One consequence of running a film blog is being solicited by young filmmakers eager to get publicity for their work.
That means I sit through a gaggle of micro-budgeted indies of varying quality – and I’m happy to do so. It’s the least a film blogger can do to support the art he cherishes.
And, occasionally, you see a special film like David Spaltro’s “… Around.”
Now, Spaltro is fundraising for his follow-up feature, and he needs your help. The writer/director’s new blog and Facebook pages ask movie fans to give whatever they can to the cause.
WWTW checked back in with Spaltro to find out more about his new project as well as his thoughts on movie making in recession-era America.
WWTW: Tell me about your new fund-raising effort … where did the idea come from and what kind of feedback have your received about it from your peers?
DS: I’d been looking at different ways of acquiring online donations and raising some helpful pre-production funds. Mine right now is a bit of a trial run as I’m not quite a huge crowd funding guy, but had a lot of encouraging suggestions/emails from friends who wanted to help out and this was an outlet for it. I’d never try to fund an entire feature film on it nor would I suggest anyone else do it as a method by itself alone. It has been done and done well, but for me the time and effort spent “campaigning” can be a lot of unnecessary nonsense and expenditure of creative juice that you could try other ways of getting the film financed.
Putting together query letters and packages, real solid budgets and business plans and try to get angel investors or other forms of financing to back your project. This maybe also depends on your own personality/strengths and voice in how you approach things.
Some people or my filmmaking “peers” are far better and more into testimonial videos and stunt-tactics of sleep deprivation and hunger strikes or whatever … for me personally I’m not interested in that, doing or responding to it, and would rather focus energy on my own strength, experimenting with on this test-financing run, and just reaching out to the people who know and enjoy my work, the writers and bloggers such as yourself who first discovered/supported me and presenting the project in earnest. Whether I get 10 dollars or 10k I’ll have all the other things I’m lining up/working on to get the project off the ground and make my deadlines, because by hook or by crook–and sometimes somewhere in between, I will always make my deadlines.
WWTW: Technology continues to give indie filmmakers better tools to create handsome movies at less cost, but the economic model for directors like yourself remains daunting. Can you break down the main reasons why filmmaking at the indie level is so brutal in 2010?
DS: There’s several ways to look at it and the results of the last few years. You can point to over-saturation in the market place for micro-budget features. It’s now so cheap to produce something of high quality, which opens to doors to many to make films, but then everyone, and their mother IS making shorts and viral videos and “exploratory” features. Then there’s the economic times where people are just trying to put food on their table and banks/credit companies don’t have money to lend to the point where even big studios are putting out half of what they did a few years back. Most television is free/inexpensive and has become the new home of original and well produced creative ideas and big stars/talented actors who can’t find work in the sparse wasteland of Hollywood’s output.
There are no specialty “indie” studio/distribution divisions that were oh-so popular a few years ago to the point where even the legendary lion Miramax closed its doors. There’s a lot of competition from video games which “open” far bigger than even the most event movies, iPhones, etc; the economy situation means less money and risky chances, and a lot of artists would rather swim in a sea of self-pity, point to an unfairness in the system or the world then look at their own work and see a lack of commercial prospect and or even artistic quality that could succeed if given a real chance. Yes, certainly looking at the last year in particular one could very easily get into an “end of days” zone, but it’s just a time of transition. Things are broken and aren’t the way they were, they may never go back fully and we’re simply not at the new way of doing things yet, we’re in the middle and it’s scary, uncertain, but it’s also opportunity.
You have to look at not as this impossible, self-destructive journey but as new opportunities under a new perspective. Now because there’s only half of the studio films being produced (around 75 instead of 150) there’s better chances at getting deals on name talent (cast/crew) or, if having made something commercially viable in some way, having more open slots for meaningful distribution. A great piece of advice given to me is that “a career is a lifetime” and much like the cyclical nature of the business and life it will go up and down, but you’ll hang in there all the same working and growing with it.
