Laura
Director: Fellipe Barbosa
Nonfiction | Winter 2010 Grantee
Festival Screening Information | World Premiere – Golden Starfish Award Documentary Competition

Imagine if Grey Gardens’ Little Edie had actually realized her dream of moving into a studio apartment on 10th Avenue: her life might have resembled that of Laura’s, a Brazilian expat in New York City who lives two contradictory lives. (synopsis by the Hamptons Intl. Film Festival)

Ok, Enough, Goodbye
Director: Rania Attieh & Daniel Garcia
Nonfiction | Summer 2010 Grantee
Festival Screening Information | US Premiere – World Cinema: Narrative

A 40-year-old man still living with his elderly mother has given up on the idea of becoming independent – until she suddenly leaves him.

The Bully Project
Director: Lee Hirsch
Nonfiction | Winter 2009 Grantee
Festival Screening Information | Films of Conflict & Resolution

A year in the life of America’s bullying crisis that offers an intimate look at how bullying has touched the lives of five kids and their families.

The Forgiveness of Blood
Director: Joshua Marston
Fiction | Supported through Cinereach Productions & Winter 2009 Grantee
Festival Screening Information | Films of Conflict & Resolution

In The Forgiveness of Blood, the lives of a teenage boy and his younger sister are thrown into turmoil after a killing in a dispute over land draws their northern Albanian family into a blood feud.

You Have the Right to an Attorney
Director: Matt Bockelman
Nonfiction | Supported through the Reach Film Fellowship 2011
Festival Screening Information | Short Films

You Have the Right to an Attorney enters the daily grind of two young public defenders in the South Bronx.

a post by Nancy Schwartzman

Back in September 2010, I was selected to participate in Cinereach’s Reach Film Fellowship, a program for emerging filmmakers making short films. I wanted to explore technology and its impact on our intimate relationships, so I developed xoxosms, a documentary about two awkward, introverted teenagers from two different worlds. The subjects of the film, Gus and Jiyun, found each other and fell in love on the Internet (see prior Cinereach guest post for how I navigated my delicate access to their love life). The film is about to premiere at the New Orleans Film Festival this coming weekend, but as I reflect back on the early days of the project, I think one of the most valuable things I can share is what I learned from my experience crowd-funding to raise a significant portion of my film’s budget.

The Reach Film Fellowship provided mentorship and a grant towards making the film, but we needed more money for post-production because we shot in multiple  formats and needed motion graphics sequences to illustrate Skype and chat scenes. I chose to do a crowd-funding campaign to bridge the financial gap for a few reasons. First, I wanted to try online fundraising, which requires a new kind of trailer and telling the story of my film outside the immediate film and film-granting community. I felt that the topic of love and the Internet would catch peoples’ attention and help generate energy, excitement, and perhaps a community around the film.

Before production, we started a Tumblr blog called, “Without the Internet, we never would have met…” which drew inspiration from stories of long distance relationships (“ldr”) and Internet love that we found in online communities. The blog was not intended as a marketing site for the film, but as a place to highlight and explore relationships like Gus and Jiyun’s. We hoped people with a natural interest in the topic would find us.

I made a list of friends, family, and colleagues to see if I felt comfortable asking them for money—I did. I assessed the community around The Line Campaign (the multi-platform outreach component of my first film, The Line) to see if I could possibly migrate the community to support this new film. The Line Campaign includes an active blog and a crew of bloggers, 2600 twitter followers, a Tumblr blog, 2 Facebook pages with about 3,000 fans, and a newsletter with 3,000 subscribers. I had interns who could help spread the word about xoxosms, and a community of friends and colleagues in the sex-positive, youth media, new tech and feminist blogosphere that I hoped would be interested in the film. So, with a decent size network, plus a healthy dose of shamelessness, I was hoping to get the money needed to finish the film.

I chose Kickstarter as my crowd-funding platform because I knew it would be a good tool to rally potential supporters that were already in my network, but I was also drawn to the sense of community on the Kickstarter website. I spoke to Justin, who handles PR at Kickstarter about the “stumble upon” factor of their website and learned that over 100,000 new backers to Kickstarter campaigns return to support other projects. Additionally, 44% of all projects launched through Kickstarter reach full funding. There is also a weekly newsletter and snappy blog that highlights projects, and helps them stand out.

There have been some stunning success stories for documentaries and independent films on Kickstarter. For smaller projects like mine, these heights can seem insurmountable—the bar is so high. Don’t be intimidated! There is room for you, and you don’t need a full-time team or thousands of followers to get it done.

Below I’ll present some tips based on how I navigated my Kickstarter campaign as a case-study. If it captures your imagination, I invite you to comment and ask questions about how I did it, or share tips from your own experience.

1. Study Kickstarter!
How did the successful projects conduct their campaigns? What is the language and tone of the site? How do people structure their rewards? What kind of video do they use?

While I was studying the site, I looked at a diverse bunch of projects – books, theater, art, film, and tried to gauge what attracted me to them. I was trying to find the right balance between intimate, aesthetically pleasing, descriptive and urgent. The breezy and familiar tone of Coming and Crying, the “Awkward Erotica” anthology, impressed me. The writing spoke to the reader like a friend, or a diary, and you felt invited to participate in the making of the anthology. The community of writers and supporters were sure to follow, too. Disclosure: I know the gals who created Coming & Crying, but with their 785% funding rate, you didn’t have to know them to feel like you wanted to, or already did.

