More about the model

From the Tyee:

I met Matt in the airport in Quebec City in May. It was 5:30 a.m., and I could barely keep my eyes open. Watching yesterday’s news on a muted television, I heard a tap-tap-tapping behind me. There he was, swinging a white cane, with a giant black instrument case strapped to his back. Striding across the atrium with his aluminium antenna, he reminded me of an ant hoisting six times its weight.

With the airport lounge all but deserted, Matt stopped two seats away, unshouldered his instrument, and folded his cane. I said, “What is that, a sitar?” Sitting down, he sighed, “No actually, it’s a theorbo.” (Turns out he gets that question a lot. It’s the gigantic lute you see him play at the beginning of the documentary.) Matt was on his way to Denver to play in an opera. I was on my way to Vancouver. He told me he’d been obsessing lately about jumping a motorcycle. When the Dash-8 touched down at Pearson, we agreed to stay in touch.

Later in the summer, Matt emailed me to tell me his insane project was a go, with training starting in September. Meanwhile, I had quit my job and given most of my things away. I was living in a tent (before #OWS made it chic), and I was flat broke. I’d never seen him ride a motorcycle. I said, “Awesome. See you in California.” And then I started to think about the realities of film financing.

Read the full article at the Tyee: “Renaissance Man: new way to make a documentary”

 

From the Link: 

“What I’m trying to experiment with right now is a ground-up sustainability model to media production,” he said. With a budget cultivated online from donors, “we proved we could make something cool with very little money and without any networks, distributors or advertisers calling the shots.

“Think about how far [our budget of] $5,000 would go at a TV station,” he mused. “It would keep the lights on for the first half of the day. But if you can strip down the process […] it’s possible to create a model of efficiency that allows you to tell ambitious stories.”

Nagata’s bold prediction is that creating a more sustainable model of producing media now will better prepare journalists if there’s another recession—and another round of industry downsizing.

Read Laura Beeston’s article: “Renaissance Man: Kai Nagata on the Possibilities of Post-Corporate, Citizen Journalism”