Can Living Small Go Big? A (Short) Documentary Film

We’re interested in issues of sustainability—both environmental and financial. As the frame of Christopher’s tiny house began to rise up and we dug into the movement around tiny living, we found people who are reshaping the American Dream to fit their own values and priorities. This often means buying a tiny home outright, or building one from scratch, to escape home loans and mortgage payments altogether. Tiny homes are often less costly and less time-consuming to maintain—which frees up time and energy to focus on family, time outside or in the community, running a small business or working on creative projects. (And no, not all tiny house owners are hippies, though some do own chickens and use composting toilets. And yes, we’ve seen tiny houses with flat-screen TVs and full plumbing too.)

Through this process of developing the film, we inadvertently stumbled on one of the most important lessons for any first-time filmmaker: Pick a subject that is meaningful to you, and also meaningful to a larger audience.

It seems obvious, but as creative types it can be easy to get wrapped up in a conceptual idea or a personal story that leaves outsiders thinking, Who cares?

Chances are, if you really do care, so will everyone else. But finding the story lies in narrowing down exactly where that care originates. For us, it all comes back to the question: “What makes a good home?” A question that is central to Christopher’s story of building his own, and central to the process of downsizing, as Christopher and our other characters decide what they want to surround themselves with, and what they can do without. It’s also a question that’s central to every single person who has ever rented or bought or re-designed a house, who has ever left a home or looked for a new one, who has ever started a family or searched for a place to spend the night. Basically: everyone.

In part, our success so far in reaching an audience and gaining exposure has depended on the large, passionate community that already exists around tiny houses.

We’ve also gotten lucky with our timing—just as Christopher was buying his land and deciding to build a small cabin from scratch, the tiny house movement was beginning to receive unprecedented media attention and interest from those not already in the know. (We arrived at our first interview, with tiny house builder Jay Shafer in Sonoma County, to find that a reporter from the New Yorker was also on the scene—he sat scribbling throughout our interview with Jay and the full feature article appeared in the magazine in July.)

As filmmakers and storytellers, we’ll never stop paying attention to the questions that motivate us to make rash decisions and shape the direction of our own lives. Chances are there will be a project in each of them, just waiting to happen.

“TINY” on Kickstarter

From now until December 15, we’re running a Kickstarter campaign to fund post-production costs of the film, including sound editing and the recording of our original score.