2. Get Ready for Your Close-up: why you have to be in your Kickstarter video
Because your passion for the project is a critical selling point, you need to put yourself in the video. Every successful Kickstarter campaign for a film (and pretty much any project) had a video featuring the person heading up the project talking about why they were passionate about making the film. The word passion comes up a lot on the site, including here in the FAQ. It was clear to me that successful Kickstarters knew a good video was an opportunity to engage with site visitors directly about why they were making the film, show some beautiful and compelling footage, and explain why they needed the Kickstarter audience to help them complete their visions.

I scoured the site for documentary videos, and decided to merge the Angela Tucker and Jacob Krupnick approaches. In her (A)sexual pitch, Angela Tucker intros the piece and then lets the footage from the film speak for itself too. In Girl Walk // All Day, Jacob gives a brief intro, and then narrates throughout (over footage from the film, explaining what the film will do, who the character will meet along the way, and what the audience will see). Both filmmakers come off as direct and honest, with compelling film subjects. My take-away: be real, speak the truth, and keep it short.

3. Start The Presses: how/why you can get some
For xoxosms, a 21st century love story about teens, the Internet, and relationships, I targeted my existing list of sex bloggers, tech lovers and teen-culture folks, hoping they’d take interest in the story, and direct traffic to our Kickstarter page once we launched. For an extra hook for the media, I launched the project on Valentine’s Day. I sent a general press release about the film with a link to the video on our launch day to a large list of journalists who write about tech issues and young people. I also sent personal letters to folks that I know, either because they wrote about The Line in the past, or through other professional channels.

Within a week of our launch, we were profiled on IndieWire, Social Times, Break-up Girl, Kickstarter Blog, and About.com. We were also project of the day on Kickstarter (but see #8 on how we may not have maximized that opportunity). The press attention lent credibility to the project and attracted some donors that were not already part of my circle of contacts.

4. Three Touches: timing, and roll out
30 days is the average time it takes to get a Kickstarter project funded. It’s also a long-enough-but-not-too-long period that gives you enough time to email blast and pester friends, family and lists about three times (do you know that creepy marketing term “3 touches”?) without overwhelming them. I recommend personal emails first, then group emails.

30 days is also short enough to provide your potential supporters with a sense of urgency about making their donation. A 90-day campaign would just be torturous. You’d have to pester people for a longer amount of time, and wait with your stomach in knots for that much longer.

The 3 touches is very important. Be prepared to ask everyone you know and love AT LEAST THREE TIMES THROUGHOUT THE MONTH. We are busy, flakey, cheap, procrastinators.  Most of us need to be kicked and nudged. In the FAQ of the Kickstarter site, it talks about average time and duration of campaigns. Notice, in the chart below, how large numbers of backers kicked in towards the end:

Here’s what I did during my 30 days to make the most of the time:

Day #1
I begged my close friends/family first so when I launched the counter wouldn’t be at zero.

Week #1
Facebook blasts – driving friends to my Kickstarter from my personal page and xoxosms page
Twitter blasts – direct messaged everyone, asked explicitly for RTs.
Rolled out the ask on our Tumblr blog
Emailed friends w/blogs or podcasts an abridged version of the press release with the critical details, video and link.

Week #2
I recruited a friend who had offered to donate a generous sum to the project to set up a funding challenge to inspire others to give. I gave her a key list of friends, close ones, and she emailed them offering to match their contributions. She nudged and pinged and kept them engaged in funding, and got them to ask their friends.

Week #3
I blasted The Line Campaign newsletter, a group mostly focused on healthy relationships and preventing violence, about my newest project and how the film relates to their work. I was concerned that the topics were too far apart, but we received a great response from the list.

Week #4
I begged my crew to reach out to their networks as we approached the home stretch. I got an awesome intern to re-email everyone on Facebook and round out the final asks. Late in the game the Documentary Doctor (Fernanda Rossi) offered a consulting session as a gift for a $150 donation and another friend donated a photograph for $250. Both got snatched up immediately, fetching high prices.

During all of these new pushes, I continued to reach out to friends, family and networks. I sent personal emails three times, Facebook emails three times, and twitter blasts three times, at the beginning, middle and end of the Kickstarter campaign. I made sure to use multiple platforms because everyone uses these platforms differently. Putting it everywhere (three times!) makes it hard to ignore. I promise, the self-loathing does subside! Remember to give yourself time to make the asks and do the pushing, and don’t get mad at people that don’t give. They are just overworked and/or broke, like you are.

5. Backer Updates: how to say thanks, ask for more, and keep backers engaged

People who back a project get backer updates from the filmmaker through Kickstarter. These are little messages about the project they supported, its status, screenings, and events. I kept mine short and snappy. I included comments from new backers, about how the story reminded them of their lives, and also frame grabs from the video footage of the film as we were editing. I tried to give a blow-by-blow of where we were in the editing process, and how the money coming in was actively helping. My goal in crafting these updates was to keep an authentic connection with them alive. I wanted them to continue to feel invested and proud of the thing they were helping to make as it built momentum. I wanted to make it fun and rewarding.

6. Attitude and Mental Health: how to be pushy and zen
Be prepared to go under for those 30 days while your Kickstarter campaign is active. You don’t roll out a Kickstarter campaign while your’re in the middle of tons of other stuff or really burned out. Kickstarter is not easy. I did not follow my own advice (I was editing my film while Kickstarting), and it was exhausting.

