As we continue embarking on the development of our first independent feature film entitled “Lullaby for a Lunatic”, it’s beginning to feel like we’re doubling our momentum as each week passes. In fact, the first rough draft of our script will be completed by the end of April (applause).
At the heart of this project lays a story. It’s a story about love that we are all excited to tell using our individual talents. As auteurs, our primary focus is doing what we want to do and telling stories we want to tell. We don’t plan on changing this philosophy for our first feature film.
That being said, we know we need to develop an approach that will allow us to become sort of…. umm…populist auteurs.
If we plan on making this process sustainable, reaching an audience will be of paramount importance. We don’t want to drift into nothingness or get so burnt out and under-rewarded with this process that we never undertake another film project again. Therefore, this process involves having a strong team that is capable of both creating a film that is worth watching and then finding an audience to watch the film. This blog post will introduce you to some of our independent film strategies that will hopefully allow us to make this happen.
SCRIPT DEVELOPMENT
Igor Serdarevic is writing a script that rings true to his own experiences and ideas. We have no moral agenda with our story and we don’t want it to be full of the dogmatic undertones found in many independent films. Life is way more interesting and complex than that and we’re happy to leave the teaching of moral codes and standardizing behavior to churches and schools.
In fact, we all expect to feel uncomfortable with some of the ideas the film will explore as our characters travel through their world. If we don’t find the film at least slightly controversial and uncomfortable then why would we do it? Film should challenge the filmmakers and we should feel like we’re growing with the process. We have an opportunity to make ourselves feel uncomfortable, challenged, scared, uncertain and conflicted… we should use this as an opportunity to grow and experience a new world. So let’s experiment with shadows and bad behavior.
If you’ve watched Igor’s last two short films (Codependence and Mars to Jupiter) you’ll notice he embeds a strong sense of poetry in his writing. Those two short films called for a more poetic approach to complement the visuals and story.
However, this time he’s working within a more traditional narrative structure familiar to North American audiences. Lullaby for a Lunatic, will still be peppered with poetry, challenging and thought provoking elements but it will just fit more comfortably in the mould of western dramatic structure.
Igor is heavily influenced by some of the world’s best writers, theatre directors and filmmakers. In fact, he was forced to see a psychologist after his family, concerned that Igor had an unhealthy obsession with film, found out he watched a 9 hour film at the cinema. His parents are, without a doubt, correct that he is unhealthily obsessed with books and film. But it’s this unhealthy obsession to storytelling that drew me towards his eccentric personality in the first place. If he was my son, I too would send him to a shrink… but he’s not my son, so his psychological hang ups are sort of an asset to me.
At a party last week, he was yelling at a few of us that the book Demian by Hermann Hesse and the book Prophet by Kahil Gibran should be a mandatory readings in the curriculums of schools. We were all politely listening to his rant but he still felt the need to shout at us “In fact, it shouldn’t just be mandatory… it should be fucking LAW to teach our children about love”. As a side note, you should know that Igor doesn’t even have a child.
My job at this point is to act as a bridge between Damian and Igor ensuring that Igor isn’t falling prey to some of the criticisms of his heroes. Igor could easily fall into the trap, like Tarkovsky, Pasolini or Bergman of being criticized for being overly academic, dry and yes I hate to say it but…. boring. So my role at this point is to ensure that Igor feels confident marrying the pedantic concerns of Tarkovsky with Damian’s concern of creating commercial narrative cinema. It is my goal to have the film exist both in some remote library in Bosnia and in a neighborhood DVD store in Manhattan.
PRODUCTION DESIGN
Speaking of commercial, narrative cinema it’s important that we enter into this process with an understanding of the current state of film production today. Generally speaking, in order to make something marketable to an international audience you generally need 2 things:
- Big named actors
- High production standards / Strong sense of design
This is why co-productions are currently seen as the only way to secure the budgets necessary to compete internationally. While there is nothing we can do about not having big named actors, or our small budget or the fact that we won’t be partnering with Switzerland anytime soon to get this film shot, there is something we can do about high levels of production design. We have a powerful weapon. His name is Timothy Hung (applause).
