana Lily Amirpour, Larry Karaszewski and some 2,000 others. So, how did a Kickstarter joke turn into a real business? Well, it depends on what you mean by a real business. Some background may be in order here. My first love wasn’t hats. It was […]

If you’ve seen a lot of video essays purportedly analyzing the themes, visual motifs etc. of various films, you’ll know that they are, by and large, not very good, simply latching on to famous film titles for an easy traffic layup. Enter Kentucker Audley: director and actor, proprietor of No Budge and the Movies brand. In this inaugural video essay, Audley takes an analytical look at Pleasantville. “It’s a really cool movie, as you probably remember,” he explains, “with cutting-edge cinematography and excellent themes,” nailing the fatuous tone of many an online underperformer. Bonus points for blithely naming the director as […]

“What can be said of a connection that seems to border on captivity? Where does the line between violence & intimacy exist?” That’s how Francesca Coppola introduces her sophomore short film, Jonny Come Lately, further described as focusing on “a fragile, complicated, volatile union between two lovers.” The film features Deragh Campbell, Kentucker Audley and Evan Louison, it was shot on 16mm, and it premieres online today via Filmmaker and courtesy of 1985. Last year, Coppola wrote about her film on the occasion of its Kickstarter launch. Here, she describes what the film means to her and, hopefully, for you: […]

Kentucker Audley might have been reading Mike Ryan’s “TV is Not the New Film,” in which the producer concedes that TV is dominating our cultural conversation right now. And he’s decided to do something about it. Audley has taken to Kickstarter to sell a simple item of apparel that will tell the world that, yes, you’re a movie fan.

About halfway through my viewing at the Treefort Film Festival – predominately spent lounging on burlap sacks and church pews, repurposed for the inside of a tent – an anomalous, entirely welcome, framework began to take shape. At most regional festivals, the program tends to be a rather mixed bag, with titles culled from disparate, big name destinations, void of the necessary context for a non-industry crowd. But at the Boise-based, 2nd annual Treefort, the relatively compact, thoughtful selection of shorts and features appeared to be in constant dialogue with one another. Take, for instance, the standing-room-only double feature of Scott Cummings’ Buffalo […]

25 New Face filmmaker Scott Blake is currently raising funds on Kickstarter for an ambitious “urban insurgency” short film, Victory. Below, he discusses inspiration ranging from Michael Mann to Joseph Conrad, why he cast Kentucker Audley and why he’s making another short. Please visit his Kickstarter page to learn more. Filmmaker: First, let’s start with Surveyor and the 25 New Faces. You were one of our real discoveries, as your film hadn’t played many festivals and you hadn’t received much notice for it. What has happened after being selected for the 25, and how did that path lead to this […]

Writer/director Francesca Coppola has just launched a Kickstarter campaign for her second short film, Jonny Come Lately. Below, she writes about the short’s themes and issues, her decision to shoot on film and the power of community. Please visit her Kickstarter page and, if you are able to, consider donating. I’m only a few hours away from hitting the launch button on my first Kickstarter campaign to complete the funding for my second film, Jonny Come Lately. There is a whirlwind of feelings at play here and a maelstrom going through my head right now; I’m nervous, exhausted, confused, but […]

I don’t know Kentucker Audley, but I can’t stop thinking about his tongue-in-cheek call for mediocre filmmakers to pledge to stop making films so that in a crowded environment the truly talented can shine. Recently I’ve been wondering if his Change.org petition should be expanded to film festivals as well, many of which are erstwhile enablers of said mediocrity. As a whip-smart producer friend of mine once told me, “The world needs another film festival like it needs another strip mall.” Which brings me to the event that started this whole thought process. In late February I attended the Richmond […]

Responding to recent articles in the New York Times and Salon, filmmaker Kentucker Audley has launched a Change.org petition asking “mediocre” independent filmmakers to stop making films. The articles blame overproduction and too many films achieving theatrical release for the economic and artistic issues facing independent film. For the New York Times’ Manohla Dargis — who herself asked distributors to “stop buying so many films” at Sundance — too many films in theaters produces a noise drowning out the virtues of the fewer good movies that deserve critical and public support. For Beanie Barnes at Salon, overproduction has led to […]