Warn friends and colleagues that you are about to be the most annoying person they know – but it will be worth it. Get excited and people will get excited. Be “that” person – the one always asking for posts, re-posts, tweets, re-tweets, and money. It will be over soon, and you can throw your backers a fun thank you party.

7. What Worked, What Didn’t and Metrics
What worked: Our trailer. Everyone loved it and got excited. Invest time and energy in pitching your project well.

What didn’t work: Image choice. My initial thumbnail photo for Kickstarter was way too dark to pop off a busy Internet page. When we were project of the day on Kickstarter, the image was too murky and had a sad vibe, I think we got lost:

I swapped out my initial shot for something bright that would leap of the digital page. Red was a better choice:

Overall Backer Metrics:
188 backers donated. We surpassed our goal of $8,000 and hit $8,538
132 of the backers were friends, family, and colleagues from The Line Campaign, twitter friends, and friends of my partner, Isaac Mathes.
56 were friendly strangers; 54 of them were backing several other projects.

Status Update:
We wrapped, locked and onlined xoxosms, in the months following our campaign. As I mentioned above, we’re excited for this weekend, when we’ll screen at the New Orleans Film Festival (opening for Angela Tucker’s feature doc (A)sexual). We can’t wait to share our Internet love story with a larger audience, and see what kind of conversation gets sparked. We plan to gather responses using Storify.

We are crafting our Internet outreach strategy with live events and festival screenings to make sure xoxosms reaches a broad audience. Check out our new website, and please to join the discussion: Can online love work IRL? Send us your thoughts about “digital intimacy,” online dating versus in the flesh, and whether technology connects us, isolates us, or both. Use the #xoxosms hashtag so we can find you on twitter.  As I learn from my adventures, I’ll be sure to check back in with Cinereach and share more tips with you.

Nancy Schwartzman made xoxosms as a Reach Film Fellow at Cinereach, working with mentor Francisco Bello. Recently named one of the “10 Filmmakers to Watch in 2011” by Independent Magazine, Nancy makes work that explores the intersection of sexuality, new media, and navigates the complexities of modern relationships. In addition to xoxosms, she is the director and producer of the documentary film The Line (Media Education Foundation, 2009). Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Village Voice, The Daily News, Gawker, Jezebel, Alternet, MTV and more. The Line Campaign, an interactive, multi-platform audience engagement campaign, has been highlighted by the Center for Social Media in Designing for Impact and by the Fledgling Fund in From Distribution to Audience Engagement. In addition to Cinereach, Nancy’s work has received funding from the Fledgling Fund and the Playboy Foundation. She is currently developing a feature documentary about young women in Kabul, Afghanistan, among other projects. Nancy lives in Sunset Park, Brooklyn with her partner, Isaac Mathes.

Kaz during an RFF workshop at Cinereach

Rolling with the Punches
a guest post by Kaz Phillips Safer

One of the defining moments for me in my relationship with my mentor Karin Chien, was a somewhat frantic meeting during the final weeks of pre-production for my Reach Film Fellowship short, Jolly Friends Forever More. I was in the middle of a fairly typical and yet typically terrifying pre-pro crisis. Jolly Friend’s lone location was a public park, and I had a location in Prospect Park in Brooklyn that I really wanted to use.

Having shot in Prospect Park before, I knew that permitting could be tricky, and that due to our low-budget, fee-waivered status we’d be pretty low-priority (read: if the only motivation the parks folks have to process your paperwork is that you handed it on time and properly filled it out, it may well not happen). You have to bug them and bug them, and show up in person and pester and plead until someone signs or stamps or does whatever it is you need them to do. I am not hating on the parks, this is just what my experience has been.

As a preventative measure, and to give us both peace of mind, my producer Christina King and I had reached out to the Parks Department literally months before with our shoot dates and desired location. We were told we should be fine, and that we didn’t need to actually submit the paper work until a few weeks before. A week and a half out, while making what seemed like a routine call to check on something in our permit form, we were unceremoniously informed that our location was absolutely not available for the dates we needed it, as there was a parade through the park that weekend. They weren’t sure why anyone had ever told us it would be fine to shoot that weekend, but it certainly wasn’t, and there was nothing they could do for us.

A week and a half out we had no location, and the very stomach-sinking situation I had been working for months to avoid was suddenly all up in my face.  However, it was made even worse by the fact that, literally the day before, Christina had gotten a call for a short paid producing gig, working on a commercial. Being a multi-tasking freelancer type myself, and knowing that as much as you love any project you’re working on for free, when a paid gig comes around sometimes something has to give, I gave her my blessing to go MIA for a few days. After all, everything for the shoot was pretty much in place.

So suddenly I found myself with no location AND no producer in those critical final days when we needed to re-scout, re-lock, re-shot list, etc. a brand new location. Suffice to say, we did, which is a testimony to Christy’s stellar, nay, near-supernatural producing skills, but in that moment, trying to keep myself together as I enjoyed a nerve-jangling coffee with Karin, I was feeling the weight of working on a low-budget project where the Parks people give you the run around, and your producer has no choice but to say yes when a conflicting paying gig comes up because you don’t have enough money to pay her.

Producer Karin Chien on set with Kaz

And I said to Karin, you know, I know it’ll be fine, but oh man, do I long for the day when I’m working on a project that everyone involved can be 100% focused on, and I don’t have to worry about folks having too much other stuff on their plate.  And Karin just kind of looked at me and was like, Kaz, that’s never the case.  People always have too much on their plate, always have three other projects going on the side, nineteen other places they ought to be, regardless of the size of the project. And I immediately knew she was completely right.  I had been looking at Karin as someone who was blissfully free of this kind of pitfall, and in that moment she reminded me, you’re an indie filmmaker.  It’s always like this.  Success means the MIA producer comes back, not that they never leave in the first place.

