Following up on job strategies to support your independent filmmaking habit from last week, Christian Stella writes in Filmmaker Magazine:

“I feel it is best to branch out. Hedge your bets with the stability of a career that may not be glitzy but is less cutthroat than film.”

For instance, he’s a successful food photographer and cookbook author.

This freelance career allows him the freedom to invest time into his craft. Plus, he’s able to free up his schedule for future productions.

“A flexible career outside of film may be the best foundation to assure that your films can ever get made. Most people can scrape together enough time, money, and favors to make their first film, but you’ll need stability to make the second, third, and so on.”

Stella is one half of a filmmaking duo. He and Jeremy Gardner have made two films: The Battery and Tex Montana Will Survive!. Profiting only a pittance on their first movie, they decided to try something different with their latest project.

Rather than stretch the economic life of the movie out over many years, they decided to sell it only once. On Kickstarter. For $50,000. The plan was to raise the money and then release the film for free, to the world, under Creative Commons.

“This campaign is in part an effort to address the countless messages we received from amazing film fans across the globe, who were understandably frustrated with how long it took for our previous film, The Battery, to be made available in their countries. It is also a reaction, to a very sobering—and demoralizing—reality we were made painfully aware of by the end of The Battery’s incredible journey: It is incredibly difficult to make a living as an independent filmmaker. A dramatic influx of films on the market—coupled with the rise of peer-to-peer sharing through torrent sites—has resulted in a drastic decrease in compensation for filmmakers across the board. Minimum Guarantees (MGs) are small and residuals trickle in over the course of years.”

Did they make it?

Yes! 759 backers pledged $53,889 — around $60 each (disregarding the top half dozen backers.) Watch the comedy here.

My take: I love this strategy! You make a film. You give it a realistic price. Your fans support you. You give the film to the world. This totally cuts out the friction between the creator and the audience. Gone are the middlemen and the market. (But remember to reserve the intellectual rights so you can protect your brand and do the remake. Just ask George Romero.)