BEN DOBYNS, INDIE FILMMAKER OF JOURNEYQUEST + STROWLERS ON THE ART MAKING YOUR BEST INDIE FILM + THE SCIENCE OF CROWDFUNDING IT (MF GALAXY 112)

-

IS WORK-LIFE BALANCE POSSIBLE IN FILMMAKING? MAKING CREATIVE COMMONS TV, THE ONLY WISE INVESTMENT IN INDIE FILM, THE BEST WAY TO CROWDFUND, SHOOTING SHAMANS IN ULAANBAATAR
 
LISTEN/DOWNLOAD

 You ever dream of being a filmmaker? Maybe writing or directing television? Maybe you thought about it and figured that moving to Hollywood was out of the question, or even if you were willing to go, that climbing the ladder in Hollywood was too long a shot?

Or even if you were willing to try the long slog, you wouldn’t want men in suits ruining the stories you really want to tell by replacing all your egalitarian ideas with offensive stereotypes, or shoving all your most ingenious character creation, plots, and world-building into a blender to turn them into mass-market pablum? Because it takes millions of dollars to make a movie, which you could never raise on your own?

What if I told you that you could stay in your home town or even home country, tell the stories you want to tell and the way you want to tell them, and that it wouldn’t be Hollywood paying the bills, but your most loyal fans? Sound too good to be true?

It won’t sound that way to maverick indie filmmaker and pioneering crowdfunder Ben Dobyns, because that’s exactly what he’s done and doing.

Dobyns is a film producer, editor, cinematographer, composer, writer, and director, and one of the founders of Zombie Orpheus Entertainment, or ZOE. He also has a minor in Latin. He worked for years in Seattle and has now relocated to Vancouver BC. He and ZOE have just completed their third season of their indie-TV comedy-fantasy series JourneyQuest.

They’ve also produced Strowlers, a forthcoming series about a world in which magic is suppressed and regulated by a xenophobic, oppressive government.  

In today’s episode of MF GALAXY, Ben Dobyns discusses:
  • What Hollywood film-makers should be learning from French film production to make their workplaces better for workers
  • How getting ripped off by a Hollywood distributor led him to create a Creative Commons business model
  • Why indie film is a bad investment while his company Zombie Orpheus can repay investors within twelve months
  • The 1000 True Fans concept, how his team invented Patreon before Patreon, and how they crowd-fund today
  • Why your films should be ads for your company instead of selling ads for your films
  • How best to use Kickstarter and Patreon simultaneously, what his different backers want from each, and one surprisingly delightful physical reward
  • How he gets to make exactly the films he wants, and why selling his company’s stories and worlds to a giant media company would probably destroy their value
  • Why he’s heading off to Mongolia to work with the shamans of Ulaanbaatar, and
  • What makes human beings and societies stronger
We spoke by Skype on February 15, 2017, and began by discussing the critically-important question that a mentor asked him about what price he was willing to pay for success in filmmaking.

LISTEN/DOWNLOAD

Ben Dobyns IMDb http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1389141/

Zombie Orpheus Entertainment YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/ZombieOrpheusEnt

Zombie Orpheus Entertainment is fan funded and creator distributed. Support them at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/zombieorpheus

SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE ON iTUNES
SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE ON iHEARTRADIO
SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE ON PLAYER FM
SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE ON STITCHER

SUPPORT MF GALAXY ON PATREON

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mazisi Kunene's “Thoughts on June 26 (South African Liberation Day)”

-
My friend and colleague Gwen Becker pointed out to me how this brilliant poem by South African writer Mazisi Kunene could be read not only in a voice of defiance, but of profound ambivalence. "Was I wrong when I thought All shall be avenged? Was I wrong when I thought The rope of iron holding the neck of young bulls Shall be avenged? Was I wrong When I thought the orphans of sulphur Shall rise from the ocean? Was I depraved when I thought there need not be love There need not be forgiveness, there need not be progress, There need not be goodness on the earth, There need not be towns of skeletons, Sending messages of elephants to the moon? Was I wrong to laugh asphyxiated ecstasy When the sea rose like quicklime When the ashes on ashes were blown by the wind When the infant sword was left alone on the hilltop? Was I wrong to erect monuments of blood? Was I wrong to avenge the pillage of Caesar? Was I wrong? Was I wrong? Was I wr
Read more

BARBARA PERRY ON HOW TO DEFEAT CANADIAN FASCISTS (MF GALAXY 175)

-
Image
The danger that fascist groups pose to safety and democracy in Canada, and their disturbing connections to the Canadian military | The failure of Canadian media to take the fascist threat seriously, even after the lethal terrorist attack against the Quebec mosque | The best new ways to fight them LISTEN/DOWNLOAD In Canada, the threat posed by fascist, Whitesupremacist, and similar extremist groups is real, and growing. The proudly Islamophobic Soldiers of Odin are active right here in Edmonton, and even the right-wing Daily Mail newspaper in England describes as them a neo-nazi group. The Proud Boys are also on the march, and the Southern Poverty Law Centre in the United States names them as a hate group. And then there are the Three Percenters, the Ku Klux Klan, and many others like them, supported by extremist Canadian media and aligned with one major federal party. Alarmed by the rise of fascism in our midst, especially after the election of US president Donald
Read more

CATHLEEN ROOTSAERT ON WRITING MASS EFFECT, THREE DEAD TROLLS IN A BAGGIE (MF GALAXY 075)

-
Image
HOW IMPROV HELPS WRITING, THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF LAUGHS WRITERS MUST UNDERSTAND, THE GAME MECHANICS OF IMPROV, FACING RESISTANCE TO HUMOUR ON MASS EFFECT 3 LISTEN/DOWNLOAD FREE Cathleen Rootsaert is a remarkable creator. She wrote plot and dialogue for the video game Mass Effect 3 by BioWare, and edited dialogue for the studio’s Star Wars: The Old Republic and Mass Effect 2 games. In the late 1980s, along with rising improv stars Wes Borg, Neil Grahn, and Paul Mather, she co-founded the legendary Edmonton comedy troupe Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie, which had a brief run as a CBC television series. She’s the playwright behind Mimi Amok, After You, Legacy, Make Me and Mama Mia! Me a Mama? which won the Sterling Award for outstanding new work. She also won the 2005 Alberta Playwriting Award for Abigail in Twilight. She appeared on the Ken Finkelman series The Newsroom and the Winnipeg Comedy Festival special I’m Becoming a Mother. She’s a core member of the two-deca
Read more