A Crowdfunding Campaign Success for Our New Short Film Plain Clothes!

I LOVE crowdfunding. It allows us direct access to our fans and supporters. We can build awareness of what we are working on and get our audience involved at the inception of the idea. And the funds can be raised quickly and used within a week after the campaign is over.

One of the most appealing aspects of crowdfunding is that we don't have the added pressure of investors who are looking for a return on their investment. It's complete freedom to be creative and service our audience. That is huge!

We just ran a new campaign for our short film "Plain Clothes." And it was a success! We wanted to raise $5k to make the film and we did it! We chose to use IndieGoGo as our crowdfunding site because they have an option whereby you can keep whatever you raise even if you don't hit your goal. I think that's essential.

It's so awesome to get this support for "Plain Clothes" - it's a huge infusion of positive energy. And now we're moving on to prep for the film.

To learn more about our little film, check out our Plain Clothes Tumblr site here, LIKE us on Facebook here, and follow us on Twitter here.

Thanks all!

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Location Scouting for Plain Clothes - My New Short with Writer/Director Sam Jaeger

Writer/director Sam Jaeger and I and our cast and crew are prepping for our new short film "Plain Clothes." One of the best parts of prep is scouting locations. It's usually a silly time filled with hope and excitement for a new story about to be told. We like to have fun throughout the process as you will see in this video.

Location scouts are also a reminder that the film will soon be a reality so let's get crackin!

Below is an uncut, super raw, silly video from the scout. Just a little taste of what it's like to work with us. Please excuse the lack of professionalism er, I mean professional sound design etc :)

Featured in the video is writer/director Sam Jaeger, DP Howard Newstate and our other actor Chris Weir. I am doing the amazing camera work. I think the sun flare off the car adds a tremendous look (haha).




What you aren't seeing here is all the serious planning that's going on. Location scouts are a very important part of the process. Here are a few questions, we always ask ourselves:

How are we going to shoot here?
Do we need a permit?
How will the light look throughout the day (thanks to some awesome smartphone apps)?
Do we need electricity and where will it come from? On site? Generator?
What are the dangers for the cast/crew in this location?
Where are the bathrooms?
Where will we eat? Etc etc.

And then you go home with all this information and try to make it all work in your schedule. That's a whole other bit of fun. We're making a movie - and that's the best fun of all!

If you're interested in being involved in this new short film, check out our IndieGoGo Campaign at: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/316830/x/6178

See you at the movies!

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Road to Sundance 2013: KARAOKE! (short), directed by Andrew Renzi

Andrew Renzi

KARAOKE! Production Still

KARAOKE! Production Still

Tell us about your film.

The film I have playing at Sundance this year is a short film called, KARAOKE!, and it is playing in the Shorts Competition.

What inspired you to make it?

KARAOKE! was built from a deeply personal experience of losing my father to cancer 5 years ago.  When he was diagnosed with multiple-myeloma, he was told that he had no more than one month to live if he was lucky.  Then, defying the odds, he ended up living for three more years.  The film is a fictional representation of that three year time period, my anxieties associated with potentially missing the "big moment", and somehow being unavailable when the time were to finally come when he could no longer fight.  I spent much of my early 20s battling my responsibilities to my family, while also falling into traps of denial, and escapist behavior that would allow me to avoid the inevitable moment when I would lose my father…my best friend.  For me, KARAOKE! explores that denial and the anxiety associated with having something cloudy and omnipresent in your mind that you just don't always want to deal with or confront.  Fortunately, the experience of my father's passing was serene, peaceful, and I was blessed to be beside him in bed the entire time, but creating this film so many years after the fact has allowed me to explore those issues of denial and avoidance that I dealt with, and that I feel are universal in all of our lives.    

What do you love about your film?

I suppose I am most proud of the fact that we were able to make a personal film that was not simply executed as if its sole purpose was to "tell a personal story."  Shooting widescreen anamorphic, with lenses from the 1960s, and embracing flares and long steadicam shots, allows the film to exist beyond the framework of just a simple family drama, and makes it a cinematic event.  Working with such an insanely talented crew like my DP Joe Anderson, and my producers Garrett Fennelly, McCabe Walsh, and Borderline Films, allowed me to justify telling a personal story, while pushing it to an extremely lush, cinematic, and at times even slightly fantastical place.  

