This has been an encouraging year for the spirit of independent filmmaking. Despite a slow economy and  shaky entertainment industry foundations,  there are still countless aspiring and seasoned filmmaking teams knocking at it day after day, making films, telling stories and fostering  independent film communities.

As the saying goes, “The more things change the more they stay the same”.  And while the traditional Hollywood studio model may be losing its stranglehold on modern filmmaking, it still has the infrastructure, resources and connections to maintain its large footprint while weathering the economic shifts and tinkering with their methods. But the real story of Independent Film lies with the people who bring it to life. For these people, 2011 has been a challenging year of hard work, careful observation, and numerous victories small and large. I am only one small voice, one pair of eyes amidst a sea of filmmakers and yet I have seen so many worthwhile projects come to life this year I couldn’t possibly name them all in the scope of this article. That said, I’d like to share some of the highlights I’ve seen from my humble vantage. If you have any highlights for 2011 in Independent Film that you feel I have missed, please add your own to the list in the comments section below!

First and foremost on my personal “2011 highlight reel”, I would put my real world “tweet-ups”, work and meetings with numerous filmmakers and creatives in San Francisco, L.A., New York and right in my own backyard (Wisconsin). I am fortunate to have met some incredible and ambitious filmmakers (and supporters) that exemplify the work ethic, creative drive and true spirit of Independent Film. You all know who you are! I hope to see you all again soon.

Amidst some of the more encouraging signs for Indie film, crowd-funding has begun to gain some traction. Legislation (The Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act H.R. 2930) has even been drafted to amend securities laws to allow larger scale crowd sourcing that would be particularly helpful to independent filmmakers. Crowd funding start-ups like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo helped many projects achieve their development funds this year including this very small list of examples:

• Gregory Bayne finished and achieved distribution for his documentary “Jens Pulver : Driven” and immediately followed that up with a successful crowdfunding campaign to fund work on another compelling documentary with high social value “Bloodsworth: An Innocent Man”  http://thislovelymachine.com/ 

   

• Gary King had a successful campaign that achieved the fairly lofty goal of hiring a live orchestra for recording the songs for his musical: “How Do You Write a Joe Schermann Song?”http://grking.com/

• Oklahoma Ward, Nikki Alonso and David P. Baker pulled off a phenomenal campaign which brought Scottish filmmaker David Baker over to the States for a unique collaboration and sharing of resources at the Extreme Indie studio. The result of that cooperative effort: two horror genre feature films shot over the summer of 2011 (now in post-production). We can look forward to “SCREEN” and “CRAWL” as well as The Hardcore Indie Documentary on the filmmakers experience making these two pictures. Extreme Indie Blog

• Up and coming filmmaker Mattson Tomlin successfully funds “Dream Lover” right on the heels of his innovative “Solomon Grundy” series. Keep your eyes on this guy, if he can keep up that pace he is going to go far!

Dream Lover Trailer from Mattson Tomlin on Vimeo. 

• Joe Wilson and his comedy web series Vampire Mob took an unsuccessful Kickstarter campaign and turned it around to come back and fund his second season of this incredible show featuring a star studded cast you can watch now at { www.vampiremob.com }

• Other quality Web Series such as  Solo The Series, created by Jonathan Nail, and Western X created by Michael Flores and Blood and Bone China by Chris Stone all hit the ground running this year along with numerous others.

• It was also a good year for short films. Paul A. Reeves’ short film "Game Boyz" was completed. Meg Pinsonneault crowd-funded and shot her film "Feast of the Foolish" . "Dennis" a short film about a "Childaholic" monster by Phil Duncan and Kyle Aldrich was completed. "Extreme Paint", a short comedy I worked on with  Miles Maker last year, was wrapped in early 2011... And the list could go on and on!

Gameboyz Trailer 01 from Paul Reeves on Vimeo.

• In an 11th hour victory, Lucas McNelly  (with help from the internet film communities on Twitter and Facebook) achieved  funding for his unique  “A Year Without Rent” campaign in which he toured the country volunteering on film crews and documented his journey along the way. Moving from State to State and set to set, he has perhaps had a better vantage than most as to what’s going on down on the front lines of independent film across the U.S.{ www.ayearwithoutrent.com }

Lucas McNelly preps camera for Jon Reiss Workshop at Flyway Film Festival 2011

Lucas also managed to show up and lend a hand at this year’s “Flyway Film Festival” in Wisconsin, which is rapidly becoming a filmmaker’s favorite.

This year both Ted Hope and Jon Reiss attended and came to share their experience and expertise in seminars and discussions.
Even as “Martha Marcy May Marlene”was hitting theaters, Ted Hope brought  yet another film to screen at the festival, “Collaborator” a tense, dark comedy/drama featuring Martin Donovan and David Morse.

