"It just sort of happened."
That's how Toronto producer James Gen Meers explains how a "five-minute short documentary on Toronto street art" is now on its way to becoming a full-length film.
The story of the film, titled
Between the Lines, began in
2011, when Mayor Rob Ford declared "war" on graffiti. Meers and his team—co-producer Kelli Kieley and director Jake Chirico—went looking for the Toronto street artists now suddenly in the spotlight. What they found was a series of characters whose story couldn't be restricted to a five-minute snippet.
"With Rob Ford's declaration of war on graffiti art, it really catapulted the careers of some of the characters in our film. It put them into the spotlight," says Meers. "Public space, public advertising—that's really just the subtext. It's really about the characters themselves. And seeing Toronto and graffiti and the streets through their eyes."
Of course, transforming the project into feature length doc adds a whole host challenges—especially funding.
By linking up with two Toronto institutions, first
Torontoist online magazine and then the
Hot Docs film festival, the film has been able to get both exposure and the opportunity to raise the funds it needs to finish production.
"While we were shooting last fall, [
Torontoist] said, 'Hey, we would love to do a web series with you guys while you're shooting. Can you guys produce a webisode?' We thought, 'Yeah, sure.'"
So far, Meers and his team have produced three
webisodes for
Torontoist, each featuring a different Toronto street artist (the fourth installment is due out later this month).
The webseries is likely what got the
Between the Lines team in with their next big partner, Hot Docs, Canada's largest organization dedicated exclusively to the promotion of documentary filmmaking.
Between the Lines was recently selected to be part of Hot Docs'
Doc Ignite program, a crowd-funding platform that helps emerging Toronto filmmakers raise the money they need to complete their project. Crowd-funding (made popular by the website Kickstarter.com) refers to an online financing strategy which solicits funds from the public to support projects in exchange for incentives or rewards. The Doc Ignite program uses this model to support Canadian documentary films which need a final funding push to pull it all together.
Last week Docs Ignite officially launched its 40 day crowd-funding
webpage for
Between the Lines, complete with a trailer, information and lists of incentives.
While it's still unclear how much money will be raised, Meers is optimistic that the film has a real chance of getting the money it needs to get it ready for post-production.
Hot Doc's "value-added is really having huge networks and linkages and ways that they can help mentor the campaign as well," he says. "They have been absolutely amazing to us. You really get a sense that they're investing in not just in this campaign but in the film and us as filmmakers. It hasn't been easy launch this. To have them behind us is a great feeling."
Writer: Katia Snukal
Source: James Gen Meers, Producer, Between the Lines