uncollected thoughts on crowdfunding a movie

just wrapped up my 4th crowdfunding venture. [ran 3 for The Black Sea (one a success, one a fail, one in-the-middle)]. The latest was done to support my next feature film Sister/Brother. I am a big fan of the concept and spirit of crowdfunding but less a fan of the actual doing, which runs counter to my default personality setting which is more or less to be quiet. I don't want to ask people for support in general, much less for something that I've taken years to write and assemble and that has legitimate meaning for me creatively, emotionally or otherwise because a) it could fail b) I am exposing myself. In fact after The Black Sea I promised myself I would never crowdfund again because the experience was so draining and unpleasant even though the movie would not have been made without it. Some of this feeling - that I'd never crowdfund again - was ego and some was the mistaken presumption that for a second-time filmmaker with a developed screenplay with actors and key creative personnel attached finding capital would be a smoother enterprise this go-round. Not the case. Though the film played at several festivals and had small group of followers, no magical doors opened and no money magically rained down from the sky as a result. No well-heeled or hungry bulldog producer sought me out to shake me by the shoulders and promise me s/he wouldn't sleep until this movie was made and in the world.

And so last fall I applied for a battery of grants from a wide spate of foundations, thinking I could patch a couple (maybe even a few) together to maybe get a whisper of a spark of motion with which to approach investors - and came up empty on all of them. Every single one. This was deflating naturally but I have served on enough grant panels to know the competition is fierce and the inevitable projects - meaning the ones that appear to be getting made regardless of the success of the grant - are favored. And it became clear that without some money already in that funding a narrative feature via grants is not a sustainable idea.

And so after some interior deliberation (and especially because MAKING A MOVIE > waiting for something/someone to allow you to make a movie) I decided to go for it. The people at Stowe Story Labs agreed to be fiscal sponsor. Plus, Seed & Spark was launching the second year of Hometown Heroes and I thought perhaps I could piggyback on that for some additional motion. I had raised 32K on my first venture for The Black Sea and this was going to be less, 25K, so how hard could it be really? Some well-timed, well-meaning tweets, a steady but not-too-intrusive-or-annoying FB presence, some emails to former contributors and the money should come fairly easy. Except no.

In the 6 years between my first crowdfunding foray and this one, several things transpired.
- Everything online became immediate right-now loud, look-at-me turbine engine of white noise
- Crowdfunding in general became ubiquitous ("Help Me Pay This Dude to Pack my Apartment!")
- Crowdfunding for your tiny indie movie became ubiquitous
These all conspired to run counter to my expectation of how things would play out.

Day One was good. Some of the people I was counting on came through. Then day two we hit plateau and moved into a nothing-nothing-nothing-drip-nothing-nothing-nothing-drop rhythm that continued for ten days and which began to grind me down, activating a rising whirlpool of negative sensation, ultimately causing me to question the validity of the project, the validity of the campaign, the validity of me as filmmaker, and at darker moments, me as person, charting the trajectory of various failures in my life and allowing them to feed/sustain a terrible narrative in my head that I've been working for years to unravel. Why did I do this again?

With some creativity, some conversation with other filmmakers (thanks David W), and a well-timed-but-accidental-because-it-was-planned-a-year-ago trip to Yellowstone I started to find a path out of darkness. What's the worst that would happen, the project failed at crowdfunding? That's not the end of the project, just of one avenue. As someone once said (or should have said) there are many paths to the mountain. Once I began staring this failure in the face and accepting it and contemplating other ways to get this movie made things became lighter and the path out continued to illuminate itself. Ultimately the project was successful and I reached my goal but it was not without personal impact. The more time that gets between me and the experience the more favorably I'll reflect on it but at present it feels like there was a corrosive in the process, something negative. Those are funny words from a person who just raised 100% of his project and I know there are plenty of less-fortunate projects so maybe I'll zip the lip, dispense with the analysis, and head to these notes:

