We filmed The Climb over a weekend in May 2010 for about $300. It was the first project we developed after I launched this blog so there was a ton of coverage here.
There are posts about every topic including budgets, screenwriting, stories from the set, post-production, marketing, promotion, trailers, posters and more.
Now that the film is completed I thought it would be useful to gather every post in one place. So check out the entire story of how we produced The Climb.
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH SHARON WRIGHT
WRITER/DIRECTOR OF CHANGE FOR A DOLLAR
Short films need an audience. It’s a pretty obvious statement to make but it means a lot if your project fails to attract attention at first. Most independent filmmakers set their sights on the major festivals of the world. You work hard, save room in your budget and send your film everywhere along with high hopes it will be accepted. This can get expensive so others focus on smaller festivals to get their work in front of an audience. Sometimes, this works out and your film shows up on a theater screen. But it can be tough when the acceptance letters don’t arrive as planned.
Regardless, a filmmaker must also decide what to do with their film once the festival circuit is over. Whether your film is accepted or not there are still countless opportunities out there for your hard work to be seen. Today is a golden age for short films with sites like YouTube & Vimeo paving the way. Combined with the skillful use of social media platforms, you can generate a massive audience.
Writer/Director Sharon Wright’s film Change For A Dollar is an incredible example of what can happen once you put your film online. Since uploading the short a few months back, the film has generated more than 1.5 million views (and rising) and a mention from a world famous movie critic. Not to mention thousands of comments and feedback.
I had the opportunity to find out more about what inspired the film and what it was like to find an audience that eludes so many. Read on for proof that anything is possible if your believe in your film.
What inspired Change For A Dollar?
It’s funny really, I never really thought about writing or directing. I was on the board of the Independent Filmmakers Coalition of Kansas City and would look for different opportunities once in a while for our filmmakers and ran across this one minute film competition sponsored by Pepsi. One of the categories was “How far can you go with a dollar”. I found it kind of intriguing. I mean, what could you do with a penny? A nickle? A quarter? What little thing could you do with them that could have an impact on something else…
I started to kick it around and as I was on a very long drive one night across the state it hit me. I started to put it all together and was driving as fast as I could so I could check into my hotel and write it all down. I knew the title and most of the scenes but at the time, I didn’t realize just how significant all these actions were.
Writing a story meant to inspire others is a difficult task and you’ve succeeded. What challenges did you face when crafting the screenplay?
Thank you! I didn’t start off writing it thinking I was going to inspire others really. I was just so focused on getting from point A to B, lol. I knew I wanted the sign to have a question mark, to make people think a little but it wasn’t till the end when the boy returns the penny that it came full circle and then I knew it was something special.
What was life like on set? What challenges did you encounter while filming Change For A Dollar?
Being my first time directing, I was REALLY nervous, I seriously don’t think I slept for about two days leading up to it. We started at about 5:30am at the grocery store and thankfully we were well prepared and had a fantastic team of pros that had worked together before so we started out like a fairly well oiled machine. Everyone worked really well together. Late that night though our toughest shot was coming up and laying the incredibly long dolly tracks was a challenge. It had been raining and so everything was just sinking in mud. We have this very long complicated shot, it’s late, we were cold and tired and we are all in the mud, lol. But we managed to get through it and every single person there was a trooper!
Can you talk about your strategy when the film first entered the festival circuit?
Because it is a positive film, I knew our best bet going into it would be to find theme based fests, christian festivals, The Feel Good Film Festival, etc. Course I didn’t just submit to those, I wanted other festivals to recognize us as well.
The film did very well at smaller festivals but wasn’t accepted into the larger festivals. As most short filmmakers aspire to gain acceptance into the major festivals, what was it like to miss out on that experience?
It was a little disappointing, not gonna lie about that. Festivals are so expensive to submit to and you always hope that someone will see it and fall in love with it. But it didn’t happen. I spoke with a director of a large fest, that I won’t name, and he remembered seeing my film and said that the reason it didn’t get in was that it dragged a bit and I should consider editing it. Well, it’s 10 minutes (a good fit timewise already) but there was no way I was going to change the film. Right, wrong or indifferent, it was the way I wanted it to be and honestly, there was no way to cut it without taking away the story. It just didn’t resonate with many of the festival people for whatever reason. We had some luck with some other great fests like Action On Film, Kansas City Film Festival, Gig Harbor, Barebones, and many others.