WWTW: What were the main economic lessons you learned from creating “…Around” and how have they impacted your current thinking?
DS: “…Around” was a $175,000 film funded on 40-plus personal credit cards which I don’t think any of my “peers,” even if they used their own personal funds, have even remotely attempted, and shot in September 2007, premiering a year later, a week after the worst financial crisis/crash had turned the world and industry inside out. Other than the personal financial fall-out which has sort of kept me out of the game in a serious manner for two years and developing my possible follow-up projects, I’ve had the time to watch others making similar efforts to what I did, trying out the new media platforms and navigating the waters. I’ve been able to see what has worked and what hasn’t as well as dab my foot into the mainstream and establishment out West. I’ve seen that in order to achieve anything you have to fully embrace the collaborative aspects of filmmaking, beyond simple networking and fan sites and crowd funding, but genuine strength in numbers. You need to share information and nurture artists coming up alongside you, protecting their interests, which are also yours and not see them as competition or the enemy.
I also learned that while if you have a story that needs to be told to go out and do it even if you have to shoot it on a cell phone, but that sometimes working hard and waiting to do it right can be a better long-term asset so you don’t short sell yourself or your story. It doesn’t have to be a war or kamikaze do or die approach every time.
WWTW: How will you spread the work about your fund-raising effort?
DS: I plan to put up some creative videos down the line, some pre-pro concept art and throw a possible tie-in fundraising event in NYC and Los Angeles in October, but I’ll also be blogging at my “Things” site and spreading the word through emails, flipping through ye old black book. I want it to be seen as not just donating for another film or project but as the start of a collective and company that will produce and promote quality media and bring back some truly independent cinema to New York City.
WWTW: How much can social media help young filmmakers today – in what ways? How is it overrated as a marketing tool for folks like yourself?
DS: Social media and networking has been an innovation for filmmakers and other artists starting out because of it’s connectivity around the world, free access and various outlets for creatively promoting/sharing work and thinking outside the box. On the other hand, people have begun to get lazy and ridiculously tout it as the end-all, be-all in promotion. They believe other forms of PR or marketing aren’t even needed and we’re definitely not there yet. I don’t think we’ll ever be there.
I think it’s a supplemental accessory to all the other forms of promotion and if people begin to rely to heavily on it and tout it. It’s all been, while great for connecting artists who can share tips and experiences and projects, the ground zero for so much misinformation and dogmatic ideals that don’t apply to the real world or to every artist. Someone manages to achieve something a certain way there can be definitely pro’s to seeing how they did it and why it worked, but to think that you can always recreate the steps or that there weren’t several other mitigating factors to why someone managed to succeed in promoting their work or funding their project is no different then buying in to the mainstream techniques of succeeding in the entertainment industry.
You have to constantly inform yourself, adapt to the new technologies and trends but not blindly follow or join in with them; you look at your own reflection in the mirror and strengths and see what you’re voice is, just as you’re telling your story or making your film, and then see from what all those options are what might work best for you.
If everyone hits up the blogs and the twitters and sends emails and donates the same dollars for projects back and forth bla-bla-bla support this and that… it’ll just be getting lost in an endless shuffle again and the whole point of a digital revolution or reaching in these outside the norm ways was to stand out and creatively rise above the pack. That isn’t happening. We’re simply now just cultivating a separate and far smaller, thus less lucrative pond, that will never be anything more.
WWTW: What can you share about your new film project slated to begin shooting in January 2011?
DS: “Things I Don’t Understand” is a film about roommates and surrogate family in Brooklyn being forced to grow up and save their home, which is the cocoon that allows them to hide away from the world and not deal with their responsibilities. It’s also a meditation on faith, death, forgiveness and in so many ways a far more personal film than even “…Around” which, in its semi-autobiographical nature, was still removed by several years from the person I was when making it. This film is much more a current snapshot on things I’ve felt and learned over the last few years, including during making “…Around”, my reactions to that and my hopes for the future and coming to terms with certain things and the strange economic climate the country and those of us in New York City are dealing with.
