Funding. That’s it. That’s what I’ve narrowed down as the very real complication of being an independent filmmaker. Don’t agree? Then please tell me how you are able to hold down a job to pay your bills as well as make enough cash overflow to fund your next feature? Grants? Trust Fund? Parents? Friends? Bank loan? If you say yes to the last one, please tell me which bank is lending you any money for a film in this economy.

I’m not the only one with funding on the mind. Edward Jay Epstein the brilliant mind behind the book, Hollywood Economist: The Hidden Financial Reality Behind Movies wrote a sobering article in early 2011 titled, Why Indie Movies Are an Endangered Species. His blog post lays the groundwork for the dissolution of pre-sales funding for indie films by back-end distributors, because hold the phone, the decline of DVD sales in major retail box stores. Of course, the death of the DVD is inevitable and unstoppable, but did anyone else realize how important DVD sales were in the funding of indie films? I had no idea DVD sales played such a large role in giving cash on hand to distributors so they could help invest in future indie film productions. But forget my duh moment here, my main point is to illustrate that the traditional concepts of funding indie films are dying along with those DVD sales, and again we, indie filmmakers, are being faced with the very real complication of independent filmmaking: finding funding.

So in light of this apocalyptic, post  pre-sales funding world that we live in, what other options are there for indie filmmakers to raise money to make their films? I realize that the most obvious one is a filmmaker’s own pocket, but if your pockets are that deep, you are not reading DIY FILM CHICAGO’s online magazine.

The other options as far as I can tell right now are the following:

1) Kickstarter

2) Your family

3) Shut up and Shoot on your cell phone

4) Just record Audio

Let’s start with Kickstarter, I have to start out by saying that Kickstarter.com, based purely on their publicly available 2011 Stats is amazing. The success rate for 27,086 launched projects was 46%. That means only 11,836 of those launched projects got funded. When you break down the funding on Kickstarter by category, and look specifically at Film & Video, the stats are astounding. Over $32 million dollars were raised for Film & Video ALONE.

Granted this staggering amount of funding was spread out over 3,284 projects, but still what other major or indie film studio or production company is handing out this kind of cash?  I do believe in this power of crowdsourcing and feel at this point, that this is probably the best way to get your first indie documentary or film feature off the ground and running.

On a sidenote: You can also use Kickstarter to help fund your other film related needs like DVD reprints. HA! You say, DVDs? Yes, especially if the audience to your film is from an older generation like my first doc. Here’s my Kickstarter Campaign for reprinting another 1,000 DVDs. I was an idiot when I did this campaign though and spent way more money on reprinting the DVDs than I actually earned on Kickstarter.

But let’s say you aren’t good at social media networking and marketing your Kickstarter campaign. (You must be good at both or get help if you are not in order to significantly improve your chances of Kickstarter success. Check out a failed Kickstarter campaign I did with a past boss. We were both idiots in this case and didn’t market the campaign enough. We also asked for waaaay too much money.)

O let’s say your idea is too weird or crazy or people just don’t get it? Wim Wenders recently said that his most beloved film, Wings of Desire, never would have found funding today. If you are a Wim Wenders throwback-like filmmaker, you may have to go for funding option number two: your family.

My father and an aunt and uncle were the major loaning officers for my first documentary feature, Proceed and Be Bold! But before you say, “Hey Rich Girl, my family doesn’t have that kind of money! Screw you!” let me share with you major American indie filmmaker icon, Darren Aronofsky’s start.

According to his Wikipedia entry: “Aronofsky’s debut feature, Pi (also known as π), was shot in November 1997. The film was financed entirely from $100 donations from friends and family. In return, he promised to pay each back $150 if the film made money, and they would at least get screen credit if the film lost money. Producing the film with an initial budget of $60,000, Aronofsky premiered Pi at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival, where he won the Best Director award. The film itself was nominated for a special Jury Award. Artisan Entertainment bought distribution rights for $1 million. The film was released to the public later that year to critical acclaim and grossed $3,221,152.”

It is ok to ask your family for money if they have it. In the case of Chicago-based production company, Beverly Ridge Pictures several former Columbia College film students gathered together and pooled money from their families to the tune of $2 million dollars* in order to make Chicago Overcoat, a feature length dramatic action film that recently got distribution on the Showtime network.

But what if you are an indie filmmaker with broke-ass parents and your film is not a good candidate for a Kickstarter fundraising campaign? This is America! The land of opportunities! There must be a way for me to get my film made! Help me!

I hear your cry. In fact, it is the same cry I have had every day for the last two years. I may have gotten my first film funded mostly by my family (I did put a significant amount of money into the doc myself as well), but I cannot keep asking them for money especially since my father is of retirement age, and I feel like a giant jerk asking him to gamble his hard earned life’s savings. I am currently a broke ass filmmaker working freelance part-time so that I can dedicate most of my time to trying to get two more feature length documentaries off of the ground, and I currently have no fundraising ideas for either of my projects. One is about Sickle Cell Disease, a serious fatal disease that affects 80,000 Americans a year, but I will not, on principle, ask this afflicted group of people to fund this documentary, because it is for them, and I want to make it free to anyone with this disease or a family member with this disease.

