Kickstarter
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Imposters, Intimacy and Filmmaking: Director Christina Choe on Nancy
Nancy is a psychological drama about a female imposter, who lies to gain emotional intimacy and love. The genesis for this script started with my fascination with imposter stories (the literary hoax of JT LeRoy, Clark Rockefeller, Frédéric Bourdin in The Imposter, Gay Girl in Damascus fake blogger, etc). It’s only now that I’ve come to realize that my obsession with the fine line between truth/fiction, performance/reality and storytelling/confession, is something that started long before my intrigue with imposters. After a stint editing in the documentary world, I decided to try my hand at writing a screenplay. I had no idea what I was […]
by Christina Choe on Jun 3, 2015 -
“I Fantasized About Being a Glamorous Drug Addict”: Director Adam Baran on His Twin Peaks-centric Documentary Northwest Passage
In the late ’80s, a troubled gay kid named Travis Blue stumbled upon a film production in his sleepy hometown of North Bend, Washington. Fascinated, Blue watched as they transformed a local restaurant into a place called the Double R Diner. The production was for a television series titled Northwest Passage, later renamed Twin Peaks. When it aired in 1990, David Lynch’s cult masterpiece became for Travis not simply an obsession, but a world he wanted to literally inhabit. Taking Laura Palmer as real life role model, Blue spent the next decade lost in various underworlds and struggling with his own […]
by Paul Dallas on May 28, 2015 -
“I’m Going Back to My Horror Film Roots”: Abel Ferrara Launches Siberia at Cannes 2015
Indie maestro Abel Ferrara launched his latest film project in Cannes this week with his first ever foray into Kickstarter. Siberia, a new film with Willem Dafoe, explores the language of dreams, using the subconscious as a form of language. “There’s nothing more horrific than your own dreams and nightmares,” Ferrara promised the crowd of assembled journalists gathered on the top of the Silencio club in Cannes. “I’m going back to that kind of filmmaking, to my horror film roots.” He’s hoping to raise half a million dollars to begin financing for the new film. “This is Willem being Willem,” […]
by Ariston Anderson on May 22, 2015 -
Popularity Mechanics: A Beginner’s Guide to Curmudgeonly Crowdfunding
Randy Mack is in the final three days of his Kickstarter for his New Orleans-set Laundry Day, and with roughly three grand to go, he lets loose with an acerbic howl against the indignities of crowdfunding that, he hopes, might make you think and, perhaps…. donate. People are the worst, and there’s nothing more humiliating than pandering to them. You became an artist to push back against sheeple’s sacred cows and conventional wisdom, and now technology has risen to empower… them. Not you. The Popular Ones. The last people on Earth who need empowering. Popular people, remember them? The ones […]
by Randy Mack on May 11, 2015 -
Screen Slate Founder Jon Dieringer on the Overhaul of NYC’s Repertory Film Listing Service
If you’re an avid repertory filmgoer in New York City, chances are Screen Slate is your lifeline. A daily collation of the five boroughs’ rep, independent, arthouse and gallery screenings dispatched straight to your inbox, Screen Slate has sent over a million emails since its inception in mid-2010. Founder Jon Dieringer is now looking to take things to the next level with a Kickstarter campaign that would allow for several site advancements, including customized alerts; sorting by filmmaker, venue, format and series; calendar functions and much more. Filmmaker spoke with Dieringer about his own curatorial process and plans for the site’s relaunch. Be sure to […]
by Sarah Salovaara on May 1, 2015 -
Kickstarter: An Exclusive Clip from Laundry Day
Director Randy Mack is quoted in my “How to Find a Producer” article, discussing the production scene in his hometown, New Orleans. Now, he’s on Kickstarter raising funds for the completion of his dark comedy, Laundry Day. Set over the course of 24 hours in a New Orleans bar, the film is, says Mack, a something cross between Magnolia and Barfly. In an email, he writes, “Laundry Day is a feature-length dark comedy about a bar fight in a 24-hour bar/laundromat/night club between a musician, a gutter punk, a drug dealer, and a bartender. The nonlinear story explores the incident […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 27, 2015 -
Why the Art of Observing Life is Enough
The following guest essay by filmmaker Amy Benson, about how sad, unexpected developments changed the course of her documentary, Drawing the Tiger, coincides with a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the film’s completion. Please visit its Kickstarter page to learn more and consider donating. — Editor My husband, Scott Squire, and I started filming what is now Drawing the Tiger seven years ago. It began as a ‘social justice’ documentary; we imagined the tagline would be, “The best thing we can do in the world is educate the girls.” We knew the story we were going to tell… you know it too. […]
by Amy Benson on Apr 1, 2015 -
“Getting Funded is Only Part of the Story”: Kickstarter Embraces Timeline Film Pages with Spotlight
Kickstarter has rolled out today Spotlight, a very clever new design option for their project pages. On first glance it seems simple — sort of like Facebook’s Timeline, Spotlight turns your Kickstarter page into a reverse chronological story of your project’s inception, development, successful funding (you hope) and afterlife. By organizing your updates and milestones in the form of a clean narrative scroll, it encourages you to continue that story long after your campaign ends — making Kickstarter a stickier site. (More traffic for Kickstarter!) To make it worthwhile to filmmakers, as the video below shows, you’re given a prominently […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 25, 2015 -
Exclusive Clip: Dennis Hopper in The Last Film Festival, His Final Movie
A few years ago, director Linda Yellen met her hero, Dennis Hopper, at the Sundance Film Festival. As she writes on the Kickstarter page for The Last Film Festival, “Sundance is simply one of the best film festivals in the world, and I wondered what the worst would be like? Dennis turned to me and said ‘That’s a great idea kid, you write the script and I’ll do it.’ And he did!” From the page: The Last Film Festival is a feature length comedy starring Dennis Hopper, written by Michael Leeds and me. Dennis plays Nick Twain, a big-time Hollywood Producer […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Mar 10, 2015 -
From River of Grass to Living Los Sures: George Schmalz on Kickstarter’s New Curated Restoration Initiative
As part of a new restoration initiative, Kickstarter is partnering with various distributors, filmmakers and organizations to raise funds to preserve and proliferate significant and niche films on the verge of obsolescence. The first five projects to campaign through the site are River of Grass, Kelly Reichardt’s wonderful, underseen debut; a Kino Lorber selection of “Pioneers of African Cinema,” presented by DJ Spooky; the German exploitation film Bloody Friday; Living Los Sures, UnionDocs’ update on the 1984 documentary Los Sures; and the VHS ’90s horror flick, Jungle Trap. There are distribution plans in place for all of the films, should the necessary funds come through: Oscilloscope is planning a VOD, DVD and […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Feb 11, 2015
