Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Non-Profit Storm

It's been a couple of weeks since my last post, so I wanted to come back with something interesting. Below is the short film "Storm," by the KerShoot production team. It's pretty darn well-made, and it's also non-profit.



I've always been curious about non-profit film making; I'm sure many people can attest to wanting to do a great film but needing the funds that come from commercial work. I myself have finally gotten past the point of eating ramen at every meal (*crosses fingers*), but I can already tell that Rosalina's little flamenco movie is gonna take a good long minute to make. "Storm" took over two years.

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I was able to email the KerShoot team a few questions about this masterpiece, and not-for-profit work in general. The producer, Tracy King, got back to me:

1) First off, what drew the KerShoot team to non-profit film making? How does doing non-profit compare to commercial work?
The main reason Storm is non-profit is because we didn't want to make it under any commercial constraints. The minute you have to worry about whether something will sell (or in the case of a ten-minute pro-science rant, *how* it will sell), the project changes. The only way we could make Storm exactly how we wanted was to agree up front that the intention was not for it to make a profit. That way we could take as long as we wanted, too. We also do commercial projects and they are very different in terms of deadlines and expectations. It's worth bearing in mind though, that being non-profit is not the same as free. Storm cost a lot of money to make, as do commercial projects, but the difference is we didn't make it with any expectation of making our money back or making a profit. If we did, that would be a bonus!

2) What kept you motivated during the 2+ years of working on Storm?
Belief in the quality of the poem and Tim's performance, mostly, and also the constant reminder of why we were making it (to get the content to as large an audience as possible, by giving it a visual dimension). It was very hard at times though.

3) How long has the KerShoot team been working together?
We founded the company halfway through working on Storm, so about a year ago.

4) How many projects do you normally work on at one time?
At the moment all of our commercial resources are taken up with animations for a major game which sadly I'm not allowed to discuss yet. It's out in November. We're hoping to start the next non-profit animation at the end of July.

5) What project did you most enjoy working on?
Storm :)

I'd like to thank Tracy for emailing me back, as well as the entire team for making this film in the first place. Credits:

Tracy King- Producer
DC Turner - Director, Animator
Tim Minchin - Writer and Performer of the awesome poem that started this whole thing

www.stormmovie.net
www.timminchin.com
www.kershoot.com

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