I’m talking to different filmmakers and curators in an effort to get information about all kinds of distribution today. You are the Director of Grand Detour and the Experimental Film Festival, both in Portland. How would you describe the state of experimental film distribution as it exists today?

I think that in some ways, the idea of distribution is really changing (although I can’t speak to print traffic as I deal so rarely with it compared to a lot of my peers). SVOD is starting to open up new possibilities. For better or for worse, we’re moving away from experiencing the physical commodity of a film.

What is the breadth of work under the umbrella that’s largely labeled “experimental”?

This is a great question! The short answer is that there is a large breadth of work, depending on your definition or your fidelity to tradition. I always ask my programmer peers what they think is the difference between experimental and underground film, for example. Or the difference between avant-garde and underground and experimental. Really it’s about venn diagrams.

Grand Detour has historically brought in touring experimental artists and curated programs (Mallary Abel’s Cut and Run tour has also bee the focus of an interview here) as well as provided local-to-Portland makers with a screening venture (Portland Stew). Do you see national work or local work as more vital to your mission?

The dialogue between the two is what is vital to my mission. I also take Portland experimental film work to screen around the country for this reason.

Do hybrid forms, i,e, experimental narrative or experimental documentary, exist apart from purely experimental work (if there is such a thing) or is there an integration of all work that has “experimental elements” in the festival and micro cinema circuit?

Oh, there’s a huge spectrum of work. Thank god. I mean, Ann Arbor programs music videos. We had a family-friendly screening. And a porn screening. I feel like experimental is not itself a film genre, but it’s rather an approach to making media.

It’s often said that experimental work doesn’t lead tot funding and/or box office funds, Can you address this?

It depends – like, on what country you are in, for example – but I haven’t found a lot of money in experimental film. But when was the last time you saw a movie in a theater? I’m mostly kidding, but seriously, if you’re in experimental film for the money, start doing Etsy crafts or oil paintings. You can do plenty of other stuff for the money it takes to make your films! You can teach. You can write grants to buy supplies or to travel. You can have a day job, just like most artists. The great thing about making experimental film is that the paywall can come down somewhat from a “normal” film project budget, so there’s not as much overhead to get things done.

I will say that the experimental film community has a tremendous amount of cultural currency, which can be very valuable to artists.

What would you say to a student who wants to make an experimental film?
If you’re ever making the film you think you’re “supposed” to be making, it’s not experimental.

Thank you!

Hi, Jim. Thanks for meeting with me. Can you say a little about your work?

 

Yeah. I started making movies in 2000. My buddy had a digital video camera, and

he let me borrow it for about a decade. So, yeah. So basically all I did was — at that

stage I was really excited about it because it was free pretty much. Like there

wasn’t a barrier to entry that film had had previous to that, which was that you had

to pay per second of shooting something, which I always found a very prohibiting,

or inhibiting I guess is more to the point. Because I’m always very cost-conscious

thinking about how can I make something for nothing, and that’s just being kind of

a reality of kind of no budget, kind of artist approach.

 

You know, when I was making books and whatnot it was — I mean you don’t need a lot of — you don’t need a budget to write a book for instance. So you know, I started to think about films in the same way, which was that beyond the labor you can do things, interestingly, for nothing. So I was really kind of like, more than anything, just really kind of inspired by that constraint.

 

So rather than it being this sort of terrible thing that we couldn’t get funding for — to make movies, I just was like well, it would be fun just to try to prove that you can make something for nothing. Because it’s interesting, and it’s also kind of — you know, when you’re first making movies you want to set the bar really low, or expectations. I mean you — odds are you’re not going to get some kind of massive smash hit out of your first — right out of the gate, you know? So if you think about it realistically you’re just thinking about how can I make something as good as I can make it now without necessarily putting a lot on the line, or putting other people’s money on the line. So, yeah. That was kind of a lot of the inspiration for what got me started.

