Crowdfunding may not have a friend in Uwe Boll, but that hasn’t stopped Wisconsin filmmakers from turning to Kickstarter and Indiegogo to finance their projects. I wrote about a documentary on racial disparities in Madison earlier this month and now two more have popped up.
Director Faith Kohler and her crew are in the midst of securing funds for 30 Seconds Away: Breaking the Cycle. The documentary, which enlists a number of UW-Milwaukee grads, profiles “chronic homelessness” in Milwaukee and is filtered through the story of Harold Sloan, a man Kohler first met at a homeless shelter in 2010.
Due to the promise of a five-year scope, much of 30 Seconds Away and its substantial focus on Sloan sounds like it’s already in the can. Having already reached the original $5,000 goal (primarily) for post-production, the project has 11 days (at the time of this writing) to reach a new stretch goal of $8,000. The updated page is vague about added rewards for donors, but hey, who doesn’t love “outreach” and “interactive workshops?”
Closer to home is the University of Wisconsin-based Frank. After her best friend moves away, a young woman (Hanna Kohn) takes ownership of her friend’s dog, the titular Frank. Envisioned by a host of UW-Madison film students and staff, Frank‘s $3,000 Indiegogo budget will cover equipment rentals, insurance, and food. In just over two weeks, the project has already raised $2,000 of that goal.
The students themselves however, might be the bigger story. Frank is an all-woman film production and features Madison notables like UW film instructor Kaitlin Fyfe (editor, co-writer, co-producer) and Nina Ham. Playfully dubbed “femmefilming” on their production blog, the female-centric initiative sets out to create opportunities for women in a male-driven industry. The collective is not unlike Susan Kerns and Kara Mulrooney’s Gal Friday Films in Milwaukee and the more, the merrier, really.