reel-exchange

Financial Advice, Fritz Donnelly's award-winning short film, was liscensed this summer by IFC. Fritz wrote, shot, and stars in the film as he does in many others films from his ongoing series of shorts, To the Hills. The latest collection of his work, tothehills 2, was picked up by From Here to Awesome (read more about From Here to Awesome)and is now being distributed by more than a dozen outlets including Indieflix, Netflix, Heretic, Caatchi, and Amazon. His first DVD compilation To the Hills: 24 Independent Short Films, sold more than 2,000 copies in New York on its relase, and it is carried in video stores thoughout the United States. See some of Donnelly's work on his Reel-Exchange profile at reel-exchange.com/members/60fbd5ea/profile.

If you would like to have a Q&A on one of your recent projects, email Reel-Exchange Community Manager Craig Erpelding at support@reel-exchange.com.

CE: Describe your path to becoming the filmmaker you are today—from the genesis of your interest to public access TV in New York to getting picked up by From Here to Awesome.

FD: When I first moved to New York, I worked for a film distributor—an old-school guy who drove Cadillacs. He wouldn't pay for anything. "There's no money in the film business," he told me, "there's money in real estate. If I hadn't bought a property along the way, all my money would have gone up my nose." In his day, editors were paid in parcels of coke. He made B movies—a designation that encapsulated today's independent film, horror film and pornography in one genre. The studios no longer owned their movie theaters; independent cinemas proliferated and would pay less for B movies and charge less. This loophole was closed about 10 or 20 years later as studios offered their films for less to large chains of theaters. Most independent movie houses closed or were bought by chains. This was the business landscape I set foot onto. The Internet was growing, YouTube hadn't appeared yet, and public access was the fastest way to say whatever you wanted to the largest and most anonymous audience possible. I wanted to talk to people I didn't know; that's why I made movies. I knew what the people I knew thought and how they'd react to me and my ideas, but what did I know about everyone else? Ultimately, that's why I moved to New York—to get the most strangers in one place at one time and get to know what they think.

I began airing short films on Public Access TV in Manhattan. I produced a 30-minute weekly show, To the Hills, and put my home phone number at the bottom of the screen. People called in and left messages. I'd air the messages the next week during the next week's show. I think the band They Might Be Giants did something similar. They used their answering machine to see if people liked their songs. If lots of people hung up without leaving messages, then they didn't like the song. The most comments I received were for my show "Staring Contest." The character stares out of the TV; sometimes he's got a beard, sometimes is clean shaven, and sometimes is wearing shaving cream. People thought the character was staring right at them and were pretty aggressive in their messages.

My show was selected as one of 12 shows to be part of a "superblock" of programs to screen in Anthology Film Archives, a kind of avant-garde movie theater. I cut the 30-minute shows down into short films and released a DVD of 24 of these. Friends were asking for copies of my show, and I'd screen the films in bars and other venues, so the DVD seemed a good way to get the movies to people—but suddenly, I had an apartment full of DVDs. I hadn't been paying rent for months. My discipline was to work for myself, to make money from my films. The landlord—he'd been profiled in the Daily News as a notorious slum lord—was excited that I made movies. They were very nice to me in that office and called off the city marshal. I gave them copies of my films and brought in cash as I made it. People paid me for my DVDs. The money went right from their hands to mine to the landlord. Wads of cash. I threw all the money on my bed one night, and my girlfriend swam around in it. They were small bills, but it feels great to make money from something you've made yourself. I think we should all do this: make money off one another, supporting each other's ideas and expression.

I sold DVDs near a magazine's headquarters. Lots of famous people walked by, and all the major comedians of the day bought my DVD: Robin Williams, Ben Stiller, Mike Meyers. Sigourney Weaver slipped away. I consider her a comedian actually. She was striding quickly and beamed me big smile. That was the day that a reporter had been assigned to me. They were writing a feature about me in BlackBook magazine. I told him I'd sold DVDs to people on the train, to waiters and waitresses. We were eating eggs, and he said, "Sell one to our waitress." She was Romanian and bought one of my DVDs for $10. This spurred the reporter to pay me for the DVDs I'd sent him. The article was cut down from a feature by the time it went to print, but a couple of kids from MTV and the William Morris Agency called. One was trying to break into film and wanted me to be his ticket in. There's a book, The Way Things Work, that shows how electricity works, why it rains, how record players work, etc. That's the mechanical and physical universe. We need a The Way Things Work for the social and political world we're moving through. It's so strange and so specific. Look at all the fools with money while you stop to talk to another homeless Harvard grad.