Today, the end of a festival circuit doesn’t mean the end of a project. With so many avenues out there for indie filmmakers to promote their work, talk about your approach to promoting Change For A Dollar online?
Wow – it really was kind of an accident. I thought that I had the film here and wasn’t doing anything else with it really so why not put it online. I thought maybe I’d get 3 or 4 hundred views (more than most who saw it at festivals btw, lol) It went crazy! I really think I lucked out on the timing with the holidays and people just ran with it!
With one of our other projects FOR WORSE, a web-series I did with Gary C Warren, we wanted to test out going direct to the public. We created the concept and shot it ourselves for the most part and threw it on YouTube. We posted links to it to any site that liked funny or relationship content. We got some good views and started to develop a good audience but wrapped the season up after 8 episodes with a cliff hanger and haven’t really had time to go any further with it.
I would say that you really need to consider who your audience is and do your research on what sites/blogs/etc. are available online to market it. You don’t want to upload it everywhere, you want to link it to as many sites as possible so that you aren’t diluting your views. With CFaD I have it embedded with 2 other major sites but all the views go through Youtube so I have a larger base and can see all the analytics. Because it is copyrighted, I do not allow anybody else to upload it to their pages, if it can’t be linked, it doesn’t get posted. Or if it does, I get it removed.
I maintain all control as much as possible and with the info I collect, I can speak directly to the people that are watching it, build a relationship with them and ultimately build my database to use for promoting my next film or for fundraising. It is invaluable information I am collecting!
Change For A Dollar found a massive audience online with over 1.5 million views on YouTube and rising. What was it like to watch the number of views skyrocket?
AMAZING! That’s really the only word for it! I would check the numbers all day long and just be so shocked! I kept saying maybe we’d hit 20,000 by Christmas, then it was maybe we will reach 500,000 but I was certain we would never reach a million, lol. Boy, was I ever wrong! I never dreamed it!
The feedback on the film has been tremendous with thousands of comments online. What is it like to know your film has inspired people around the world?
There is nothing more satisfying as an artist than to know that something you created has inspired or moved someone. I get comments and emails every day about how they were inspired to empty their change jars and go by food for the homeless or to give to the Salvation Army for the first time. There is a paper in Canada doing a story about how a hockey coach used the film to inspire his team to do charity work for the holidays….the list goes on and on. Honestly, I don’t think I can ever do anything in this world that will mean more to me than what this film has accomplished. To be able to say that I helped change someones life, in some small way, is the greatest accomplishment ever. This film will be my legacy, lol….and I’m okay with that!
The film was recently mentioned by Roger Ebert. What was it like knowing he saw and praised your work?
This is a Quote from the Ebert Club Newsletter of 12-14-11:
My friend Bill Nack, the great sportswriter, emailed me this video with only four words: “This one touched me.” It touched me, too. Sharon Wright. Remember that name.”
OMG! It was one of the highlights of my life! Someone sent me a message and it listed the quote and I thought it had to be a joke, or it was a different Ebert, lol. I wasn’t going to believe it till I saw it with my own eyes. But there is was! I mean it doesn’t get much better than the movie man himself posting a link to your movie and saying things like that. Any filmmaker in the world would give their right arm for that. I was just shocked, and honored!
This was your first film. What lessons did you take away from your experience with Change For A Dollar?
I learned that I don’t need to be a control freak, I can let others do things, I also learned that you never have enough money and that it is a brilliant test to friendships, lol. But really I learned that even if a film doesn’t get attention on the festival circuit – there is still an audience, and sometimes, it is a LOT bigger than you realize!
What advice would you give aspiring filmmakers out there?
Four simple things: Don’t quit, be smart enough to know that you don’t know everything, surround yourself with people who know more than you, and never sacrifice your vision!
What’s next for Change For A Dollar?
We are submitting it for a region Emmy this spring and have a few distributors and charities looking at it, but I really don’t know, nothing would surprise me with it any more!
What’s next for you?
