When Austin Chu, 25, was laid off from a Bay Area Internet startup in December of 2008, he did what many Californians might do: he went surfing every day, made plans to travel across the country to film a documentary, and diligently sent out a flurry of applications for PR and marketing positions.
As Chu discussed documentary plans with his 23-year-old brother Brian — what if they made something different from all the dark, disaster- oriented coverage? — companies started calling him for interviews. One offered him a job.
“If there’s a window of opportunity, you have to jump through,” Austin says. “It’s like, you see a girl in a bar and you make eye contact. If you don’t go then, it’s over. You won’t get another chance.”
He turned the job down. Brian followed suit by quitting his full-time job editing fitness videos, and in January of 2009, the two left on a self-financed six-month trip across the United States.
That September, the Chus were ready to debut the result, an abbreviated 10-minute version of their 68-minute documentary, The Recess Ends, at the Blackout Film Festival in New York. Austin confessed to nerves. Their film was headlining, and they’d never headlined anything, or appeared in a film festival, or even made a movie before.
But they felt good about the cut, which featured a man gleefully hunting a wild boar and boasting that he wouldn’t go hungry as he slit its belly. In another scene, a community organizer drove through dilapidated neighborhoods in Youngstown, Ohio, cheered that economically depressed residents finally felt empowered to do something about their situation.
The Blackout Film Festival had previously asked filmmakers to respond to the theme of the Great Recession. When the entries started rolling in, founder Tom Keefe was pleasantly surprised to find that most were lighthearted, optimistic, even fun.
Not only were the films upbeat but so were the filmmakers. Like the Chus’ documentary, the films talked about finding freedom in the recession. Independent filmmaking has never been a pursuit for the faint of heart or the financially cautious, but in a time when artists were being advised to play it safe, Blackout attracted films, filmmakers, and an all-volunteer organizational staff that approached the creative tasks with meager funding, little certainty, and lots of chutzpah. It also attracted a crowd of almost 600 people willing to buy $12 tickets.
Inspired by the 2003 Northeast blackout, the festival has happened only once before: on the first anniversary of the power-grid failure. Keefe, then a 25-year-old film-school graduate, was stirred by the sense of possibility and resourcefulness that the city’s unexpected break with routines created. In the intervening years, he shifted his energies to the business world, becoming the vice president of a chain of airport spas.
But the recession made him want to host another festival for the first time in five years. The problem was universal; people could relate to it. Maybe a film festival would help them gain perspective or at least share gripes.
“In the recession, people are forced to change their lives,” Keefe says. “Hopefully they can change them for the better.”
Over the course of two hours, audiences watched and laughed as a Latino in a pickup selected a crew of day laborers from a crowd of corporate bigwigs (“I need two certified public accountants”); a bum and a business man connected on a subway platform; and a group of Wall Street workers battled in a pillow fight (Wall Street Chicken by Martin Menzel).
The film was inspired by a feathery fight Menzel saw in New York’s financial district and a strange piece of information he picked up talking to a stockbroker — they keep pillows at their desks to combat the long work hours. There were also satirical how-to videos — for example, how to write a résumé, make your own soap, and go fuck yourself.
During the nonfiction animated Hala Hala’s Uncommon Economic Indicator, by New York Times cartoonist Isaac Littlejohn Eddy, a Fort Greene convenience-store owner mused on the sudden upsurge in the popularity of energy drinks. People worry during hard times, so “you want an energy drink, you want to work more hours, you want an energy drink.”
The audience left, buoyed by the films. Michela Bondardo, who works as a consultant for the Guggenheim (and he looks it — immaculately put together, well-cut blonde hair, and chic glasses), says that the recession had been a disaster for arts funding but could be a boon for culture. “These films look real,” he says. “This is what people really think. I think that somehow we needed [the recession]. It was somehow too much before.”
As traditional sources of funding continue to disappear, filmmakers are finding creative ways to fund and distribute their pieces. They work amateur outlets like YouTube, Facebook, and Vimeo with professional vigor. Many of Blackout’s films can be found online or will be appearing there soon.
Filmmaker Jeremy Redleaf says that gutsy is the way to go. “You have to keep hustling,” he says. Redleaf has long kept his creative projects percolating by working random one-time Craigslist gigs. During the past year, five of his gainfully employed friends lost their jobs. They turned to Redleaf for help as they navigated the wild terrain of freelance employment.
It was something of an uphill battle. “They needed work, but they were reluctant to do things like pass out flyers,” he says. “I tried to encourage them to try new things. They were all on unemployment. It’s such a gift to have that freedom, but they were all so scared.”
The experience gave Redleaf an idea. He started a website, oddjobnation.com, which has a Craigslist feed, a job board, tips, and humorous videos he produced about doing odd jobs. It attracted visitors more adventurous than his friends, and lots of them.“It hasn’t been a financial win, but it’s been a career win,” Redleaf says. “I never thought I’d be in a film festival.” (The assistant he now employs, thanks in part to the success of oddjobnation.com, found the festival online.)
The Chu brothers don’t regret their departure from stable employment. Brian has his old job back; he even got a raise, and his boss gave him flexible hours to finish up the movie.
After the festival, a group of people gathered at the Ainsworth, a Chelsea bar where the bouncers had no problem picking film buffs from the cornfed crew there to watch college football on gigantic flatscreens. “In the back,” directed the bouncers, where a black-and-white short played instead of the game. Everyone was cheerfully imbibing the donated free vodka and discussing old projects and new plans.
Keefe moved through the room with a grin that he couldn’t keep down. He says that Blackout would be back next year, even if he has to fund it himself, again.