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March 1, 2011

Grant writing

I've spent a good chunk of this month embroiled in grant writing, trying to plead for this or that bit of funding, and more than once I sat back and noted that I was spending whole days carefully putting together language that may or may not be worth a blessed cent. Grant writing is a lot of work. Word counts must be taken into account, expectations have to be guessed at, and every bit of phrasing has to be weighed. Also, every application is different; you might be able to snag a sentence from one to use on another, or a paragraph if you're lucky, but each institution has its own interests to tend to, their applications reflect these, and they expect your questions to follow suit. So you find yourself writing about your project a dozen different ways - in my case, trying to describe the same film through the lens of multiple benefactors.

Making independent films, one takes funding wherever one can; but if preferences were to be gauged, grants are close to the top. They aren't investments, so you don't have to pay them back, and they come part and parcel with the support of the institution bestowing them. They're not right for every type of film, but they've been right for mine: I've been awarded two in the past, both from the Austin Film Society, and one covered half the budget for St. Nick. There's a reason why I keep applying. And applying, and applying, to any film-related grant for which I might qualify (which, as an arguably heterosexual caucasian male, isn't all that many). The scarcity of cash and the vast diaspora of artistic intentions work against me more often than not, which is why I sometimes wonder whether I'm wasting my time in my pursuit of institutional endowments.

The reason why it isn't is because of the thoroughness required to apply in the first place. I thought I had a grasp on my film when I applied for a Rooftop Grant last fall; I got to know it a lot better when I applied for a Cinereach Grant last month. My intentions with the film, why it mattered to me and why I believed it should matter to others were abstracts that I took for granted until I had to put them into words, and then put them in different words just the other day in my letter of inquiry for a Creative Capital Grant. Between now and the summer, when I'll doubtless apply for another TFPF grant, the script itself will have been revised and my grasp on the material will strengthened, and I'll rewrite it all again. I may or may not get any of these grants; by the time they're awarded, I usually have forgotten I've applied for them, which is good because it means that, as nice as that bit of money might be, I'm not relying on them for anything other than this most handy of by-products: my own movie, explained to me, by myself.

Posted by David Lowery at March 1, 2011 12:24 AM