And in a weird way, it kind of gave me a bit of a thrill.  To be reminded, yes, you, for whatever combination of reasons, have chosen a career—an entire lifestyle—that is actually sort of designed for disaster.  Built to spill, as it were. And that actually, if you consider the way industries and art forms work as having a sort of evolutionary existence—having the shapes, patterns and tendencies they have for a specific reason—then it’s reasonable to say that the volatile nature of indie film production is actually quite adaptive. It can actually make for better projects, not worse ones.

Jolly Friends Forever More set in Owl's Head Park

Case in point, my location disaster did in fact require my team to shift into location hunting overdrive, but the park we ended up finding, Owl’s Head Park in Bayridge, Brooklyn, was a vastly superior location than the spot in Prospect Park that we’d initially settled on. The upheavals may not be fun in the moment, but ultimately, they make you think harder, look further, and consider more possibilities.

And I guess it’s a good thing, because as Karin reminded me, there’s no end of the tunnel where it suddenly gets easy. Thank goodness, right?  Where would be the fun in that?

Kaz Phillips Safer is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker & video designer. She studied writing at Princeton University while also taking select filmmaking courses at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.  She is the video artist in residence for internationally acclaimed NYC-based dance theater company Witness Relocation. Her video work has been presented in France, Denmark, Poland, Russia, Australia and across the United States. In 2009 she was accepted into the American Film Institute’s Directing Workshop for Women where she developed and directed original HD short, Megafauna. The film went on to win AFI’s Jean Picker Firstenberg Award for Excellence and was released by IndiePix in October 2010. Kaz is currently developing several feature scripts, one of which is the recipient of a 2010 Jerome Foundation Development Grant.

Karin Chien, Kaz’s RFF mentor, has produced eight feature-length films, including Circumstance (2011), The Exploding Girl (2009), and The Motel (2005), which have won over 75 festival awards, premiered at Sundance and Berlin, and have been distributed internationally.

Sheffield Doc/Fest
Sheffield, United Kingdom
June 8th – 12th

Sheffield Doc/Fest brings the international documentary family together to celebrate the art and business of documentary making. In addition to a wealth of inspirational documentary films, Doc/Fest offers pitching opportunities, controversial discussion panels and in-depth filmmaker masterclasses.  Cinereach is excited to have several grantee projects involved in this year’s Doc/Fest, in various ways including a world premiere for one!

Just Do It: A Tale of Modern Day Outlaws
Winter 2011 Grantee
Director: Emily James
Producer: Lauren Simpson

For a year the filmmaker submerged herself in documenting the secret activities of environmental direct action activists in the UK. The result is a behind the scenes portrait of a community of actively engaged citizens who aren’t prepared to sit back and allow the destruction of the world’s ecosystems and climate.

Just Do It Screening Information – World Premiere!

Sheffield Doc/Fest will also screen If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front (screening information).  See the Human Rights Watch Film Festival section below for more information about the film.

Several Cinereach-supported projects are also participating in the MeetMarket. Look for Gardens of Paradise, Teenage, When Two Worlds Collide and Cinereach Project at Sundance Institute grantee God Loves Uganda.

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Human Rights Watch Film Festival
New York, NY
June 16th – 30th

The Human Rights Watch Film Festival brings to life human rights abuses through storytelling in a way that challenges each individual to empathize and demand justice for all people. In presenting this work, the festival creates a forum for courageous individuals on both sides of the lens to empower audiences with the knowledge that personal commitment can make a difference.

If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front
Supported through The Cinereach Project at Sundance Institute
Directors/Producers: Marshall Curry & Sam Cullman

Daniel McGowan was arrested for being part of the Earth Liberation Front, a group responsible for arsons against timber companies and SUV dealerships. Through his story the film sheds light on two of our most important and timely issues–terrorism and environmentalism.

If a Tree Falls screening information.  Discussions with filmmaker Marshall Curry will follow both screenings.

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Los Angeles Film Festival
Los Angeles, CA
June 16th – 26th

The Los Angeles Film Festival is produced by Film Independent, an organization dedicated to promoting and supporting independent films and filmmakers. In the heart of downtown Los Angeles, the festival connects the movie-loving public to emerging talent, through FREE screenings of films.  Included in the festival:

On the Ice
Winter 2010 Grantee & Supported through The Cinereach Project at Sundance Institute
Writer/Director: Andrew Okpeaha MacLean
Producer: Cara Marcous

On the snow-covered Arctic tundra, two teenagers try to get away with murder.

On the Ice screening information

The Bully Project
Summer 2009 Grantee
Director: Lee Hirsch
Producer: Cynthia Lowen

“A year in the life” of America’s bullying crisis that offers an intimate look at how bullying has touched the lives of five kids and their families.

The Bully Project screening information

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BAMcinemaFest
Brooklyn, NY
June 16th – 26th

Now in its third year, BAMcinemaFest collects dynamic and innovative new work from recent festivals.  It has been called New York’s “best independent-film showcase” by Richard Brody of The New Yorker.  Four films supported by Cinereach will be included in this year’s lineup, including a short nurtured through the Reach Film Fellowship.

Love Lockdown
2010 Reach Film Fellowship Project
Director: Nadia Hallgren

A young mother from the Bronx reaches out to the incarcerated father of her children, via Lockdown Love, a popular late-night radio show.

