Film Strategy

Like most people in the arts you are probably waiting to do your taxes at the last minute. You would much rather be creating art, writing a script or shooting a movie then crunching numbers and poring through old receipts. If it helps, consider it a civic duty to pay your taxes since those funds are used to cover many of the communal goods we use. But, the truth is even if you do not think it is your civic duty, you simply can not avoid them. As the Benjamin Franklin saying goes, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Therefore, you have to get them done. And it is worth taking the time to understand the process even if you are hiring someone else to do your taxes for you. Understanding taxes as a filmmaker (producer, director or screenwriter) can help you with your tax goals of paying what you owe (if anything) and getting a nice refund or tax write-offs. Employee vs. Self-Employed When it comes to taxes, you are either an employee or sel

Economics of the film avant-garde:  networks and strategies in the circulation of films, ideas, and people by  Kathryn Ramey How do experimental filmmakers survive? And not just in tough economic times, but routinely? Can they make a living from their creative work, and if so, how? If not, how do they keep going? What social networks, communities, and institutions do they make or work within to continue their art-making? What ideas do they have about their chosen profession? How do they evolve and change with changing technologies and new opportunities? These are the kind of questions that motivated me to do an ethnographic study of the avant-garde film art world. Here I want to lay out one aspect of that project. Methodology* This essay was originally written as part of a multi-sited ethnography on late 20th century experimental filmmakers in North America focusing primarily on New York and Chicago and their environs in partial completion for a Ph.D. in socio-cultural