  

Offering his insight into successful independent filmmaking and distribution, Jon Reiss brought his two-day “Think Outside the Box Office” workshop, coming on the heels of the release of his latest book written with The Film Collaborative and Sheri Candler:

Producers John Alan Simon and Elizabeth Karr brought their film adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s “Radio Free Albemuth” to the Flyway Film Festival.

 

(See previous Film Courage Interviews about RFA Movie here: Radio Free Interview Part 1  and  Radio Free Interview Part 2 . As a Phillip K. Dick fan, this was a particularly wonderful addition to the festival line-up for me; even more so, because I had an opportunity to interview the Producers and met them in L.A. prior to this screening. There was a great casual Q&A after the screening at a nearby restaurant in Stockholm Wisconsin.

It was also a pleasure to meet and see the works of other talented filmmakers too numerous to mention in the scope of this article. The Flyway Film Festival is like the little film fest that could…and it does. It may not be a “Sundance” or a “Cannes”(yet) but it attracts a filmmaker/film friendly crowd from all over the country (and world) and manages to bring in great films. This has kept filmmakers coming back for the last four years. I’ll speak more directly with Flyway founder Rick Vaicius in a follow up article specifically about his future plans for the festival.

Also on this year’s list of highly anticipated events, Hart D. Fisher - “The Scariest Man in America” (as previously featured in my interviews on Film Courage and Nightmare Sound Lab Blogs) launched his 24 hour uncut “American Horrors” channel through FilmOn.com in October. This is a wonderful opportunity for filmmakers with good horror material of all shapes and sizes to find a potential outlet for their material.  http://americanhorrors.com

Dee Rees’ “Pariah”, starring featuring Adepero Oduye, Kim Wayans, Aasha Davis and Charles Parnell has won numerous awards and has made an impression at Sundance now makes its way into theaters via Focus Features: http://focusfeatures.com/pariah

On a personal highlight I have to thank Patrick Beck for trusting me with coming up with music and sound design for his SciFi feature “Broken Orbit”.  Featured at the Milwaukee Short Film Festival this year, a special preview screening was arranged by festival coordinator and local filmmaker Ross Bigely and held at the Milwaukee Art Museum in November.

The final cut for Broken Orbit is now in my hands for additional orchestration and fine tuning of music and sound design elements.

 

This project also gave me another opportunity to work (indirectly) with Rex Sikes (who plays an eccentric science geek/UFO enthusiast). I coincidentally had another chance to work with Rex while recording ADR for another film that wrapped in 2011 “The Spade County Massacre” and awaiting a 2012 release.

Speaking of Rex brings me to the subject of film oriented Internet Radio programs. Besides being an actor/filmmaker, Rex Sike’s is also the host of Rex Sikes Movie Beat where he talks with veteran filmmakers and up and comers, sharing excellent information for filmmakers at all levels. Also in this arena: David Branin and Karen Worden’s Film Courage show on L.A. Talk Radio, Casey Ryan’s Cutting Room Floor (you can catch my last appearance on Casey’s show here at Talkshoe Radio), and Nic Baisley’s Film Snobbery have all been maintaining quality programming and presence as worthwhile filmmaker’s resources.

The concept of the PMD (Producer of Marketing and Distribution) has started to get some traction. While it is still an unproven field in a sense, it is a positive sign that people are starting to take on this challenge and that filmmakers are starting to think about the role in general as a necessary task that may demand attention throughout the filmmaking process rather than merely as an afterthought.

The V.O.D. models (such as the services provided by Distrify, Dynamo, Distribber and others) are coming into their own, although these services haven’t really been in action long enough to start calling on case studies. Some specific high profile campaigns have gained attention including Kevin Smith’s “Red State” and more recently, Louis C.K.’s venture into circumventing traditional distribution.

No longer bound by Hollywood studio dependencies, filmmaking has become a universally potential medium that is being explored in every nook and cranny of the world. In fact there are so many small teams and communities of film makers that it is nearly impossible to get an accurate assessment of the scope and state of the current industry.

For the Independent Filmmakers and Creatives, it really isn’t much different than it has ever been. Distribution models may be changing and technology may be more accessible, but in many ways it has always been a long hard road of dedication, ambition, development of skills, pitches and teams. In short, producing and manifesting art and entertainment has never been an easy road. To produce something worthwhile usually takes a great deal of investment of blood, sweat, tears and good old fashioned cold hard cash.

If this year has been any indication of the direction of filmmaking, I am looking forward to an exciting new year of creative projects, innovations and developments for the independent film world.

Again, please feel free add your 2011 Independent Film highlights in the comments below! So for 2011 … that’s a wrap! I leave this year with a sense of gratitude and anticipation for the year to come. Wishing you all the best in your creative and personal endeavors for 2012!

T. Reed – Composer / Sound Designer / Music Producer / Writer  @TAOXproductions

http://www.taoxproductions.com

http://nightmaresoundlab.blogspot.com

http://filmcourage.com/blog/5