Designing our film is a huge concern of mine. I’ve been so fortunate to meet Tim, who will be one of the film’s designers. In a lot of ways Tim will be the films architect and philosopher. He will be responsible for each of the pixels you see on the screen. He will build the stage and help convince you that our world is real. As an audience member, when you look at the film and you “feel” something, that will largely be due to Tim’s ability to communicate mood and emotion.
Tim has a shockingly strong set of floor skills (i.e. he understands decoration, propping, makeup, hair, color, design, wardrobe etc) and he also knows how all of these pieces of the puzzle fit together. We’re taking a little bit from films, art, Hollywood, photographs, sexual experiences and conversations with our mothers (to name only a few sources of design inspiration) and we’re using it as a base to come up with an aesthetic approach to our film. We’re still in very early stages and much of what we decide will depend on a polished draft of our script, but we’ve started this process early for the sole purpose of allowing Tim to inspire us with his ideas.
There is a lot resting on Tim’s shoulders. He will also be working closely with me to help ensure we find the most design friendly locations for the film. Once we have our locations we’ll discuss props, wallpaper, lighting, lensing, storyboards, texture, color palettes, makeup, wardrobe etc.
Tim is the backbone of an ambitious project like this. He’s a genius eccentric with a lot of style and class all his own.
DIRECTORIAL CONCEPTS
I’ll be directing the feature film. It is my responsibility to maintain a consistent tone throughout the story. I need to look at our film in terms of its “moments” and I need to consider an assortment of things when I make decisions about each of these moments.
I need to ensure design complements the script, casting complements the story, locations are design friendly and that atmosphere and spectacle are all well thought out. I also need to make color choices, find locations, cast actors, dress actors, chase light, create light, experiment with subtext, work on blocking, find the emotional gut of a scene and think about how all of this fits together in some sort of cohesive manner.
Our story is off to a potent start and I’ve given Igor a smorgasbord of visual ideas that may or may not fit within the confines of the story in the hopes that it will allow me an opportunity for some directorial flourishes.
Our intention for our first feature is to work on a film that has it all: Story, character, style and attitude. We’re not only shooting for substance, but also a sense of style very rarely seen in independent film.
More than ever before I have confidence in my technical abilities. I have countless notebooks filled with technical and creative ideas for our film. This isn’t to say that I don’t have a lot to learn, I do. Or that I have made all of the necessary technical mistakes, I haven’t. But I have a growing pool of experience and inspiration that I will draw from.
I know this film will be shaped not only from my own experiences but also by some of my favorite filmmakers. Namely: Mathieu Kassovitz, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Andrei Tarkovsky, Pasolini, Wong Kar Wai, Park Chan Wook, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Gaspar Noe, Werner Herzog, Roman Polanski to name only the filmmakers who’s names I know how to spell. These filmmakers are so articulate and exhaustive in the research of their films, that watching their films or reading their essays helps me better understand my own blind spots.
I also draw inspiration from books, music, photographs, paintings etc… I hope to respect these different influences but maintain the uniqueness of my own ideas. In the end my goal is to create a film more powerful than the sum of its parts. I want to find a way to incorporate this film into my existing body of work because I feel, for better or worse, like I am developing a style that is all my own. So far, the films I’ve worked on have been personal pieces that have allowed me to work out parts of my own identity.
It’s difficult at times to think about your story ideas not finding a home. Movies designed for mall audiences seem to be the only way to make your film projects sustainable. I know in large part audiences are responsible for the conservatism of film today and it’s this mall audience that allows and supports filmmakers to create a product that popcorn sales can piggyback off of. But filmmakers are also to blame because although they complain about having to tell fart jokes in their films to sell tickets… they do it… they don’t search for an audience they would be more interested in communicating with and they lazily rely on existing, conservative and safe models for distribution, which inevitably shapes their story ideas.
