Prompted by a recent post about Kickstarter, writer/director Jay Duplass (The Puffy Chair, Baghead, Cyrus) emailed me about an indie documentary he’s putting together through the crowdfunding site.
His email suggested a larger discussion about why filmmakers continue to pursue indie projects after they’ve found studio success. I certainly do it, with both The Nines and The Remnants, along with other experiments like The Variant.
None of them are a good use of time, at least in a monetary sense.
I’d make more money simply writing more screenplays. If I want to direct something, it should be a studio feature. My agent tells me this. It’s his job to tell me this.
And yet Jay and I still find ourselves drawn towards the little, difficult, uncategorizable things. Is it boredom? Fear of failure? The appeal of new frontiers? A desire to reclaim our scrappy youth?
Rather than keep the conversation between us, I suggested to Jay that we record it. He was game, so he came by the office today.
This is our half-hour conversation, un-edited:
Some links to things we mention:
- Jay’s documentary Kevin, on Kickstarter
- Jay’s credits
- The Remnants
- Topspin
- A Thousand True Fans
- Lena Dunham’s Tiny Furniture
Runtime is 30 minutes. You can also download this as an MP3.
My thanks to Jay. Check out his doc.