Filmmaker Laura Zinger

The other project I am working on is a hybrid between documentary and narrative featuring a prominent cartoonist in Chicago. We may try the Kickstarter route to get the film off of the ground, but initially we have zero funding.

It is my current state of affairs that has led me to come up with funding option #3 and #4: Shut up and Shoot on your Cell Phone and just record audio.

Come back next week to read about these next two funding options which are sincerely and totally for the true and almighty DIY Filmmaker.

*unverified amount

Read more from Laura Zinger on her Tumblr blog.

Chicago Animator, Jim Trainor

Chicago-area independent animator, Jim Trainor, has established a name for himself as the anti-Disney.  Despite a predilection for anthropomorphic animals (Jim’s most popular quartet of shorts have been exhibited under the title The Animals and their Limitations), Jim utilizes none of the elements that were hallmarks for Disney. Rejecting the polished and flourished quality of traditional cell animation, Trainor’s shorts like the Bats and the Moschops feature the director’s trademark stripped-down style, typified by stark, choppy lines hand drawn in Sharpie marker on simple white paper, which oscillate on the screen due to the process of repeated tracing.

In terms of subject matter, Jim’s films depart drastically from Disney’s common fascination with fables and fantasies, examining instead the much grimmer and realistic habits of animals in their natural habitats, thereby placing him in a distinct artistic space between David Attenborough and Don Hertzfeldt. Nihilistic with a sardonic undercurrent, Trainor’s comedy arises in the way he imbues his animal subjects with expression in the form of a monotonous voice-over track.  Exploring their interior processes, the director delights in illustrating the divide between bestial instinct, and human emotion and logic. In Jim’s pieces, lions speak frankly and unapologetically about killing their girlfriends’ children, while bats unsentimentally describe the common deaths of siblings.

Developing out of his expansive knowledge of often arcane subjects, Trainor’s wryly-witted films have become a hit with audiences around the nation, as the director continues to find venues for exhibition. Adding to his growing success, Jim was honored with 2010’s prestigious Alpert Award, given to four deserving recipients for contributions to their respective artistic media. Using animation as his vehicle for transforming obsessions into expression, Trainor has proven to be a true local talent.

Much like his films, Jim’s animating genesis was anything but conventional. Having acquired both an interest in drawing and a morbid streak from studying books by Charles Addams and Edward Gorey, Trainor had already garnered a reputation as a gifted cartoonist by the seventh grade when a schoolmate presented him with an enticing proposal.  As a home project, Jim’s friend and his father had created a makeshift animation studio in their basement, with the goal of producing films for a purely technical challenge. With no artistic skills between them, the pair asked Trainor to conceive and draw their movies, which the boy’s parents would fund (making them Jim’s first producers). This arrangement continued until Trainor was a senior in high school, giving him a dozen films to his credit by the time he graduated.

Still from "The Bats" by Jim Trainor

With a desire to turn his hobby into a profession, Jim eschewed an interest in science and began teaching himself the intricacies of animation while studying English at Columbia University. After graduating, Trainor began living the life of a starving artist, spending the majority of the ‘80s and ‘90s working odd jobs as a bartender at night to fund his animation studio, located in his New York apartment. Despite being supported by these jobs, though, Jim always defined himself by his true passion, his animation.  “I never had too many difficulties in making films at this time because, honestly, I was going to do this anyway.  I think it would be difficult if I ever thought I could make a living off of it.”

With patience, determination and good exposure, Trainor’s films began to rise in popularity, developing a following based on his series of animal-centered shorts. Soon after the release of The Fetishist in 1997, Jim became known as a unique figure in the animation community, one with an acerbic wit and investigative eye. Squarely under his microscope were nature documentaries, which the scientifically-minded director always felt were misrepresentative. Faulting their “religiously” reassuring depictions of the cycle of life, Trainor wanted to make films that reflected the destructive force of nature, which he hoped would leave people in a proper state of “existential horror.”

Lacking the resources to make his own documentary, Jim began exposing the blunt realities of nature and culture in his animation, which the director has found to be a valuable tool for depicting disturbing and subversive subject matter.  Trainor’s medium has afforded him liberty to deal with perverse and erotic content that would be too provocative in motion. “If my films were live-action, I’d probably be jailed.”

While the shocking quality of Jim’s work dominates discussion of his artistry, a deeper look into his exhaustive creative process proves a level of care that might not be expected from his deceptively simple cartoons. Initially, Trainor conceives his topics out of his “obsessive interests.” Rather than research, Jim’s narratives evolve out of the comprehensive knowledge he acquires about specific subjects that arouse his attention. “My interests are not broad, but when I do get interested, I’m a completist.  I often feel that my subjects choose me rather than the other way around.” Consuming everything he can about topics in the realms of nature (prehistoric animals in the Moschops) and anthropology (Pre-Columbian art in The Presentation Theme), Trainor’s reverence converts to humor as he begins writing dryly whimsical poems reflecting the lives of his obsessions, which become the texts of his films.

