[arg_discuss] Personal Influences/Antecedents

[Brian Clark]

I didn't want to let this thread die, but didn't want to lose the thought in
the Majestic discussion. 


> I'm working on a more in-depth answer, but the b-movie producer

> William Castle is a hero of mine. 


We've never really talked about that Mike, but that's always been one of my
inspirations too. I can trace that element all the way down to John Cameron
Mitchell pretty easily, too.

So rather than give more of the same, I wanted to go a bit more obscure. For
many of us in the independent film space of "my generation" (in our mid-30s
to say early-50s) there's a figure almost lost in time because she was taken
from us so young: Sarah Jacobson. For those us on the festival circuit in
the late 1990s, she was the D.I.Y. Filmmaking queen. Some background:

http://www.indiewire.com/people/people_040218sarah.html

When I first met Sarah, she was putting a promotional sticker for her film
on the back of my Sundance badge (the one that has a fifty-fifty chance of
hanging one side or the other.) She made them in a Kinko's with her mother.
It said "NOT A VIRGIN" and was to promote her film "Mary Jane's Not a Virgin
Anymore". Everyone asked me my why badge said I wasn't a virgin, and I'd
suddenly be explaining Sarah's film to them.

She is a bridge between the world of college radio and touring bands and the
D.I.Y. punk aesthetic and the American independent filmmaking perspective.
For example, she gave us the word that I still use today to describe "those
Hollywood studios doing work similar to independents" -- Indiewood. It was a
precious gift that many of us in the community still use to make our point
about what is different about independents.

If Sarah were on this list, she'd be talking about how you don't need
funding, you don't need anyone's permission, you just need to get out there
and do it:

   "What is DIY, you might ask?," Sarah wrote in indieWIRE in
   1997, introducing our section on the topic, "Well, it's a
   term co-opted from the punk rock movement and it stands for Do
   It Yourself. For as buzzword-y as the label is, it stands for a
   very important concept in the independent world -- the idea that
   you don't need a big company or lots of money to validate you."

   Continuing she added, "Lately in the mainstream media there has
   been lots of excitement over 'indie' films. But that excitement has
   turned into Indiewood with it's own set of bullshit rules and limits.
   Not only do those pressures inhibit creativity, it's not what I want
   as a filmmaker."

Interestingly, I imagine many of us that sit in both indie film and this
world (Lance Weiler, Mike Monello, myself) would list her as an influence in
the way we think about what do as artists. For me, not just in film. One
more quote from her:

   "One thing that really inspires me, is no one can really stop
   you --I mean, who's gonna stop you?," Sarah asked during the session
   at the Cleveland festival. "If the big theater doesn't let you in, go
   to the next theater. If that theater doesn't let you in, go the museum.
   If the museum does let you in, go the college. If the college doesn't let

   you in, go to the skate park, go to the high school, the community 
   center. There's always a way to screen your film and there's always a way

   to get it out there. I guess you just have to figure out what your goal 
   is -- do you want money? O.K. maybe the high school isn't a very good 
   idea."

I've got other influences, obviously ... but Sarah is among the most modern,
and the most talked about among many of peers and friends when talking about
entrepreneurial independence as artists.


Brian