I’m in pre-production for my next film and I’m feeling the pressure now as I know everyone is watching and waiting to see what follows CFaD. It’s a scary place to be, I gotta admit! I’m doing another feel good film. This one is about a dog looking for a home and a little girl looking for a best friend and their journey to each other. It’s a really beautiful story and I can’t wait to shoot it. We will be filming in Kansas City and some in LA. Of course they always say “Don’t work with kids or animals” – yup, I’m doing both!
Special thanks to Sharon Wright for the interview.
First and foremost, I love to write movies. Having said that, I’m also a massive fan of blogging, writing short stories and creating accompanying images and logos in Photoshop. On a daily basis, I normally have a number of projects I can work on but lately, I’ve been focused on finishing my short film The Climb.
It’s a project we filmed in May of 2010 and I’ve been experimenting with different editing techniques ever since. However, the time has come to wrap up the short so I can reorganize and prioritize my projects in 2012.
So for the last month, I’ve been completely wrapped up in post production with a couple afternoons of screenwriting here and there.
In all honesty, The Climb will most likely be finished in a few weeks and I’ve spent a lot more time figuring out what I want to create in 2012. It’s always beneficial to think ahead. Besides two big feature screenwriting projects and a slight 17west.ca redesign my schedule looks like it will be pretty open.
Finally, it looks like Ill be able to put a dent into my…
BACK BURNER PROJECTS
Anyone who enjoys being creative has a couple of these occupying the dusty storage shelves in their minds. These are projects you might get to someday. Unfortunately, many of these projects remain unfinished or worse they never really get off the shelf.
2012 will be the year of the screenplay for me as I don’t have plans to direct another film anytime soon. (Especially with a wedding less than a year away). Its going to be a year of words and two related back burner projects I’ve wanted to tackle for years.
The projects in question are eBooks. Since I began this blog in 2009, I’ve had a number of ideas for extra content to offer and these eBooks represent my first foray into the online self-publishing world.
But when you add up screenwriting, filmmaking, blogging and life in general, taking on an eBook simply didn’t fit into my daily routine. But that’s what a back burner project is! It’s a project you pick away at slowly. Something you work on and think about during quiet moments. I’ve already laid the groundwork and created over 40 pages of content for my first book. I’ve just never really given the project the time it deserves to graduate from back burner status.
Having said that, I’m extremely excited to wrap up a couple things and finally have time to write these projects. They will come in handy when I’m not working on my latest screenplay or blog post.
In my experience, back burner projects rarely get taken off the shelf and dusted off. The only one I can think of other than these eBooks was a children’s book I wrote for my parents years ago. It was something I always wanted to do but regularly put off. There was always something else that needed to be done. Finally, I got it finished and had a friend illustrate it. The memory I have of giving them copies of the book are precious to me now. I think about that memory fondly and I’m thankful that I took the time to write it for them.
Some back burner projects are meant to rise up. I won’t know if these two eBooks will fall into that category but I’ll never know until I finish them right?
Maybe its time you gave your back burner projects another look?
I’m an editor. When it comes to making a living, I do it editing live television events for a major sports network. In my spare time, I enjoy editing short films and pretty much all of them are films produced by 17 West. Post production is expensive so it’s always nice to keep costs down and do things on your own. This approach can lead to satisfying results but it’s also frustrating at times. I’m learning this now while completing the sound design for The Climb.
I can balance audio and remove unwanted noise and such but I’m not an expert in the world of sound. Thankfully, I know enough to finish The Climb without hiring on a sound guy.
One thing I am NOT is a motion graphics artist. I have decent Photoshop skills and they translate well into the world of After Effects but I’m a beginner. However, I refused to simply put a white title card with ‘The Climb’ at the end of the new trailer. I also refused to create a static logo in Photoshop and simply fade in and out. I wanted the title to have some movement. It had to be better than just a still image.
So I turned to After Effects and the skills I learned visiting Video Copilot on a daily basis.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Video Copilot, it’s a site full of amazing tutorials and resources created by Andrew Kramer. The popular site is home to hundreds of in depth (and free) tutorials that covers everything from motion tracking to lightsabre battles. It’s also a great place to learn Motion Graphics design as most of the effects he produces are visually stunning.
I’ve also purchased several of his products and they’ve been a massive help over the years.
[NOTE: I am not affiliated with Video Copilot. I'm just a huge fan of the site.]