“…Around” was about the first phase of young adult life when you’re finding out about yourself, making a home and relationships… “Things” is a spiritual sequel at the phase of your life towards the end of your 20s and start of your 30s where you’ve either figured it out or haven’t, you start coming to terms with bigger pictures, ennui and apathy; you’re trying to reconcile your hopes and dreams with brutal realities and the future, including your own mortality. It’s also full of dark humor, faces and personalities that many can relate to personally, and is the first step in forming a new company that I will develop my own projects but also reach out to others who want to set-up films and shorts. There’s a ton of talent I’ve come across on the festival circuit and in my life and more than just monetarily I’d like to unite and act as a creative producer, connecting people and helping them in the developmental process through the promotional field.
One of the young artists I was blessed to meet was a very talented female filmmaker, Cassie Jaye, whose doc “Daddy I Do” played at a festival I was at with “…Around.” She had an amazing film, was very hard-working and passionate but wasn’t sure about the promotional side and some other things I gave her a few tips on. She’s been able to do wonders with through hard work and new techniques, generating buzz on college tours and at Cannes and is already on a 2nd film, promoting it like a veteran in a way that isn’t nagging but still gets the word out. Helping people like her is a calling I feel far beyond just telling my own stories, but in sharing my experiences and helping others get their stories out to the world.
WWTW: You hear so many stories of films that either doesn’t get made or just barely find the funds to finish shooting. It’s a near constant refrain in the indie realm – and sometimes in the land of the blockbusters, too. What drives an artist like yourself to endure despite the enormous challenges heading your way?
DS: It’s because you really just don’t have any other option. Now, I can only speak for myself, but what drives me always has been because I have as story to tell. One I NEED to tell. It begs to be fed and shared every morning as I get up and start with the emails or the revisions. It’s something primal from the times when people picked up sticks and rocks, scrawling in the dirt or drawing on cave walls. The day I don’t have that is the day I don’t make or work towards a new film. Let’s face it, filmmaking and celebrity is “sexy” and a lot of people get involved or attempt to because of the glitz that comes with being a part of it or the association with it, that it’s also become so affordable and also “easy” to just make something. They may never have hung a light or worked 30 hours straight and seen just how “un-sexy” it can be at it’s nuts and bolts core, but I think for a lot of other people it’s just the only option, it’s part of who you are.
A lot of people are running around now with the affordable cameras and doing various projects, setting up fan pages and pontificating on passion, dreams and taking over Hollywood or abandoning it all together. They’re out there experimenting and hey, you know what? God bless em’ all, but that doesn’t make them storytellers. All the technology and budgets and effects and promotional techniques are irrelevant if you can’t tell a story.
Spend less time worrying about your “DVD special features” or cross-marketing promotional internet campaign and first write or put together a story that is truly “special” in and of itself. The ones out there that ARE trying for more, straying away from misinformation and extremes of idealism and apathy by building real bridges and constantly pushing themselves and creatively tell STORIES are the future of the industry in whatever form it takes.
The ones working hard to develop and hone their craft and stories, working in true collaboration with the other artists and actually PAY THEM for it are the ones out there that are going to make the real difference at the end of the transition time, that will bring the creative ingenuity, cost-effective planning and heart of independent filmmaking into the realm of commercial/packaged studio films and they will survive all the challenges and trauma that lies ahead on making any film, because it’s about more than just their dreams and their name emblazoned on a title credit. It’s because they want it and it’s who they are first and what they do second.
(Photo: Writer/director David Spaltro. Photo credit – Gus Sacks)
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
david,
you’ve learned a lot since u were a kid going to the movies every sunday with your dad in jersey city! i’m really interested to find out more about the film. i’d like to give you a ton of money, but , oh well , i guess i spent it already………
rosanne