Monthly Archives: December 2010

Production is underway for Beyond Naked: a film that dares more with less

Did you hear that big thunderclap that split the sky over Seattle last Wednesday morning? That was our first day of shooting on my first feature-length film, a participatory doc called Beyond Naked. I like to think of that moment as the film gods yelling “Action!” Herzog has his day-one, gaffer-tape-over-the-heart routine – I’ve got my thunder. I like where this is going!

Follow our progress on the film’s website at http://www.beyondnakedfilm.com, a WordPress blog that I’ll be updating frequently with stills, clips, and much more.

Here’s a few frame grabs that will give you a taste of the gloomy vibe we’re choosing to open the film with (this is Seattle in December, after all):

Vincent Moon is heading to Columbia and I can't wait to see what he comes back with

I met Vincent Moon a few months ago when Northwest Film Forum brought him to Seattle for screenings of his films and a one-day workshop. I was blown away by the raw emotional power of his work, despite the fact that he breaks every rule in the filmmaking book (no narrative structure, out-of-focus subjects, made with crappy camcorders, etc.)

Moon faces the same problem faced by lots of filmmakers doing interesting (but not commercially viable) work: how to fund it. Moon has made an art of the small exchange (exchanging, for example, lodging in a foreign city for a short film about the place). But that can only take one so far. So now he’s experimenting with Kickstarter to fund the Columbia project. I’m backing it, not only because I want to see what he comes back with, but also because I’d like to understand by participating how this type of funding can work, for supporters as well as filmmakers.