Ten Tips for independent filmmakers

Gary Hustwit is a successful documentary filmmaker. Last week Filmmaker magazine ran an article by Nick Dawson, called "Gary Huswit's 10 Web Tips for Doc Filmmakers." The article is drawn from a workshop run by Hustwit at the 2012 Documentary Lab, which is an initiative of the Independent Filmmaker Project in New York. And although the focus is on documentary filmmaking, many of the principles can be applied to any independent filmmaking project.

1. Connect with the audience early

With his most recent film, Urbanized, Hustwit launched a website for the movie after he been working on the film for a year, meaning he had a lot of work already under his belt and a clear sense of where the project was going. 

Know the shape and plot of the film, and have stuff to show people. But don’t give away all the info immediately. Allow the conversation about the film to evolve over time, and keep people engaged.

2. Crowdsource your info

Three of the urban design projects featured in Urbanized came to his attention via Twitter. Hustwit reaches out to his 150,00 Twitter followers to solicit suggestions for venues in certain cities or towns that he doesn’t know or has not been to recently. 

Lots of the aspects of filmmaking—from ideas, production and release —were facilitated through Twitter. Make people feel part of the process, because they are.

3. Stay in regular contact

Aside from tweeting, blog a couple of times a week and send out a newsletter every one or two months when you’re still in production, and once every two weeks when your film is actually screening. When teasing your film during production, put up pictures but not footage.

The fantasy of what your film’s going to be about is often better than the reality.

4. Use your movie to fund your movie

Think creatively about how you can use people’s interest in your movie to help you complete it. With Urbanized, when the film was in the late stages of postproduction Hustwit sold tickets to an exclusive advance screening of the film, and used the money to fund the movie’s color correction. 

You want to do your own screenings as you’re going to see revenue from it.

5. Give the people what they want

Whether it’s promotional items (T-shirts, hats, buttons, etc.) during production, or DVDs once the film is completed, supporters of your film want something they can get their hands on. Hustwit made a considerable amount of money through sales of Urbanized merchandise prior to release, and every day sells multiple copies of the $225 institutional DVDs of his films (which can legally be screened to large groups at universities and schools).

6. Be you, not your film

When going from one film to another, you should aim to take the audience with you. Use social media and the web as the tool to do it. Hustwit has a personal Twitter account rather than a Twitter account for each film, and has continued to grow a following for himself. 

Talk as you would to a friend, another member of the team—share stuff that is cool, that is of interest to your audience.

Hustwit tweets about his films and his creative process, but is careful in exactly how he does this. 

Tweet as a person; don’t promote, promote, promote.

7. Help them help you

Once you have launched a website for your film, always make sure there is a way for people to assist you in making the film, whether it’s offering merchandise for them to buy or putting a PayPal button on your site. 

People want to help you—to buy something, to support you—so always have something there. Don’t make it difficulty for people to support you.

8. One tweet is all it takes

Build a social media following like Hustwit and you can get things done with remarkable efficiency. Hustwit says that getting the Kickstarter finishing funds for Urbanized was fueled by Twitter. He sold out the first screening of the film after sending just one tweet.

9. Forge the right partnerships

Often the easiest way to reach your target audience is by working with a website which your chosen demographic visits anyway and offering that site exclusive content. For example, Gizmodo hosted the Objectified trailer – and it got one million hits in a single day. Also, there are interest groups linked to everything online that are often actively looking for a film on their chosen subject, so let them know about your project.

10. Customize your screenings

When you set up screenings for your documentary, 

... involve the people who you featured in the film and harness the audience who come with those people.

If they are experts or prominent figures within their field, people will often pay more than the price of a regular movie ticket to see them. And also think local, Hustwit advises, by finding someone from the place where you’re screening to come and talk at the Q&A and make it relevant to the audience members attending.
 

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Here's the trailer for Objectified.

    IMDb    Twitter    Website    Wikipedia   

First posted: 4 June 2012

Two documentaries

I recently came across a great post on the new blog from Xander Bennett.