Love Lockdown screening information

Dragonslayer
Winter 2010 & Summer 2010 Grantee
Director: Tristan Patterson
Producer: John Baker

The transmissions of a lost kid, falling in love, in the suburbs of Fullerton, California. Featuring skateboarding, the usual drugs, and stray glimpses of unusual beauty.

Dragonslayer screening information

BAMcinemaFest will also screen On the Ice (screening information) and If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front (screening information). Please see previous festival sections for more information about those films.

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Silverdocs
Silver Spring, Maryland
June 20th – 26th

The AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs Documentary Festival has been called “Non-Fiction Nirvana” by Variety, the “Pre-eminent documentary Festival in the US” by Screen International and the “premiere showcase for documentary film” by Hollywood Reporter. Silverdocs is a festival and conference that promotes documentary film as a leading art form, supports the work of independent filmmakers and fosters an atmosphere for public dialogue and civic engagement around the issues and ideas explored in the films. Included in this year’s Silverdocs are:

Donor Unknown
Winter 2010 Grantee
Director: Jerry Rothwell
Producers: Hilary Durman & Al Morrow

A twenty-first century tale of identity and genetic inheritance, and perhaps the family of the future.

Donor Unknown screening information

Silverdocs will also screen Dragonslayer (screening information), The Bully Project (screening information) and If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front (screening information). Please see previous sections for more on these three films.

We’re so proud of the stunning finished films, and of how the fellows navigated the intense seven-month program, taking their films from concept to completion. For an overview of the 2011 Reach Film Fellowship, check out the behind-the-scenes video here. Our first album of photos from the event is up on Facebook (more to come).

Pictured above are the 2011 Reach Film Fellows with their mentors (from left to right) Marshall Curry, Matt Bockelman, Nancy Schwartzman, Nick Paley, Francisco Bello, Jay Van Hoy, Kaz Phillips Safer, and Karin Chien.

The four 2011 Reach Film Fellows and Films are:

Matt Bockelman, You Have the Right to an Attorney (nonfiction)

You Have the Right to an Attorney enters the daily grind of two young public defenders in the South Bronx as they strive to resolve hundreds of client cases in a system they consider fundamentally broken. » More

Nick Paley, Open House (fiction)

In Open House a  young man visits his grandparents and is the first in his family to realize the  pair of them should no longer be living on their own.» More

Kaz Phillips Safer, Jolly Friends Forever More (fiction)

Jolly Friends Forever More tells the story of a homeless man who is befriended by a mysterious little girl that seems to appear and disappear at will. »  More

Nancy Schwartzman, xoxosms (nonfiction)

xoxosms follows the courtship of a young  couple that falls in love via Skype, chat and Facebook and relocates to be  together. » More

The four fellows were selected through an open application process and, once accepted, given a grant, production resources, access to the Cinereach staff, and help from a community of highly invested colleagues. The  mentors met one-on-one with the fellows at critical points throughout the program. Advisors led workshops on topics such as crowd funding, social media, festival strategy, post-production workflow and pitching, and consulting producers were on call to help throughout.

We look forward to seeing what the future holds for these talented filmmakers and sharing it with all of you.

Congratulations to Nick, Kaz, Nancy and Matt!

Dragonslayer
Winter 2010 & Summer 2010 Grantee
Documentary Feature Competition
World Premiere

Director: Tristan Patterson
Producer: John Baker
Killer Films presents the transmissions of a lost kid falling in love in the suburbs of Fullerton, California. Featuring skateboarding, the usual drugs, and stray glimpses of unusual beauty.
SXSW Screening Details

Love Lockdown
Supported through the 2010 Reach Film Fellowship
Documentary Short
World Premiere

Director: Nadia Hallgren
Producer: Jamie-James Medina
Love Lockdown is a short documentary inspired by the impassioned phone calls and shout-outs made to prisoners on “Lockdown Love,” a popular late night radio show in New York City. The film tells the story of Shoshana, a young mother from the Bronx, as she eagerly awaits the fate of Felix, the father of her children, who is incarcerated and on trial facing a ten-year jail sentence. Dialing tirelessly and waiting for hours on hold, Shoshana’s phone calls tell an unconventional story of love and commitment. Will their love remain locked down or will the family be reunited?
SXSW Screening Details

Yelling to the Sky
Supported through The Cinereach Project at Sundance Institute 2010
Spotlight Premiere
North American Premiere

Writer/Director: Victoria Mahoney
Producer: Victoria Mahoney, Billy Mulligan, Ged Dickersin
As her family falls apart, seventeen year old Sweetness O’Hara’s future feels uncertain. At the abusive hands of her father, her mother and sister take off, leaving Sweetness to fend for herself. Determined to correct the mistakes of the past, Sweetness takes control of her life.
SXSW Screening Details

A post by Matt Bockelman

Make a Plan. Forget the Plan.  Make a New Plan.  Forget That Plan.

Producing a verité documentary is challenging work, and it can often feel like all the forces of the world are conspiring to keep you from realizing your vision.  If you’re shooting outside, it will rain.  If you’ve booked a car to drive six hours to film a scene, your subject will cancel.  If your story is contingent on having access to a specific location, you’re not going to get in. If you think you know what your film is about, but you haven’t shot it yet, then you’re probably wrong.

It can be a frustrating process, having every creative idea fall flat, get rejected, or simply not pan out.  But what I’m learning (or rather, forcing myself to believe) is that this is not a hitch in the creative process, it is the creative process.  And it seems to be a lesson I’ve learned before.