How long did it take you to make your film?

It took a little over 2 days to shoot the film. 

How did you finance your film?

Support from vendors, personal credit cards, and producers who are willing to work as hard as they possibly can to get you the tools no matter what budgetary constraints may exist.

What was the most challenging part of the filmmaking process and how did you overcome it?

The most challenging part of the process for me was making the decision to truly personalize the film.  I think the idea of a young person avoiding his problems is something that we can all relate to, but in order for the film to actually mean something more to me, I had to be unabashed about making it a love letter to my father.  That was a difficult and daunting decision, because I absolutely didn't want to make something that would appear to exist only on some sort of self-serving level, but at the same time, I had the overwhelming urge to honor him in this way, at this precise moment.  Once I shed that fear, the filmmaking process opened up quite a bit more for me.  My father is not in the film, there is no actor playing him, but in the end of the film a picture comes on screen, and that is the way I want to remember him.  Through the picture of my father, at my age…28...brushing his teeth.  

Tell us about your experience getting into Sundance. 

Throughout 2012, I had also been writing a feature film that I knew I wanted to apply to the Sundance Labs with, so I actually sent my short film to the Sundance Film selection committee, and my feature film to the Lab selection committee at the same time.  So, when I found out my short film got into the festival, I was overjoyed, and couldn't help but feel as though making this personal film on such a whim was not for nothing, it really made me feel like it meant something more than that to whoever had watched it.  Then, when I heard I got into the Screenwriter's Lab as well, I pretty quickly stopped thinking about all that sappy personal junk, and just celebrated like any normal person would.

If you had to make the film all over again, would you do anything different?

Yes.  I would've paid my crew as if they were working on Transformers 3, because they all deserved it.

What’s next for your film? Do you have distribution? If so, when and how can people see it and if not, what are your hopes for the film?

I hope to have a nice festival run with this film, that's most important for me.  I'd like to put this film out there to as many places as possible while I prepare to shoot my feature.  

Can you provide any advice to other filmmakers who dream of getting their films made and into Sundance?

Align yourself with other artists. My collaborators on this film are my family…Josh Mond, Antonio Campos, Sean Durkin, Brady Corbet, Garrett Fennelly, McCabe Walsh….and so many others in NYC that didn't work on this particular project…and without them, I would just be treading water.

Watch the teaser for KARAOKE! here:

KARAOKE! Teaser from ActZero Films on Vimeo.

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Road to Sundance 2013: GUN, directed by Spencer Gillis

Spencer Gillis

Poster

GUN Production Still

Tell us about your film. 

The film is called GUN and was part of the shorts competition at Sundance (Shorts Program 4).  It is a character study about a young father named Roy who buys a handgun to protect his home and family after they experience a terrifying break-in. The newfound sense of power that Roy feels when carrying the gun becomes an obsession that leads him down a path that may have serious consequences.

What inspired you to make it?

Two things inspired GUN.  First, I grew up in the small town in Kansas where my mother was a police officer.  She used to take me with her to the pistol range to watch her practice shooting.  Eventually I learned to shoot, and I've always been impressed with the sense of empowerment and responsibility that comes with handling a handgun. The second thing was my own personal experience one night when I thought someone was breaking into my suburban home. My pregnant wife was asleep next to me and my primal instinct to protect kicked in. Thankfully it was a false alarm, but it got me thinking about what I would do if someone was breaking in. Those two ideas collided, creating the concept for GUN.

What do you love about your film?

I love that it doesn't push a political agenda. Instead, it challenges the audience to re-examine the way they look at the issues surrounding gun ownership.  In fact, the film isn't really about guns - it's about the influence of power on the human mind.  

How long did it take you to make your film?

We shot the film over three days about 14 months ago.  Our entire post-production process took about a year because we all had full time jobs and personal responsibilities that made the editing, coloring, sound design, and mix a slow process.  But we got it done in time for Sundance - so it was a happy ending.

How did you finance your film?

I used my own personal savings to shoot the film, then we raised about nine-thousand dollars on Kickstarter to cover the post production, festival run, and publicity costs.

