Making a feature! Lobbying Sam Reich! Going LIVE today!
Much to discuss.
My friend,
There is so much to share about the non-dependent world today! So before we dive in, the full picture:
News on my debut feature film
Watch my Substack Live today with Laverne McKinnon!
The Let’s Buy Letterboxd Campaign
A Top 5 Podcast Interview wherein I asked Sam Reich to be my friend, thanks to Dario Llinares!
Coming Soon: Video Replay on How to Identify Your Audience
News on My Debut Feature Film
Have I mentioned I’m making my first feature?
I talk around the feature a lot, but who knows if I’ve actually stated the facts about it to you outright.
THE LOGLINE: A hopeful but friendless alien comes to earth to make a documentary about the goodness of humanity, but he must face the possibility his movie won’t have a happy ending.
THE THEMES: Grief, the meaning of life & death, loneliness, earthly presence
THE FEEL: I’m tonally inspired by Birdman and Eternal Sunshine, thematically inspired by Alan Watts and Mary Oliver, and personally inspired by my unwanted contention with the depths of my own personal grief. If I was forced to categorize it, I’d call it a dark comedy. The visuals in this note strike the chord:
EVEN MORE OF THE FEEL: You can get a sense of my writing through the essays I’m sharing over on Messier Objects. I like to write sincerity in close accompaniment to wryness. The script has that sorta feel, and you can catch a glimpse of it in this essay:
THE NEWS: We’re shooting September/October this year in Providence, Rhode Island! Casting starts soon.
We’re currently in financing meetings and looking for financial partners who care about non-dependent filmmaking and want to make films that allow an audience to linger in the unknown. That may be you, or perhaps it’s someone you know. Please get in touch so I can share more with you 1:1.
Today at 11a PT / 2p ET: Substack Live with Laverne McKinnon
I am so thrilled to be joining producer, filmmaker, grief coach, and career strategist Laverne McKinnon today on Substack Live to talk about all of those things!
We’ll be chatting, taking questions, and hoping to make this an extraordinarily practical & grounded hour of conversation. If you’re hoping to learn more about the NonDē space or have any questions about it, come!
The Letterboxd Campaign is Going Strong!!
Elizabeth Joyce and team are hard at work out in front and behind the scenes to pull off a public benefit corporation purchase of the majority shares of Letterboxd!
Please read this article, pledge $4, and feel the tide turn because WOW if they/we can pull this off, we will have entered a new era of the cinematic ecosystem and that’s not hyperbole!
I’m sure you’ve seen all of this by now, but JICYMI, a short primer on the whole thing:
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A great podcast interview is one wherein I call out to Sam Reich to be my best friend and teach me all he knows!
It takes a good amount of talent to extract something new and alive from a podcast guest, and Dario Llinares did that with me last week when he hosted me on his podcast Cinema Body/Cinema Mind.
Some things I talked about that were surprising/thrilling even to me!
The advice my first voice teacher gave me that I didn’t understand until adulthood
My husband and my movie-watching-and-critique practice
The last scene of Eternal Sunshine!
Sam Reich’s Dropout TV and how I want him to coach me on building a non-dependent studio just like that (around 1:20:40 if you want to skip to it!)
It was honestly SO much fun to traverse through filmmaking and life and meaning-making with Dario Llinares and these are, quite frankly, the only things I ever want to talk about anyway.
TOWN HALL REPLAY: How to Identify Your Audience
For all paid subs, the replay and recap of this month’s Town Hall will be emailed to you today at 12p ET! We covered:
The general underlying principles of marketing
How to use TAM-SAM-SOM for identifying who could realistically be your market
Understanding conversion rates
4 Audience Identification Methods:
Psychographics
Thematics
Hopes/Fears
Intended Impact
The replay and written recap will be sent at 12p ET and I’ll see you over in the chat to answer any questions you have about your personal projects!
If you’re a free subscriber, consider upgrading to paid for the year to get:
Monthly Town Halls
Full archive of 120+ posts on non-dependence, marketing, critical thinking with exercises and practical applications you can use immediately.
Or, consider upgrading to a founding member to also get a 45 minute 1:1 session with me to talk through your specific project in detail.
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I've been inhaling a ton of Dropout content lately, starting with Dimension 20 and expanding outward in waves. I too would love to be besties with Sam and/or Brennan!
Congratulations on the feature project, Courtney. And I’m sorry to hear about your dad’s passing.