I hope that with this film we can introduce North American audiences to a style of filmmaking they are unfamiliar with but excited about while at the same time staying away from the styling standards so familiar to independent cinema: Poor control over lighting, poor camera placement, lack of story structure, two dimensional characters, lack of arc, cliché scenes, “on the nose” dialogue, miscast characters who are more the filmmaker’s best friends then they are actors and so on. Even just making a mistake with 1 of these seemingly technical elements will wipe your project into oblivion. My obligation as the director, besides interpreting script and working with actors, is to make sure that doesn’t happen (With Damian’s help of course).
INDEPENDENT FILM DISTRIBUTION
You see, I also fall prey to the independent filmmaker cliché: (use index finger to push my glasses up, then gently cup my chin with by thumb and index finger, and in a monotone English accent say) “my perception of the world differs from the Hollywood paradigm”.
But it’s this snobbish attitude towards Hollywood that ensures most independent films don’t have two legs to stand on. The truth of the matter is that Hollywood (most of the time: See Uma Thurman’s Motherhood: $131 opening weekend. haha) understands the mathematics and algorithms of creation and distribution and we as independent filmmakers have a lot that we can learn and borrow from them.
It then boils down to the process of picking and choosing which parts of the Hollywood system we find most attractive. While we, as independent filmmakers, almost unanimously agree that we feel confident forfeiting the car chases and Vin Diesel as our lead, we should learn something about the systemization of their production process, their care for professional crewing, their attention to detail, their aesthetic, their marketing template etc.
The point is… that it’s not all bad. It’s not all cleavage, shallow character archetypes and backlot studios with underdog protagonists named Tyson. There are lessons embedded in this institutional approach to filmmaking that independent filmmakers can learn from.
Fortunately for us, we have one such open minded, creative, professional thinker on our team: Enter Damian Kuehn (applause).
In order for us to achieve our goals we need to have an ambitious, professional producer with occasional kamikaze flare ups at the head of our ship. Damian Kuehn, has experience working both within the institutional film world of the NFB (National Film Board), but also jumps off that ship to run wild in the realm of independent cinema now and again. The result is an individual with the professional standards of a studio executive but the bravery and naivety of a 16 year old who just got their first video camera and refuses to believe it’s all doom and gloom for us independent filmmakers. It’s a pretty rare combination and I can’t believe we’re lucky enough to have him as our captain.
Damian will be hero of this project if it takes off. While we’ll all feel like we’re fighting an uphill battle trying to accomplish such a daunting task with incredibly limited resources, Damian’s role is the role that quite simply may be impossible. While Tim, Igor and I will be able to create this film, It essentially falls on Damian’s lap to find an audience for the film. This is the area where virtually all independent films fail. They have such a weak production backbone that they have no idea what to do once the film is completed.
As the producer of Lullaby for a Lunatic Damian needs to constantly reinvent his job description, sometimes on the spot. Not only does he need to manage and shape his team and story (to ensure we create something he can find an audience for), but he also needs to think of new ways to tell stories, package the film and find an audience for the film. He also needs to ensure we don’t simply exist within our own little independent film bubble. His job is to implement self imposed checks and balances to ensure quality and high probability of financial success and therefore sustainability as independent filmmakers. This idea of sustainability is something that is very important to us. We can’t simply make this film and not have the steam or resources to make others in the future.
Therefore, our going-in position for this project is that we don’t want a distributor. Our plan will be a festival release as our theatrical release and then gorilla DIY distribution strategy. Damian and myself will spend an extra 12 months on the project, starting now, to find our own audience and develop our own marketing strategy.
Our reason for choosing this path is simple. Independent filmmakers are consistently on the loosing end of the stick when it comes to working with distributors. There are countless examples, but let’s look at the film “Ballast”.