Jim Trainor at the lightbox

Making Jim’s process all the more unique is his refusal to storyboard his projects. A staple of pre-production, storyboarding allows animators to organize their work into efficient bits. Finding this to be stifling, Trainor animates out the entirety of his script, which affords him freedom in the editing phase. In a typical film, only a quarter of the footage shot by Jim will make the final edit, an exceptionally low amount. “The problem that [most animators] have, which I’ve tried to steer away from, is they get lost in the planning stage.  They make artistic decisions too early, which makes the actual animation a tedious labor.  Although I animate relatively so much more, my process allows me to remain engaged with my material.”

This artistic process has taken Trainor a long way, as he was honored with the prestigious Alpert Award for his work in film.  Nominated anonymously by members of the creative community, Jim won for his distinctive voice and style.  Along with the prestige of being chosen, the award includes a significant cash prize to be used at the artist’s discretion, which Trainor has invested in his first full-length feature rather than in more practical needs. “My wife probably would have liked to put a down payment on a house.” With the dream of working in live-action for the first time now attainable, Jim has used the resources at his disposal as a professor at the Art Institute of Chicago to produce a “fact-based horror film,” titled the Pink Egg, which he hopes to complete later this year.

Despite being known for his whimsically morbid films about the dark deeds of humans and animals, Jim Trainor is an optimist. “My films suggest a bleaker, more troubled person than I am.  I’d like to do something nicer someday, but haven’t gotten around to it.”  For now, Jim’s non-nice movies have become the artist’s way of fulfilling both his love of the natural world and his own creative impulses, which have been rewarded with success and accolades. Despite this, though, Trainor maintains the zeal to self-expression that motivated the journey of he and countless independent animators like him. “The hardest thing for young animators is accepting the divergence in their lives. Creative fulfillment won’t pay your way, but that doesn’t mean it can’t still be the top priority in your life. I would caution artists against using personal fulfillment as the only criterion; after all, we don’t make art for ourselves, but for others.”

Mike Houlihan

Mike Houlihan is a hard one to keep up with.  With a career spanning nearly four decades, he has acted, directed, produced, written and filmed.  Oh, and he’s been on the radio, too.  On December 13, DIY Film caught up with Houlihan – owner of Mike Houlihan Creative – to hear about his latest exploits (you can read the original feature here).

“I’ll be 63 years old next week, I want to put all my concentration and effort into making art,” he said.  “The politics of regular business isn’t my thing.  I don’t want to dance to another fiddler.”

This sentiment, not exactly uncommon among creatives of all stripes, had prompted him to say goodbye to some of the more lucrative work Mike Houlihan Creative has done over the years – such as advertising and public relations – to make room for more artistic endeavors, such as his radio show, film and book projects, as well as screenplays.

No sooner had he made up his mind than he got “sucked back in” – this time, to politics.  Currently representing two political candidates in Will County, he still finds ways to be creative on the job.  “What’s the biggest sport in Chicago?  Politics!  It’s exciting.  It has a beginning, a middle and an end, just like a play or a film.”

For Houlihan, art and politics are more similar than most people think.  “It’s all show business!  It’s all about the story,” he explained.  That, and “you get paid.  Upfront, too.”  Be that as it may, Houlihan still sees the political game as a means to the end of furthering more artistic projects.

For example, he had been working on a new screenplay, My Brother, the Zombie, which he completed a month or so ago.  He dreamed his brother, who died seven years ago, came back, well, as a zombie – and apparently one with a sense of humor.  “I hope to pitch it to someone…like Charlie Sheen,” he said.

Houlihan, who still pens a monthly column for the Irish American News, was also working feverishly with his radio co-host, James “Skinny” Sheahan, to resuscitate Chicago’s South Side St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which was only recently announced would return this spring.

“It was a tradition for thirty-one years,” he said, “and an annual reunion for anyone who grew up on the South Side.”

Since August, they were fighting to bring back what was shut down in a “rush to judgment,” all thanks to a couple “hooligans” who ruined it for everyone.  Houlihan, a self-proclaimed hooligan himself, is at least one of the funny – and non-destructive – ones.

Now, he spends much of his time with his documentary, Our Irish Cousins, which he is “scrambling” to finish by March for a hopeful WTTW television debut.  The film, which attempts to answer the question, “What makes us Irish?  Location or lineage?” was primarily shot on a Panasonic DVX 100, with their back-up camera a Canon Vixia HV30.

Joe Fitzgerald, Cousins’s director of photography, discussed how their low budget “use what’s available” situation worked out.  “The two cameras were a good compliment to one another because the DVX, when programmed properly, had truly beautiful color rendering, and Mike’s palmcorder had a slightly flatter image but better overall resolution.”  Fitzgerald also maximized the DVX’s twin audio inputs, using one for a Sennheiser MK2 shotgun, and another Sennheiser G2 wireless lav.

Houlihan and Fitzgerald first crossed paths while working on Tapioca, Houlihan’s indie feature film, which turned out to be one of Fitzgerald’s first jobs.  Now, with a little more experience under his belt, Fitzgerald could handle what shooting Cousins threw at him.  “The thing about documentaries is that you are always at the mercy of your environment,” he said.  “Let your constraints help shape the look and feel of the moment.  You can always drag someone over to a more quiet spot in the room to grab a sound bite.  Or, sometimes the essence of a scene can be better portrayed with our main interactions occurring in silhouette.”