My day job is working as a freelance cinematographer.  As a cameraman it’s unusual for me to walk into a situation with much more than the synopsis of the story that the filmmaker is trying to tell.  Normally, I’ll have a pre-production discussion a day or two before the shoot, where the director and I discuss the project in broad strokes before getting into the details of the upcoming shoot.  The director will tell me what to expect and what he hopes to come away with.  I get notes on shooting style.  I get brief character descriptions.  I get location logistics.  Then, I am set loose.  On most days, although I shoot what was asked for, I almost always come up with something else as well.  That “something else” is typically a result of things not going exactly as planned or due to my own curiosity and reactions to the subjects.

I’ll give you an example.  I recently worked on a documentary entitled Gimp, about a dance group that integrates dancers with physical disabilities and conventional dancers. A major theme of the film revolves around questioning when it is acceptable to look at someone – and specifically what parts of that someone.  The director had asked me to get up close, to really zoom in on the performers and dissect their bodies, to force viewers to see things that may normally motivate them to avert their eyes.  I did that.  But soon I felt myself wanting to look away, feeling guilty about watching so blatantly.  So, I started flirting with the concept of looking away. I’d point the camera toward the corner and wait for a performer to pass through the frame.  I’d start a shot on a dancer’s face and then subtly creep down to see his “disability.”  These shots, while not as in-your-face as the director had asked for, echoed the sentiments that were expressed by the audience during a Q&A after the dance performance.  Their impulses and reactions to the performance were in-line with my own.  And as a result we had the imagery to support their experience of the production.

In Gimp I was conscious of executing the director’s vision, but my impulse to look away allowed me to cover the scene in a different way.  It was the difference between forcing the footage into a perspective and letting the natural response shine through.

Now, as I make a film of my own, as director and cameraman, I find myself tempted to plan out each detail.  I want to pre-interview each subject, block out shots, control the flow and topic of scenes, to know more than I ever asked a director for when working as a cinematographer.  The more I think about these things, however, the farther I move from that openness that I have developed on the sets of other people’s films.  I’m finding that I need to make a conscious effort to approach directing this film more like I approach shooting one. Yes it’s important to visualize what I think could or should happen, but I also need to be ready to submit to what actually does.

Matt Bockelman on location for You Have the Right to an Attorney

My new film, You Have The Right To An Attorney, is about public defenders and their clients in The South Bronx.  Much of the story hinges on the tenuous relationships that develop between public defenders and their clients.  Much of that development takes place in institutions notoriously difficult to access with cameras (courtrooms and correctional facilities) or under the protection of attorney/client privilege. Arraignments, the process in which defendants are first introduced to their court-appointed attorneys, were high on my list of scenes to shoot.  I intended for the arraignment scenes to illustrate the unstable ground on which the relationship begins, as well as introduce the massive caseload that the attorneys carry.  Unfortunately, it’s looking more and more likely that I won’t get the access to film in this context. This is disappointing but not terminal to the story.

Instead I’m now looking into using the police reports filed for the clients and finding visually compelling ways to base scenes and sequences on the text of these documents.  This approach, based upon what we are able to access, will introduce the clients as the court system sees them, as statistics on a page. From there we’ll cut to our attorney back in the office as he combs through stacks of files, sharing hints of detail from one after another with us. Then, when we meet the clients later in the film, it’s a rewarding reveal because we get to see them as human beings for the first time.  Effectively, we’ve taken a roadblock and turned it into an expression of a key reality of the world in which the film is set.

By spending the time to develop ideas of what the film should be, I’ve created the mental space to see what the film will be.  And as ideas fall through, new ones are born to replace them. The more I’m able to do that, the better prepared I will be in the field when I’m shooting.  If something unexpected happens, by this point I’m practiced in dealing with the unexpected and can quickly adjust.  That’s the theory anyway.  I’ll let you know how it works out.

Matt Bockelman is a New York-based cinematographer and producer.  His most recent projects include The Unofficial House Band, about a music and arts program at Sing Sing Prison (commissioned by Rehabilitation Through The Arts), Communitas, an experimental documentary about theater director Richard Schechner’s famed performance workshop, and Meet the Gardeners, a series profiling the employees of Madison Square Garden. Matt founded Fly’s Eye Films in 2010 with the goal of creating substantive documentaries, objectively rendered but with a strong visual aesthetic.

Matt’s mentor during the Reach Film Fellowship is Marshall Curry, is the Director, DP and Editor of the feature documentary Racing Dreams, which won Best Documentary at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival, and the Academy Award and Emmy-nominated Street Fight.

A post by Nancy Schwartzman

I’ve been obsessed with the concept of consent for the past few years. My first film, The Line, and the accompanying blog Where is Your Line?, examine closely the nuances of sexual consent. What does it mean to give or gain consent? What does coerced consent mean vs. enthusiastic consent? How does context influence decisions about sex? What are ethical approaches to asking for consent?

Recently I’ve noticed a lot of interesting crossover between the idea of negotiating consent and the documentary filmmaker’s relationship to her subject. The Line is a personal film; I chose when and how to reveal my story, and wrote the voice over carefully and strategically. I also made the choice to capture footage of someone else in the film with a hidden camera. He did not give consent, but I protected his identity on screen. That was a fraught decision, but the right one for the film and the context.

