The film community is growing, and on the D+CFilm social network, David Salas -the brains behind the innovative Simple Lies Experiment -has posed the question of creating a self-funding filmmaking co-operative.
David proposes a membership fee of £1 a week for the funds. Cast and crew would be readily available. And then there’s the communal skills and knowledge of getting the film made and distributed.
He says: “I figure that we could always do with more money to get more films made.”
On the other side there are infrastructure and organisational issues.
Martin Lejeune says: “Not something I can see working I’m afraid, it’ll just lead to tears before bed time.”
But Robin Whenary is more positive.
“If it’s all worked out and agreed (on paper) in advance, so there’s no possibility of people feeling aggrieved when their project doesn’t get the money, I don’t see why it can’t work,” he says.
Got an opinion, leave a comment below, or join the D+CFilm network and add to the debate.
Ashley Thorpe says
The main problem I can forsee with this is the age old adagio – ‘Too many cooks…etc’
The greatest problem with communal film-making is that it tends to yield poor results. Most film makers yearn for creative freedom and generally the more people you get involved in trying to realise an idea, the more corrupted the idea becomes. This isn’t about puratinism, this is sadly just plain practicality. It takes motivation to make a film. It also takes a little bit
A film-making community is not a bad idea; a forum for sharing ideas is good, but a self funding one raises issues of ownership and control. There’s also a common myth amongst film-makers (especially those that haven’t had the fortune / misfortune to work in the industry) that the only way for your work to get noticed is to hire the most recent / hi-tech / star-spangled technology for your project.
It’s not true.
Forget the tools.
Remember the project, and its target audience – that will raise its profile – that will help with funding and distribution.
This kind of ‘community’ is essentially a peanut microcosm of the Bursary / Arts council grant system anyway (£1 a week – 52 weeks a year – 20 film-makers …that’s not that much money…and sadly it won’t go far, especially if you’re one of the majority of film-makers that I’ve met that has to hold down a full time job and pay school fees etc), so why not try a completely alternative way of creating funds for future projects? There’s ways and means…and I genuinely think that although it’s a noble idea to create this kind of film community there are other ways to generate money for projects.
I’ve just started selling my films via my site as downloads – films that were genuinely targeted at an audience I consider myself part of. I’ve been contacting genre related sites, trying to get into relevant festivals and magazines. I’ve even paid for an advert in one of them after a review (Gorezone).
I honestly believe, that in this age that self-marketing might be the way forward. Perhaps that might be a collective pool worth dipping in…