A movie review blog or indie film blog is nothing new under the sun. I'm not proposing something groundbreaking, just a simple blog where several movie reviewers come together, with a narrow focus on low and no-budget grassroots indie films.
There are plenty of indie film sites out there, but for me I have been looking for more coverage of startup filmmakers making a short or feature for the first time with little or no funds and the help of borrowed equipment and friends or film students, not of the so-called indie film made by Hollywood insiders but not backed by a major studio.
If you've paid any attention to my Twitter page (yes, I'm talking to the two of you) you have probably noticed me posting a lot about the movie Fear Town, USA. To me this is an ideal example of grassroots filmmaking. It was made for around $10,000 which was probably put on a credit card for all I know, and made by a group, a large group, of film school students and improvers. What they accomplished was an amazing horror comedy I don't think more seasoned veterans of the industry could have accomplished with ten times the budget.
I'm not looking to set a maximum budget behind a film to qualify it as grassroots cinema. Just something made outside of the circle of Hollywood in a place called Hometown, USA by people who are doing their own thing, many looking for that first break into the industry.
My proposal is to use a free blog service like the one hosting this blog. The reason for that is simply because the group does not have to depend on any one person to hold a domain or provide the hosting, and should something happen to that one person the blog falls. A free blog service allows us to contribute as we can to the content and effectively be an equal partner in the blog.
As you can probably tell from my simple template on this blog, I don't like bloated websites. I live in a small town and in small towns we don't get the best of service compared to big cities. I don't like waiting for ads and heavy graphics to load. My idea is to make a blog easily accessible to anyone. It might not look as pretty as some of the bigger blogs, but it is easy to find one's way around.
It will depend on how many of us get together as to when we can start up a blog. Maybe over a few months time. And of course others would be welcome to join in as we go.
The one thing I don't want to involve in a blog is racist and sexist BS. If someone has a problem with that then they're not welcome to join. I have left a group blog for that very reason. It was a good blog, used to be a good blog, but after a few times of posting a disclaimer that I did not support the views of other members of the community, I got tired of it and just left, and sincerely wished them well on my departure. That is all I have to say about that.
If you are interested in joining with me on a grassroots indie film blog, contact me via Twitter or via email as this comment system is not very reliable.
Toxic Fletch