“You’re shooting guerrilla-style,” Houlihan said.  “You don’t know what the lighting will be, what the sound will be, and you can’t say, ‘can you do that again?’”

Talking about the film means talking about how he came up with the title – and with Mike Houlihan, that means telling a story.  “When we were here in Chicago, shooting at all the book signings, I did one at a place called Harte’s Saloon on the South Side.  Mike Harte, who owns it, says we ought to look up his cousin [when we film in Ireland], who has a bar there called Harte’s.”

Eventually, while filming in the emerald isle, Houlihan and his team found themselves treated to lunch at the Harte’s in Galway.  “We bring greetings from your cousin Mike in Chicago!” Houlihan said by way of hello.

“I don’t have any cousins,” came the gruff reply.

To settle the matter, Houlihan decided to call the Chicago Harte, who insisted, “he is my cousin!”  Then the Irish Harte gets on the phone.  “I hear him go, ‘ARE YOU MY COUSIN?,’” laughed Houlihan.  “He came back and he’s all happy and I asked him, ‘so, are you cousins?’  He said, no!”

Yet, to a certain extent, “we’re all cousins,” he smiled.

Yesterday, I received an email from a Chicago Filmmaker asking me if I had any advice on how to go about entering their film into film festivals. Of course, my canned response was WithoutABox.com which makes entering your film into multiple festivals a snap as well as a drain on your checkbook, because festivals, of course, are money-making ventures as much as anything else.

But in all honestly, my initial inner response, was “Why?” In this day and age, with how many online distribution outlets are available to indie filmmakers, would anyone want to pay to enter their film into film festivals? Chances are you just spent a boatload of money making your film (unless you just used your iPhone 4 or 4S and recorded external audio which is my recommendation for any new and budding filmmakers out there reading this. Keep it cheap, Sister.)

Not only do film festivals cost a lot of money to just enter your film (Do you know how pissed I was when I paid over $2,000 in festival fees for my first documentary feature and only got into a few of them? I could have made a great start on another indie film with those bills!), but it takes forever to find out if you got into any of them, then you have to wait around until the festival happens, and then you also in almost every case have to pay to fly out to the festival to represent your film. You’ll have to pay for your own hotel and food as well. I even had one festival contact me recently inviting me to enter my documentary into their film festival, then was shocked when I asked them to waive the fee (which is standard etiquette as far as I know when a festival INVITES you to submit to THEIR festival), then they agreed to waive the fee asking me to pay it if my film was accepted. Lame, but fine, because indie filmmakers have been trained to believe that the film festival is the be-all-to-end-all. So I started filling out the application, and then read that if you submit your film and your film is accepted into this film festival, you have to commit to attending the film festival including paying for yourself AND another crew member’s entire travel, lodging and food fees. This festival, which was only in its third year mind you, has this as a REQUIREMENT for entering this film festival. I was horrified! Are only rich people making indie films? Am I a total oddball here in admitting that as a 32-year old filmmaker, I am completely and utterly devoid of any kind of savings account or IRA or 401K that I could possibly tap into in order to attend a film festival like this?!  I would rather spend the money on my next film.

The only film festival at this point that I think is worthwhile in terms of paying to go to is Sundance, and that is only because it’s probably one of the last few, if only, American film festivals where the films accepted into their festival have a chance at getting distribution. As a matter of fact, Sundance just announced that all films PAST and PRESENT will get online distribution by none other than Sundance itself. Read the article here.

I’m probably a terrible person to write this article, because I am a little grumpy about film festivals and honestly I have a bad attitude towards people who say oh, you HAVE to get into a film festival, or else no one will watch your film. I’m calling bullshit on that. There are all kinds of ways to get your films seen, and at this point, I have to agree with a great local indie filmmaker and friend I know, Ben Hicks, who recommends that until you build a name, you should put your films online for free.

In fact, he insists that this is the only way for an unknown indie filmmaker in today’s world to get their films out there.  But I do want to add that I think this is great advice only for strictly narrative films. People will pay to watch Indie documentaries. It’s amazing to me how much money an indie doc can make, no matter how poorly or well it is made. If you make a doc about something where very few docs about it exist, you’re golden.

But you can still part-time apply Ben’s freebie model, if you’re an indie doc maker by putting your indie doc up on SnagFilms.com for free for a limited time (i.e. one month) and then tell all of your friends and hope that word gets round. If there’s an audience for your doc, word will really get around if people can watch it for free, like it, and share it.

So, in closing, my thoughts on film festivals in 2012 is to stop thinking about them, stop worrying about them, put them out of your head, and just go and make the film that you want to. Just focus your energy on making your film and getting it done. Then if you feel the need to waste large sums of money entering your film into film festivals, instead of just putting it online and finding some kind of online distribution outlet, do it after you finish your film. That’s my plan for 2012 at any rate. Happy filmmaking, folks.

Read more from Laura Zinger on her Tumblr blog.

