One of the questions that comes up a lot is “How am I going to manage and afford all the additional marketing outreach that is required to be a Truly Free Filmmaker?”. I don’t have a good answer for that beyond teamwork. I have always wondered why so many film school grads want to jump right in and make a first feature. Why not make mistakes on someone else’s movie? Why not learn by watching others make a lot of mistakes? Isn’t that part of what teamwork is?
Seriously though, how can you get it all done? That is the question. There was that article and podcast I heard about the guy who outsourced his life completely. It made for a good story, but it has haunted me in a good way too. I still have not heard any stories of filmmakers trying some of these techniques. That would make for some good stories too.
Sunday’s Maureen Dowd Op-Ed piece in the NY Times “A Penny For My Thoughts” brought it all back home. She covers the outsourcing of local reporting; it’s funny and horrifying and the same time. But maybe it is also an answer to some of the problems we are having.
I raise this while at the same time I take some pride in the fact that they I have never taken a production out of the country to save money. I have always found that you can make a film just as cheaply stateside where the filmmaking team is more invested in the success of the film — and believing that communal spirit begets a better movie. Which isn’t to say that the right film couldn’t achieve the same thing overseas. But production and outreach are not the same thing. It would be an interesting experiment to see what could be achieved.
