Just Crowdfund the $&*# Movie!: Post Haste

Welcome to Just Crowdfund the $&*# Movie!, where indie moviemaker Jayce Bartok talks about the dos and don’ts of crowdfunding from the trenches of his own crowdfunding campaign. Have a question for Jayce about his movie, Tiny Dancer, or just crowdfunding in general? Ask away at .

Tiffany and I are about two weeks away from our big fundraising event, and everything has shifted into high gear. Each day is consumed with confirming guest lists, securing donations for the silent auction and figuring out how to screen what we’ve shot so far (on the wall or a giant monitor?), not to mention things as mundane as finding the best place to get glasses for 100 people. You’d think we were party planners, not moviemakers.

In the midst of all of this, we’re doing post-production on the 20 minutes of footage we’ll be screening at the party. Having done countless ADR (Additional Dialogue Recording) sessions as an actor, I have a vague sense of what the post-production process is like on a larger-budget film, and I know that post on a micro-budget film involves a dedicated, often sweaty-bearded editor working in his apartment on color correction, sound editing and mastering and exporting footage, all using Final Cut Pro. Thanks to luck, connections and risk-taking, with Tiny Dancer we’re somewhere in between. The post-production process has been an eye-opening experience.

Let me go through it step-by-step. First we hired our editor, actor and fellow moviemaker Rodrigo Lopresti, who has worked tirelessly to assemble our footage into the strange confines of a promo piece, which is neither a short film nor a feature. Through our line producer, Pete Scudese, we were able to secure the post house Nice Shoes for our color correction. As far as audio is concerned, Tiny Dancer has some challenges—like the film’s 60 young girl extras and the noise caused by dancers rubbing up against each other—so a good sound edit is extremely important. But where to find a sound editor? Lo and behold, the young woman who worked as my assistant mentioned after we wrapped that she had just graduated from audio college. So I offered her the job, and she is just now finishing up the sound edit. Our friend Aaron Meicht is an amazingly talented composer and is scoring the film for us. You’d be surprised how opportunities for post work present themselves in the most unusual places.

I am overjoyed by all the talented professionals who donated their services to assist us in post-production. It’s opened my eyes to all the possibilities that exist for a DIY moviemaker to turn their film into something truly polished. However, I must add that the process of delivering various QuickTime and audio files to my post-production team has proven daunting. Apparently, this is something that comes easily to DIY moviemakers who do all the post-production themselves. However, the thought of exporting an uncompressed copy of my film without dissolves or handles makes me pee blood, and on top of that, my copy of Final Cut Pro has been acting extremely buggy. I don’t know how my post-production team does it.

Jayce Bartok is an actor and moviemaker who runs Vinyl Foote Productions from Brooklyn with his wife Tiffany. Currently, you can see him on USA’s “White Collar” and in the upcoming feature film Predisposed, opposite Melissa Leo. Follow The Independent Collective at twitter.com/ticnyc to stay updated on the Tiny Dancer crowdfunding campaign.