As co-founders of the Chicago-based Corn Bred Films, husband and wife Eric B. Anderson and Amella Dellos spin tales of mismatched lovers, ambitious politicians, serial killers, old school newspaper editors, and zombie-fighting country bumpkins. Anderson and Dellos work together, individually, and with other directors and writers on a wide-range of full-length films, shorts, corporate videos, and documentaries. Ultimately, they hope to put the Midwest on the same footing as the East and West Coasts in terms of film production.

One big step in that direction is a working arrangement to create higher budget projects with Rock On! Films, the New York company formed by director Joe Eckardt. In a recent email interview, Eric B. Anderson explained how the partnership came about.

 

“Joe Eckardt and I shared representation in the early 2000s, so that’s how we met,” Anderson said. “When Joe decided to launch Rock On! Films and needed content to produce, he reached out to me and it’s been a very rewarding partnership so far, with Rock On! co-producing five scripts with Corn Bred.”

One of those projects is You May Be Right, a comedy about a talented but unsuccessful singer named Eddie who fronts a Billy Joel cover band called Glass Houses. Considering that most of the group’s gigs are performed before sparse crowds in dive bars, Eddie’s wife Brenda seems justified in suggesting that he seriously think about a more lucrative career. Especially now that she’s pregnant. But when the actual Billy Joel crashes his car on the Long Island couple’s front lawn, Eddie decides it’s a sign that Glass Houses is destined for greatness. You May Be Right is still being developed, and so far Joel has no involvement with the film.

“Joe [Eckardt] has had conversations with him about another project, so we’re hopeful,” Anderson said. “That’s something we’re still working on, but since we’re using cover versions, we’re optimistic we’ll get it all worked out.” Most of the songs are alt-rock takes on songs Joel recorded for Glass Houses. Anderson was particularly impressed with the band Hussalonia’s interpretation of the Joel’s 1980 chart-topping album.

The idea for You May Be Right came from another writer, who had based the story on an real life Billy Joel car accident. Eckardt optioned the script with the intention of directing and producing the film, but eventually became disenchanted.

“Joe felt there was the seed of an idea in the original script (which is why he optioned it) but the execution didn’t work at all,” Anderson recalled. “So he asked me to take a crack at a page one rewrite. I took the key element, the car accident, and turned it into something very different. The script went from a sort of ‘dramedy’ to the loopy musical comedy that it is now.”

At first glance, You May Be Right seems similar to the Mark Wahlberg movie, Rock Star, in which a singer from a cover band winds up performing with the actual group. Anderson deliberately steered away from that angle, concentrating instead on Eddie and Brenda’s emotional struggle, and the question of how far one should go to follow his dream. The action is set in New York City and involves Eddie and his friend Ronnie’s comically absurd pilgrimage to the clubs Joel played in, the homes where he lived, and the places where his album covers were shot. Anderson concedes the locale is unusual for his proudly Midwest-centric company.

 

“So it’s heavily rooted in the New York area,” he said. “Now, I recognize that goes against Corn Bred Films’ core mission, but in this case, the script predates the launch of Corn Bred Films and the story necessitates that it be filmed in New York. If there’s an opportunity to film anything in Chicago, I will definitely be advocating for that.”

Anderson and Eckardt have hopes their collaboration will be widely distributed. Although You May Be Right is still in the development stage, some of the roles have already been cast. Corbin Bernsen will portray a character named Captain Jack, Jason Mewes plays Ronnie, and America Olivo will bring the combative Brenda to life.

“I’m happy with the casting thus far,” Anderson said. “And I’m looking forward to rounding out the rest of the cast.”

In the meantime, Anderson and Amella Dellos also remain fully committed to creating work that is exclusively theirs, under the Corn Bred Films banner. Dellos served as Executive Producer for the PBS special Love Under Fire: The Story of Bertha & Potter Palmer (she’s also working on a feature film titled Courting Bertha), and Anderson is particularly keen on Zompocalypso, a comedy/horror flick he’s directing about a pair of dim-witted brothers determined to ride out the effects of the Mayan-predicted 2012 apocalypse.

Even the most gifted independent filmmakers face serious challenges in finding an audience for their work. Pursuing the festival circuit targets an appreciative but limited audience, and posting on popular online sites like YouTube runs the risk of being lost among countless amateurs. That’s why filmmaker Mark Thimijan launched the Once A Week Online Film Festival in September, 2010. His inventive format matches high quality independent films with a worldwide audience.

“I believe online film festivals are the future,” Thimijan explained in a recent email. His own background includes starting out as a screenwriter before moving on to becoming an assistant director. He currently writes and directs his own projects, including the feature film Barstool Cowboy, which is available on Amazon and Netflix. “Movie theatres all over the world are closing and more and more content is being viewed online. A traditional film festival will give you one, maybe two screenings and the audience is never guaranteed.”

Based in Lincoln, Nebraska, Thimijan is pretty much a one-man operation as he sorts through a new batch of films each week. Submissions to the Once A Week Online Film Festival must follow the same rules as for YouTube, and can be no longer than 20 minutes in length. Thimijan consults a rotating panel of judges comprised of film critics, professionals and enthusiasts, who rate the submissions on a scale of 1 to 10. The film with the best average rating (usually an 8 or higher) is then shown on the YouTube channel for a week. The Once A Week Online Film Festival, which attracted 15 views during its first week in 2010, now ranges between 1,000 to 3,000 views for a film during its run.

