‘I just made a new film, called PROTEST PSYCHIATRY, on the psychiatric survivor-lead protest of the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting in New York City. And I’m thrilled by how it turned out. For starters, I filmed it on no budget whatsoever, created the entire film in three days, and have uploaded it straight to Youtube, so it’s freeeeeee!
This film, for me, was an experiment. I have been feeling lost as a filmmaker for the past year or more. I think the big reason has been the process: it’s huge and expensive and time-consuming. Each film has absorbed months, literally months, of my life. Well, all that changed five days ago.
Five days ago (May 2) I was hit with the inspiration bug: to make a film a new way.
My goal: to film the whole thing in a few hours (on May 4), to give myself a couple of days to edit it (on May 5 and 6), to make it short (it’s 13 minutes long), to do no post-production whatsoever (big relief), and then to share it with the world (on May 7). And… it worked!!
So what excites me as much as having a new film (which I love!) is that I have a new template for filmmaking. I am now confident that I can easily take my little film studio on the road, as everything I need fits within a little backpack — and make more films. And I want to expand my subject matter…
And so, here’s the film – PROTEST PSYCHIATRY. In it, please meet some of the most courageous and inspiring people I know. They sure inspired me!’
Well done, Daniel! Love what you do.
