You can take the boys out of the movie industry, but you can't take the movie industry out of the boys.
Author Bret Easton Ellis, director Paul Schrader and producer Braxton Pope have taken it upon themselves to get their movie "The Canyons" made -- through a crowd-funding Kickstarter campaign and without help from the business.
"The Canyons" tells the story of five twenty-somethings on their "quest for power, love, sex and success in 2012 Hollywood," says the Kickstarter page.
"When Paul and Braxton and myself decided to do this film without any industry people, without dealing with a studio, without executives, opening up the internet to cast the film -- it just seemed that Kickstarter was part of this new way of making film, of making content," says Ellis in the video above.
This non-traditional, do-it-yourself mentality is no surprise coming from Hollywood non-conformists Ellis ("American Psycho" and "Less Than Zero"), Schrader ("Raging Bull" and "Taxi Driver") and Pope ("Shrink" and "Hirokin"). Funding "The Canyons" with personal donations and though crowd-sourcing allows for them to attain a higher quality of storytelling.
“We all experienced the frustrations of financing and institutional censorship," says Schrader. "But now, with advances in digital photography and distribution, we can tell a story in the manner we choose. Movies are changing and we’re changing with it.”
They are also providing incentive for the audience to get involved. Backing "The Canyons," can get you myriad perks such as autographed copies of Ellis' books, signed copies of Schrader's scripts or even a money clip that was autographed by Robert DeNiro -- oh, or dinner with "The Canyons" team.
For more information visit the Kickstarter page or "The Canyons" on Facebook.
Related
Before You Go