“The festival was created to give filmmakers more exposure and have their work celebrated for an entire week,” Thimijan noted. Films that don’t win remain active for a year, giving them a chance to be showcased at a later date, depending on the competition.

Viewing previous winners at the Once A Week Online Film Festival archives underscores the wide variety of films that have been showcased, including drama, comedy, suspense, animation and documentaries. Thimijan has received entries from teenagers through senior citizens, as well as from other countries. At its peak, the Once A Week Online Film Festival received about 50 submissions a week, but the total has dropped since Thimijan implemented a submission fee policy.

“I honestly did not want submission fees in the first place,” he maintained. “Being a filmmaker myself I understand how expensive the whole process is and the last thing any filmmaker needs is to spend more money once production is over.”

So he strived to work out an ethical  system that basically translates into a contributor paying $1 for each minute of his film, with a maximum of $20.

“I never liked the idea of a one minute film having to pay the same fee as a 20 minute film; it just doesn’t seem fair to me.”

Plus, Thimijan’s rationale for the fees goes beyond economics, and has more to do with maintaining the quality of his site. He had discovered that trying to process 50 submissions on a weekly basis sometimes resulted in quality films being overlooked.

“The fee was put into place to slow down the rate of submissions and it worked,” he explained. “Any film submitted now will have a much better chance of being shown. Six months ago it was very difficult for a film to become the highest rated, and [it’s] much easier now.”

Thimijan has toyed with the idea of breaking the competition down into specific categories, such as music video, animation, comedy, and drama, or holding multiple online festivals that focus on particular genres. The danger in doing that, he feels, is that it might water down the success he’s worked so hard to achieve.

“What I like about the Once A Week Festival platform is that we have the biggest audience each week,” he said. “I’m afraid that if it’s broken down and more specific the audience could also potentially be broken down.”

Operating his site gives Thimijan a first hand look at the most current trends in filmmaking. He’s seeing a lot of films being shot in Canon 5d, 7d, and 60d, as well as submissions that utilize the advantages and capabilities of DSLR’s. Short films are evolving from a time when they were pretty much a practicing ground for future, long-form work, and becoming more polished and technologically advanced works that can stand on their own.

Thimijan says it’s hard to tell how many of the winning entries on the Once A Week Online Film Festival have gone on to bigger things. He does know that the director of the film Slings And Arrows was contacted by the South Texas Underground Film Festival and invited to show his film there. The site’s greatest success, Thimijan believes, has been to consistently present quality films on a weekly basis and watch the site’s audience grow. He recalls that it took about three months for really good films to be submitted, as people began to trust that the Once A Week Online Film Festival wasn’t going to disappear.

“I really didn’t know if this would work in the beginning but it’s now clear to me that there was a need and want for this.”

The series “I’m Almost Not Crazy: Outsider Cinema by Hollywood Insiders” celebrates narrative films by Hollywood insiders that bear resemblance to “Art Brut” or the personally invented forms of untrained outsider artists.

Rare and risque films are part of the series, “Hot Saturdays: Gems from Pre-Code Hollywood.” This series features films that were made before the summer 1934 crackdown by censors on Hollywood film productions. The series continues through early March.

Block has also scheduled three Thursday evenings of free screenings, including avant-garde films, a romantic classic and a fascinating new documentary.

Films are screened in the James B. Pick and Rosalyn M. Laudati Auditorium at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, 40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston campus. Free parking is available in the lot directly south of the museum.

Unless otherwise noted, general admission to Block Cinema screenings is $6 for the general public or $4 for Block Museum members, Northwestern faculty, staff and students, students from other schools with valid IDs, and individuals aged 65 and older. Quarterly passes are $20. Tickets are available one hour before showtime. For more information, call the Block Cinema Hotline at (847) 491-4000 or visit the Block Cinema website at www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu/block-cinema.

FEBRUARY 2012 FILMS

Radical Light: “Stories Untold,” 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 2, Block Cinema (Various directors, 1968 to 1999, United States, 16 mm and video, approximately 100 minutes). This program of short works is part of a touring series curated by the Pacific Film Archive to accompany the release of the book “Radical Light: Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945-2000.” “Stories Untold” features approaches to storytelling that cleverly integrate form and content. The program features James Broughton’s “The Bed,” a playful exploration of amorous activities on and around the titular piece of furniture; Scott Stark’s “I’ll Walk With God,” which employs images from flight safety pamphlets to illustrate a rapturous climb into the heavens; and George Kuchar’s “A Reason to Live,” an homage to melodrama and meteors. Works by Max Almy, Chip Lord, Curt McDowell, and Anne McGuire will also be screened. Admission is free.

