Jessica Mae Stover
Jessica Mae Stover is an American actor, auteur director, screenwriter, filmmaker, and author.
Movement is a prelude to destiny.
There are a lot of people who would be into what we’re doing, but how do you reach them without a marketing budget?
Hollywood doesn’t make movies anymore, they make licensing platforms.
Maybe it’s counter to your philosophy--as it is to mine--to want to sell people things they don’t need, that will end up in landfills. Maybe you would actually like to make money off of creating art--which is your job. Maybe you don’t want to be in the advertising business.
If crowdfunding has this idea of rebellion to it, and of circumventing the system, then these crowdfunding sites aren't really freedom. We're just creating another gatekeeper.
When you’re an artist, you don’t want to deal with business. The business nuances are incredibly difficult. But you need to understand a defunct system in order to make it work or change it, and that took me a lot of research. If you’re not willing to do that, I say you’re not ready.
I wanted to create a business model and a case study that not only would yield an awesome movie that people would love, and something high-minded, but that would also confront things like media consolidation, [i.e.] when you have six companies controlling everything you’re seeing. To the artist, what’s important is they do not get tied up in the system. There needs to be an opportunity to not do that. To comment in a way that doesn't feed that beast. Let’s get organized and create that opportunity.
Like many of us, she sees the mammoth movie studios and much of what they churn out, and she knows something is broken. Like most of us, she loves the cinematic experience but feels that commerce, company and committees are directly defiling the quality of what we see in a theater. Unlike the rest of us, she isn’t content to accept the way things are; she is out to change the world.
It really is a community project, and people really are pulling their weight, because I’m one person and I can't do it all. They’re always helping us to spread the word, and share the story, and connect with press. It’s great when the audience has your back, it feels like you can do anything. But it's important that you do what's right, well.
When you’re working at a professional level, but you don’t have a marketing budget… you’re screwed! Anyone in the business who won't admit the truths of distro is lying to you. So that's pretty much every mainstream media outlet.
Jessica Mae Stover is a force of nature. She is something like a hurricane or a tornado; she is an unstoppable force fueled by her passion and her vision and her belief. She is a revolutionary.
The Internet as a great leveler is a myth. There is so much noise, it actually costs more to cut through the muddy waters and get your message out there.
The overall project is a cross-platform film project. The way we’re funding the film is, instead of going to studios--who don’t make original films anymore, specifically not original sci-fi and fantasy--you just don’t see that very often, if at all, we went straight to the audience.
You can make the most brilliant thing in the world, and that 'if you build it, they will come' thing isn’t true. That’s because you need a marketing budget. Everything is propaganda..
Why does it have to come from the studios? And why does it have to involve advertising?
And I think it’s possible, but I basically feel like there’s a huge status quo going on, and it’s not going to be changing and we help reinforce it. You, yes I mean you. You are not an exception, you're enforcing this fabricated rule. I guess my hope would be, as we’re talking about a lot of these topics, to urge you to think outside of the box--you think you are, but you aren't--and not just accept the thought that that we have to be talking about studios and advertising.
I see it as a renaissance we’re hoping for in filmmaking. It’s a way of life, it’s a philosophy
Beyond building the world of the film, I have to build the infrastructure around how we’re making it.
And if it’s something as sacred and important to us as that, then why is it OK to watch ten commercials before a movie despite that you’ve paid for your ticket?