"Fuck dreams. We don't dream of making movies. We find ways to make them now, with the help of friends with empty couches, food stamps, and broken laws."
When most filmmakers were flooding the streets of Park City, Utah with glossy marketing material, the team behind A Great Lamp were distributing homemade zines entitled We Stole a Movie where they explained how they made a feature film with money or resources and only seven people between the cast and crew. Topics included everything from return windows to keep in mind when buying cameras (15 days at Walmart), sound equipment (14 days at Guitar Center), and computers (90 days at Costco) you can't actually afford to the best places to source free sound effects (freesound.org) and stock footage (YouTube).
We Stole a Movie also featured the team's thoughts on the creative process and an industry where films without financial backing will be judged by how expensive they look. It made a lot of damn sense, so we invited them to talk more about. Max Wilde — who stars as Max in the film and filled multiple positions behind the scenes — was kind enough to put together some thoughts for our blog. Read that here.
This was after they had already agreed to sit down with us for a video interview. And if that wasn't enough, they then agreed to let us make A Great Lamp available for free streaming on the Slamdance Channel, where you can watch it ad-free right now.