NOTES FOR CROWDFUNDERS (OR MYSELF IF I EVER CHOOSE TO DO THIS AGAIN WHICH AT THIS WRITING I DEFINITELY WON'T THOUGH DEEP DOWN I KNOW BETTER THAN TO SAY THAT OUT LOUD BECAUSE WHO KNOWS REALLY):

- don't conflate running a crowdfunding campaign with making a movie. they are not related in the least. you can argue that modern world blah blah hustle hustle self-produce blah blah but they are divergent. (maybe this outs me as old.) There are many people doing this who are great at the flash and sizzle and OMFG YOU GUYS and the funny gifs of cakes exploding or dogs high-fiving but that doesn't mean they can frame a shot or direct an actor or find the heart of a scene in a sudden two-shot because you're losing light. Don't forget this.

- some people will surprise you. they give more than you anticipated or give more than once or are invested in your success without you even knowing it. their belief in you and/or the project will sustain you in the darkness. even when it is quiet, know that there are people in the world who have your back.

- some people will disappoint you. there will be people you are counting on, or at least presuming will support you - in no small part because when they asked for support for their project you were there for them; you gave money and tweeted/FB'ed about their project - who will leave you flapping in the wind. Do everything you can to not let this eat you up from the inside. Chalk it up to them revealing who they are, remember it, and don't dwell or let it fester. I mean, first try emailing them directly and give a gentle reminder or two (we have just 26 hours to go. remember when I gave you fifty bucks for X?)  but then cut them loose and never ever ever support them or their art again. (note: not sure the aspiring buddhist in me agrees with the end of that sentence and I'm still processing/wrestling with it but it felt satisfying to type it out.) At minimum, don't let their lack of response define you or impact your emotions.

- some people who supported you last time won't support you this time: but how can that be? you never know what is going on in someone's life and social media is a murky lens. So when the person who gave to your last movie, emails you back a one-word email (the word: UNSUBSCRIBE) after you sent her a direct email, not a mass email, appealing for support, just shake it the hell off. Maybe your email was annoying or maybe she is contending with darkness of any form and can't deal. Either is okay.

- your best friends are fellow filmmakers: one of the highlights of this experience was crowdfunding alongside a bunch of other projects and watching them navigate similar hazards and obstacles. Talk to them. Celebrate/commiserate together.

- don't do the whole campaign by yourself: even if you've done it before. you need a multitude of voices and you need days when you have nothing to to with it.

- let gratitude be your default setting: no matter the amount you raise or the difficulties you encounter. Treat the $5 contribution with the same level of respect and thanks as the $250 contribution.

- find quiet: if you are lucky enough to find yourself in the hills of Montana in October and the light is golden in the aspens and your heart is open the smallness/greatness of existence will speak to you. This enterprise is so small it will say. It doesn't not have the meaning you are ascribing to it it will say. The meaning lays solely in your movie it will say. It will shake you by the shoulders and promise you that what you really need/want is already inside you and no matter what it won't sleep until this movie is made and in the world.

reversion

was home sick a couple days and it - along with recently prepping/shooting project (which took me away from my mildly regular running routine which has obvious mental/emotional health benefits) and immediately afterward prepping/managing a live crowdfunding campaign for my next film (note: crowdfunding I'm reminded can activate a long ribbon of negative sensation dominos) -  drudged up a bunch of ill will and feeling. things i've overcome or worked long at getting tools to live alongside. sort of a fun-pack of depression/anxiety/panic all in alternating registers and currents. Exercise non-existent, meditation, not constant. diet and intake too much bad not enough good. and so i stick these in the front of my mind: remain grateful for what you have. put the focus on drawing breath. reflect on where you've been not where you haven't. don't wait in ambush, don't expect applause.

uncollected thoughts on directing

was on set again directing this past week for 5 straight days for my upcoming web-series Micgroaggressions, about 5 individuals and how they intersect with a City mediation one Saturday morning (more to say about that in the coming weeks) and learned and/or was reminded about multiple things that I am going to put here for my future self:

- just ignore that pulsing imposter alarm that keeps going off in your head throughout the shoot.
- get good sleep where possible
- if you think you got it move on. don't do another one just because or for safety. corollary: ask the actor/s if they want another one and give it if so.
- let the PA or someone other than you handle the particulars of craft and lunch
- your relationship w/ 1st AD is key to days going well.
- every day is a sort of marathon w/ ambitions, difficulties, highs/lows, varying energies, occasional heartbreak - don't get snagged by any of it. move on to next setup.
- while it's good to be flexible and in-the-moment about what to shoot, it's better to have an ordered set of shots in your head that you can speak to and deviate from.
- you will be asked an endless river of questions so don't let yourself feel annoyed when they keep coming.
- don't be afraid to say I don't know or I haven't thought about it.
- if low/no $ you may be tempted to have no hair/makeup person and ask actors to do their own. don't do this.
- though your head may be elsewhere, pondering specific details, missed opportunities, happy accidents, shortcomings, budget etc, remember that you are working with people so come up for air and talk to them. in some ways genuine conversation at lunch can be just as important as the screenplay
- the importance of deeply trusting your cinematographer cannot be overstated.
- something will go wrong.
- something will go very wrong.
- If something going wrong is an actor dropping out 4 days before you're supposed to shoot w/ actor, don't panic, just recast.
- If something going very wrong is replacement actor dropping out at 1:36 AM the night before you're supposed to shoot w/ replacement actor, don't panic, just rewrite scene for 3 people and make it a scene for 2 people even if it means you're late to set. Then when you remember 1 of those people is not an actor per se and not honed at new lines on the fly and how you were counting on 2 other actors in the scene to bolster him don't panic. Adjust shot/s w/ DP, get wild lines where needed. Maybe it's a happy accident b/c you didn't location scout this location in the first place and you'll realize that the space wouldn't work great w/ 3 people in scene anyway.
- always have a scripty.

Bus Project

Lately I've been drawn to taking pictures of people on my morning commute (mostly) and afternoon commute (sometimes) on the 75, 17, and 9 bus-lines here in Portland, Ore. This is kind of new b/c previously I mostly have focused on more benign things like bridges, trees, clouds. Taking candid photos naturally involves subterfuge - after all I'm not announcing it or following up afterwards - and a peripheral concern presents itself as to whether my action is appropriate, even if it's technically legal. I don't want to be all creepy about it. (There is perhaps a longer inquiry here to be made about how I relate to people and need some sort of artificial buffer zone just to engage with them but that's the topic for something else). I find something glorious about these moments in transit, all of us wishing we were somewhere else but stuck together. I also feel like this transitory zone allows people to sort of relax and drop their masks, even momentarily, across all sorts of backgrounds. A note about the particulars: these are solely photos of convenience in that I am sitting somewhere for a practical reason, usually an empty seat. I am not sitting near selected people to take their photo. I look up and they're there and sometimes the light is good. I generally take between 1 and 3 or 4 photos in rapid succession on my phone, save one if it's workable and delete the rest. After messing w/ the image I delete the original.

upcoming project

october 2017

currently up to my ears in pre-production for pending webseries project which thus far has engendered a raft of internal grievances (why this? why not this? why am I..? etc). it's been helpful to strip out the emotional reaction where possible and just focus on the act at hand. not dissimilar - and yes maybe this is just a convenient reach b/c i just ran one - to running a half-marathon where in the act of you don't really have the luxury to whine/grieve about the particulars of your running form or compare yourself to other runners (don't get me wrong, I still manage to do this) b/c you are literally in the act of passing the 9 mile marker or whatever. That said, I am deeply excited to make this (or more correctly, to have made it) as it's been a bazillion seeming years since I was last on a set. more to come

giant insects

the best i have felt in the last several years was standing on top of a dune on the southern oregon coast 2 weekends ago. we wandered up a forested path near our campground w/ no real plan and kept going. soon we could see a gigantic dune in the distance, urging us toward it. a short time later we stood at the bottom of it. we scrambled to the top w/ some effort and took in the impossible vista: ocean to the west, forest to the east, endless dunes north and south. the wind was steady and strong, blue sky, not too hot. the insect-like buzz of motorcycles and dune buggies off in the distance, intermittently coming into sight and then disappearing. a teeming wealth of glorious photo ops but I left my phone and camera back at the campsite. I was pissed at first but all I could do was document it in my mind. the longer i sat there watching there were slow openings: i had been wrestling w/ some concerns for upcoming movie projects and they suddenly felt so minor. everything human is really so gd tiny. I have to hold on to this feeling I thought.