 

And then you know, I’ve always been really inspired by kind of lo-fi sci-fi films. I was thinking as far back the other day, I hadn’t been a few years, but like even things like Clockwork Orange is like a lo-fi sci-fi. It kind of creates atmosphere, and through certain jargon, and the language, and strange kind of set design, and slight tweaks to the environment. You know, in a way that was incredibly effective. And we obviously that’s — you know, the master filmmaker, etc., etc., but you know, he could have definitely gone another direction and really gone for a flashy kind of effects heavy sort of approach to it. That would have been more in line with what people traditionally think about that sci-fi.

 

So yeah. So we started making sci-fi in like maybe 2007 as feature films. Like between probably 2000 and 2007 I was working on little shorts, and then at one point I started putting together in a new sort of style. The thing with it was like a CD-ROM kind of compilation of little shorts that I like. And then I started connecting with other filmmakers that way, and at some point it was like I know so many talented directors and they like my work. Maybe they’d be willing to kind of collaborate on a longer feature. So it came out widely with kind of an anthology feature that each — like there was about — I think there was seven of us, and we each contributed a 12 minute segment, so I wrote them all in 12 minute segments. And they’re kind of episodes, but they all intertwine and connect. But they all kind of have different styles because all the directors are kind of coming at it from different places.

 

So we made that in 2007, and it was like it took us about six months and I think it cost about 700 bucks or something, so that the total that we spent on that. So you know, that was just sort of out-of-pocket. And then after that we managed to get it screened in three or four different places. Like we premiered it at this place called death con, which is like a hacker convention in Las Vegas. They were interested in showing it because it had a hacker in it, and so we screened it there.

 

And then just sort of went from there to sort of working with the guys that I got along especially well with in that particular first project, who were available, and interested in working on a second one. We started to think about Ghosts with Shit Jobs

                                                One of the questions that I’m asking everybody that I’m interviewing is about shorts, Many of the people that I’m interviewing are making features, or have been successful making features. But students in general are making shorts? We don’t actually allow them to make features.

Yeah. That’s a good policy.

Is there a difference if one makes a short? Is there still room to promote it and then market it? Is short — making a short an active thing to do in itself, or is it just something that you do getting ready to make a feature?

Oh,             I mean I think — I think like when I was making shorts back in 2000, 2004 it was much — it made much less sense from a perspective of the willingness of people to watch YouTube shorts these days is super huge. It’s actually, it’s super accessible. So, yeah. I mean if anything it’s gotten more relevant. Like from a — you know, from a — like the difficulty is just the kind of discoverability of these shorts, right? So that’s the thing.

 

I think — and who with the short are you kind of — who’s your audience, who’s your intended audience? Is it like a film festival curator? I think that’s kind of a mistake in this day and age because there are so many shorts because the barrier is lower, and fewer and fewer film festivals, you know? So, I think people that are just — aren’t to sort of prideful about it, and just sort of think about the first couple years of their career as something that they put up on YouTube, and try to build community, and build their skills. It’s amazing. It’s an amazing kind of chance to do both those things, you know?

 

As I say, I was interested in — I made this little CD-ROM, and eventually a DVD is the thing. It’s just because I wanted to- I wanted to sort of get some of these shorts that I was seeing out in the world. You know, and now it’s, as I say, it’s a lot easier. So, I don’t know. I guess there’s people that are — the same time it’s the same type of person who would be like well, I’m not going to do a screenplay because I want to be a published author, or have the attendant prestige that goes with that. And I mean yeah. If you want to throw that — like if that’s really important to you, you know more than actually finding a readership and having a decent chance at increasing your audience and sort of improving your craft then sure. Put all your eggs in one basket, but I think it’s a big mistake personally.

 

 

And I think you have to ask yourself why you would — basically what people are looking for when they go to legitimate outlets like festivals and — sometimes they think they’re — I think they think they’re getting things like a shortcut. They want someone famous to see their stuff and whisk them away to something, you know? And I — yeah. I mean that’s just a fantasy, so I don’t know. Just because it’s happened a half dozen times in the last ten years doesn’t mean that it’s viable.