The value you get for $100 is remarkable. Hundreds of pre-keyed elements including smoke, glass, fire, explosions and more. It’s difficult to see because I wanted it to be subtle but I included one of the dust elements in the background to give the logo some life. Combining elements with certain techniques I learned on his blog made this logo possible. For example, the background isn’t just a solid color it’s a dark texture that’s been masked and feathered to highlight the text.
Speaking of which, I created the font in Photoshop and used a similar texture to match the overall style. Once I was finished, I brought it into After Effects. Again, I made the effect subtle so it doesn’t jump out at you but the logo is also animated and moves forward very slowly.
Finally, I added some particle elements to it using free files provided by Video Copilot. What I love about VC is how he doesn’t just upload a couple files, he includes a tutorial as well so you can learn how to apply them to your work.
I’m just an independent filmmaker addicted to learning new skills and techniques. I’m fully aware that I’ll never be an expert in the art of Motion Graphics but websites like Video Copilot have made it possible for me to produce better quality videos. You don’t have to settle for static logos and simple fonts. All you need is a little creativity and some great tutorials and resources. Video Copilot is one of the best because you gain access to the elements you’re looking for and the tutorials to help you achieve the look you want.
Two years ago, I got my iPhone and it instantly tripled my productivity by allowing me to keep up to date on my screenwriting and blogging. I could write anywhere I wanted and I did. Being able to craft blog posts while riding a subway actually had me looking forward to my journey to work each day. For the last few months, I’ve been working really hard on a ton of projects in order to begin 2012 with a clean slate. So far, it’s looking like I’ll be able to hit my deadlines and I have my iPad 2 to thank for that.
MY NEW CREATIVE COMMAND CENTRAL
I’ve had my iPad for a little over a month now and in that time, I’ve accomplished a ton.
-The Athletic Nerd has a whole new design with brand new content created on the much easier WordPress for iPad app.
-I’ve finished all the work leading up to the launch of my brand new blog which will be online later this week.
-I finished editing my short film thanks to notes and shot lists I created using Apple’s Pages app.
-I’ve also been using Pages to create outlines and breakdowns for a number of projects I’m hoping to begin next year.
-I’ve written 3 brand new short screenplays during my breaks at work thanks to the awesome Celtx screenwriting app.
I’ve only had the device for a month and it’s changed everything. Let’s face it, being able to read my daily news, post a new article online and revise a new screenplay before I get out of bed each morning is a nice touch. There are a million tiny reasons why the iPad 2 is amazing but for me, it all boils down to productivity.
My biggest fear before I purchased my iPad 2 was whether or not typing would hinder me. I’m happy to report that after a slight adjustment period, I’m firing out posts at a decent pace and hammering out new screenplay pages. The iPad is fast, convenient (not too mention cool) and integrated easily into my life. From a filmmaking perspective, the iPad has a number of amazing tools I plan to take advantage of whenever I begin my next project. Until then, I’ve been having a ton of fun messing around with iMovie, the iPad’s camera and my dog. But beyond that there are apps for every aspect of production.
When I started discussing the need for an iPad, many people (myself included) wondered if it was just a big iPhone. I’m here to tell you it’s absolutely true and it’s wonderful in every way. The iPhone is still my number one source of communication but when it comes to creative outbursts, I now have a tool that has everything I need to express my thoughts and share my work.
I’ve already compiled an album of graphics and posters I’ve created. Soon, I’ll have all my movies & trailers loaded into the device to show people. Presentations, demonstrations and conceptual meetings will never be the same again. Indeed, it’s only been a month but my iPad 2 has taken a firm grip on my creative routine and enhanced every aspect of it in the process. Sometimes, you just don’t have enough time at home to finish everything you had hoped to accomplish that day. With the iPad, I’ve been able to sneak in more and more work on road trips, breaks and any other moments when inspiration strikes.
It has truly become the center of my screenwriting, filmmaking and blogging universe.
Two years ago, I got my iPhone and it instantly tripled my productivity by allowing me to keep up to date on my screenwriting and blogging. I could write anywhere I wanted and I did. Being able to craft blog posts while riding a subway actually had me looking forward to my journey to work each day. For the last few months, I’ve been working really hard on a ton of projects in order to begin 2012 with a clean slate. So far, it’s looking like I’ll be able to hit my deadlines and I have my iPad 2 to thank for that.
