If you’re an STSC member and you are trying to get something off the ground, you had better believe that I will offer you this platform to get funding, get the word out or to do whatever else it is that you need to do.
This is not only the way it should be, but as far as I can see it is the way it has to be.
My own mighty ambition then is to make this Substack, this platform, a big enough megaphone, a big enough soapbox that it can truly make a difference to what our contributors are trying to create and distribute.
If we can help bring more things like
‘s latest mycology heavy film to a wider audience then I will consider this whole thing a victory. Read on to find out more about ’s work and help out if you can.Enjoy.
TJB.
There’s a general idea that when writing a screenplay’s first draft, you put in everything you’d like to see in the movie regardless of worries about costs or complications of production. Then as you finesse the story and go into development, the needs of production will necessarily shore in the imagery.
Shroomery was written with that principle in mind. It’s got giant mushrooms, wacky stop-motion dream sequences, timelapses, characters bending and breaking apart, and other spoilery things I can only hint at! My first draft was intended to just be a wild carnivalesque ride to entertain some of the filmmakers in the film cooperative I participate in. To my surprise, the immediate takeaway was that I should just finish filling out the outlined sections and get to shooting it.
A friend even asked to produce it before the script was finished, which I took as permission to move forward. After completing the script I was deep in edit for my short film Ominous Horizon, so I submitted it to a few contests just to see how they played outside my community. It turns out that it did fairly well: it was a finalist in two and runner-up to best script in a third, and got excited feedback in a fourth (that still hasn’t announced results). Listen, none of these are the top awards, but considering that every contest that I’ve submitted to has placed me, I’ll take it. It performs well and people like it.
So over the summer I put Shroomery in development. I gave myself permission and had others’ enthusiasm, now I needed ambition. Because if you take a look at my Substack, you’ll see that I keep my movies scrappy and imaginative. Most of my work lives in the world of doing what I can with what I have, and Shroomery requires a bit more than what I have on hand – it requires fabrication of special effects, structuring shots for visual effects, and all the normal crew and support of a narrative short film to enable me to focus on the story and the actors’ performances while all of the art is put on-screen.
Dear me, I actually had to ask for resources. I am experienced in writing, directing, shooting, editing. Development and pre-production was supposed to be uncomfortable territory to me.
To my surprise, it hasn’t been. It turns out that when you write a wild, kaleidoscopic, visual piece of work, other filmmakers are very, very attracted to it. I’ve gotten an astonishing talented crew together on the basis of ambition alone, including my producer Alex and co-producer Cat; Sarah, an art director who has been building squishy, icky mushroom pieces out of all sorts of gooey materials; my director of photography Luke, who can also handle some visual effects; and Molly, an on-set visual effects supervisor.
And over the past week more crew has been drawn to the idea even while we’re nailing down actors and locations. Nowhere in this process, significantly, has anyone said “We can’t do that.” It’s always been, “Here’s how we can try to achieve that.”
“Directing” starts in development, which has made the process more comfortable than I anticipated. All of that fussy script breakdown, budgeting, look book and mood board stuff is nothing more than answering people’s questions about what you want in the final production in a systemized way. It’s no more or less technical than understanding how a camera works or knowing a post-production workflow.
Pre-production, as it turns out, is just making the whole movie in advance so that it’s ready to shoot once the talent and crew arrive on set. You’re taking all the resources you’ve determined in development and pointing them to where they’ll be placed to get the shot you want. It’s ironic, actually: the more ‘nailed down’ the pre-production is, the more space we’ll have to improvise on set. Neat huh?
Ambition is paying off, man.
I’d be honored if you joined us. One easy way to help is by pledging to our Kickstarter, or sharing it with horror fans and mycologists (professional and amateur). This will enable you to keep up with all we’re doing and at higher levels get early access to the end results. We can even con-shroom you with some digital artwork.
The crowdfunding campaign goal we have reflects the current workflow of all the resources we mean to acquire for our ultimate shooting dates from October 5-11th. We’re chipping away at this in two directions: finding how much we can get with what we have and what people are offering, and paying for the rest. This budget marks the difference between a quirky little b-movie and a full-fledged onslaught of the senses.
I’m still buzzing over how this isn’t contradictory to the thesis. We’re gonna make all the visuals happen. It’s just a question of fidelity! I never thought I’d say this with a straight face but it’s very true: every cent is going up on screen.
The campaign has a lot of incentives but one of my goals in life is to produce new movies off the back of my old work. I don’t only want to get people excited about a potential piece of art but also offer them art, finished and proven.
At the $100 pledge level I’m offering FIVE digital downloads of recent horror short films I’ve made. One of them, In the Bowels of the Building, is something of a sister production to Shroomery, a horror narrative of about the same length concerning an aging janitor being overwhelmed by a mysterious black goo. My friend Nikolai directed it off of my script.
(I dunno man, I guess I have a thing for icky sticky wet things. I’ll psychoanalyze it later when I’m not busy figuring out how to light it properly)
The downloads also include the award-winning experimental short A Figure Grabs Me by the Wrist While I Sleep , two submissions I’ve made to previous Soaring Twenties Social Club Symposia, and the currently unreleased Ominous Horizon I’ve mentioned above.
You will also get direct updates as to how this ambition is going and more icky gooey behind-the-scenes insights.
As a Substack specific incentive, if you pledge over $50, you’ll get a year’s free subscription to my Substack, Indulging a Second Look. My Substack has further movies, short stories, and essays in its archive at a 40% discount. All you need to do is screengrab your pledge and send it to me, and I’ll set up the subscription for you.
We Czechs love, love, LOVE mushrooms. Used to go mushroom picking in the forests in my country as a child. So, I will never be horrified by mushrooms but am backing your Kickstarter!
Just submitted my pledge for the campaign. Great stuff, DB!