A Filmmaking Community with a Guerrilla Mentality

Yes, we know. Guerrilla filmmaking has its stigmas because you’re breaking the rules and doing things the non-traditional way. You’re most likely not getting the permits needed. You probably don’t have the right equipment, or even insurance and you’re obtaining funding from unlikely sources. All this effort stems from a passion to create meaningful art, and finding any means necessary to make your film a reality.

Whether you don’t have a budget or the lead actor, you have the desire and motivation to make the impossible possible. That’s when your cousin becomes the gaffer. The neighbor volunteers as a supporting role and grandma gives you a couple hundred bucks to buy you a decent lens. Everything is running smoothly, until your first couple failures. The minimal budget only got you the first scene, the crew isn’t really what you need, plus your script needs some work, a lot of work. So you stop. You stop because what most often hunkers you down and brings you misery is the past, in the form of unnecessary attachments. You keep repeating tired formulas and the memory of your old defeats constantly replay in the back of your mind. 

It’s in your best interest to wage war against the past and force yourself to react in the present moment until it’s an ingrained habit. A filmmaker with almost nothing to make their film has to wage guerrilla warfare on their mind. A guerrilla warfare mentality is necessary in guerrilla filmmaking. Everything you do should be done fluidly, making everything mobile, and possible, not permitting any situation, person, place or thing keep you from moving forward. 

The legendary Martial Artist and actor, Bruce Lee, said it best in one of his interviews:

“Empty your mind.

Be formless, shapeless, like water. 

You put water into a cup; it becomes a cup.

You put water into a teacup; it becomes a teacup.

You put it into a bottle; it becomes the bottle.

Now water can flow or it can crash.

Be water, my friend.”

Be water to adapt. Be water and you’ll reach the next place. 

When you get to the next place, your film idea still weighs heavy on your mind. Your inner artist bombards you with signs nonstop so you can get it done. You know the feeling. The burning pang you get in your gut seeing reminders in reality and in your dreams. Reminders that creep about unwantedly in waking life, but you do nothing about, until nothing else but doing something about them must be done. What do you do? You go online, scouring the web for film networking sites and find out that almost no one wants to work for free. Not only that, but you don’t know how to properly pitch your idea. Selling it isn’t as easy as you thought. Your inner artist is as persistent as ever. You sincerely feel the need to create your film idea. It's a catharsis to you. A connection to the creative infiniteness, and your inner artist won’t take no for an answer. Good. Keep it that way. Persist. Like water.

It adapts its shape wherever it glides on the stream. It hauls rocks out of its way and smoothes boulders, since it never stops and is never the same. The faster it moves, the clearer it gets. Water makes its way.

You smooth out your idea and upload it onto FilmLinkup. You create a portfolio, input some personal information about your skills, projects, current school and voila, you earned your first few FilmBucks. A digital currency FilmLinkup users can earn; to cash out with, dedicate towards their education, fund a project of their own, purchase items in the marketplace, send as payment to a fellow crew member or simply invest.

A little while after you submit your portfolio, a writer you met a few semesters ago at your university checks out the project on your portfolio. She chooses to Linkup to be part of your film crew and decides to writes a draft for you, since the platform incentivizes users with FilmBucks for completing tasks. You finally find someone else that believes in it! Nice! Now you’re getting somewhere. Your classmates' draft of your film idea now has a few hundred linkups, following the film project.

One of the writer’s producer friends that previously worked with her, loves her storytelling. She decides to Linkup to your project because she believes in her friend (don’t take offense). She’s got a decent following on social media and shares the synopsis. Here come the crew members requesting to Linkup to the project because it’s in their best interest to work on a project with a following. Why? Well, your film backers like minimal risk when making their money back (their return on investment), and the higher the following, the less risk there is involved in securing their initial investment. Students from different schools now want to collaborate with you on your film idea, and earn FilmBucks on FilmLinkup. You might not have all the finances yet, but at least you can choose a strong crew to make a bad ass trailer that’ll help you raise money for the bigger project. 

This is the model for a new form of filmmaking. FilmLinkup is a community for filmmakers, and we’d like to encourage you to embody a guerrilla mentality! Make sure not to apply these tactics rigidly, and don’t let your mind settle into static positions, defending old ways of thinking, filmmaking or repeating tired methods. Attack your filmmaking obstacles from new angles, adapting to the landscape within the internet and web3. By staying in constant motion you show yourself, crew members and film backers that nothing can stop you. You exploit the chaos of the world, instead of succumbing to it. Be water, my friend. Feed your inner artist and honestly express yourself.

Join the FilmLinkup Community! Make Your Move(e), sign up here!

Filmbucks and the Beginning of Cryptocurrency

It was 2009. IndieGoGo was making a splash for independent artists with their crowdfunding capabilities and Bitcoin was in its infancy. A new era in technology reshaped how we thought and went about our creative projects. The crowd became more involved in what they wanted to see created, and crypto breathed new possibilities for financing those creations. That’s when Filmbucks was born. A specialized token towards your own artistic revolution.

Nilfredith Santana, creator of Filmbucks and Co-Founder of Filmlinkup, aimed to create a social network to support the independent film community. Within the network, independent production companies and film connoisseurs would have the ability to assist fledgling filmmakers develop their proposal trailers into feature films.

Nil sought to create a voting system in which submitted trailers would gain a following. The followers would then invest their Filmbucks into the project they wanted to see, and that gave them special backstage passes, updates, content or material related to the project, including ownership rights based on the amount of Filmbucks invested. The concept was amazing! Filmbucks would have been one of the early companies to penetrate the crypto market mixed with film at the time. Filmbucks even won business plan competitions and made tremendous progress until Nilfredith hit a wall.

As artists, entrepreneurs, and just humans in general, we hit different walls. These different obstacles we face are necessary for us to overcome. That’s the beauty behind it all. The struggle for growth. Human perseverance and resiliency is special. It’s the creative force within that allows us to continue to tell our story, coupled with a desire to know what’s next.

That was the beningging beginning, and technology has reached new heights. Cryptocurrency, crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, and now web3, are allowing you, the artist, to flourish more than before. Each artist has direct access to their financiers directly through their following. NFT’s and smart contracts have expanded our mind’s capability of what can exist and how things come into existence.

What we thought was impossible is now possible (there’s still a Tesla floating around space ffs), and FilmLinkup has taken up the task to build a portfolio with a marketplace for your film ideas. FilmLinkup connects you to film connoisseurs that buy-in on your film concept as early adopters, the crew and/or crew leader so you can gain valuable, practical experience to make the films you’ve been dreaming of. Make your move(e)!