By Kate Bryant

It only took my whole life to get here, but I’m making a movie! It’s true. Half the time I stare at the computer wondering, “What the hell am I doing?” The other half I spend taking deep breaths into a paper bag telling myself, “Yes, you CAN do this; and gosh darnit, you WILL do this.”

I just have to finish designing the website, write these 50 grant proposals, launch the Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign, find an editor, hold a casting call, hire some interns, write the ad to hire the interns, remember to eat, remember to walk the dog, hold down the side biz that’s also not making money, and somehow keep my sanity intact.

What I learned from my first business endeavor is, it’s hard going it alone. Finding people with expertise is absolutely what’s making this film possible. I brought on a producer — someone who is also learning-by-doing, but it doesn’t hurt to have someone else on board for the feedback and support alone. And in turn, he brought along the DP.

My movie is a new kind of animal: the multi-pronged one that’s just the nascent inklings of an entire movement. Because, well, that’s how you make a doc these days…if you want it to result in social action.

Creating the website, the outreach, the distribution plan — these are all running in parallel with the research, production, and cash-raising. And guess what I’m doing next? That’s right, bringing on people with experience in those fields.

So what is the movie I’m making? It is called The Pay Gap (working title) and it’s about pay equity. Women still just earn 77 cents to a man’s dollar, and it’s high time we closed that gap. If you haven’t already, please check out the Facebook page  and hit the Like button.

Sure I’m still faking it for now, but with a supportive audience like you and some talented collaborators, it won’t be long before I can finally say I made it.

The Pay Gap Trailer from kate wave on Vimeo

By Alex Gaylon

I’ve been told that it has never been easy to raise money and make a documentary film. Now with this recession, it’s even more difficult, but we’re creative people and we figure out ways to raise money, work hard, and get by. I have been working on a feature-length documentary about the National Gay Flag Football League for the past year and a half or so. While we have a lot of excitement over at our film’s Facebook page (which I hope you’ll “like” if you haven’t already) and we raised some funds via kickstarter.com to get a computer and hard drives, we haven’t had much luck winning grants that would enable us to spend more time converting, watching, and finally editing the hundreds of hours of footage we’ve acquired. However, we’ve recently put together a new 5 minute trailer that we hope will help our quest for grants and fundraising.

In order to keep the ball rolling, everyone involved in the project has other jobs. I freelance as a videojournalist and have started my own small production company called Karmalize Productions. My passion is live music, so I’m doing what I can to break into the world of filming live performances. Luckily, my roommate is Head Creaghead at Creaghead & Company and she produces wonderful live events. The last video I uploaded was filmed at Heart Of Darkness, my favorite show in NYC, and features Shonali Bhowmik of Tigers and Monkeys performing with HOD’s house band, The Forgiveness . Another fun cameo appearance at HOD was Fred Armisen covering Devo with The Forgiveness.

If I’m not logging Flag Football The Movie footage, editing silly humanitarian news magazine stories, or filming live music, I’m probably blogging about live music at allthingslive.tumblr.com. I post and discuss live music videos that inspire me as well as live music videos that I’ve produced myself. There’s something for everybody, no particular genre; it’s just all live.

Thanks for reading! Now you don’t have to ask me what I’ve been up to!

By Graham Meriwether

My name is Graham Meriwether and I’m a proud member of the FilmShop. I’ve been on the road since July with our documentary, American Meat, a solutions-oriented film surveying the current state of the U.S. meat industry. The following is a piece I wrote after a special screening of our doc in Washington D.C. last week:

Tonight we all learned that there’s hope for the 2012 farm bill.

After the super-committee failed to reach consensus last week, the doors were reopened for a national conversation about agriculture…which is good news for everybody.

Why’s that? Because people like Susan Prolman who runs the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) will be able to share common-sense solutions to our nation’s agricultural challenges. How? Through initiatives like the Beginning Farmer Bill which helps provide funding to new farmers, and the Local Food Bill which- yep- helps support local farms in every which way- through supporting farmers markets, helping farmers to produce food for local markets, and educating us everyday folks about how, why and where we can get this local food.

What can you do?
Contact your state and federal elected officials and let them know that you support the Local Food Bill & the Beginning Farmer Bill. Right after you’ve done that- join the pulse of agricultural knowledge at Food Democracy Now! where our good friends Dave and Lisa will let you know about the precise moments when to take action about food topics that matter.

Chipotle Steps Up
One person at our screening of “American Meat” tonight asked if we need to focus on supply or demand to grow our movement. Maureen Moodie of Arcadia said we need to do both- that from the supply side- in the urban area of DC there’s more demand for local food than can be met, the challenge is how to inspire young people to consider a career in agriculture.