What was the most challenging part of the filmmaking process and how did you overcome it?

Overall, the shoot went very well. The most challenging part of the process was post production - finding the time and the resources to get it done was a struggle. The editors and myself have day jobs, and we asked a lot of favors.  We are extremely grateful for the favors we were able to get, but part of the deal with favors is that you are subject to when facilities are available if you want a discount.

 
Tell us about your experience getting into Sundance. 

When I got the call I thought it was a friend playing some kind of sick joke. I truly didn't believe it at first. Even after going to the festival and having the most amazing time of my life, I don't think the fact that my film was in Sundance has completely settled in. It’s something you work for your entire career, so it's a bit surreal when it happens.

If you had to make the film all over again, would you do anything different?

I wouldn't change a frame of the film, but there are always little things during the shooting or in post I could have done to be more efficient.  The entire process was an incredible learning experience that will make me better next time around.

What’s next for your film? Do you have distribution? If so, when and how can people see it and if not, what are your hopes for the film?

We plan to run the festival circuit for the next year to play the film in a theatrical setting as much as possible.  We've been approached by a few different online distribution channels, which we'll pursue after the festivals have run their course.

Can you provide any advice to other filmmakers who dream of getting their films made and into Sundance?

Tell a great story that you are passionate about and surround yourself with good people who are great at their jobs.  Be fearless and don't give up.  90% of getting a film made is perseverance. 

Watch the trailer for GUN here:

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My New Short Film with Sam Jaeger: Plain Clothes

Writer/Director Sam Jaeger

Writer/Director Sam Jaeger (also known as Joel on the TV show Parenthood) and I are teaming up again to make a movie! I am so excited. This short film will be the first film I am producing under my new banner Meritage Pictures.

Our new short film is called "Plain Clothes." It's the story of a 35-year-old cop trying to make sense of the brutality he sees at work and the struggle not to bring it home. Inspired by accounts from real police officers, "Plain Clothes" is an unflinching look at the emotional toll paid by the men and women in blue.  

Ever since Sam and I made Take Me Home together, I have been looking forward to our next project together. Sam is such a talented and kind person and his positive attitude permeates the set. It's such a joy to work with him. And now I can do it again!

Of course it's never easy to afford to make new films so we have started an IndieGoGo campaign to help afford to make it. We hope any of you who enjoy my blog would be willing to contribute toward the making of this new film. It would mean a great deal to me, Sam and the film. Thank you for any support you can provide.

You can click on the below IndieGoGo widget to contribute. Keep on reading as Sam has answered a few questions I posed to him about the project below. Cheers!

Our IndieGoGo Campaign:

Questions for Sam Jaeger:

What inspired you to write Plain Clothes?

Initially, various conversations I've had with officers.  I know being a father also played a role.  There's something strange that went off in my brain when my son was born.  I felt like I had to "man up", so to speak.  Which I took to mean stuffing my emotions down in an effort to be the great protector.  And even though that's kind of horse shit, I see it happen to new dads.  We end up pushing things way down.  And so I thought, "If I'm holding back like this, what must it be like for someone in a really harrowing line of work?"  And so in these discussions, I saw that, sure enough, there's a lot of emotions that these men and women struggle to make peace with.  PTSD doesn't just affect soldiers.  And it surely does affect spouses.

So the idea of an officer at some sort of impasse in his life, where he can't keep all he's dealing with bottled up, finds himself in a life threatening situation.  And how does it change him, and how does it change his wife?  That was fascinating to me.

Why have you decided to make a short film instead of a full feature?  

I've tried to sit down to write with fewer expectations on myself lately, and so I wrote the first draft of this in an afternoon.  And then I let it sit for a while because I had this sense after Take Me Home that I wasn't going back to shorts.  That they were in my past or some nonsense.  But I think that was actually a way of keeping myself safe.  Because getting back on the horse after making a feature can be a pretty daunting task.  But if it's a story that moves me, that I think will move others, then the only thing standing in my way is fear.  And the most worthwhile things in my life have often been the most terrifying.

You wrote and directed the feature film Take Me Home (www.takemehomemovie.com). What did you learn from making that film that you want to apply to this new project?

