I've been lucky enough to be in the lifestyle for about 4 years now, it's been so rewarding and amazing but also challenging and complex there are so many terms, communities, and skills to learn and that's why I'm making this film. Let's normalize talking about sex :)

Have you ever felt that your relationship was missing something?
Have you ever thought about maybe trying to add a new partner, toy, or roleplay into your love life?
Where you afraid to ask and start the conversation with your partner?

More Than Monogamy is designed to answer all of these questions and more. Five years ago, I made a documentary all about virginity. V-Card The Film follows my life for three years as I discovered what virginity meant to the people I interviewed and me. After finishing that film and (spoilers) losing my virginity, I found a whole new type of openness to sexuality that I had never experienced before, "The Lifestyle".

Getting into "The Lifestyle" can be... challenging. There are so many aspects to it. So many terms and acronyms and so much new information to learn about yourself, your partner, and the other couples and individuals you meet along the way. So I thought making a documentary that taught you about some of the terminologies and gave you a road map to start exploring would be best presented alongside experts who have experience helping couples and individuals explore their sexuality.

This film is not about saying monogamy is wrong; far from it, monogamy is a fantastic and fulfilling way to have a relationship, but sometimes it's just not for everyone. So if you are interested and something more than monogamy, this is the film for you.

I've been lucky to interview about 45 people so far but that is just the surface of what I'm going to be doing with this film.

 

The film will be presented very much in the style of Netflix's "History of Swear Words" and Vox Media's "Explained" series. A combination of presenter, interviews, and multimedia editing. This should allow the documentary to be both visually interesting and informative.

 

 

"The Lifestyle" all about communication and openness, and that is precisely what I am trying to do in the film. I am going to be reaching out to experts in the field of sexuality, relationships, and kink. I will also be speaking to members of the lifestyle and leaders in the swinging, polyamory, and fetish communities. Finally, I will be experiencing some aspects of the lifestyle that I have never had firsthand such as a session with a dominatrix, going to a play party, and being tied up with traditional Shibari knots.

 

 

 

Making any movie is expensive. But I'm making this film almost completely solo to try and keep the cost down and to be as safe as possible in this post COVID world. I'm also quite lucky to own all of my gear so that part of the production is totally taken care of.

If we reach our goal most of the money is going to two very critical areas of the production travel to get our interviews and post-production.

 

 

Travel- I'm going to be going all around the country to get these interviews and I currently have interviews scheduled for New York, California, Florida, Colorado, and Canada. Because the lifestyle is all around the world I want to try and get as many diverse voices as I can to speak on the subject and that means traveling to a lot of different places.

Post-Production- Any documentary filmmaker will tell you that the edit is the most crucial part of any documentary. I'm going to be doing the first cut of the edit myself but I want to bring in a few people to look at my work, create graphics and effects I can't, and overall have a second set of eyes to tell me If I'm going in the right direction. This collaboration is vital for creating any film but very important in docs and any good editor is going to cost a good amount of money.

If we exceed our goal (which would be amazing) it will go to some other critical aspects of production. We'll take any extra money and put it into Marketing. With extra funds, we could afford to bring the film to more film festivals, promote it more on social media, and even potentially hire a social media manager. Other areas the extra funds will go to will be stuff like extra hard drives and storage for the footage, going to sexuality positive events to promote the film in person, and a million little things that come up in the process of production. At the end of the day having a little more money just makes any production a little easier both physically and mentally but be assured this production is happening regardless of if we hit our stretch goals. I want nothing more than to normalize and promote different forms of sexuality and this documentary is a perfect avenue to do it. So if you feel like you want to make the world a more inclusive sex-positive place. Please Donate today :)

 

Dillon Birdsall is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and founder of All The Birds Productions. His first feature film "V-Card" Won the best documentary feature at Cinekink the premier film festival for sexuality and adult content. A graduate of Florida School of the Arts, well versed in documentary film, narrative, online content, and podcasting. You can see his content on Youtube at Unlimited Free Time, or listen to his podcast with co-host Warren Chao called Pop Culture Part People.