Posted By Mikal Jakubal on March 28, 2009
Posted by Mikal Jakubal, March 28, 2009
You may have heard of Community Supported Agriculture, (CSA) also called “subscription farming.” It is a movement that is connecting independent farmers and urban customers in a mutually beneficial relationship. Instead of the farmer having to apply for credit from a bank, the farmer’s supporters pay a set amount in the spring—essentially a food subscription—to help the farmer start the season. Then, each week, they get a box of fresh produce directly from the farm. Often people from the city will come out to the farm on the weekends to pick up their veggie box and help tend the crops, giving them an opportunity to experience a direct connection with the land that feeds them. CSAs have saved many farmers from bankruptcy, including the central character in the amusing documentary, “The Real Dirt On Farmer John.”
Right now, financing independent documentaries is extremely difficult—probably about as difficult as trying to find funding for a non-corporate, organic farm. The grants and broadcast slots are few and far between and the competition is huge. Some documentary funds get well over a thousand applicants. Inexpensive broadcast-quality cameras and the ability to edit a feature-length film on a laptop have flooded the market with thousands of brilliant stories from all over the globe. While this is an amazing and wonderful development from a cultural and artistic perspective, it means that filmmakers have to become extraordinarily creative with finding new sources of funding. Nearly every filmmaker I know is forced to spend as much or more time raising money as they do actually shooting the film.
While we’ve applied for grants and pitched The House Of Fire to broadcasters in the hopes of hitting the jackpot, we believe that the best way to encourage the growth of independent documentary (particularly ours!) is through a film version of community supported agriculture, often called “audience funding.” It really should be termed “community supported filmmaking” because it does for independent film what CSAs do for farming by creating a community of interest around a film project.
Being involved in a documentary, at any point from concept through world premier, provides a sense of engagement that can’t be had by passively watching a film made by anonymous strangers. There is a sense of pride and personal accomplishment that comes from helping to place a unique story on the screen. The viewing experience feels more participatory and less like passive spectatorship in the same way that eating food from your favorite CSA farm subverts the passive consumerism of supermarket shopping.
So far, we’ve taken this film from concept into post-production on our own pocketbooks, a few generous donations from friends and sheer determination. (All that espresso helped too. To save money, we traveled with our own espresso maker that we plugged in at roadside rest areas. We got funny looks, but didn’t care.) As of late March, 2009 we’ve nearly exhausted our funds and therefore our ability to keep paying for editing work on The House Of Fire. Like the small farmers who develop working relationships with the people who will one day feast on their crops, we are reaching out to our future audience to help us by actively taking a part in getting this film onto the screen.
While audience-funding requires more time and energy to organize, it allows us to bypass all the typical funding gatekeepers, get this story to a much larger audience and be part of the cutting edge of the new paradigm in grass-roots media. If you want to be part of that too, click the “Get Involved!” page and see what form of contribution works for you.
Our deepest thanks to everyone who has contributed money, time, in-kind services and simple well-wishes. Such encouragement keeps us going in the face of often daunting challenges and renews our confidence in the project when our enthusiasm starts to wane.
Category: Random musings |
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