Why Funemployment will always be my First Love.
Some of you may know of a feature film called Funemployment. If you don't, you should. It hasn't won any major awards (because I didn't bother to submit it to anything) or is really even an example of “good cinema,” but it is evidence that anyone can put themselves through their own film school, without going to actual film school, by making their own feature film.
How it all began…
I technically started backwards when I embarked on my career of narrative filmmaking. Most people start by making short films and through those short films they hone their craft until one day they are ready to make their feature film. I did the opposite. Prior to starting Moth to Flame in 2010, I had primarily made documentary films and mini YouTube sketches. For a good year, I thought I was going to be a YouTube celeb. I had a channel and everything… if you really want to check it out and watch all my embarrassing YouTube vids, CLICK HERE.
The inciting incident…
The first time I set foot on a narrative film set was a 48-hour film festival film set in Houston in 2008. I was the “slate clapper,” at least that is what I knew it to be back then. Now I know that this is a 2nd AC. I had never seen a slate until that set. Somehow the entire experience turned a light bulb on in my head. I loved it. It felt like I belonged and I knew deep in my heart that this is what I was meant to do above all else.
When I get my Oscar, I can say with certainty that this was my “ah-ha!” moment in my career journey.
My first narrative film set, EVER. I was the ‘slate girl’ aka PA. This is 11 years ago!!! Sh*t!
The catalyst…
I read “Rebel Without A Crew” by Robert Rodriguez and convinced myself that I could do the same thing — make a feature with almost no budget. I do a lot of stupid things for the heck of it and at the time, pouring all of my resources into making a feature film before making any successful short films, seemed like a logical step.
But I forgot a few small details.
I had never made a narrative film.
My parents would never let me be a professional filmmaker.
I had never written a feature script, EVER.
I had zero film connections.
I had no money.
What did 20 something-year old Christine say to those problems? NO BIG DEAL! I'll figure it out!
Solving problem 1…
I solved problem 1 of knowing nothing about narrative films, by buying a camera and making spec commercials and YouTube sketches. For validation, I entered myself into a lot of competitions. Some things never change, I am still very much the “competition queen.” Even now, I will always try entering competitions (just see how many times I have entered the Louisiana Film Prize). Back then, a company called POPTENT (it's out of business now), would post briefs by major brands that wanted commercials and you could essentially make a spec commercial and if you “won,” the company would buy your commercial for $3000 bucks. Genius on their part, knowing what I know now, but that was a lot of money for a budding filmmaker who had no clue about anything!
Here are the things I shot and edited myself…
This is one of the first competitions I won. I shot this thing with a consumer grade HD Sony camera in 4:3 of all things… and won a HP laptop!
I think I got honorable mention or something on this and made $500.
Here is the first thing I shot using a DP, Orlando Briones, that I had met off of Craigslist because I almost bought his miniCD camera, but decided not to and a “crew” of 2 people — my brother and some guy that Orlando brought.
So… that top picture is from the set with Orlando. Coincidentally, the photo underneath it is in present day also at a fire station! I'm on the set for my proof of concept short film for my SECOND FEATURE EN ROUTE (enroutemovie.com). Crazy. 10 years have passed, yet somethings never change. Talk about coming full circle!
Solving problem 2…
Anyway, I was determined with enough practice on my YouTube sketches and some failed attempts at a never completed short film “Revelation” (2009) and also TV pilot “Lawless (2009)”, I could somehow know enough to be a full-time professional filmmaker.
BTS photo by Ryche Guerrero of my first failed short film attempt in 2009 using a film crew from my fire department.
Minor detail… I also tried to star in this failed “Lawless” TV pilot as well. All I came out of it was a sick trailer (see below). Unfortunately, the footage was corrupted on a drive. To this day, I'm still good friends with the DP, John Hale.
Needless to say, I won some of these contests and that was good enough evidence for me to say that I was indeed a promising filmmaker with a lucrative career ahead of me.
Here is the biggest competition I won on Poptent in 2011! In fact, I even wrote a blog about it back then! READ HERE
I made this and WON! Got paid like $3,000. This is more an ode to my documentary background…
Seeing my commercial in the mall!
