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Filmmaker trains on the job
Local man seeks funds for 'movie about a movie.'
BONNIE BRITTON BONNIE.BRITTON@INDYSTAR.COM
Jason Jolliff is making a movie about "the movie
you are watching."
So he won't need to make a "making-of" movie.
Jolliff, 29, who has spent more than $7,500 on his
reality film "I Am DB," recently acquired a producer, Deb Wolff. She
was a production manager on "Fear Factor" and "The Amazing Race" and
associate producer on "The Mole."
How she became involved is one of the things
audiences who pay to see his movie will learn.
"A huge theme of the film is 'you never know until
you try,' " says Jolliff, a learn-by-doing filmmaker who was born in
South Bend, grew up in Michigan and moved to Indianapolis in 2002.
If a single word sums up "I Am DB," he says it's
"transition."
Now he's in California for the next steps in his
movie-about-his-movie. "I Am DB," which is a takeoff on the Internet
Movie Database name, is budgeted at $3.1 million. All that's needed
is the funding.
Jolliff, a one-time sign-factory worker and video
editor, got a break a couple of years ago when he was hired as
assistant film editor on "Suspended Animation," a limited-release
feature thriller made in LaPorte by Oscar-nominated director John D.
Hancock. He also edited local indie moviemaker Don Boner's no-budget
"Loser's Lounge."
Then, Jolliff was surfing the Internet in the
middle of the night when the idea for "I Am DB" popped into his
head.
One part of the film involves his name on the
movie database, and how every time his profile is viewed, he moves
up on the StarMeter ranking system.
"My hope is that my rank will steadily move toward
that No. 1 spot as it parallels the success of 'I Am DB.' "
But that's only part of the plot.
"The cameras follow a filmmaker as he goes through
the process of making a movie, and how that process becomes the
movie. Since Nov. 18 (2003), everything that has to do with the film
is taped and documented and filmed. Production meetings, interviews
with other filmmakers, publicity -- I've been on TV a couple of
times -- we went to New York a couple of times. Everything that has
to do with making this movie . . . is being taped."
That includes his bout with chicken pox, and even
the interview for this story, he says.
He calls his movie "kind of this weird,
endless-loop kind of thing."
Part of what makes the movie so different is that
he has broken it up into four phases, "tied mainly to hardware, the
format we're shooting on."
First, he used a consumer-grade DV camera. "It's
not capable of capturing the kind of quality that the higher-end
production-grade DV cameras are." In phase two, he's been using a
production-grade DV camera. "At times, we've been on multiple
cameras."
Jolliff made the California trip (which is being
recorded) to meet with Wolff and an entertainment lawyer, "who is
going to get us all legal and draw up papers and contracts and
disclosure agreements so we can start accepting investors' money."
Once a paid crew is hired -- he's been working
with unpaid volunteers -- the movie will become a multicamera HD
(high-definition) shoot. The moviemaking will end with 35mm film.
That's all fine and good, but does Jolliff really
think people are going to pay to see him making a movie about making
a movie? Won't it be too insider?
"I support the local film industry and try to go
to as many events as I can, but I have a fairly critical eye, and
that is one of the things that's wrong. . . . It's made up of a lot
of friends, and you see the same people in the same circumstances."
Which isn't what "I Am DB" is all about.
"This film isn't made up of actors or even a
script or a story line. There are goals we're achieving along the
way and . . . I think it is going to appeal to a lot of people on a
lot of levels."
He expects it will be of great interest to
fledgling filmmakers who will see the "metamorphosis" of film from
the amateur level to a highly polished, professional film.
As the film progresses, so does the uncertainty.
"We have to get investors before we can really
move on to phase three. We're working on publicity and grants. In
the next few months, we'll be moving to California."
To view his profile and Web site, go to
www.IAmDb.tv and www.JDIgitalProduction.com.
Call Star reporter Bonnie Britton at (317)
444-6258. |