 

So, yeah. I mean I think like if — to me the thing is is that going the independent route and getting a audience member by audience member type of approach where you’re just building audience through any of the number of like either Facebook, or Twitter, or YouTube subscriptions, or whatever. That feels like you have a much more decent chance of, I think, at some point making a living five years from now from it, than sort of hoping that by going this festival kind of fame route that — you know, I feel like that’s a red herring, to be honest, given that there’s so many good opportunities to not only build on audience attention,

 

Once you build it on likes, you know, say you get a million hits on something then you know, you get a million dedicated subscribers. I mean that — to me — I’m working on a web series next and my goal is to get a million subscribers to our — you know, I think — you know, I won’t consider it a failure if we don’t, but I think if we get a million interested sort of audience members I feel like at least one percent of them will contribute to create more of it, even if they’re not necessarily getting something tangible like a DVD or whatever.

 

So to me it’s all about building a large enough audience so that you have that small percentage of people that are really able to sort of — and excited about supporting you financially. So, yeah. I think you giving your stuff away for free and building audience that way, even if you look at it economically as a long-term strategy, I think it makes way more sense. Yeah.

So how — that kind of segues into a lot of — and I know you your self are someone who, if I can say this, has a strong sense of ethics about this sort of stuff. What about file sharing services

            Could you talk a little bit about that? Just talk largely about those ideas, those concepts, and then talk a little bit about where you stand in relationship to them.

Sure. Yeah, yeah. I love Bit Torrent. As a destructive technology I think it’s — I think it’s a great example of something that’s been around for ten years now that is like because it’s not centralized is incredibly difficult to shut down. So I think it’s like a collective — I think in general there’s always this tension in art between something that’s collectively — like we make culture collectively, but we only can reward the people who bring it to market individually. So there’s always a dissonance between the market and the kind of collective nature of how we make art.

 

                                    So to me, like I am quite excited about people discovering my stuff through Bit Torrent, or getting a hold of pirated copies of my e-books, or whatever. I mean I’ve stolen plenty of stuff in the past, and I continue to do so. So I just sort of feel like it’s a great way for people to discover the things with no risk. You know what I mean?

 

So, I think for people that are, especially people that are getting artists new, like those types of technologies are amazing because they allow you to share stuff with no actual costs to distributing it. If you distribute it through a traditional download method then you’re paying money for every time someone downloads it. But this way through Bit Torrent you can actually — it just decentralized it. It decentralizes it and everybody sort of collectively shares the bandwidth kind of impact.

 

So to me I think it’s brilliant from a technical standpoint, and from – yeah, from a cultural standpoint. I mean I use the library all the time too, and I borrow books, and I don’t pay the authors directly, but I will talk about them, and I will rave about their book if I love it, and I will recommend it to people. And over time that has like a kind of a promotional or publicity affect, and not just because I work in the cultural sector. I think that that’s the case for everybody. That’s the reason why libraries have been — like seen as a kind of friend to writers rather than someone that cannibalize is there market, right?

 

So I feel like — I feel like Bit Torrent is more or less along those same lines. People often have — you know, they often discover someone’s music through Bit Torrent, and then they end up going to their concert and buying a shirt because they’re huge fans, right? So there’s other ways for — you know, the thing that’s interesting about it is that technologies like Bit Torrent allow for almost — like it reduces the cost of this cultural production in a huge way to the point where you don’t have to sell as many copies of the actual thing. You can actually get by on selling T-shirts or related merchandise that people — you know, or in person kind of concerts, or readings, or whatnot.

 

You you can actually — you know, it expands your reach, and it lowers your cost of production. So, you know, it’s not simply the same as stealing something from a store, shoplifting. It’s like a poor analogy that basically is there to prop up there kind of status quo of — you know, of a system that is incredibly bloated and, like I said, as an author I only see — you know, if I go through traditional book publishing I only see ten percent of my labor from that. From a $20 book I get two dollars of it.

