Aaron Gwynn co-Produced “Romantic Chorus” with a Cast of 21 Animators on a Coin-Budget

My name is Aaron Gwynn and I am the Editor and Co-Producer of Romantic Chorus, an animated documentary about sex, romantic connections, and technology. This is the fourth feature documentary I’ve edited and produced partnering with the talented and passionate Jeff M. Giordano. I also write novels, screenplays, pitch for a semi-pro baseball team in México, and volunteer at a library. I throw a two-seamer, four-seamer, cutter, curve, and circle change.

indieactivity: What is your experience working on the story, the screenplay, the production, the premiere, and the marketing?
Aaron Gwynn (AG): My role in the film is two-fold: 1) editing the film, 2) production elements. After Jeff completed the interviews in late 2019, I was charged with creating the first cut of the audio for the film with temporary imagery. I finished that in late February 2020. In spring 2020, we focused on finding animators for the project and I was in charge of the social media for the project alongside our Production Manager Lucía González Ramírez. Once we had the animators on the team, I was the main liaison between the animator and JMG Motion Pictures and helped with questions and doubts, which Jeff and I resolved together as things came up.

Into November 2020, now with the finished animation in hand, I will be re-cutting the film with our Sound Engineer David Poulin. I also created some short animated sections for the film to complement the real artists’ work. Finally, I created the English subtitles, the Spanish subtitles with Lucía, the French subtitles with collaborator Marinane Lambert, and worked with our Web Designer Diana K. Fleming to create our website.

The official trailer for the Animated-Documentary “Romantic Chorus” by Jeff M. Giordano, Aaron Gwynn, and 17 animators featuring 21 interviews with music by Laurent Mathieu

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How did you put the crew and cast together? Did you start writing with a known cast?
Aaron Gwynn (AG): Our “cast” are the animators, and putting the team together was like forming Voltron from all parts of the world, each with their own talents. We started with a friend of a friend, Chhaya Naran, who gave us some really valuable tips for how to reach out to more animators and get them excited about the project.

We created, and I edited, a series of videos for social media to advertise the event. This was very successful, and we received over 200 submissions to work with us, from which we had video chats with the best candidates and chose the team.

A few of the animators came from friends of the people we chose, which was great because it built up a level of trust and comfort into the early stages of the film. It also made for a friendly group of people who enjoyed doing our larger zoom calls and online-parties, where we shared work, watched movies together, and built up a Romantic Chorus community.

What worked better in this latest production that mightn’t have worked so well in the last one you did?
AG: I think Jeff and I and the rest of the JMG Motion Pictures team have always been committed to collaboration, but this project really let us put our theories in that regard into practice.

We always hoped that not only would this project turn out well, but even more, that the animators would form lasting friendships that would hopefully lead to more collaborations. We also hoped to be able to promote the work of the animators, and the sound engineer and web designer well after Romantic Chorus is released.

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You must have donned several hats on this film, the measure of your input required intellect, effort, tenacity, skill. What did it take you to put out all these qualities to get the film done?
AG: I think my greatest skill is as a multi-tasker. Before making films, I worked in a wide variety of activist organizations and I’ve always had jobs that were heterogeneous and afforded me the opportunity to work with a diverse group of people.

This film is a lot about collaboration and that requires knowing the people you work with as best you can. I am also an anarchist and believe that hierarchies and bosses don’t create good workspaces, so much of this project was about finding a balance between getting the work done whilst respecting where each person is in their life and what time and effort they have to give.

What about independent filmmaking and the business do you still struggle with?
AG: I do struggle with the money side of the business in all of its incarnations. However, with this film and working with so many hard workers, I am more willing than ever to put myself out there to make lots of cold hard cash for the artists who worked their proverbial butts off to put this film together. They deserve millions for it, and I’ll do whatever I can to pay them what we can.

I struggle as well with the distribution side of the business, which seems so much about making safe and boring choices rather than being daring and bold. Telling someone you’ve made an animated documentary about love may not be as “cool” as making some bullshit superhero movie, but I am very proud of this film and think it even deigns to be ‘important’ in the grander sense.

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Let’s talk about finance, How did you finance the film?
AG: Coins we found in our friends’ couches. This is the lowest budget movie you can imagine. Every dollar came from our pockets (mostly Jeff’s), or from donations via Paypal, supporters on Patreon, and honorarium/awards from our previous three feature films.

How important is marketing? Do you think a project can make a dent without it nowadays?
AG: It’s important, but I also hate it. All the hoops you need to jump through just to get someone to see a trailer or clip. And I know for a fact that our film is (objectively) better than 90% of the bigger budget films out there and folks would be happy to rent it for $5, but if they don’t even know it exists, how can they? 

We all know that social media is mostly cats, sexy people, and whiny political comments . . . where oh where is the space for a cool-ass animated doc about love?

Tell us about marketing activities or efforts on this project – and how it worked or didn’t work?
AG: Everything is still in process since the film won’t be released for three months, but the main goal of our marketing is to find like-minded and awesome people who have podcasts, blogs, and other media sources and let them know about the film in any way we can. We provide them cool content and we get a bit of promotion at the same time: win-win!

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We are also doing social media, but for a project like this, we feel like the success in those spheres will come from getting the word out about the film in other ways. We might attempt paid ads online, but mostly that’s a shitshow.

What do you hope audiences will get from the presentation of your film?
AG: Everything

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