Ghosts With Shit Jobs

In 2040, the economic collapse of the west is complete and the east is in full ascendance. North Americans now do the undesirable jobs to cater to wealthy Asian and Indian markets. A Chinese documentary show called Window On the World focuses a compassionate eye on these unlucky enough to have been born in the slums of Toronto in a special report entitled ‘Ghosts With Shit Jobs’. Oscar is a digital janitor, and has to manually cover up logos for copyright reasons in the future’s answer to Google StreetView. Gary and Karen assemble robot baby dolls for the children of the wealthy in Asia. Anton and Toph are spider silk collectors. Serina is human spam and makes a living by mentioning brands in casual conversation.

Check out the trailer on the official site.

Nov 022022
 

Ten years ago we released a strange little lo-fi sci-fi feature called Ghosts With Shit Jobs.  

In the future, jobs still suck — but in whole new ways. By 2040 the economy has flipped and North Americans are a cheap labor pool for wealthy eastern markets. (Trailer here.) 

For those in Toronto we’re doing a small in person screening at the community-powered Eyesore Cinema (Fri. Nov. 11th, 8pm, $5 cash at the door) followed by a q&a chat with some directors and actors, hosted by Mike Wood of They Might Be Movies. If you’re out of town or not into enclosed spaces there will simultaneously be a watchalong where you can chime in with comments and such! After the watchalong it’ll live on YouTube for anyone to watch for free with English, French, and Spanish subtitles. Update: Watch it for free via http://ghostswithshitjobs.com.

Continue reading »
Apr 152014
 

otherworlds
I first heard about Vodo a few years back when they were using BitTorrent as a form of alternative distribution for science fiction shorts and web series — something we did as well with our 2007 effort Infest Wisely. Currently they’re trying out a pay-what-you-want model, and they approached us to include Ghosts With Shit Jobs in their indie sci-fi Otherworlds bundle. They’ve brought together a great bunch of sci-fi shorts, experimental videogames (Tale of Tales) and speculative graphic novels (Cory Doctorow), and we get a bit of money whether you pay-what-you-want for the main tier or “unlock” our movie on the second tier. (I guess we’ll have to update our profit-reporting post after this!) Incidentally, this is the first time you can buy a DRM-free digital version of our movie since the Kickstarter.

The Otherworlds bundle is available for the next two weeks.

Mar 152014
 

Factory_Interior-Press-Kit.resized

We started making Ghosts With Shit Jobs in 2009, released it in 2012 and screened it in 25 cities thanks to a Kickstarter campaign through 2012-13. We’ve learned a ton and recently applied what we know now to a proof-of-concept trailer for a new project — it’s called Haphead, and features the infinitely stretching electronics factory pictured above. And bunny-ninja fights.

But before we move on we thought we’d talk frankly about the numbers behind our lo-fi sci-fi feature.

We attracted attention to the project by being up front about our original $4000 production costs, and now we want to do a final accounting in the hope that it’s useful and/or interesting to other indie filmmakers. There’s a certain amount of pressure to not talk about this stuff when it’s not super-impressive — that somehow it hurts our credibility — but we think it’s useful to show people what very minor success looks like.

Ghosts With Shit Jobs cost $20,180.97 to create and promote and earned a gross of $39,317.18 $40,917.18 $51,675.12 $52,252.74 (as of Aug 2022 — mostly from iTunes sales). Continue reading »

Sep 052013
 

At a time of year when everyone’s talking TIFF, we thought we’d talk BIFF. For us, getting into the Beijing International Film Festival was a bigger deal, what with Ghosts With Shit Jobs being about a future where China’s the first world and North America’s the third world.

Co-director Tate Young interviewed BIFF-goers earlier this year on what they thought about the premise of our flick, and got lots of great city shots to boot, in this 6.5 minute mini-doc.

It’s now four years since we began this project and it’s been quite a trip — literally and figuratively. Since its London, England premiere last year we’ve toured with the movie to nearly 20 cities across the world. Figured it merits its own commemorative tour t-shirt, which you can buy at cost for the next week (mens | ladies). It’s got all the cities on the back!

As an aside, you should enjoy TIFF while it lasts — it ends in 2019 after cultural funding disappears completely. BIFF buys all the red carpets at an auction afterwards.

Jan 142013
 

Put your trillion dollar coins away! Ghosts With Shit Jobs is available to rent for as little as $4.99. Our lo-fi sci-fi mockumentary about the slums of Toronto in 2040 is now in wide digital release at the links below.

To help support this we’re offering to do 20 videochat Q&As between now and when the Debt Ceiling falls in. To enter, sign up over here and plan a GHOSTS screening party of five or more people in January and February. Then, if you’re one of the lucky 20, one of our lo-fi faces will be beamed via sci-fi into your very home!

iTunes / Amazon (US only) / Xbox / PSN Vudu

Trailer / First 20 minutes

For people looking for DRM-free options, we recommend buying the DVD and then ripping it.

(And sure, Cloud City is a bit of an ethically dubious place. But it’s not like Lando would sell us out or anything, that dude is solid!)