Lance Hammer’s film was a Sundance sensation. The film won a prize at the prestigious Park City festival for both Best Director and Cinematography, but Lance pulled out of a deal with IFC Films in order to maintain the rights to his film since the offer, which was a normal offer (most offers currently range from $25,000 – $50,000), could barely cover the expenses for the film. Not only that, but the terms of the contract seemed “crazy” according to Lance who was referencing the part of the contract which would have him give away internet rights for 20 years. In an interview with indieWIRE Lace states:
“IFC is a really good company…The problem is the larger issue that’s plaguing every filmmaker right now: The distributors don’t really offer any money. That’s not that big of a deal if they would allow you to have control of your project, but they don’t.” Lance continues by saying: “Now that the film is done, I have to think responsibly because I want to have sustainability as a filmmaker. If Sundance is considered the acme of American festivals, and ‘Ballast’ was one of the films that was rated highly there, then it would be a total tragedy if I couldn’t make another film like it again.
It’s disheartening to know that independent filmmakers are having difficulties even just recouping the cost to make their films. Companies like IFC or mini-majors like Sony Classics, Fox Searchlight or Focus Features, are offering filmmakers back their cost (or less) for their advance in exchange for giving over virtually all creative control.
Not only that, but based on their purchases, your film could also be shelved, leaving your film to drown in obscurity. The little, if any, money you get in exchange for your film is simply not worth giving up DVD, TV and international release rights. Our goal, therefore, is to maintain ownership of our own film.
Our problem will then be “we’ll then how do we secure public awareness, ticket sales and DVD sales”?
In our opinion straight to DVD is better than oblivion and a DVD release doesn’t have anything to do with the caliber of film or the film’s prestige at all. The fact that films like Ballast had virtually no theatrical release yet films such as Hot Tub Time Machine is in virtually every theatre in town speaks to the falsehood of this perception that a theatre release has anything to do with good story telling. If it’s time to put our egos away and forego a traditional theatrical release, then we’re perfectly fine with that. We can use the festival circuit as a type of pseudo festival release and we’ll progress with VOD, DVD sales and art-house screenings from there.
We are not being reckless or defiant in our approach. Damian and I have been to countless production seminars where everyone is talking about the same thing. Everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) is searching for a new independent distribution strategy because the current strategy stopped working a short while ago. Damian and I have an extensive document in the making which outlines our strategy in great detail.
This is why we’re starting our marketing efforts so early. We have started the process of audience building now (6 months before we even plan on shooting our film). You can sign up for a newsletter (see the sidebar above) to keep posted on the film’s progress, you can subscribe to our Youtube page, vimeo page or our brand new twitter page. We’re going to be open to sharing our experiences along the way. We’re not going to simply provide ambiguous, stock information about our production process. We want other filmmakers, who might be interested in doing the same thing, to learn from both our mistakes and victories. We’ll let you know how much money we spend, how much money we make and about the obstacles we encounter along the way.
But truth be told, we need your help starting now so come bookmark this blog or sign up for our newsletter, follow us on YouTube or feel free to contact us by commenting on our blog posts to just say “hi” or ask questions or let us know about your experiences with your own productions. We want to go through this process with you.
THE LAST WORD
Essentially what I’ve been trying to say for the last 6 pages can be boiled down to one sentence: What we lack in finances or resources we’ll make up for with sheer determination, willpower, talent and creativity.
To traditionalists we may not seem grounded enough in conventional filmmaking practices. We might even seem like bandits in the way we’re going about working outside conventional filmmaking boundaries. They may even be upset that I used the “f word” in this blog post. But for us, it’s about trying new approaches and inspiring each other to push ourselves and make each other better. In film, you’re nothing without your team. In the past when we set the bar high, even if it leads to disagreements or arguments, people respect our level of determination and ambition. Without a supportive strong team we’d be like a symphony conductor without the first violin.
This idea probably sounds barbaric to those engrained in the traditional film path… but here’s to hoping.
Our team and ideas are our most valuable assets. I can put this two ways. First, anyone who has read at least one book on film will be familiar with the stock quote “film is a collaborative art form”. However, I feel more attached to the Wu-Tang Lyrics“I got with a sick tight clique and went all out”. (1:12)
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Photograph by : Julia Kozlov
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