That is why it was so exciting to have Phil Petrilli- who manages Chipotle restaurants in the Northeast region standing right there. For those who don’t know- Chipotle has recently started sourcing pork from local farms for a few of their restaurants. The first was Polyface Farms- which sourced pork for the Charlottesville, VA Chipotle. The program saves cash because produce doesn’t have to get trucked around the country to get to a restaurant. Instead of traveling thousands of miles- now it travels tens of miles. It also means the produce is more fresh, and it helps to create more jobs. The one-farm-to-one-restaurant program has been successful- and now is at a number of Chipotles- in Texas, the D.C. area, and soon to be PA. They’re essentially writing the book on how to locally source a major chain restaurant, and it’s pioneers like Phil Petrilli who are making the nitty gritty logistical side of distribution happen.

If half of the 1300 Chipotles source locally, that will create tens of thousands of jobs for young people- right smack dab in the middle of the worst job market for people coming out of high school and college. Let’s put a square peg in a square hole- let’s employ these young able-bodied people in a rapidly expanding profitable enterprise also known as sustainable agriculture. If we see the niche market jump from 1% to 10% over the next 5 years, we’ll see a lot of jobs be created and a much needed revitalization of rural America.

The pieces are starting to fall into place. It’s an exciting time to start farming, and an exciting time to be eating, too.

Vegucated is a guerrilla-style documentary that follows three meat- and cheese-loving New Yorkers from different backgrounds who, for six weeks, adopt a vegan diet and a whole new way of thinking about food.

Watch the Film

Vegucated is a guerrilla-style documentary that follows three meat- and cheese-loving New Yorkers from different backgrounds who, for six weeks, adopt a vegan diet and a whole new way of thinking about food.

Principal Crew:

• Marisa Miller Wolfson – Writer, Director, Co-producer, Co-editor
• Frank Mataska – Producer
• Demetrius Bagley – Producer
• Mary Max – Executive Editor
• Sara Leavitt – Editor
• John Pierce – Director of Photography

Principal Actors:

• Marisa Miller Wolfson
• Tesla Lobo
• Ellen Mausner
• Brian Flegel

IMDB

GetVegucated.com

The truth hurts, but the heart is hard to burn…

Through the looking glass….

Directed by Adam Walter

Seven vignettes for Henrietta…

 

 

A volatile relationship in seven pieces.

Directed by Adam Waltner

A series of mashups between Lady Gaga and The Social Network soundtrack.

Grammy award-winning recording artist Lady Gaga meets Academy award-winning soundtrack to The Social Network in POKER FACEBOOK, a mashup album.  Using regular YouTube annotations, the album is easily navigable.

Principal Crew:

• Lady Gaga
• Trent Reznor
• Atticus Ross
• Greg Dunbar

Link to official site: http://pokerfacebook.tumblr.com/

FilmShop Brooklyn’s fall 2010 season ended with something old and something new. Graham Meriwether screened the first 20 minutes of his documentary “American Meat,” which long-time FilmShoppers have seen in various stages during its production, and Doug Hosdale screened a rough cut of his new short comedy called “The Duel.”

“American Meat” examines the complex economics and ethics of the nation’s meat industry: how it grew into the factory farm system we have today, and how a growing movement of independent farmers are proposing alternative arrangements. Graham has shared all manner of raw footage and rough cuts over the past few years. At the start of the season, in fact, he screened a version of the film’s introduction that lasted almost 40 minutes. FilmShoppers agreed that his newest cut, some 20 minutes shorter, retains the work’s power while helping clarify challenges faced by individual farmers. Indeed, this farmer-centric angle distinguishes “American Meat” from all of the recent food-related documentaries that have premiered in recent years—it’s one film definitely worth watching when it debuts.

Ending on a light-hearted note, Doug Hosdale screened “The Duel.” It follows two history geeks as they re-create famous historic duels to win the lasting affections of a woman, beginning with the famed face-off against Aaron Burr that cost Alexander Hamilton his life. Without giving too much away about the ending, suffice it to say that neither man poses a threat to Takeru Kobayashi or Joey Chestnut. Doug served as director of photography on “The Duel.” Also joining us to hear FilmShop’s comments was Alec Pollak, one of the film’s producers. Interestingly, they began working together on the project—along with writer and co-producer Kris Keeley and director Zorikh Lequidre—after the quartet responded to a meetup.com posting seeking film collaborators.

That’s it for this season of FilmShop but save the date for Saturday, January 8, 2011 when FilmShop presents “Regifted,” a night of short films and music. Works from the Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Hong Kong FilmShop chapters will be shown. Festivities also include a gift swap, photo booth, and live music from Living Days, Xylos, DJ Jan Woo, and VJ Shantell Martin. Doors open 8 p.m. at The Music Hall of Williamsburg, 66 North 6th Street, Brooklyn. Admission is $10 at the door.