I learned how many remarkable people there are in this business.  It's kind of an industry of gypsies, in a good way.  We're all trying to find our way, from paycheck to paycheck.  But the good ones, and there are a ton of them, the good ones make time because they love being a part of something greater.  And I really love to see how those collaborations, like Take Me Home for example, affected us all in such a positive way.

What is your hope for the future of this film and your future as a filmmaker?

Well, I hope to keep making films like this throughout the rest of my career.  I think there's something to be said for making a kind of film that isn't Transformers.  I think if you make movies that don't cost a third world country, and if you fill them with vivid characters in dire situations, you can build a long career.  Of course, that means never getting to work with Optimus Prime, but I hear that guy's an asshole anyway.

How can people contribute to Plain Clothes?

I feel like this film is an expansion of what Take Me Home is.  It's a growing community of people who want to help tell a good story.  And just committing whatever they can, twenty bucks or whatever, that goes a long way.  Maybe passing along our story to others.  It's been fun to share Take Me Home with the people who made it happen, and now I just want to expand that family of storytellers.

Our IndieGoGo Campaign Video (what do you think?):

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Road to Sundance 2013: Circles (Krugovi), directed by Srdan Golubovic

Srdan Golubovic

Tell us about your film.

Circles (Krugovi) is screened in World Dramatic competition. Circles is film about consequences of one heroic act. About the struggle of people who were witnesses and participants of one tragic event and their need to step out from the shadow of the accident which changed their lives. The film is inspired by true event.

What inspired you to make it?

The fact that there was no many positive stories from the bloody wars in ex Yugoslavia. Six years ago I read the story about Serbian soldier Srdjan Aleksic who saved life of his neighbor Muslim civilian and was beaten to death by other Serbian soldiers. Then I started to think together with my scriptwriters Melina Pota Koljevic and Srdjan Koljevic how to build up the story around that human act. We decided to tell the story that happens today and is talking about forgiveness, redemption, sacrificing and private catharsis of the characters of the movie. During the war I lived 100 kilometers from the war frontline and I wasn’t directly involved with it. I was demonstrating against all crimes and madness that happened near to us. We did nothing to stop that bloody war and probably we couldn’t do anything. That’s why I felt that working on this film is my private reconciliation with the time I lived in and my private catharsis.

What do you love about your film?

I love simplicity of the film language, which is totally focused on characters and their destinies. I love very much how actors brought with authentic and lively performance the world to which their characters belong to and how silence and emptiness is coloring the atmosphere of the film.

How long did it take you to make your film?

Very long. We started to develop the idea almost 6 years ago. It was very  hard and challenging process.

How did you finance your film?

Circlesis co-production between Serbia, Germany, France, Croatia and Slovenia. Film is also supported by European film fund Eurimages and Arte France and Zdf Arte. Total budget was 2 mil euros and the money that we got from Serbian film fund was 350.000 euros. With German coproducer I worked on my previous film The Trap (2007). It was very important and challenging to have ex-Yugoslav countries Croatia and Slovenia in this film. Story about Srdjan Aleksic is something what united all ex-Yugoslav countries in feeling that his heroic act is something what is above war conflicts and misunderstandings. That’s one of the stories that is opening the way for reconciliation and forgiveness.

What was the most challenging part of the filmmaking process and how did you overcome it?

To make the story that is connected with war in ex-Yugoslavia and which is universal and not political. The film that is honest and is a private piece of my world.

Tell us about your experience getting into Sundance. 

I'm very happy and proud to be at Sundance. The atmosphere of the festival is great. It's one of the rare festival where directors and programmers are in everyday and close communication with the authors. I like very much audience at Sundance who are very opened and curious.

If you had to make the film all over again, would you do anything different? 

Making the film is the thing of moment. Probably many things would be different in the way how I would make it. The idea and intention why I wanted to make this film would stay the same.

  

What’s next for your film? Do you have distribution? If so, when and how can people see it and if not, what are your hopes for the film? 

Next is Berlinale Forum.  I am very happy to be at Berlinale again, my previous film The Trap (Klopka) from 2007 was there. I hope that audience from all over the world will understand and emotionally connect with this movie. Circles is universal story that can happen everywhere.