Outsider Cinema series, “The Last Movie,” 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 3, Block Cinema (Dennis Hopper, 1971, United States, 35 mm, 108 minutes). Levels of “reality” collide in this wildly nonlinear film about a stuntman (Hopper) who stays behind in Peru when the Sam Fuller-directed Western he’s working on falls apart due to the accidental death of its star (Dean Stockwell). Loitering in the jungle, the stuntman later discovers the native Peruvians shooting their own movie on the abandoned film sets: the wicker “cameras” may be fake, but the violence they “film” is all too real.

Pre-Code Hollywood series, “Blood Money,” 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 4, Block Cinema (Rowland Brown, 1933, United States, 35 mm, 65 minutes). In this down and dirty exploration of the Los Angeles underworld, George Bancroft plays Bill Bailey, a crooked bail bondsman who can bribe his way out of any jam. Frances Dee plays against type as socialite Elaine Talbart, a masochistic kleptomaniac looking for a bad man to treat her wrong. Mayhem ensues when the duo gets mixed up with a serial bank robber. “Blood Money” is a perverse tale of double-crosses and dark desires.

A&O Films Presents, “Casablanca,” 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 9, Block Cinema (Michael Curtiz, 1942, United States, 35 mm, 102 minutes). “Casablanca” stars movie legends Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman as former lovers forced to choose between love and virtue. Set during World War II in Vichy-controlled Morocco, Rick (Bogart) is an American expatriate who runs a popular cafe. Trouble arises with the unexpected arrival of his ex-lover, Ilsa (Bergman), and her husband, a Resistance leader pursued by the Nazis. This enduring Warner Bros. classic has become one of the most quoted and admired films of all time. Admission is free.
Outsider Cinema series, “Love Streams,” 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 10, Block Cinema (John Cassavetes, 1984, United States, 35 mm, 141 minutes). Adapted from a play by Ted Allan, “Love Streams” follows a brother (Cassavetes) and his sister (Gena Rowlands) as they each navigate different means of emotional escape: he repudiates love for casual sex, while she obsessively dives into delusions of intimacy. Funniest at its most melodramatic and saddest when its characters strive for levity, “Love Streams” offers a summation of a career and detours into new aesthetic territory for a filmmaker who’d just been given (erroneously) six months to live.

Pre-Code Hollywood series, “Hot Saturday,” 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 11, Block Cinema (William A. Seiter, 1932, United States, 35 mm, 73 minutes). Nancy Carroll stars as Ruth Brock, a young bank teller who longs for adventure and an escape from small town doldrums. Excitement arrives when a wealthy playboy, Romer Sheffield (Cary Grant), comes to town and hosts a summer soiree at his deluxe woodland retreat. Soon Ruth must choose between the debonair Sheffield and her former beau, Bill (Randolph Scott), who’s still sweet on her. “Hot Saturday” will be preceded by “School for Romance” (Archie Gottler, 1934, United States, 35 mm, 20 minutes). In this hilarious short film produced by Columbia Pictures, Professor “Romansky” provides lectures on lovemaking to a group of co-eds, including a young Betty Grable.

Double feature/Outsider Cinema series, “I’m Almost Not Crazy: John Cassavetes – The Man and His Work,” 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 17, Block Cinema (Michael Ventura, 1984, United States, 16 mm, 60 minutes). When Cannon Films commissioned a “making of” documentary for “Love Streams,” Cassavetes responded by tapping journalist (Michael Ventura) with no filmmaking experience (and no preconceived ideas about the process) to make it. The result is a warm and thoughtful warts-and-all portrait that demystifies the director’s celebrated, often-misunderstood methods of improvisation. It will be followed by a screening of “The American Dreamer” (L.M. Kit Carson and Lawrence Schiller, 1971, United States, 16 mm to video, 90 minutes). “The American Dreamer” documents Dennis Hopper’s strange days in Taos, N.M., while editing “The Last Movie.” Under the influence of his monster success with “Easy Rider” and a counterculture he had helped shape, Hopper shoots target practice, wanders naked in the suburbs and gathers an ad-hoc harem of hippie girls, while dodging anxious producers from Universal Pictures. Note: This film includes nudity and adult content that may be inappropriate for younger audiences.

Pre-Code Hollywood Series, “A House Divided,” 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 18, Block Cinema (William Wyler, 1931, United States, 35 mm, 68 minutes). An early sound film for Universal by veteran director Wyler, this ultra-rare feature stars Walter Huston as a brutish patriarch in a small fishing village who sends for a mousey mail order bride. When a beautiful young woman (Helen Chandler) arrives instead, the man’s grown son (Kent Douglass) falls for her, creating ample tension in the already explosive household. With expressionist visuals and gothic flair, “A House Divided” features masterful direction by Wyler and a masterful performance by Huston.

New Documentaries, “Paul Goodman Changed My Life,” 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 23, Block Cinema (Jonathan Lee, 2011, United States, video, 89 minutes). This eye-opening documentary focuses on Paul Goodman, who was a poet, bestselling author, out bisexual (in the 1940s), family man, pacifist, visionary, co-founder of Gestalt therapy — and a hero for many in the burgeoning counterculture of the 1960s. Using a treasure trove of new and archival multimedia, quotes from Susan Sontag, Martin Luther King Jr. and more, the film is a rich portrait of an intellectual heavyweight whose ideas are overdue for discovery. Admission is free. This screening is sponsored by Northwestern’s department of history. Michael J. Kramer, a lecturer in history and American studies, will introduce the film.