(Xander is in a transitional period at the moment, one which I expect will lead to a lot more interesting posts from him. Note this address for future reference: http://xanderbennett.com)

In part, he had this to stay:

I recently watched two excellent documentaries, Free to Play and Los Angeles Plays Itself. Both are unapologetically subjective, designed to serve specific agendas, yet they also deal with universal issues. Both have unusual production histories: Free to Play is the first film by Valve, the legendary video game studio, and is available free on YouTube and Steam; Los Angeles Plays Itself was put together by film teacher Thom Andersen as an extension of his lectures, and has never been widely distributed.

Free to Play is a film about an esports game called DOTA 2. It follows three competitors in the 2011 DOTA 2 tournament which was, at that point, the largest and most lucrative esports tournament ever hold. The game just so happens to be made by Valve, who also sponsored the tournament, who also made this documentary. Ostensibly born out of Valve’s postmodern, laissez-faire, make-your-own-project workplace policy, it’s pretty clear this film has an agenda: bring validation to esports in general and DOTA 2 in particular, thereby enlarging the profile and player base of Valve’s multi-million dollar baby.

Agenda or not, it’s a great film. The editing is breathless, airtight, playing the audience’s emotions like a harp. It brings up every objection a non-gaming civilian might make to esports (it’s for nerds, it’s not a real sport, why don’t you get a real job, you’re missing out on life), quite deliberately, and throws them in the faces of its three characters, forcing them to confront their true fears and desires. It goes deep into the backstory of its characters, imbuing each match with emotional significance.

Film teacher and documentarian Thom Andersen’s masterpiece, Los Angeles Plays Itself is the story of the city of Los Angeles on film, as told through hundreds of clips from Hollywood movies stretching all the way back to the 1920s. At nearly three hours long, it’s a monumental, almost overwhelming study of cinematic history, but I guarantee you won’t be bored at any point during those three hours. I want to tell every person making a film in Los Angeles to watch this. Hell, everyone thinking of moving to Los Angeles should watch this.

I recommend you read all of Xander's post.

Meanwhile, here is the trailer for Free To Play. If you don't like the way teenagers bury themselves in their computer games, you really really should spend two minutes watching this:

And here is the actual movie, if you have some spare time.

Here's the trailer for Los Angeles Plays Itself. Go on, you can afford to take a 90 second taste.

Here is the actual movie, if you have some spare time.

Documentary on the Coen brothers

This is post #700.

Here is a documentary profile of film-makers Joel and Ethan Coen, who—according to the BBC—began their career with little money but ended up successfully taking on the Hollywood establishment.

Actually, they're just a couple of guys who make movies for fun. Movies such as:

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
True Grit (2010)
A Serious Man (2009)
Burn After Reading (2008)
No Country for Old Men (2007)
The Ladykillers (2004)
Intolerable Cruelty (2003)
The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
The Big Lebowski (1998)
Fargo (1996)
The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
Barton Fink (1991)
Miller's Crossing (1990)
Raising Arizona (1987)
Blood Simple (1984)

This documentary was made just after The Big Lebowski (1998) first came out.

Tommy's Hut

Here's something a little different; a short documentary from the misty Victorian town of Kinglake. Devastating bush fires (now known as Black Saturday) engulfed the town in 2008.

Since then, Brandi Johnson has fallen in love with the regrowth of Mountain Ash and gnarly Red Gum, turning her passion for making and salvaging timber, into a small business, called Tommy’s Hut.

And what does she make? One-off unique-design boxes. Like these.

Now meet Brandi...

Ten Tips for independent filmmakers

Gary Hustwit is a successful documentary filmmaker. Last week Filmmaker magazine ran an article by Nick Dawson, called "Gary Huswit's 10 Web Tips for Doc Filmmakers." The article is drawn from a workshop run by Hustwit at the 2012 Documentary Lab, which is an initiative of the Independent Filmmaker Project in New York. And although the focus is on documentary filmmaking, many of the principles can be applied to any independent filmmaking project.

