The Escape Pod

Any film set whose first intention is to turn a profit, to entertain a consumer with a salable commodity irrespective of the higher goal of making art, belongs to a capitalist system, where movies are product, where their assemblage may require a machine-like precision—but no soul. On such sets, the metrics for success are strictly numerical, and therefore almost scientifically repeatable. You can buy your way to commercial success (see the Transformers franchise). Armageddon aside, You cannot buy your way into the Criterion Collection.

Conversely, a truly independent film set unified under the banner of making art, in order to strive for—and by miracle attain—an ecstatic state, must function as a collective body, led, but not coerced, toward greatness. Such a coalition, bound together only by a common idealism, is a delicate creature. Should any organ fail, the body becomes sick and eventually ceases to function.

The success of our mission to free cinema from its commercial trappings, therefore, lies in our ability to conceive an environment that promotes holistic health.

Welcome to the Escape Pod.

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A blueprint for a social-capitalist, collectivist film studio by James Kaelan

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Need

Concept The concept for the Escape Pod is based on the hypothesis that efficiency may be increased on truly independent (sub-$100,000) productions through shared effort and consolidation of the technical artistry positions. At the base of this theory is the supposition that a writerdirector-producer-editor will have a harder time writing, preparing, directing, and editing four features in a year than a cinematographer will have shooting them.

If we could put in place a system to correct for this effort imbalance, in which an auteur clique of four makes one feature each while the technical artists—cinematographer, sound recordist, composer, etc.—perform the same task on each film, all while living under the same few roofs and being fed by the same chef, we could generate a new and viable, sustainable low-budget filmmaking ecosystem.

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Besides the general need to help make cinema a purer art (i.e. one, like painting, in which the artist can create largely free from financial restraints, without any consideration for “marketability”), we believe that the Escape Pod structure combats two additional ailments afflicting American independent cinema: on- and off-set financial burdens (i.e. difficulty finding funding, underpaying the crew, having to work during pre- and post-production); and narrative homogeneity. To the first point, the Escape Pod provides a financial foundation (stipend + housing + food = filmmakers concentrating fully on their creative work).

To the second, films in the ideal Escape Pod would be chosen based on their ingenuity and vision, not their perceived salability.

Team and Duties Four writer-director-producer-editors with a track record of making innovative sub$100,000 films all write scripts for five or fewer actors whose action takes place within the confines of the existing, or easily-augmented set house—rented by, or provided to, the Escape Pod for an entire year. Adjacent properties could be used similarly to augment production or housing, but the express goal is to create a single compound capable of supporting up to 30 people at any given time.

Overseeing the work of all Escape Pod directors is a diplomatic producer, whose duties include general facilitation of production (budgeting, scheduling, etc.), but also dayto-day management of the set house and its inhabitants. She or he keeps the ship trimmed and the sailors at peace.

Working with the producer is the overseeing creative producer, responsible for interfacing with each director to bring off his or her vision. As elaborated below, each director also serves as a creative producer for her or his partner auteur.

The films of each auteur partnership are staggered so that pair “A” directs films 1 & 3, and pair “B” films 2 & 4. In month one of the filming year, pair “A” leads the Pod in preproduction for film 1 and shoots film 1 in month two. Once film 1 is on hard drives, auteur 1 enters post-production while pair “B” leads pre-production on film 2. Auteur 1 has six weeks of uninterrupted editing post wrap, after which point he or she will begin to assist on pre-production of auteur 2’s film.

Auteurs will also assist on the production of their mirror auteur pairs films. For instance, as an assistant on the production of film 2, auteur 1 may be called upon to do any number of duties, and the greater her repertoire of abilities the better. Duties of the main assistant may include support of production design, wardrobe, hair and makeup, or she may pull focus, push a dolly, or even operate camera B. That said, assistant responsibilities during these six weeks will be cognitively low in stress so that auteur 1 may continue editing her own film with high energy and concentration for another six weeks—ultimately totaling three months.

The Compound Besides the talent and camaraderie of the residents, of paramount importance is the set house compound. The more varied (or neutral) its architecture, and the more expansive and varied (or neutral) its topography and flora, the better. Not only must the compound support the crew and casts; it must, within reason, also be the set—or be within 30-minutes’ drive of a natural location—for all the films.

Besides salaries, this will be the biggest line item in the budget.

Food During production, the schedule shall be five days a week with free weekends. The chef will prepare meals twice a day, Monday through Friday, and will be responsible for stocking

the kitchen for off-hour meals, as well as the craft services table during production. On weekends, the chef and other members of the Escape Pod are encouraged to roam.