So back to solving problem 2…
Now, I had to figure out a way to get out of society without my parents thinking I was a bum. I landed on BUSINESS SCHOOL. What a perfect disguise! I could continue my education and if I wanted to make a living, I would just start a production company so would need business skills, any way. Duh.
I strategically applied to business schools with great films schools attached. Somehow I landed myself at the McCombs School of Business in Austin, Texas after my first choice - NYU was way too expensive for me to afford (I remember crying myself to sleep after putting away the acceptance letter for NYU).
Solving problem 3…
When I went to business school, I continued to make a lot of practice sketches. In fact, most of my business school career was making parody videos making fun of business school (I got pretty famous for this).
During my 2nd year of business school, I was able to enroll in an elective course outside of business school and somehow found myself in a graduate level screenwriting course. The last time I wrote a narrative short film script was in 2006. I was THE WORST in the class. My firefighter/EMS buddy, Daniyal Siddiqui had written a 300+ page screenplay based off some ideas both of us had been brainstorming and I decided I would take this script and workshop it.
The result of this became Funemployment. The script morphed significantly (basically beyond recognition except for the initial concept theme: a man in corporate loses his job and embarks on a journey to finding his dream career) because my kind and patient colleagues in class really put in the work and helped me transform this terrible rough script into something mildly useable. So ta-da! I now had a feature script.
Solving problem 4…
I knew no one in Austin besides my business class. I knew zero crew. Brilliant 20 year old Christine does it again. I convinced an undergraduate film student, Alex Murphy, that I would produce his first short film. He had made a post about needing a producer on the RTF student newsletter, Caged, which is open to the public and I answered his ask! I produced the crap out of this film (so well that we went on to make a 2nd short film) and this became the spoke to an ever growing network of filmmakers I would continue to meet.
To give you an idea of how this one connection would shape the rest of my film career. I met:
DP Alex Walker - we went on to make like 5 short films
David Lackey - who is still my favorite camera op today
Michelle Faraone - I stayed with her when I interned at 20th Century Fox in Los Angeles and we are still friends today
Brittany Ladolcetta - started as my makeup artist for Funemployment until she got pregnant and couldn't do it anymore…
The list goes on.
The first student film I produced!
I'm on the left. The grip in the middle is Jacob Bondesen who now is the owner of Something Clever Weddings and Alex Murphy on the far right went on to grow Golden Arm Media.
Solving Problem 5…
When I graduated business school, the whole kickstarter, crowdfunding craze was just happening. I figured it wasn't hard because I had just made a great network of business students with a lot of high net worth potential and my film was about the Austin startup community. My instincts were right. I raised $30,000 on Kickstarter (after a lot of hard work and told myself I'd never do it again) and all of that money was pre promised to post production folks.
Yes, I'm aware it says $28,527… but what you do not know is some people donated outside of Kickstarter - hence the $30,000 number.
Fast forward…
You'll have to hear about the rest of the Funemployment experience on the Funemployment podcast/webseries, but I basically go into detail about all the craziness that happened on the film set. Somehow I ended up with a crew of about 10 consistent people, who for the most part still work with me and launched their professional careers.
First “Table Read” of Funemployment
A really nice group photo… that's the biggest our cast & crew really ever got.
Day #1 of filming on Funemployment
Because the post-production process took almost 3 years since I had ZERO pre-planning and went about the editing process as I would a documentary film - go figure -- given my documentary background, I had made several other much more cinematic and professional looking #shortfilms (one of which is A Bird's Nest) by then that I was almost ashamed to release the film.
It took chatting with my student, Adam Chase Rani, for me to realize that what I had accomplished is nothing to sneer at and in fact the knowledge that I gained could be very beneficial to any aspiring filmmaker.
So here is episode 1 -3 of the Funemployment podcast. We made 12 of these things. Listen and learn what not to do.
You can find them the rest of the Funempoyment webseries here at: areyoufunemployed.com
Watch the film…
That was a long winded attempt to basically say, you should totally watch FUNEMPLOYMENT because it is the film that made me the narrative filmmaker I am today. I love it dearly. I love the journey and the process and it is honestly a miracle that this film is even a completed product. The best part for you all is that Funemployment is FREE on Amazon Prime!
Let me know what you think. I don't hate it!