As soon as you start to get some recognition, you need to do more work—and often this work has nothing to do with whatever you did that people would like to recognize. I wondered if I was too idealistic about what I was willing to do and how I wanted to work, so when I went to Malaysia, I approached my career totally differently. I tried to get a proper opportunity in the proper way. The discipline was: Talk to everyone you meet about the theater and follow all leads. I knew no one, but I had my DVDs to show what I could do; I used them as a kind of passport. I ended up performing a multimedia one-man show at the Actor's Studio in Malaysia, the largest and most highly regarded theatrical outlet in Malaysia. Then I was commissioned to do a stand-up comedy routine for the Malaysian Dental Association. That one gig paid for my entire trip to and from Asia. Then I appeared, briefly, in a film by Malaysia's number-one comedian and number-one film producer. Number one, number one! Malaysia used to have the tallest building in the world. That same summer, I was commissioned by the New Museum of Contemporary Art to make an interactive video installation. This is Vidopedia.com.

Then I gave up on my career. I stopped running around doing favors for people who I thought could do something favorable for me. I blew the cloud of mystery away. "Somehow I will make it big! Cloud. Cloud." Now if I want something, I just ask and I offer something in return.

A few weeks later I got an agent, and was invited to be a special guest of the Austin Film Festival. The new discipline is much like the old discipline: Focus on expressing yourself sincerely and clearly and see what people think. My inventiveness comes from observation of others. What a colorful palette filmmakers have to work with. I just finished a seven-day showcase of films and performances at hiChristina in Manhattan's Lower East Side. I wrote a book about being creative, being original, making something of yourself. It's meant in fun: How to Live the Good Life. Let me know if you'd like to buy a copy.

CE: What does the From Here to Awesome partnership mean to you? And in this new age of distribution, what does an online presence/building viewership mean to you as an artist?

FD: No one wants to own anything; all agreements are nonexclusive. Profit is minimal, and expenses are almost zero. It's a scale game. More clicks, more views, more comments, more buzz leads to more clicks and more comments. This is like targeted mass-mailing, and a .09-percent return rate is excellent. If you know a million people or you are advertised—by fluke or by design—on a well-trafficked website, then you can make money online. Otherwise the online world is as good for filmmakers as it is for other people: finding apartments, searching people to date, spying on people you know, and checking messages. To generate interest in your work, you still need to do it yourself.

From Here to Awesome is like a school in self-promotion on the Internet. The people interested in your online audience are other online services, and they'll pay you for your people—like politicians signing up new voters before a close election—a dollar or more per signature. From Here to Awesome has partnered with these services, some of them give you free accounts or special privileges; others engage you in new contests to use their services and suck your audience into their service.

All distribution schemes are basically scams. In the old days it was a monopoly, the studios owned the artists and the cinemas and everything in between. It was a feudal system with a few people benefiting from the collective effort, and enough leftovers for everyone to eat. Now, no one wants to own anything; because the product is not inherently valuable—it's the marketing and promotion that is valuable. Most of the work to generate interest and awareness in a film is done by the artist. So the only difference between the feudal days and these informed days is that we all know what's going on.

CE: Describe your content creation process—production and post (using makes and models of cameras/software). How many others are involved?

FD: I shoot on a Panasonic AG-DVX100, the first version of the camera that came out. I used to shoot on a Canon GL1. As of last year, nothing had come out to justify, to me, buying a new camera even though the side viewfinder of mine was ripped off shooting one of my foreign-language action movies, Double Mastermind.

My first film was an exception to this process. Blue Lobster was shot on 16mm film using Arris and Bolexes. I don't appear on camera, and I rustled up a cast and crew of about 20 people total.

My first collection of short films was shot basically alone, with a tripod. I would sit in front of the video camera, the GL1, and perform different characters. I usually started with a sentence that the character would say and riffed from there. To the Hills: 24 Independent Short Films is made up mostly of films shot in this manner.

For my second collection of films, I picked up the camera, now a DVX100. I still point it at myself and talk, but now it moves around. Sometimes I would set up a shot and have someone else hold the camera. There are a lot of other people running around in this movie, though—tothehills 2.

Now I'm shooting with a phone. Look for Crazy Mike on a tiny screen near you.

CE: What are your biggest challenges as a filmmaker today? Do you think it's harder/easier than in the past?

FD: I gave up on my career as a filmmaker last year. I strategized and squirmed to have meetings with Sony, Miramax, Disney, MTV, Showtime—almost no one is empowered in these companies to make decisions. So I've given up on the worming. Now I put my energy in the practice, the making and sharing. I think art is reinvention. If you like how your friends dance, copy them. Dance, dance, dance.