Staying Relevant

Now that the semester is wrapping up, it is time to start thinking about where we want to go from here with our documentary. We already know that we are going to have a composer do some work for the film before we start to submit it places. We definitely want to submit it to festivals, but my dad also just met someone who does some work with documentary distribution and wants to see our film. At the beginning of the semester we had considered looking into getting in contact with a distributor so we could screen the film at different colleges around the country so students could be informed about issues relating to the refugee crisis before they vote in November, but we kind of forgot about that until now. However, I think that could be a really good idea.

As of yesterday, one thing became extremely obvious: our documentary is not going to lose its relevance anytime soon. Now that Kasich and Cruz are out of the election, it's going to be all Trump all the time. While this news is extremely unsettling, it also makes it more important than ever that our documentary is seen by as many people as possible.

One of the feedbacks that we got on our documentary was that we should have shown more people who aren't Trump supporters that are opposed to refugees. While I think that would have been beneficial,  I also think that for a long time, we all assumed that Trump supporters were just crazy people. However, it's become more and more obvious that all different types of people support Trump. More people are backing him than ever expected, which means his views are actually the views of a lot more people in this country than most people would have thought.

After spending time getting to know the refugee community in Buffalo, I refuse to imagine a country where he is in charge. His ideas, and the ideas of his supporters, are filled with such hate toward people who deserve nothing but love. Now that it's inevitable that we'll be seeing him around until November, I hope our documentary can persuade at least a few people that voting for him is not a good idea.

Indie Success Story

In class when we were talking about Paul Thomas Anderson and dropping out of school and financing our own film with tuition, I was reminded of a filmmaker who did just that. The film Clerks by Kevin Smith is an example of this. While Kevin Smith is not known for being the most sophisticated or talented filmmaker (most people will say he has only two good films - if that), he has made productions in Hollywood which is something most of us are aiming for. Once we get there, I'm sure most of us will want to create very different work than Kevin Smith, but we do have get there first. Mr. Smith went to film school in Toronto for half a year before dropping out at age 22. He felt he had learned all that he needed to know. With the remainder of his tuition and the selling of his extensive comic book collection, Smith began to buy equipment to create his first film. He had written a script about what he knew - working in the local convenience store with his best friends - and used the actual store after-hours as his location. He used black and white film because it was cheaper as well as local actors, family and friends as talent and crew members. The film was edited on basic equipment in the storage room of the convenience store. In total, his budget came out to be $27,000. When he finished he sent it to a film forum at the Angelika Theater in New York. Though it didn't do well at the screening, a man in the audience named Bob Hawk happened to be on the board for the Advisory Selection Committee of the Sundance Film Festival. He snatched the movie up, brought it to Sundance where it was immediately snatched up by Miramax who distributed Clerks and financed his following film. Thus, his film career begun. I thought that this was an interesting story to share about a low-budget independent film paving the way for a Hollywood director. Since many of us would love to get a chance to have a major Hollywood studio finance our films, I thought it was an interesting alternative to graduating from school and beginning with an entry level job.