We're going to try this. It might be a total disaster, but I'm thinking it won't be.

One of the great things about social media is how it's made it a lot easier to interact in a variety of ways with other filmmakers. It's a great learning tool and a great community building tool. Film Courage is a great example.

And ever since Google+ was launched, I've been eyeing it for it's potential to move things forward. I think it has a ton of ability to do some really great things, the G+ Hangouts being a great example. Now that my Google account has the ability to broadcast hangouts on air and record them to YouTube, it was just a question of how to use that.

Enter this.

We're calling it "Clouded Lens with Lucas McNelly" (hat tip to Ross Pruden on the name). Basically the premise is this: myself and another filmmaker will get in a G+ Hangout, drink whatever booze we've got on hand, and talk about something. Film, crowdfunding, life, whatever. The schedule is sporadic. I might do 3 in a day. I might not do one for a month. I might do one at 9am and the next one at 11pm. We might literally start one with 5 minutes notice. But it'll archive, so you can always just go watch it later, if you want.

The framework is loose (and might get looser, depending on how much booze is on-hand) and we aren't too concerned with FCC guidelines on speech. Hopefully we'll get some cross-promotion going and put faces on more filmmakers. Or, as someone commented last night, "you're much nicer than you seem in tweets."

For episode 1, I talk to Steve Anderson (THIS LAST LONELY PLACE) as he nears the final hours of his Kickstarter campaign. His web cam broke about 5 minutes before we went on, so he's a white screen (Note to Self: next time, the screen share thing might be able to fix that, kind of).

Steve talks about his campaign's rally and how they got the Bogart estate on board. We also talk some about 4 OF A KIND and, well, a lot of different things. Like, GOODBYE PROMISE, for example.

For the record, Steve is drinking wine. I'm drinking beer, then scotch.

Enjoy.