The Brave and the Kind: A film by John W. Yost

So it looks like this just might happen. My third feature film, Orphaned, just started its grassroots fund raising campaign on Kickstarter.

Here’s the URL:  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/johnwyost/orphaned

Kickstarter is a website where filmmakers, artists, and musicians can go to propose projects to potential investors. Except the investors aren’t some rich bankers…they’re YOU. The site is set up to not only involve everyone in the funding process, but to reward you for your financial help. For example, if you go on my page and donate 50 dollars to the film, you would get a thank you credit AND the DVD AND a digital HD copy. You’re giving me the money I need to make the production, in in turn, you get a bunch of cool stuff. The prizes get bigger as the donation gets bigger, but you see what I mean.The only thing is…I don’t get the money..unless I raise ALL OF IT!:-) I’m going to need lots of help.

So…Anything you can give to the project would be wonderful. If you can’t donate financially…I totally understand…maybe donate a moment to email it to a friend who might find it interesting, or donate your status update now and again to remind folks. You never know who might be interested.

THANKS A MILLION IN ADVANCE!

Cheers!
John

So it’s been a while since I’ve posted, and there are so many subjects to cover, I really don’t know where to start. I guess as in any real conversation, this thing will twist and turn and some things get lost
in the flow, but I guess we should just embrace that as part of the experience.

Probably the main thing that jumps out at me is the talk of the independent scene and the references to the mumblecore movement in particular, and it’s something I would really like to talk about here. The term mumblecore is an absolute joke, it is limiting, even insulting to the filmmakers who are part of the “movement” (though I’m sure most of them would deny they are part of any such trend). But it is absolutely undeniable that being under this umbrella has helped the careers of these filmmakers flourish.

I was a late comer to the mumblecore party, I had read about it as some abstract term in magazine and blog articles, but I actually came to it by way of wanting to see more of Mark Duplass after the end of this season’s The League on FX. I actually popped my mumblecore cherry and watched The Puffy Chair the same day I saw Avatar, and I was really blown away by it, who would have thought that 3D characters could trump 3D Glasses? I even did some math to work out how many “Puffy Chair”s could be made for the budget of Avatar, and taking a modest (read bullshit) estimate for Avatar you could have made The Puffy Chair 16 thousand times… 16 THOUSAND TIMES.

I guess that figure is neither here nor there, but what sparked for me was a real interest in these filmmakers, I looked into it a bit more and realized everyone was working on each others projects, and all
these guys seemed to be very busy and a had a genuine passion for being involved in making films… I was hooked. It really goes back to what I was saying before, about looking to find out about these filmmakers
through their works. And when you see that the guy who wrote one movie, is acting in another movie, and holding the boom in another you really learn about who these people are, both from whats to be seen on screen and the behind the scenes details.

My two passions in life are music and film, and it these scenes pop up from time to time, proving to be extremely fertile for the artist. From The French New Wave to the the early 70’s Laurel Canyon music scene, the Saddle Creek scene to the DOGME films, a scene can be a suffocating thing, but it can also
be a really nurturing thing for the right people. People who aren’t afraid to try new things, people who are humble enough to help others out, people who see their contemporaries as friends and not rivals,
people who push each other towards being better artists. Of course there will be bandwagon jumpers and copycats, they show up everywhere, but let’s not let that distract us from true honest artists, and true honest people sharing some common goal and worldview.

Donnacha

So what seems like a life time ago I befriended a fellow filmmaker. He was a like minded soul living in the middle of this fair country…and we had quite bit in common. His name, Blake Eckard…and he totally jives with this ongoing conversation. I asked him some questions, mostly the ones from the last post between me and Donnacha. I think he brings many good points to the conversation.

Here it is in it’s entirety.

Is your identity at the whim of your authorship?
No. I don’t believe that. Films, while they are important because they can be, still usually aren’t. Most movies, big and small, aren’t about anything of any meaningful value, even on a bare emotional level, which would be plenty for me. Films must be fueled by life, not the other way around. I think this is why artists who become popular artists almost always become lesser artists around the same time. The reasons for making the work change. Also, when everyone says you’re great it must be hard to not believe it yourself…and I do think that the end of strife can be a kind of death on the part of the craftsman. Read more >>