So they — of course, the people who get the other $18 of it are really concerned about this. But as the person who makes the stuff, and I can have a direct relationship with the audience, I don’t see any — I see it as opportunities not as a threat to my livelihood. I think that’s just incredibly narrow minded, and not seeing the whole picture of how the technology really changes it.

Back to Ghosts with Shit Jobs for a second. And so the numbers — it’s just really nice that you published all that data for people to see. And one of the things that you published was kind of a pie chart that showed where you spend your money, and the largest piece of pie in the pie chart was promotion. And then you did another kind of bar graph underneath that that showed that the largest part of promotion was flying places to promote your film as it screened I’m supposing, I think that’s what it was.

So that’s an interesting piece of marketing that I think most people don’t think about is really promoting their film while its already screening someplace. Most people would say well, the screening is the end goal, so we don’t even have to be there, you know?

Right, right.

                                                            Can you talk about that a little bit?

Sure, yeah. I mean I’m pretty — looking at the numbers kind of makes me question our own choices I think in terms of the costs. I mean the costs are still — you know, it’s — I don’t regret sort of spending as much as we did on the flights and things. Because as well they also had this intended kind of pleasurable — this is another city, and see your movie, and it’s being screened, and do the Q and A, and do those types of things.

 

I mean I think at a certain point people get really tired and jaded about it, but certainly I always loved doing Q and A’s. I never got tired of it even after 25 of them were so. I mean I think over – if I had to do 100 of them or something, or you know, the third movie, and you know I might get a little bit fatigued around it. But I — it was definitely pleasurable.

 

So there’s that aspect of it. I mean I look at it — I don’t look at these things necessarily as having to return on each individual work as an isolated product for instance, right? So in my case I was making those trips out and making connections with people at these things because of my next film, and I’m not so much concerned about like okay — like I mean because you know that’s obviously like brings a little bit of extra kind of personas to the table if you’re going to be there in person. You know, when it comes to like someone is going to go to the movie or whatever, and they know that that directors going to be there. It kind of gives it a little bit of an extra kind of interest, right?

 

So, you could definitely make the argument that it sells a couple more tickets. Now probably not enough to justify the full cost of the flight on the scale that we’re working on, which is relatively small. But there is something to be said about that it doesn’t increase the chances of it to getting some coverage, or of there being interviews if there’s an in person sort of factor. We found a little bit of that not so much — not overwhelming when it comes to sort of coverage in in the weeklies or whatever, but there was a couple times where we definitely got interviews that otherwise wouldn’t have happened.

 

I mean it’s kind of part of the whole thing though. For me the promotion of something is an incredibly important part to the production process. Or not — it’s not really part of the production process, but part of the creative process. Because that’s like the last quarter that a lot of people just kind of get nervous about, or they skimp on, or they sort of get too quickly into the next project, or whatever the case is.

 

But there’s so many benefits to it. I mean there’s obviously the benefit of — and you know, my general strategy, and this will probably change over time, but to a certain extent I tried to throw everything I can at promotion. I’m beyond kind of like spending a ton of money on PR people. I do a lot of different things, and I’ve tried a lot of different approaches to kind of draw attention to the work once it’s done.

 

Can you name some of those?

L            Let me see. What do I — I mean the twin component for this one was a big part of it. In set up in some places we also did things like we had local sort of celebrities talking about the future of jobs prior to the movies. So we had something that would be like people who had futuristic jobs already. There is a web comics guy named Randall Monroe who does this comic called XQCB. And when we were in Boston he was up for being our panel, and we sort of talked about futuristic jobs and that kind of thing. So that was an added — like that was an added draw to — that brought a lot of people out to see the film.

 

So things like that where we — I mean the kickstarter itself was kind of we viewed it as — because we didn’t need money to complete it or anything. We were just literally almost a doing presales for it. That drew an incredible amount of attention to the project, which was really — you know, we originally hoped to raise 5,000 for five cities — to tour to five cities, and ended up raising 20. So, yeah. We really sort of, obviously, were able to get out to a very suitable, interested audience, you know? Just to that platform. So, the money we raised of course, but it was even more valuable in terms of getting the word out there in terms of promotion.