Now I’m making a film in which I’m not the subject; instead two young people are handing over their trust to me. xoxosms is a 21^st century love story, documenting the kind of love that plays out online and blooms on digital media platforms. In this world, distance shrinks and intimacy grows over signals, wires and pathways. Thanks to Skype, AIM, and the internet, months and months of my subjects’ chats are archived… their secrets, their confessions, their stuff.

… and lucky me, I get to read it all!

There’s this idea that “kids today” or to use jargon, tweens, teens and emerging adults, have no boundaries. The stereotype says they share everything with everyone, and naively think the internet is their very own “private” playground. The access-hungry filmmaker in me might at first think Whoopee! They’re gonna give me everything! But knowing that pieces of my subjects’ video, script, text, chats and images will live in a film, online and all over social networks because of my film, gives me pause. Yes, they signed the consent forms, but do they know what that really means? I want them to give me everything, and I want everything to go everywhere, but I want to make sure I don’t hurt anyone.

Before telling a story based on on-line communication, but with the potential to have a powerful influence on my subjects “IRL” I wanted some guidance about how to carry out my role and these evolving relationships during the shoot. Thinking about my young, self-described “introverted” subjects Jiyun and Gus, and all of the intimate details they shared via chat, and would now share on camera, inspired me to revisit the study Best Practices, Honest Truths. This collection of lived experiences from documentary filmmakers working today was collected by the Center for Social Media (the people who brought us the Fair Use principles). It is an excellent, informal set of guidelines on navigating these complicated scenarios.

“What is the nature of my relationship to my subjects,” I had wondered. “Am I a friend, the cool older sister, or the boss?”

The study provided some useful precedent, based on interviews with filmmakers:

[Filmmakers] usually treated this relationship as less than friendship and more than a professional relationship, and often as one in which the subject could make significant demands on the filmmaker. “We want to have a human relationship with our subjects,” said Gordon Quinn, “but there are boundaries that should not be crossed… You always have to be aware of the power that you as a filmmaker have in relationship to your subject.”

On recent shoots for xoxosms, I had an opportunity to balance this power with my desire to respect my subject’s boundaries. Gus expressed that he didn’t want any part of his house on camera in consideration of his family. I could have insisted we needed that particular setting, promising to protect family details in the editing, and really pushed him past where he was comfortable. He’s incredibly accommodating, and probably would have said yes, but he was already revealing personal information that had the potential to disturb his family, so I decided to back off. We chose instead a neutral setting (a motel off route 66). He was relaxed and we could go deeper into the discussion without sneaking around or jeopardizing his relationships.

Another of my questions was “What kind of collaboration is this, how much material do I share with my subjects, and at what stage?”

From the study:

The decision to share material in advance with subjects was, typically, an informal decision. Only one respondent, Jennifer Fox, said that she offered fine cut approval in a legal document, with the caveat that the subjects couldn’t object to the film because they didn’t like the way they looked but could object to things on the grounds of hurting their family.

When I showed Jiyun the production still I wanted to use to represent the film, her initial response was “I look HORRIBLE IN THAT PICTURE. OMGZ. NOZ.” I knew she’d probably hate any photo of her chosen that wasn’t far away or blurry, but giving her a heads up was the right thing to do. I reassured her that she looked great but more importantly; that I was going to use this photo, and it was “out there” online. No stumbling upon, no unpleasant surprises. She trusts that I’m not intentionally trying to make her look bad, or to upset her, and when I asked her recently how she felt she wrote: “hahaha I moved on a while ago : )”

Another filmmaker discusses the finished product:

“I often think, ‘Let me be this person (the subject) watching the film.’ Would they hate me? Or would they think it’s fair? I want to always be able to send the DVD to them.”

Jiyun and Gus are already asking me where else the film will live. In addition to DVD, xoxosms will also have a life on the internet, which we all know means parts of the story can go anywhere. During filming, I made it clear to my subjects that we were there because we believed in their relationship, were taken by their words and wanted to do their love story justice. The same applies to our approach to editing, and every stage of this project.

Maintaining my subjects’ trust is critical – not only because we need continued access to their private lives in order to finish telling their story, but also because I want them to be creative participants in the social media and outreach components of the film. Already they’re active on various blogs and online spaces, so I want to give them the option of being part of the dialogue that may bloom around issues of digital intimacy and love online when the film is complete.

It’s in our mutual interest that my subjects trust the process, that we share the same goals, and that they feel truthfully represented.

Now that I have consent, my guiding mantra when questions of filmmaker subject/trust arise will be: talk about it, and do no harm.

Photo Courtesy of Tarek Moukaddem

Circumstance
Summer 2009 & Summer 2010 Cinereach Grantee
U.S. Dramatic Competition

Writer/Director: Maryam Keshavarz
Producers: Karen Chien & Melissa Lee

A wealthy Iranian family struggles to contain a teenager’s growing sexual rebellion and her brother’s dangerous obsession.

Sundance Screening Details

HERE
Supported through The Cinereach Project at Sundance Institute
U.S. Dramatic Competition

Writers: Braden King & Dani Valent
Director: Braden King
Producers: Jay Van Hoy & Lars Knudsen

On assignment to create a new, more accurate satellite survey of Armenia, an American cartographer forms a powerful bond with an Armenian expatriate and art photographer.

Sundance Screening Details

Photo Courtesy of TJ Watt

If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front
Supported through The Cinereach Project at Sundance Institute
U.S. Documentary Competition

Directors/Producers: Marshall Curry & Sam Cullman

Daniel McGowan was arrested for being part of the Earth Liberation Front, a group responsible for arsons against timber companies and SUV dealerships. Through his story the film sheds light on two of our most important and timely issues–terrorism and environmentalism.