later that day while everyone was back at the campsite I hiked back to dunes w/ camera. the giant dune was too far away for me to make the trek but i took some pix from the top of a younger sister dune. pix were fine but they didn't touch what was in my head. the perfection of it, the power of it. it was a weak facsimile, a bloodless iteration.

contemplating this all a week later I wondered was the magic ingredient was not having my phone w/ me? no ability to check/update, no ability to document the moment w/ photo. no choice but to be present. no way out. if i had been taking pictures I would not have been seeing. but then these are just tiny insect thoughts.

Return to Humboldt

MM rented us a van to drive down, which made more sense since our car's tires are bald and about to pop and the IRS just can't seem to deposit our tax return no matter our increasing desperation. drive down took 10 plus hrs b/c of stopping extended 2 times (once riverside park in grants pass, once in crescent city). at last we arrive.

at airbandb in bayside and the smell at night/morning is so long ago familiar that it aches. there are mirrors reflecting and refracting into hallways and corridors*. here we are at breakfast at X which used to be called Y which was where we ate when M and I were pretending we weren't a couple in summer of 95 so her ex didn't kill us; here's the loggia at the Minor Theater where M and I sat after our first benign coupling (her in a b/w pixies t shirt) saying 'we both know it didn't mean anything' except now I'm yelling at our son to calm the f down. here's the Plaza in full farmers market mode w/ organic nut pastes and whatnots. here's patrick's point state park and the memories of M and I getting married there, making everyone meet us there, making everyone walk out to wedding rock; here's the memory of going there in the july before our wedding to scope it out; here's where Darren and I camped that night after my son's namesake died. here's redwood park which triggers the memory of the photo I had of CR there w/ her beau at the time who we called 'hair guy' months before she and I got together, where I went for a run or two w/ J prior to apparently turning into a giant asshole. Here's the coop where M's ex works and where we all stop for sandwiches to see him. Here's me in the car w/ DMG (who went to school w/ me and lived in LA when we were there but lives in portland now and who worked on my movie) driving and SB (who shot/coproduced my movie) en route to the Avenue of the Giants so all 3 of us can run the 1/2 marathon - all 3 of us in various states of transition, transfiguration, repair. Here we are running late, stepping forward, the air charged w/ past/present, moving, running, going, not stopping.

*the corridors contain: my first arrival, 26 yrs ago, me moving in to apartment w/ CR 25 yrs ago and working at the American Deli (RIP) while not going to school b/c I was someway or other going to be some sort of artist (though that only manifested by me reading Henry Miller's oeuvre and writing in my journal); me moving to the Beverly House a yr later after CR and I broke up and she moved to Portland; me and Matt and George moving to the 11th st house a yr after (and where M sought me out  to talk when she and not-yet-ex were in death throes); me in the shack behind 11th st house the yr after; the house on Grant Ave 6 mos later; the death of my son's namesake on the side of the 101 near Moonstone Beach; the film department at the college; a couple romantic dalliances that were defining in several ways but that share the DNA of those-people-want-nothing-to-do-with-me-ever-again which suggests I was an asshole; the summer b/f my last yr when i worked floor camera at tv station during the olympics w/ Joe S who in some manner sold me bill of goods about LA and AFI but maybe he didn't really know who he was then; the projectionist gig at the Broadway Cinema; this creeping sensation of nobody knows what I am going to be/do and boy won't they be sorry; and so on and so on, all humming at once around every corner, pulsing with some varietal of cosmic wisdom or dumbfuck randomness.