 

So, yeah. That was another kind of, I guess, promotional kind of outreach type of thinking because we wanted to — like I mean we did hope we would make more than 5000, or we thought we had a really good chance of hitting 5000. So, it was a way for us to gauge interest. And because everybody who is signing up for kick starter was also like associated with cities, so we could see how many people in each city, and potentially how many kind of fans we would have already in those cities. So we could kind of make a — like put together a tour based on where the interest was, and where we already had allies and friends and stuff. So, yeah. All of those things kind of were promotional approaches.

 

But yeah. I mean generally it — I mean the big thing is like that it’s really not — like it’s definitely — to do a big — to do like a big show in your own home town is actually not that hard. Like you just have a good idea as to how many people would be interested in coming. You know, find a suitable sized venue. Like don’t choose that 800 person venue if you really think you can probably get 150 people out. Like the optics of that are terrible, so you want to sort of think.

 

If you’ve never done an event before then you want to figure on maybe 100 people. I’m sure that — like it’s just about — there’s some of the things you can do too now that with the ease of buying things online you could even presell tickets and then get a venue after that suitable. There’s so many options, right? Or get people to — like if you want to do a prescreening you get something on Facebook, and you find out how many people are interested in seeing it and then get a venue, right?

 

So, yeah. I mean doing a screening, or even better like with graphic arts is getting a bunch of people to do a screening together. Because then you all share audience, right? So you reach bring 20 people, and then you can put a little collection together and sort of share the cost of the rental of the theater, right? And they’ll have like a decent sort of screening in a theater, and impress your parents, and all that kind of crap.

 

So, I mean there’s that kind of thing that’s like that — and you know, that also has these kind of attendance value of — the attendance value of building community, right? So you’re not just sort of imagining that it’s you against all the other filmmakers. You can kind of join forces, and kind of realize that what you’re really fighting is not each other, but rather the gross indifference of 99.9 percent of the people towards your work. So you’re unified in that, right?

 

So if you can come up with something that’s like a common theme, or anesthetic that kind of has some resonance and interest. If you can say these are eight films about something, you know? Something interesting. Even better than — you know, you’re already in a really good place, right?

 

Like for our compilations we would have, I think I had one theme that was games and shames, and teenage boys and other animals, things that were — like I just basically was able to find a bunch of videos they liked, and I think they sort of film some kind of somatic link to sort of draw them together. To put them under a banner or something so it’s not just like a random films, right?

 

So, yeah. I mean it’s — more than anything else it’s about kind of connecting with your fellow filmmakers, seeing what works, putting yourself out in the public, you know? And then sort of getting better, you know? Like just keep on making stuff, and not be worried about the big break or any of that bull shit. Because at the end of the day you could just have like a craft you’re just like really creatively charged by, and there’s nothing wrong with that. You might not ever kind of make a living off of it, and it doesn’t matter if it gives you something, right? And you find other ways to make money or whatever.

 

But realistically, like looking at — like if you can keep at it for ten years then your chances are ten times higher of kind of building an audience, or hitting a nerve in the public than if you just sort of like burn yourself out after a year, you know? So, I think you just have to kind of — you know, filmmakers just have to kind of figure a way to do it that is sustainable for them, that is enjoyable for them, that is constantly thinking about growing that audience and outreaching to new people. Not in a marketing way just as in like you want to show new people your shit. You don’t always want to show like the same eight people, right?

 

So how can you find those people, how do you meet those people? Because ideally they’re going to love your stuff, and give you feedback, or help you out in your next one. All of our films are like — our current sort of project, or our web series project you can actually — actually just got funding last week, so we’re kind of moving now from this totally no budget kind of model, to one where we are paying people. And it’s the same people we’ve been working with over the last two features, right? So it’s really awesome, but it’s a big step that has its own complications. Basically like we were able to make the last one for 4000, but as soon as you start paying people — you have to pay everybody, and there’s so many people involved with the film that it gets into — in our case like our budget for our 45 minute web series is going to be about 150,000.

