With A Little Help From My Friends – Melanie Schiele’s ROCKAWAY

The trailer for Tisch Asia’s own Melanie Schiele’s new short film Rockaway is featured on the Tribeca Film Festival’s Future of Film blog.

As a filmmaker, it’s not enough to dream of an idea for a film. You need to find the resources to bring it to life. Sometimes, this can be a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be- not with a little help from your friends. Or your mother. Or your next-door neighbor. Even a complete stranger may be ready and willing to believe in you.

The power of film as a medium is its ability to unite all walks of life in a shared setting and spark discussion. Whenever I’ve sat in a dark theatre of anonymous faces in anticipation of what we’re about to experience, I’ve often wondered: “Why not turn the lights on before your film hits the festival circuit? Why not seek out your future audience and humbly ask them for the help required to execute a piece of work that will ultimately speak directly to them?”

I think I can safely assert that most filmmakers want their films to eventually be seen by eyes other than their own. That being the case, my strongest recommendation and inclination is this: Find your audience members now; don’t wait for them to find you.

This of course begs the question, “How?” Well, the good news is that we’re living in an exciting era for independent cinema. There is a growing array of online (and offline) arenas to raise project awareness, as well as the necessary funding, for the budding artist. The encouraging truth of the matter is that if you invest the time and energy from the very beginning of a film’s endeavor, you will never have to go it alone.

I’m currently in post-production on my new short film Rockaway, a coming-of-age survival tale set in a two-day time frame of a sexually abused and displaced young woman. The objective of the film is to illustrate a flawed character who behaves in damaging ways both to herself and the world around her due to the dangerous and misguided terrain she has been forced to navigate from unprotected childhood to young adulthood.

Trailer: ROCKAWAY, A film by Melanie Schiele from Melanie Schiele on Vimeo.