Filmmaking Addiction

What does someone do when they spend every extra cent on self-funded short films, as I used to when I was single? Might as well tax-write-off the expenses. Eventually, I formed EyreFilms, LLC in 2014 as a tax haven. 

YouTube.com/EyreFilms channel grew as a fluke. I threw a few videos up, starting in 2009. One day, in 2019, I got a notification about a comment on “Be Brave, Daddy!” and went to look. Unbelievably, there were 3 million views. The video had been online for seven years getting a few hundred hits per year - then it became hockey stick.

Who knows why? Maybe someone blogged about it. I quickly monetized it and connected it to my other videos, and in the next two years, that spot grew to 24 million views and the channel to 33 million views overall. 

Then the Covid shutdown hit and I started putting up short mockumentaries starring my kids, to get them out of the house. But the quality wasn’t as good as my other shorts. That and being more focused on feature films which is taking years, so I didn’t have regular content to add. I lost my audience, and I lost a small amount of ads funding.

I’m starting this blog to share my journey as a storyteller. A feature length movie is way bigger than the sum of a bunch of short films. This blog will share behind-the-scenes of my short films and the exploits of my pursuit of feature films. As well as adventures that may only partly connect to my career, or true stories and influenced part of a movie.

I just migrated Eyre Films, LLC to my new hometown Memphis, TN, this time more specifically as a holding company for my IP and the Eyre Films Channel on YouTube. I am working on a slate of feature films that will one day require an umbrella production company, some of which are the Eyre Films Website.

To start, I want to share this awesome logo designed by my friend Audra Esch. I’ll tell some stories behind the elements in each quadrant, but the lower right symbol should be self-evident.

And I’ll explain if and how my filmmaking urge is an addiction or a calling.

Ian “Max” Eyre