Kickstarter
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A THANKSGIVING KICKSTARTER FOR “YEAR WITHOUT RENT”
If you visit this site regularly, then you’ll know about “A Year Without Rent,” filmmaker Lucas McNelly’s Kickstarter-funded twelve-month experiment in community-minded film production and online journalism. At the beginning of this year McNelly staged a dramatic Kickstarter campaign for what seemed like a crazy goal: he’d spend twelve months crisscrossing the U.S., working for free on independent films. Then, he’d document them on his site and at places like Filmmaker, Film Courage, Film Threat and Mubi. The Kickstarter raise was successful, and McNelly has been hard at work since then — rigging lights, manning craft service, holding a boom, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 1, 2011 -
KICKSTARTER: JENNIE LIVINGSTON’S “EARTH CAMP ONE”
Filmmaker Jennie Livingston (Paris is Burning) is raising funds for a new documentary feature, Earth Camp One, through Kickstarter. Described as both a “first-person family story” — Livingston began the film after losing four family members in five years — as well as “an essay,” the film deals with death, loss, and what she calls “the very American problem of discomfort with discomfort.” From her Kickstarter page: “To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.” –Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest In the 1970s, I went to a hippie summer camp, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 30, 2011 -
The Microbudget Conversation: Down And Dangerous
In sticking with our “Do Your Homework” theme, this week on the conversation we dissect one aspect of the micro-budget equation – crowdfunding. As someone who is about to use Kickstarter for the first time, I felt it was best to leave you in the capable hands of someone who had not only successfully met his goal, but who doubled it. Zak Forsman is no stranger to the world of microbudget filmmaking and I love his advice on crafting a great campaign. At IFP week I heard tons of questions from filmmakers on how to wrestle the task of a […]
by John Yost on Oct 19, 2011 -
KICKSTARTER: ZACH CLARK’S “WHITE REINDEER”
With his features Modern Love is Automatic and Vacation!, filmmaker Zach Clark has caught our eye at Filmmaker. In this interview with Lauren Wissot, he discusses his refreshing aesthetic, which looks towards the stylized melodramas of Douglas Sirk and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, ’60s beach party flicks, and ’80s new-wave porn like Cafe Flesh. And, he does this on a tiny budgets. In Wissot’s interview he explains: Luckily, I have talented friends who have been willing to work for no money. I also like making movies in places that aren’t big hubs of film production, which keeps costs down, so a […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 29, 2011 -
KICKSTARTER: “PARIAH” PRODUCER NEKISA COOPER’S “FIVE NIGHTS IN MAINE”
Though her Sundance hit Pariah opens through Focus in the winter, producer Nekisa Cooper hasn’t slowed down as she reached out to us about a project she’s currently getting off the ground through Kickstarter, Five Nights In Maine, directed by Bay Area filmmaker Maris Curran. They are currently trying to raise $40,000. Here’s the synopsis: Sherwin and Fiona are at a crossroads. As an interracial couple living in the south, they seem to have created an idyllic bubble for their love. But after a recent visit to her ailing and prickly mother, Fiona is changed. Suddenly, their relationship is contentious […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Aug 23, 2011 -
KOO LAUNCHES “MAN-CHILD” KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN
As a Filmmaker reader, you undoubtedly know Koo from his appearance on our 2008 “25 New Faces” list. Included in the “25” with his partner on The West Side web series, Zack Lieberman, Koo was one of the first filmmakers whose initial medium was the web to be profiled in our round-up. Since The West Side, which remains one of the web’s best narrative series, Koo has developed other projects, including his longest running: NoFilmSchool.com, an invaluable website covering DSRLs, editing software, crowdsourcing, new media, and Web 2.0 in general. One of the site’s best features is the pop-up you […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 18, 2011 -
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 […]
by Marc Maurino on Aug 4, 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 -
BRILLIANTE MENDOZA AND KICKSTARTING “THE JEEPNEY MOVIE”
Filmmakers Esy Casey and Sarah Friedland recently sent me a short video documenting their visit to the Philippines where they met the Cannes prize-winning filmmaker Brilliante Mendoza and visited his construction studio. The video, which catches Mendoza in the lead-up to his new feature, Prey, is posted below. After I received this link, Friedland informed me of the new project of Casey’s she’s producing. Also set in the Philippines, it’s called Jeepney, and it’s a feature doc about this vehicle and the people who drive it. From the project’s Kickstarter page: Visualizing the rich cultural heritage of the Philippines, this […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 26, 2011 -
KICKSTARTER: “DEATH IN ARIZONA”
I’m a sucker for performance art projects dealing with things like solitude and personal healing. For example, there’s Sophie Calle’s famous Exquisite Pain, which documented her being dumped by a lover by phone at the tail end of a trip to Japan. Another piece involving Japanese hotel rooms, but with a different kind of pain, is Laurel Nakadate’s Love Hotel, currently on view at P.S. 1. In that piece, Nakadate checks into, alone, a series of Japanese sex hotels and photographs herself simulating the acts that go on there. Slotted into this sub-genre is a new film project by Mexican […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 25, 2011