Can you provide any advice to other filmmakers who dream of getting their films made and into Sundance?

To put in their films their own dreams and never ever to step out from that.

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Road to Sundance 2013: Google and the World Brain, directed by Ben Lewis

Ben Lewis 

Tell us about your film. What inspired you to make it? My film is called "Google and the World Brain" and it is in the World Documentary competition in Sundance 2013. I was really looking for a subject through which I could explore the dreams, dangers and dilemmas of the internet. The various projects to create a universal digital library, of which Google Books is the biggest, just struck me as such a fantastic story - it was at once an ancient dream, to create a universal library with every book ever written by man, and a very contemporary technological story - it was only now that it could be done thanks to the internet. Google had scanned ten to twenty million books, but six million of them had been in copyright - here we had something which juxtaposed the themes of the common good against the rights of the individual. And it was a totally international story.  

What do you love about your film?
I love the way I was able to realise the film visually by shooting in some of the world's most futuristic libraries, places which few people really know much about like the National Library of China, which looks like a massive circuit board, and the Vasconcelos Library in Mexico City, where the book shelves seem to float in the air, as if they were in a zero-gravity spaceship. I love the fact that this is a story which brings together one of the world's most ancient technologies of knowledge, the library and book, with the world's lastest, the internet and scanner. I love the fact that this is a story not many people know about. I love the fact that it is a totally international story and I switch locations as fast as in a James Bond movie, from a Spanish monastery to a Chinese book scanning factory to a panorama of Silicon Valley. And I just love libraries. 

How long did it take you to make your film?
It took three years to make this film. Two years to develop the idea and raise finance from many TV channels in Europe, and then a little less than a year in production.  

How did you finance your film?
In Europe, there are all these amazing TV channels like BBC4 in Britain and Arte in France/Germany, DR in Denmark and VPRO in Holland and they invest money in documentaries. What one does is one goes round pitching the film at documentary festival pitching forums, trying to persuade these TV channels to invest in ones film proposal.  Then one gets an additional grant from the European Union media fund, which is a complete lifesaver! That way we raised half a million dollars, €400k, and then we made the film.  

What was the most challenging part of the filmmaking process and how did you overcome it?
There were so many challenges - one of the greatest is how to make a film about the internet visually interesting - that was why I chose a story about libraries and scanning, because I immediately had unusual images to play with. Another big challenge, as usual, was persuading people to take part in the film, especially the internet thinkers like Lanier and Kelly. These people are soooooo busy and get so many requests for media stuff, and at first they didn't reply to me - only when I wrote that I had read their book 3 times and that I would happily exchange any body part of which I owned two for an interview, did I catch their attention! 

Tell us about your experience getting into Sundance. 
Well that was a huge deal. We were sitting in IDFA, the A'dam documentary festival in November and we knew they had rejected our film. And we were sitting around thinking our film willl be a flop, we haven't heard from Sundance, we're not going to get anywhere - and the invitations to Sundance were already in the spam folder of one of our producers. We just leapt for joy when I started getting emails and text messages from the programmers of Sundance asking us why we hadn't replied to them  

If you had to make the film all over again, would you do anything different?
No. If I could do it all again, I would do it all again. I got everything I wanted into this film. I crossed and recrossed the globe on cheap flights, shooting some interviews myself, when we ran short of money. I had an amazing DOP for the libraries and many interviews - Frank Peter Lehmann. I had producers who placed an enormous amount of trust in me, when I went over-budget, and supported every decision I made. I couldn't have done this film better or done it with better people.  

What’s next for your film? Do you have distribution? If so, when and how can people see it and if not, what are your hopes for the film?
Well, our film will be shown in around 40 festivals and on TV channels all over Europe. Film Transit are handling the distribution and we are looking for a fantastic US broadcaster to pick up the film and for theatrical release in America and elsewhere if possible. 

Can you provide any advice to other filmmakers who dream of getting their films made and into Sundance?
Plenty of advice - no room to put it here. Do half an hour of yoga everyday, because this is a very stressful way to live, earn money and make art. Make sure you have a good story. Remember you are story-teller. Tell new stories in interesting ways. Film-making is not about guesswork and genius - it is about structure and hard work.

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