Directed by: Adrian Nugent
Produced by: Adrian Nugent, Maria Tedschi
Executive Produced by: Enzo Tedeschi
Starring: Enzo Tedeschi, Julian Harvey, Bel Deliá, Luke Arnold, Steve Davis, Andy Rodoreda, Eduardo Sánchez, Kiah Roache-Turner, Ahmed Salama, Valeria Petrenko, Megan Riakos, Andrew Mackie.
‘Play by the rules or go away.’
Remember those piracy warning segments before watching a movie?
Before steaming, you either had to rent a movie or illegally download using a piracy platform like, BitTorrent.
Most of the population decided that downloading movies for free was OK, piracy rules be damned, so when first time producers Enzo Tedeschi and Julian Harvey tried to figure out how they were going to fund their first feature film, they thought – let’s crowdfund the film, selling each of the 130,000 frames for $1, then release the film for free on BitTorrent.
A ground-breaking idea. A crazy idea. No one had ever crowdfunded a film this way before, but fuck it, it was the only way they were going to make it, so they went for it.
I had a lot of fun watching this doco. I’m a horror fan, so it was a hoot getting a behind the scenes look at the making of this found footage horror flick, released back in 2011: The Tunnel.
But more than about making the film, this documentary opens up the discussion about a distribution and marketing model that had never been used before.
And it worked.
No one could see it happening. And no distributor was going to touch the film once Enzo and Julian had made the decision to align with enemy number 1: BitTorrent.
Piracy was rampant.
It was going to destroy the industry – so they thought.
But the first-time producers saw the strategy as a way of getting around piracy – it’s not illegal if we’re giving it away for free.
And with 25 million people watching the film it was certainly a success.
Which comes down to the talent of all those involved in making the film – the script, the directing, the actors, with actor Steve Davis multitasking as camera crew, the director Carlo Ledesma also costume designer.
It’s a typical Indie experience, influenced by found footage movies such as, The Blair Witch Project (1999), Rec (2007) and Quarantine (2008).
There’s an honesty to the behind-the-scenes, the producers feeling out of their depth but obviously smart guys that well-deserved to get their movie out there.
And the rest of the cast included in the doco, The Tunnel director, Carlo Ledesma and the actors, Bel Deliá, Luke Arnold and Steve Davis came across as genuinely warm people who took a risk getting on board something that had absolutely no backing but throwing it all in, Indie-style.
As already said, good fun; with the interesting angle of making a movie through the power of the audience, hence the poster of, The Tunnel using all the names of the supporters to make up the image.
Even when Transmission got onboard to distribute the DVD, there was still this controversy of associating Paramount (via Transmission) with BitTorrent.
A lot has changed in ten years.
The Tunnel: The Other Side of Darkness illustrates how the making of, The Tunnel embraced a new model of viewing content, AKA streaming, while waiting for the industry to catchup.
These guys were the disruptors of the industry.
Originally released on the 10-year anniversary of, The Tunnel and now showing as part of the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival (MDFFest) I wondered why it took so long to release the documentary as it’s clear it was always the intention.
And then there’s talk of a sequel, shown in the back-and-forth interview with Eduardo Sánchez (film maker of, The Blair Witch Project). A definite push and a way to create buzz for the possibility of, The Tunnel 2.
Why not, I guess.
And now I’m inspired to watch the feature film itself. See link to stream here ; )
(105) The Tunnel (2011) FULL MOVIE – YouTube
Worth a watch!