Movie Night During pre-production months, as time allows, four nights a week each auteur will present a film that inspires his or her aesthetic. This sharing is part enlightenment, part planning, part mindshare. The cinematographer, composer, sound designer, production designer, producers, etc. will use this time to learn each other’s tastes and adapt their skills accordingly.

Each film night will be preceded by an encouraged group dinner.

Utilizing Actors During the two weeks preceding production through wrap, the actors of the in-production film will rehearse. All productions have 20 days to shoot (excluding weekends) and are encouraged to use that time fully. The Escape Pod saves no money by wrapping early.

No film will use more than five outside actors, though existing crew may be utilized as extras—or even in speaking parts. Practically, this means that the set compound will support five actors for exactly six months of the year.

Actors will be paid the same weekly rate as the auteurs, who are paid the same weekly rate as the sound recordist, who is paid the same as the composer and cinematographer.

Funding Crowdfunding will account for at least one quarter of the Escape Pod budget, with the remaining gap closed by socially-minded, low-touch brand patrons and film equipment companies to whom the guaranteed press exposure makes support of the Escape Pod self-evident. Finally, there is also the potential of engaging a European or Asian

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co-producer whose investment would secure them the rights to exploit Escape Pod films in certain international territories, while reserving North American ownership exclusively for members of the Escape Pod.

Ownership All films are co-owned by everyone, and because there is no investment to recoup, all revenue from territories not controlled by the co-producer will be split according to the breakdown in the Ownership Table (graphic opposite).

Press Besides the exterior media interest the Escape Pod will generate (to kick things off, BRIGHT IDEAS will dedicate a full issue to the undertaking), part of the full-time crew will include a documentarian who will cover the project from its earliest stages through till the end. The documentarian will also post weekly excerpts from his or her shooting, and biweekly chapters documenting life in the Escape Pod. Ultimately, this chronicling will make up a feature documentary that will premiere with the other Escape Pod films and will be available for exploitation by the sponsors.

Conclusion As Andrey Tarkovsky points out in the sixth chapter of Sculpting in Time, which we’ve reprinted in its entirety beginning on page 130, “A film succeeds or fails and its aesthetic value is established, paradoxically enough, according to supply and demand—to straightforward market laws.”

Such market laws, inherently conservative and risk-averse, when applied to the production of cinema naturally seek to constrain the “product.”

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If you’re manufacturing toothbrushes, it’s important that you never replace the bristles with razorblades. Not so with cinema. Sometimes with cinema, the viewer must expect to sweep away plaque and discover instead that she’s sliced open her gums. I know there are plenty of you reading this thinking, “That’s not why I watch movies! I’d rather stop watching them altogether than risk being assaulted by one.” But if art is to be a culture’s mirror, the reflection must be as beautiful, as diverse, as stratified, as brutal as the culture itself.

The Escape Pod strives to keep cinema as a potentially unblemished mirror while remaining (gulp) financially viable. The story of the Escape Pod—the opportunity for organic media exposure for participating brands, the resulting autobiographical documentary, the visibility of the Escape Pod at major film festivals—is what sells; the films issuing from the Pod, therefore, may remain free (or at least freer) from market pressure.

No film made in the Escape Pod needs to succeed by traditional economic standards because the idea that allows for the film’s production becomes the product instead.

If this sounds to you like alchemy, as if we’re positing that lead (a weird movie) can become gold (a profitable one), think of it instead like a great force compressing carbon. The most pervasive market pressure—or rather marketing pressure (everything today is a form of advertising)—dictating the growth of both manufacturers and the media entities in which they advertise, is the authentic connection brands form with consumers. The Escape Pod— by producing unimpeachably virtuous art—becomes the authentic narrative via which associated companies may communicate with new audiences. In other words, the Escape Pod is the pressure-vessel that turns coal to diamond.

We’ve spent two years at BRIGHT IDEAS/Seed&Spark learning how to work with brands in such a way that they receive organic exposure without corrupting the

integrity of the art our filmmakers produce. From Vimeo’s support in our first issue of Meredith Danluck’s “Idol Killer,” to Digital Bolex’s support in our third of “Alphaville,” to Samsung’s support in our latest of the Zellner brothers’ remix of Black Moon, we’ve navigated—we hope successfully—the treacherous waters of corporate patronage. And the Escape Pod, if we pull it off, will be the apotheosis of that two years’ experimentation.

If this endeavor remains an open exchange of ideas, and if we keep the proceedings transparent, perhaps this time next year at a house in the California desert, or a castle in Poland, or a string of bungalows in Puerto Rico, 30 pioneers will be making four aggressively new films whose success will be secured before the cameras ever roll.

Whether you’re a filmmaker, a patron of the arts, or an intrepid company looking to support wild American cinema as part of a marketing initiative, let us know. In fact, write directly to me at kaelan@seedandspark.com.

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