Kaze Project

What Is Grassroots Production?

Grassroots (plural noun): The ordinary people in a society or an organization.  (Cambridge Dictionary of American English)

Grass-roots (adjective): Of, pertaining to, or involving the common people, esp. as contrasted with or separable from an elite.  (dictionary.com)

Grassroots Production is a movement focused at bringing the power of producing the kinds of feature films you want to see, into your own hands.  Whether you are a filmmaker or a film-watcher, Grassroots production means that you can be making and/or watching films that speak directly to your heart... that dare to take a stand on something important... to you.

• The average cost of making an animated feature film is $90 million.
• The average box-office (gross) of an animated feature film is $135 million.
• A film that costs $90 million doesn't turn a profit until it makes back $90 million after cinema/distribution costs.
• In order for a film to have wide-enough "appeal" to make-back its investment, producers often feel they can't take the risk of the film making a statement that might offend the far-too-easily offended modern audience.  Thus, all but the best modern animated feature films read with a blandness that relegates them to the slot of "Digital Babysitters."

Albee has proved with his 23-minute industry break-through short film, and his contributions to Battlestar Galactica's Emmy Award winning charcter animation, that production pipelines can be streamlined to extreme levels of efficiency, far beyond that which is commonly accepted as "industry standard."

"Kaze, Ghost Warrior" also proved that a powerful story that dares to make a statement actually expands the audience beyond its initially targeted group.  "I just made the short a story I'd always wanted to see.  I had no idea I would be getting letters from people who's elderly parents had watched the disc five or seven times!"

Grassroots Production is about reaching the audience who would want to watch that particular kind of story you have always wanted to see, and have gotten tired of waiting for someone else to do it justice.  It is about giving those people an opportunity to take a front-row seat to the filmmaking process, seeing little bits and pieces as the film is made, always preserving the mystery of the final product.  Like a "Reality Show," it is about allowing those people, worldwide, to chip in the cost of a movie ticket a month to watch something they can't wait to see, take shape, and to know that they helped to make it possible.

If a small production team has worked hard and amassed the skills, hardware, and software necessary to produce their film, and all they need is the ability to bring their focus 100% onto production and hit every single milestone they set for themselves, then producing a film that dares to speak a message, to take a stand on something, can be made for only a few thousand dollars a month - something easily attainable with only a few hundred fans donating the cost of a movie a month, worldwide.

Grassroots Production, is about raising your skills to a level where you need so few resources to produce your work, that local investors and the community that already knows it wants to see your film, can make possible the time you need to bring your skills 100% into the making of that film.

"The better the artist, the less expensive tools he needs."

Still have questions about Grassroots film making? Send them to us...