Takeover Smorgasbord
The first 15 HFF Takeovers, all in one handydandy place
These are the first fifteen of the takeovers of HFF I’ve shared. Guest curators! I can’t wait until we hit 100! FilmStack is a community! Hell, yeah.
What’s a takeover? Just in case you don’t get it yet, I ask other newsletter publishers and editors and creative community contributors to come over to HopeForFilmland and curate five things that inspire, provoke, support or just spark them — and that they suspect will do the same for all of us readers. They then supply a couple of paragraphs or so putting each link it in context. But there aren’t really any rules beyond that. Sometimes it is single-threaded around a particular theme. Sometimes it is more personal than others. It is a form that is in evolution, like most things.
Hopefully you, dear reader, are then inspired to subscribe to the newsletters the Takeover Curators publish, or at least to follow them. This is how we continue to grow into a vibrant community after all, or at least one of the ways. We share what we have or know, and we pass it on. We expand. The larger and truer the community, the more free and secure we all are. With the takeovers, I am trying to share what inspires me — other writers — with you. And I am trying to share you, my subscribers, with them. Together we all are building something f’n wonderful, and hopefully it stays that way for a good long time.
You might see some similarity between TakeoverFridays and the MonthlyFilmStackChallenge, and yes, I am always looking for ways we can use this platform to bring us together, to see our connections and respect our differences. And to do it without anyone being in charge or ever a gatekeeper. Let’s find more things to do TOGETHER. Let’s all be part of something RISING.
I am excited to see other FilmStack community initiatives to, like both Taylor Lewis’ FilmStack Zine Project and The Label that she and Elllis Jamal Sutton are launching. What else y’all got? Let’s keep the ideas coming please!
And what else do we need to grow more organized? Does FilmStack need a Declaration of First Principles? Yeah, maybe I have one of those coming for you. Can we say I’ll have it for you Monday? This Monday? I am on it.
What else do we need to keep it all fun too? Let’s not forget the human need to regularly feel and recognize joy. Jen nailed it with RAA on yesterday’s Takeover. And let’s not forget the artists’ call to comfort the afflicted and provoke the comfortable. I am all for that too.
I’ve been on the road for almost five weeks as off late, with first a month traveling, and then off for two weeks, and then away again for over a week. It’s been three months now though since the Takeover evolution began. And I have some new community building tactics still in the tool kit and yet to be unveiled so we will continue down this lane for awhile longer still. I was not always able to tend to the garden while I was away and neglected to get one Takeover properly cast and dressed for a regularly scheduled unveiling. I could have dropped this then I suppose, but I like to restrict my “collections” to weekend appearances, and keep it all fresh during the week. But instead of thinking of this as leftovers, I see it as a great nosh, a virtual smorgasbord.
Eat up and enjoy.
Here's the ENTERTAINING SOLUTIONS HFF Takeover (Proposal):
I go by First Features, because if I gave out my name you would know everything about me and I am not that important. My background, the people and the world around me, that is what is really important. I was put here to help launch the rapid evolution of the entertainment industry.
1) We need to make movies that do more than just entertain. We need films that actually offer possible solutions to the problems we face in the world today. This is the future of the industry. People will go to the cinema, not to forget about their problems, but to find solutions to them. Eventually these films, that will be a meld between the doc and the narrative feature, will actually institute solutions while being produced. How about that for rapid evolution. Films that uplift, inspire and make their audiences believe that anything is possible.
2) How about the filmmaker, the people making the films. They obviously have problems, too. They often have problems raising the money to make their low-budget independent projects. Well, we have a solution for that as well. What if an investor could invest in a movie and get their money back, plus a profit, even before the film is released? If the movie makes money, it would only be icing on the cake. If they get a credit on the film, that would be the cherry on top.
This way, the filmmaker, can make the film they want to make and not worry about the approval or interference from the money people.
3) How about getting their film distributed. Yes, the filmmaker also worries about that, and of course they should. The world of distribution is often uglier than that of production. What if they could get as much as 100% of their sales? Is that even possible? Yes, it is, and when you're making good money on your film, you can make your next one and the one after that.
4) What if you could shoot a film anywhere in the world, at any point in time, and do it on a budget. All of this is possible. And you don't need stars. It is not just horror films that can be done low-budget and without name players, you just need to know the secret of how to do it successfully.
5) Yes, we can give these concrete answers and more on our substack, and we won't charge for it. Of course, Substack should get something out of it and we can make sure they get their rewards, as well.
Okay, that's a rough draft of what my HFF Takeover would be about. Any suggestions for improvements are welcome.