Outsider Cinema series, “The World’s Greatest Sinner,” 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 24 (Timothy Carey, 1962, United States, 35 mm, 82 minutes). Narrated by a boa constrictor, this crackpot tale of a would-be saint concerns a disaffected insurance executive (Carey) whose midlife crisis turns blasphemous when he quits his job, declares himself God and becomes a rock ‘n’ roll political messiah, evangelizing to the nation with an eruptive stage act that must be seen to be believed. The film also features songs and scoring by a then-unknown Frank Zappa.

Pre-Code Hollywood Series, “The Woman I Stole,” 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25 (Irving Cummings, 1933, United States, 35 mm, 70 minutes). This rarely screened feature from Columbia Pictures concerns a love triangle between ex-pat Americans in the North African desert. Jim (Jack Holt) is on a mission to exploit the area’s oil reserves and fight off local bandits while concocting a plan to steal another man’s wife, Vida (Fay Wray). Delightfully campy and politically incorrect in every sense, the film also features an unintentionally hilarious ending you won’t soon forget.

Kyle Hausmann-Stokes, directing

Wisconsin-born filmmaker Kyle Hausmann-Stokes’ path towards becoming a professional director and producer was an exceptionally long and tortuous one, yet one that inevitably shaped his future. Filled with challenges and trials that threatened to derail his life’s ambition, Kyle’s course tested his personal spirit and passion. In 2006, with his dream of attending University of Southern California’s film school finally coming to fruition, Stokes was called to duty in Iraq, where his journey would reach its harrowing zenith.

Recognized as an astute soldier by his commanders, Kyle’s early efforts in Iraq found him rewarded with a quick promotion to Staff Sergeant, which placed him in command of a military convoy tasked with shepherding tanks and armored vehicles along the country’s main highway. Stokes’ troop had the perilous assignment of defending these vehicles, which transported water, food and supplies to Iraqi civilians, from roadside bombs and unexpected enemy fire.  The duty became an unrelenting source of anxiety and fear for Kyle, manifesting itself in the filmmaker’s post-traumatic stress disorder which he still suffers from today.

As it was in Fort Polk, Stokes’ method of mitigating the gravity of his circumstances was to document his experiences through film, which found him capturing footage of gunfights, explosions and mutilations along his journeys. Striving to fulfill his goal of chronicling the soldier’s story, Kyle soon found that the one he was telling was his own.

At the completion of his yearlong tour of duty, the 25-year old was abruptly sent back home.  Within 48 hours, Staff Sergeant Stokes, commander of a military convoy consistently under the threat of attack, became Kyle, civilian with no real obligations or responsibilities. The lack of healthy transition became toxic for Stokes, as his two worlds began to blur.  Suffering from PTSD, Kyle had trouble with daily tasks such as driving, often seeing groups of youngsters as potential threats and billowing plastic bags as explosives.  In addition, his newly-acquired fear of large groups proved nearly debilitating to his life as a student. Encountering a lack of support from both peers and the Veterans Affairs program, Stokes found solace in his calling, his storytelling.

Kyle Hausmann-Stokes on the set

As a class assignment, Kyle produced a semi-autobiographical account of his daily struggle with PTSD, called Now After. Immediately becoming a hit in the classroom, Stokes watched his pet project evolve into a viral sensation, as it began making its ways through military and civilian channels alike. Attracting the attention of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Kyle was soon commissioned to produce public service announcements.  With a steady and viable stream of military clients, Stokes was able to establish his own production company, which he appropriately named Blue Three after his call sign in Iraq.

In a few short years, Blue Three Productions has become Kyle’s vehicle for achieving his ultimate aspiration.  His company uses Hollywood-trained personnel to provide attention to military issues for veterans and civilians alike.  Incorporating cast and crew members with military backgrounds, Blue Three Productions has become a successful company that, among its many projects, has produced commercial spots for ESPN.  As a personal achievement, a film of Kyle’s was also recently screened for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the First Lady, Michelle Obama.

Kyle Hausmann-Stokes at work on a PSA

While Stokes believes the work that Blue Three Productions does is a step in the right direction toward alerting the public to the plight of the soldier, his ultimate dream is significantly loftier. Kyle hopes to convey these themes into a full-length feature that would encompass the varied array of experiences for all those affected by war, which he calls his “Platoon: Iraq Version.”  “I want people to see that each person in war has a story that’s unique, and that story often continues long after they return home.”

Stokes’ personal tale is still an unsettled one.  While managing his PTSD continues to be a struggle at times, his unique method of therapy has set him down a healthy road towards normalcy.  Through his work, Kyle hopes to provide a voice for his forgotten brothers in order to help them, and himself, recover.

Read part one on Hausmann-Stokes here, and watch “Now, After” here.

Directed By Mac Eldridge
Written By Angel Esparza
Screenplay By Angel Esparza
Produced By Aric Jackson, Kevin McGrail, and Angie Gaffney

http://www.bloodontheplain.com