To anyone who says that Milwaukee's independent film industry is lagging behind other cities', Shawn Monaghan would probably laugh and say, "You're obviously not looking hard enough."
Monaghan is the co-founder of Firestarter Films, a bi-monthly film festival established by filmmakers for filmmakers (and film lovers, too.) The festival is a forum for aspiring filmmakers where they can share their works with each other and other curious crowds. But unlike The Milwaukee Show or the Milwaukee Short Film Festival, Firestarter isn't a competition between the artists. It's more of an open mic night for film.
"We provide the theater, you bring the films," says Monaghan, who started Firestarter Films with friend and fellow filmmaker Phil Koch in November 2008.
Like any indie start-up, the event started off small, bringing about 50 people out to the cozy confines of Bay View's Alchemist Theatre for an evening-long screening. By the second event, Monaghan and Koch had to break the audience up into groups A and B because of the theatre's 50-person seating capacity.
By August 2009, it had outgrown the Alchemist Theater and relocated its operation to the Live Artist Studio, 228 S. 1st Street in Walker's Point., which has a capacity of 200. At its one-year anniversary event, 175 people showed up to present and watch 26 locally-made films.
"I keep waiting for it to run out," Monaghan jokes. "But people keep coming out of the woodwork."
He and Koch screen between 20 and 30 films at each event, and have never shown a repeat, although prolific filmmakers return time and again to screen new works. Because of time constraints, the films must be limited to 10 minutes or less and feature lengths are edited to a 10-min. highlight reel. Still, the evening can last up to six hours, with breaks for noshing on complimentary snacks and mingling with the filmmakers, composers and actors.
Any format and style is welcome, from stop motion to flash animation to 3D / special effects. Regular Firestarter attendee and filmmaker Patrick Beck brings his 16-year-old son Christian to screen his son's two-minute flash animation films adapted from "Aesop's Fables." Firestarter often opens with the latest from Christian.
Another duo filmed their own take on the former TLC program "Take Home Chef," a reality show where chef Curtis Stone convinces an unsuspecting shopper in the grocery store to take him home to prepare dinner that evening.
"It was called "Break-in Chef," says Monaghan. "They cased a house and at 4 a.m. they broke in and cooked breakfast for these people at gun point. It was pretty funny."
Monaghan says he never really knows what to expect from an event, since nothing is pre-screened.
"Artists can arrive the night of, with a DVD in hand and we'll play it," he says. "Now, we're taking it on your honor it isn't crap. If it is crap, you're going to find out from the crowd. The fact that you have to get up and say, 'this is my film,' has deterred some people from presenting because they realize that everyone is going to see who it's by."
But for the most part, he says, the filmmakers who show up are more than eager to show their work and get feedback via the critique sheets handed out before the screenings. Monaghan and Koch don't read the reviews; they go straight from the viewers to the filmmakers that night.
The next Firestarter Films event Jan. 15, where the agenda remains mostly a mystery but Monaghan did issue a short assignment at the last event for anyone willing to give it a shot. He'd previously shot a short film in which a monster emerges from Lake Michigan, grabs the orange "The Calling" sculpture and chucks it down Wisconsin Avenue, lodging it into the side of Borders. For those interested, he offered the up the tech specs to the monster's path and asked them to make their own movie documenting the monster's destruction of Milwaukee.
It's just part of his personal push to get Milwaukee filmmakers to feature their own city in their work.
"I'm totally sick of seeing Times Square in so many films. Milwaukee has so many unique areas for shooting. When I shoot my films I try to incorporate the location into the story just as much as the characters. (Koch and I) know Milwaukee like the back of our hand and our plan is to make a feature film in the spring and help make a name for Milwaukee."
OnMilwaukee.com staff writer Julie Lawrence grew up in Wauwatosa and has lived her whole life in the Milwaukee area.
As any “word nerd” can attest, you never know when inspiration will strike, so from a very early age Julie has rarely been seen sans pen and little notebook. At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee it seemed only natural that she major in journalism. When OnMilwaukee.com offered her an avenue to combine her writing and the city she knows and loves in late 2004, she knew it was meant to be. Around the office, she answers to a plethora of nicknames, including “Lar,” (short for “Larry,” which is short for “Lawrence”) as well as the mysteriously-sourced “Bill Murray.”