Sundance Screening Details

Kinyarwanda
Summer 2010 Cinereach Grantee
World Cinema Dramatic Competition

Writer/Director: Alrick Brown
Producers: Darren Dean, Tommy Oliver & Ishmael Ntihabose (EP)

Based on accounts from survivors, Kinyarwanda tells the story of Rwandans who crossed the lines of hatred during the 1994 genocide, turning mosques into places of refuge for Muslims and Christians, Hutus and Tutsis.

Sundance Screening Details

Photo Courtesy of Sebastian Mlynarski

On the Ice
Winter 2010 Cinereach Grantee & Supported through The Cinereach Project at Sundance Institute
U.S. Dramatic Competition

Writer/Director: Andrew Okpeaha MacLean
Producer: Cara Marcous

On the snow-covered Arctic tundra, two teenagers try to get away with murder.

Sundance Screening Details

Pariah
Winter 2009 & Winter 2010 Cinereach Grantee
U.S. Dramatic Competition

Writer/Director: Dee Rees
Producer: Nekisa Cooper

When forced to choose between losing her best friend or destroying her family, a Bronx teenager juggles conflicting identities and endures heartbreak in a desperate search for sexual expression.

Sundance Screening Details

In addition to these features, a previous film written and directed by 2011 Reach Film Fellow Nick Paley will be shown in the U.S. Narrative Shorts program.

Andy and Zach – When Zach decides to move out, his roommate Andy tries to set up a new life without his best friend.

Sundance Screening Details

A post by Nick Paley

When you’re the director of a low budget film you wear a lot of hats and test many skills that are far removed from the actual craft of filmmaking. People management is maybe the most important of these skills and definitely the most difficult. While I’m reluctant to take any position of authority on the topic, as I’ve made a good number of HR mistakes on my previous films, I’m hoping that articulating some of the below will help me (and perhaps you) remember best practices for dealing effectively with the people who are actually making our movies.

So what makes a good crew member? The simplest answer is people who care. These are the kind of people who call you at 3am because they thought of something overlooked at the production meeting, the kind of people who check that the doorway dolly you’re renting won’t start squeaking after one use, the kind of people who volunteer to help in capacities outside their official job description.

It’s safe to say that 99% of young people working in film have an interest in doing their jobs well and are working in film because they enjoy it. These are the qualities of a great crew member. This means that when you encounter, say, a sound guy with a nasty attitude or a crafty PA sleeping on the job, it may be useful to look again at how you are interacting with crew members during prep and on set.

No matter how many things you’re juggling, the names on your crew sheet remain human beings that require attention and courtesy. Take Jim the Gaffer. Jim’s probably as busy as you are and although he’s agreed to work on your set (probably for less than he’s worth), it’s not occupying his every thought. Not even close. This means whatever momentary encounters (emails, phone calls) he has with you, or your producer, must be pleasant, helpful and efficient – even more so than he might be accustomed to. This starts in prep, when he gets the map to your location’s fuse box a day before he asks for it or when he’s emailed the catering menu plan before he has the chance to ask if there will be be vegetarian options. On a low budget production you will have so little control over so many elements, it’s important to show your crew you’re doing all you can to make their lives easier with the things you can control. This makes them feel appreciated despite low pay, and sets a standard for thoroughness that they’ll want to meet when they get to set. It means that when Jim turns on his hero key light (rented from the cheapest house in town) and the bulb is burnt out, he’ll consider it an unfortunate fluke as opposed to a piece of supporting evidence in the case for why your shoot is going to ruin his weekend.

Beyond the obvious reason to treat people well before and during production–because it’s a good thing to do–it’s also good for your footage. If you’ve ever crewed on a poorly run film production, you know how quickly work ethic can fall apart. Whatever task you’ve been assigned immediately takes a back seat to your sleep-deprived, malnourished brain’s efforts to recall the original reason you agreed to work on the shoot. The minute your crew starts thinking like this on set, the quality of your footage is going to decline. Booms will fall into shots, focus will go soft, late-arriving props will force you to combine shots.

On my latest short film (we wrapped production this past weekend) I faced some challenges in keeping my crew content. Our shoot was three days in upstate New York. For the meager rates we offered, that’s pushing it for an NYC-based crew. We made it up to them by paying close attention to their needs and allowing for small amenities that upped the quality of their experience without killing our budget. When they got  to set, they saw that an unusual amount of care was put into our crafty and catering. They weren’t staying in a hotel,  but they were handed a bathroom kit replete with miniature toiletries, a set of sheets, towel and pillow.  These measures required a little extra spending, but you can’t put a price tag on what it means to your production to have a well-rested AC, a well-fed PA and a nicely-groomed gaffer.

Nick Paley studied film at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. His thesis short, Picture Day, produced with the support of the Warner Bros. Film Fund Award, was a national finalist for the 2008 Student Academy Awards and has played at festivals across the country. Nick has continued making shorts since graduation along with web content for FremantleMedia, CBS Interactive and the Upright Citizens Brigade theater. He hails from Vermont. Nick’s Reach Film Fellowship mentor, Jay Van Hoy, established the production company Parts and Labor with Lars Knudsen. This year, they premiered Aaron Katz’s Cold Weather at South by Southwest and Cam Archer’s Shit Year (starring Ellen Barkin) in the Director’s Fortnight at Cannes.

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