1. Connect with the audience early

With his most recent film, Urbanized, Hustwit launched a website for the movie after he been working on the film for a year, meaning he had a lot of work already under his belt and a clear sense of where the project was going. 

Know the shape and plot of the film, and have stuff to show people. But don’t give away all the info immediately. Allow the conversation about the film to evolve over time, and keep people engaged.

2. Crowdsource your info

Three of the urban design projects featured in Urbanized came to his attention via Twitter. Hustwit reaches out to his 150,00 Twitter followers to solicit suggestions for venues in certain cities or towns that he doesn’t know or has not been to recently. 

Lots of the aspects of filmmaking—from ideas, production and release —were facilitated through Twitter. Make people feel part of the process, because they are.

3. Stay in regular contact

Aside from tweeting, blog a couple of times a week and send out a newsletter every one or two months when you’re still in production, and once every two weeks when your film is actually screening. When teasing your film during production, put up pictures but not footage.

The fantasy of what your film’s going to be about is often better than the reality.

4. Use your movie to fund your movie

Think creatively about how you can use people’s interest in your movie to help you complete it. With Urbanized, when the film was in the late stages of postproduction Hustwit sold tickets to an exclusive advance screening of the film, and used the money to fund the movie’s color correction. 

You want to do your own screenings as you’re going to see revenue from it.

5. Give the people what they want

Whether it’s promotional items (T-shirts, hats, buttons, etc.) during production, or DVDs once the film is completed, supporters of your film want something they can get their hands on. Hustwit made a considerable amount of money through sales of Urbanized merchandise prior to release, and every day sells multiple copies of the $225 institutional DVDs of his films (which can legally be screened to large groups at universities and schools).

6. Be you, not your film

When going from one film to another, you should aim to take the audience with you. Use social media and the web as the tool to do it. Hustwit has a personal Twitter account rather than a Twitter account for each film, and has continued to grow a following for himself. 

Talk as you would to a friend, another member of the team—share stuff that is cool, that is of interest to your audience.

Hustwit tweets about his films and his creative process, but is careful in exactly how he does this. 

Tweet as a person; don’t promote, promote, promote.

7. Help them help you

Once you have launched a website for your film, always make sure there is a way for people to assist you in making the film, whether it’s offering merchandise for them to buy or putting a PayPal button on your site. 

People want to help you—to buy something, to support you—so always have something there. Don’t make it difficulty for people to support you.

8. One tweet is all it takes

Build a social media following like Hustwit and you can get things done with remarkable efficiency. Hustwit says that getting the Kickstarter finishing funds for Urbanized was fueled by Twitter. He sold out the first screening of the film after sending just one tweet.

9. Forge the right partnerships

Often the easiest way to reach your target audience is by working with a website which your chosen demographic visits anyway and offering that site exclusive content. For example, Gizmodo hosted the Objectified trailer – and it got one million hits in a single day. Also, there are interest groups linked to everything online that are often actively looking for a film on their chosen subject, so let them know about your project.

10. Customize your screenings

When you set up screenings for your documentary, 

... involve the people who you featured in the film and harness the audience who come with those people.

If they are experts or prominent figures within their field, people will often pay more than the price of a regular movie ticket to see them. And also think local, Hustwit advises, by finding someone from the place where you’re screening to come and talk at the Q&A and make it relevant to the audience members attending.
__________________________________________________________________

Here's trailer for Objectified.

    IMDb    Twitter    Website    Wikipedia   

"Making Making Mirrors"

Another form of short film is the home-made documentary. This one deals with a musician putting together an album of experimental music. It is a gentle, but compelling experience. On the surface, the film is about finding beauty in old items; underneath, it's about family and friendship. The music is different: lyrical, soothing, exotic.

Wally de Backer (Gotye) is a Belgian-Australian, multi-instrumental musician and singer-songwriter who records, tours, performs, makes short films, and provides music for TV and movies. And makes his own 'virtual' instruments. Digital autoharp, for example.

This clip is called "Making Making Mirrors." Enjoy. Oh, and turn the volume up...

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