Two documentarians presented at FilmShop Brooklyn’s most recent meeting: Marisa Miller Wolfson, looking for the group’s thoughts on a new trailer for her soon-to-be-released film Vegucated, and Liz Nord, seeking feedback on interviews shot for in-production work Battle for Jerusalem.

Marisa’s doc follows three people—a college girl, a 20-something guy, and a single mom of two—as they give up all animal products, from meat to leather clothes, during a six-week period. Will the trio have what it takes to stay vegan, and what will they learn about the treatment of animals and themselves in the process? No plot spoilers here, except to say that each of the three gets sufficiently “vegucated” about veganism.

Marisa, a vegan activist with the group Kind Green Planet, wanted to know if her new trailer has the right stuff to go viral on the Internet… and entice people to see the film. If all this vegan talk whets your appetite for Vegucated, Marisa is currently entering festivals with the completed film. Keep your fingers crossed and wish her luck! In the meantime, look for a fantastic promo on the Web soon.

Liz Nord also has a trailer for her documentary Battle for Jerusalem, but Liz’s promo serves a very different purpose—it’s currently featured on the fundraising site indiegogo.com, where Liz hopes to raise the money necessary to edit a longer trailer that she can show to more donors and thereby raise enough to continue filming. While Liz’s promo on IndieGoGo contains stunning footage of Jerusalem, she instead played loosely edited interview footage of six people and asked FilmShop members which interviewees they found most compelling.

Battle for Jerusalem explores divisions between ultra-orthodox v. more secular Jewish residents of Jerusalem as these groups debate how much influence religion should have over civic life. Among Liz’s interview subjects were two artists, a businessman, a neighborhood activist, a political leader, and a student. To the un-initiated eye, all six were fascinating—but Liz wanted to know which characters were strong enough to appear throughout her entire film. For more about the film, to watch the trailer and to donate, visit Liz’s indiegogo page.

One of the best parts about FilmShop is the variety of projects that members share with the group for feedback. Presentations at our most recent meetings ran the spectrum: two very different music videos; a video art collage; and a series of web commercials for an upstart eyewear company.

FilmShopper Sarah Anderson, along with her brother and assistant director, Josh, directed a video of “The Homo Song” by singer-songwriter Mara Levi.A humorous ode addressed to a girlfriend’s mother, its catchy chorus goes “your daughter is a big homo.” Sarah translated this bubbly energy onto the screen with a bright palate of bold primary colors. She wanted feedback to help tweak the timing of cuts between shots—critical when it comes to working with comedic material.

At the opposite end of the music spectrum—the techno, deep house end to be exact—FilmShopper Daniel Ross screened a video for “The Bends,” a track by the L.A.-based artist drumcell, that he co-directed with friend Bijan Rezvani. The music features a deep groove that sounded “oily” to Daniel’s ear. So he and Bijan convinced their buddy Andrew Spano to roll around in some oil—chocolate syrup, actually—and then applied some psychedelic after effects to degrade the footage. Daniel wanted feedback on whether or not the video’s narrative arc added tension to an otherwise ambient piece of music.

An artist and vj by trade, FilmShopper Jason Tschantre mined a similar visual vein in a video collage that he’s crafting to play as eye candy in music clubs. Using Modul8 software, Jason green-screened footage of a paparazzo photographer—then he layered this image multiple times, fiddling with the colors and contrast, to create a swarm of paparazzi pointing their cameras at… well, exactly what they’ll be filming is to be determined. Jason wanted to create a frame of paparazzi that he can re-use in multiple contexts: maybe they’ll train their cameras at found footage from the Web, such as YouTube videos of the sissy bounce, or maybe they’ll be gazing at live crowd footage an event that Jason is VJing.

Jason Tschantre looks back at his paparazzo

CK Swett is also interested in the gaze: how people look in Warby Parker eyeglasses, and how he can get other people to look at the product, too. CK and some friends recently founded a film production company—so recent that it doesn’t have a name yet—and he shared with FilmShop five sample commercials for their first client. Warby Parker, an online eyewear retailer, wanted their web ads to look as though fans made them—and to encourage their fans to make videos in response. Accordingly, in one of the spots CK and his crew used a cell phone to film a guy and a girl playing guitar, singing a cute, impromptu ode to Warby Parker. Another spot featured a spectacle-sporting 20-something woman describing her aversion to marriage. Will these ads work? As it happens, one FilmShopper broke his glasses during the meeting… and he was very interested in what CK had to show!