 

And that’s just going to pay for labor and some basic things, right? So that’s a big step. Like that’s a big jump. It’s not like if you scrabble together 20 grand it’s going to make much of a difference. Like it’s just going to — I just sort of feel like people are better off just working — just sort of take as a given you’re not going to get any money for this, or you’re not going to get any money back for this. What kind of awesome movie can you make given those constraints, right? Because if you’re just thinking about oh, like we could pay — we start paying people, and we start thinking about production design and stuff like that.

 

Like I think more than anything else, like if we had more money at the beginning it wouldn’t have made any difference to the quality of the work, and I feel like it would have just kind of muddied the waters to a certain extent. Because we were able to kind of — to do something that was purely kind of on a volunteer passion level that really kind of allowed us all to kind of get better at what we are doing, and sort of improve our craft to the point where — but we’re like we — we’re sort of at this point where — you know, the guys I’m working with they want to do it — they’d like to do it full-time and quit their other jobs. And we had an opportunity to sort of connect with a funder and it worked out, but like I said, that’s after maybe seven years of doing — that’s after seven years of making feature films, and for me, another seven years of making shorts.

 

So all in all over a decade maybe 14 years of just like fucking around and trying to get better each iteration, rather than really being super concerned about all of the stuff that people are being super concerned with in the film industry like money, and stars, and big profile and all that kind of stuff. There’s still a real big kind of unfortunate — I actually feel like compared to my experiences, they’re fairly limited in the film community.

 

I found a lot more kind of common sensibilities in the web series community. Personally because people don’t — like web series don’t get really get any respect. So it doesn’t really your respect for people — it doesn’t really sort of like attract people that are interested in power. They just want to kind of make their web series, and get some new subscribers and that kind of stuff. They’re not really super power-hungry, or really concerned about appearances. So, I guess I kind of — I found them sort of more seem like, or kind of scrappy, or an Indie. More on a Indie — not like a $3 million, $10 million Indie, but like actual Indie, Indie. Kind of people that are trying to make something for nothing, and that kind of thing.

                        Yeah. Can you — speaking of that is another good segue. So, I think everybody that I’m talking to considers themselves independent, an independent filmmaker. And yet the people that I’m talking to are an incredibly wide spectrum of people. So can you just talk about what does independent mean now? What does that word mean in filmmaking?

Mhm. Yeah. I mean it has — yeah. I mean on one end of the spectrum it’s just like — it’s a marketing term that Indie’s cool, so let’s slap it on whatever has the FedEx kind of appearance of Indieness to kind of give it an extra edge in the market. And then on the other side you have people that are genuinely opposed to media consolidation, and are doing work to kind of counteract it on some level, or to kind of provide a model that is separate from that. Like they don’t want to be involved with corporate interests, and try to do that.

 

And yeah. And I think it’s like — it definitely — the thing is what’s interesting about it for me is someone who tilts towards the latter definition of Indie, is that while it’s not that difficult for me to say that well, I would never have a — I would never sort of negotiate with 20^th Century Fox for any sort of partnership. Because of my history with to Rupert Murdoch in deciding to go independent from HarperCollins, and that’s my line in the sand. It’s like no Murdoch owned kind of companies, because he’s a right wing the bastard basically.

 

But, you know, I mean that’s fairly arbitrary. As lots of other extremely unpleasant people in the corporate sphere, and it’s definitely you can make an argument on its no better than the next. But the thing is is that for independence it’s really not that — for people who are making Indie movies the harder thing to avoid on a corporate interest level are the new corporate overlords, which are kind of like Twitter, and Google, and the appliances in which we interface, and who own our communities in one way or the other.

 

You know, I’ve just been saying like yeah, like build a community, build up your followers, build up your YouTube subscriptions, or whatever. Like that’s all — you know, it seems that they decide to change their terms of service they can do whatever the fuck they want with your users, you know? So really that’s a kind of more pernicious — to my mind more pernicious really even than the old big media is like the impact of these kind of these new — yeah, these new powers. Because they’re not — because their impact is yet to be assessed, and it’s hard to argue with free services, you know?

