First Liz introduces Robert Greenwald by first talking about how often times independents are still rather dependent on others. She then points out all of the ways Robert Greenwald really is dependent on very little more then audiences and organizations being passionate about his films subject matter. No need for huge companies and profits and marketability and all the things his mainstream counter part Michael Moore has to deal with.
Robert Greenwald spoke to power to the pixel via a video tape he created explaining some recent experiences on his film Iraq For Sale. Rober Greenwalds Distribution started before the film was made by talking to various human rights and anit-war groups before making the film and collected interest from over 100 groups. Then they used emails from previous films they made to reach out to raise money for "Iraq for sale". They got 3,000 people to donate an average of 100 dollars each raising the 300,000 dollars they needed to make the film in a matter of just 2 weeks.
Then to release the film they set up screenings in peoples homes using a technology that they've now published for all filmmakers to use at www.bravenewtheaters.com. Any filmmaker can sign up there in a few minutes and we've been using it to let our online fanbase set up screenings of Four Eyed Monsters.
He also talks about the new medium of making short form videos and how his filmmaking is evolving from figuring out how to tell a story in 2 hours to figuring out how to tell a story in 2 minutes as they build out their YouTube account.
Robert Greenwald is one of my hero's and definitely has influenced a lot of how we've dealt with our distribution and fan base outreach. And I'm going to be completely honest, I have not seen any of his feature films yet but am interested in seeing all of them and hope that some day I'll be making films about subject matter as important as the topics he chooses to tackle. He's a true radical.
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