If you say it, they will come
Resist ambivalence! Say it with spine! Play ball!
There will come a point where NonDē isn’t even a word we need to use anymore. Eventually, we’ll just call it filmmaking.
There’ll be a time when the big change that’s currently underway is just the way we make films.
The idea of the iPhone as a “computer in every pocket” was once a ridiculous notion.
Now, we have a mid-size panic attack when we realize we left that ridiculous notion on the M60 to Laguardia and it’s long gone.
Forgive me the metaphor, but NonDē will eventually become the iPhone of the filmmaking process.
Our kids will roll their eyes at us for telling them again about the imperative of filmmaker-led distribution.
They’ll laugh when we tell them people used to choose what to watch from a streaming app instead of niche curation and actually going to see a movie in a theater.
They’ll tell us enough we get it! when we drill into them for the hundredth time that it’s about building an enriched, vibrant community who moves with you from film to film to build culture, not about some golden elevator to the top.
Sounds nice, doesn’t it?
But we’re not there yet. And we can’t get there until we prove the model.
Change is a group project & we have to practice it over and over until it sticks.
Making a non-dependent film isn’t just about your one non-dependent film doing well. It’s about creating an ecosystem to support your entire body of work.
Right now, we can make one film and have a .07% shot at commercial, widespread, career-changing success. But make several films? Be prolific? Get beyond that first initial lucky swing?
We can’t do that without real, material change.
Historically, material change has only happened when groups of people coordinate together in a relentless march toward that change, preaching the tenets, practicing the values out loud, and spouting off a list of demands to show what the future could be like to the not-yet-believers.
Change has only ever happened as a group project.
So we need to step out of line for the golden elevator and make NonDē films. And we need to make them as good (original, fun, demanding, true to voice, sharp, hot, emotionally vigorous) as they possibly can be.
Most of us won’t make films like that by spending ten years on one project and hoping our one swing is The Grand Salami.
For most of us: the more at-bats we take, the more we’ll connect.
As my dad used to say: practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect. So to his point, we’ve gotta step into the batter’s box and swing with the discernment of a surgeon and the fire of a thousand suns, over and over and over again.
Say it with gusto, early and often.
For non-dependent films, part of perfect practice is in nourishing our audiences. Giving them something solid to desire, connect with, and talk about.
Just to really obliterate this baseball metaphor, we’ve gotta get them in the stands.
But how do we do that?
Well ten hundred ways (which we’re working on in the NonDē 50 Films Project), but the first way, the very very very very first way is by letting them know there’s even a new game being played.
Which is to say, you must use the language of NonDē with your full chest.
Every time you name your film as non-dependent, every time you say NonDē (and pronounce it like you mean it), every time you wear that badge with pride, something shifts in the people around you.
They’ll get it. They will.
Not at first, but that’s because you’re leading the way.
Leaders go first when there’s no path. Your direction might look dubious for awhile as you’re walking around in the deep dark woods all alone. But while you’re walking, you’re treading a path for others to follow. And when they do (and they will), you’ll already be ahead of them, welcoming them to the party in the middle of the forest1.
I was at my Stack-famous SIL’s house last weekend, and who knows how the topic of non-dependent film came up…
…and all of a sudden I was surrounded by non-filmmakers chanting “NonDē! NonDē! NonDē!”
Now. Were they a teeny tiny bit razzing me? Of course.
But did they also at the same time dig what I was saying? Also, yes.
And if they can tease me a little bit, and pronounce the word perfectly, they can talk about it.
Bottom line: We’re recreating the path for middle class, working class artists.
I go back to the baseball metaphor again and again because
a) baseball is the perfect game, and
b) it’s an elegant way to think about this NonDē Film Movement.
Whereas the Hollywood game may be more like the 400 meter sprint —
everyone out for their own (box office opening weekend blinders!), pushed on by urgency (success ASAP or you’ll never work in this town!), scarcity (perpetual circling around the Chosen One!),and ruthlessness (one mistake and you’re OUT!),
NonDē athletes play a different game altogether.
We each take an at-bat. We each play the outfield. We each have to play at our highest level, individually reaching beyond what we last accomplished.
But we play in coordination — my best meets your best.
You catch the line drive at short, zip it to first, first hammers it over to second, and the double play wins the game.
The sum becomes so much greater than its parts. The team becomes undeniable.
There is a revolution happening in every sector, you can see it and hear it and feel it. And that is: collaboration > competition. We’re tired of competing for scraps. We’re tired of accepting crumbs from the system and calling it peak success.
We want to be humans, and we’d like to make films for humans. And we’d like to be able to survive the risks, the at-bats, the failures, the successes. We’d like to keep going. We’d like to keep playing the game as long as possible.
Why?
Because it’s not just what we do, it’s who we are.
We are artists.
We are filmmakers.
We are the future.
So we better say it.
PS. I’m not the only one into the baseball metaphor. Lookin’ at you jake S. weisman & Hudson Phillips:
Quick Ways to Get Started in the NonDē Film Movement
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Read about the New Film Criticism and subscribe to a swath of amazing film critics who don’t just introduce us to new work, but also help us think and write about films in an altogether fresh, original, personal way. Check out Film Soup Zine run by KLA Media Group and Charlotte Simmons who will be reviewing specifically-NonDē films.
Join the NonDē 50 Films Project by signing up here and checking out the dashboard here.
Start talking about it. Let’s bring these ideas into the conversation. At first people will say we can’t do it. That’s fine, let’s talk about it. Let’s bring these big ideas into the rooms with us.
Discuss with your team. Be the leader on your production team and bring non-FilmStack filmmakers into the fold. Share resources and posts with them about how to do things differently.
Share about the NonDē Film Movement far and wide. A better world is inevitable if we make it so.
Read the entire NonDē series:
If you say it, they will come
Or cornfield in Iowa.
Always inspiring Courtney!