 

But really I think that all these companies — all these companies are going to be taken over by power-hungry pigs at some point, and they’re going to basically squeeze every last bit of value out of their massive user bases, right? So that’s going to happen. Its power tracking power. And how it happened in the old media is like how media consolidation kind of begets more of the same. So really, I mean I think that’s the same.

 

Like to me there is a certain efficacy with using the existing social sort of networks that exist, and that are provided by these corporations. But yeah. I mean that’s — it’s a lot easier to say fuck you to Rupert Murdoch than Google in my experience. So, yeah. So that’s — yeah. That’s kind of the new challenge is sort of figuring out how to divest ourselves, or not be totally beholden to these technological kind of industries.

Great. Couple of last quick questions. So, this is mainly for undergrads, although some grads will see it as well. Do you have just any words of advice for a film student right now going to film school? What should they be doing, what should they be looking at, that sort of thing?

Yeah. I mean I think they want to — I think if I were them at this age I would look at what really excites me and inspires me that I’m watching? And not try to make something that fits the mold of the future, or short, or film, or any of that kind of stuff. Like just look at the thing that’s really — and there’s probably going to be tons of stuff that is super inspiring.

 

And from that look even closer at the subset of things that are actually achievable with nothing. Like with the resources that you have at hand. And that might be your skill set, that might be the people you know, that might be the locations that you have access to, whatever the case is. Like it’s — you know, go for the left low hanging fruit of like awesome when it comes to the stuff that both inspires you and is both achievable. It’s dumb to not start with that kind of approach, and inevitably you will get more and more ambitious, you know? And want to do more interesting stuff that really pushes you, or challenges you in one way or the other.

 

But yeah. Just produce something that you’d love to see that isn’t being made and that you can make, and then just put it out there in as big of a way as possible. And that might be just something like making up business cards with the URL on them, so when you meet someone at a party you pass them anything, right? And then they check it out. I mean there’s — that’s how local networks are built. And I do believe in the strength of local networks regardless of international kind of millions of hits, or whatever the case is. Like if you can connect with people and audience locally that will enhance your kind of — you know, everything from your self-esteem, to the chance of getting honest feedback on things, to connecting with people that have skill sets, you know?

 

Like in our case sometimes we would — you know, the first film we made had terrible lighting. Like this WebCam sort of situation as lighting, you know? It’s terrible. But yeah. When we were making the second one people were like coming to us and in fact they said I do lighting, and actually putting our flaws out there, or putting out something flawed actually allowed us to connect with the people to make something better the next time. Whereas if we had just said well, you know until we meet these people we’re not going to — we can’t really put together a really good high quality product. Like we just never would have made it, right? You know, that was an essential part to sort of connecting with those people.

 

So, yeah. So, I mean basically do what you can do, get it out as big as you can get it out, and use the attention, or the connections that you’ve made as a result of that to make something more ambitious, or bigger, or more exciting to you the next time.

 

 

http://nomediakings.org

I’m Jim Munroe, a novelist who stopped publishing with HarperCollins to showcase and propagate indie culture alternatives to Rupert Murdoch-style consolidation. This site is a launching pad for the stuff I make, articles about how to make them, and a source of my two main food groups: inspiration and feedback.

http://ghostswithshitjobs.com/
http://nomediakings.org/store

Jim Munroe (b. 1972) is a “pop culture provocateur” according to the Austin Chronicle, and an “independent press icon” to Time Out Chicago. Primarily he is an indie culture maker in various mediums: post-Rapture graphic novels, lo-fi sci-fi feature movies, and award-winning text adventure videogames. He’s also helped found and run various arts organizations, notably the North American touring circuit The Perpetual Motion Roadshow and The Hand Eye Society, an incorporated videogame culture not-for-profit. He lives in Toronto’s historic Junction neighbourhood.