5 of the Greatest People in the World, Part 19

There's a thing on Twitter called Follow Friday. Basically, you present a list of people that you recommend other people follow. It's a pretty popular idea and it makes everyone feel good. So with that in mind, I figure the least we can do for our wonderful Kickstarter backers is to give them a variant of the Follow Friday plug. So here they are, in order (well, some of them):


91. Joshua Bird: Josh "The Word" Bird went to college in Chattanooga, where we met at a Chattanooga Lookouts game and bonded over a mutual respect for Wily Mo Pena's formidable skills as a first base coach. When I left my super-competitive fantasy baseball league for a couple of years, Josh took over my team and turned it into a dominant powerhouse. The Yankees of the league, if you will. (Much like the Yankees, he often has the best record and then flames out in the playoffs.) Now we're in the same division, which means we have to tangle pretty often and either he ends up cursing Zack Greinke or I end up cursing Albert Pujols. For years he's promised to come see my movie if it ever plays in Annapolis, thinking clearly he'd never have to make good on that promise. And then he did. Muwhahahaha.


92. cdinucci0: a.k.a. Celeste DiNucci was the 2007 winner of the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions, which pretty much makes her the smartest backer we've got. Originally from what we call in Maine "the other Portland" (Oregon), Celeste now lives in Philly, where she's busy putting together the Philadelphia Performing Arts Kitchen, a nonprofit production house "dedicated to supporting collaborations that are doing original, interdisciplinary, "devised" performance." It sounds like something right up our alley.


93. Meghan Walsh: As you could probably guess, there's a lot of people in the world with the name Meghan Walsh. I'm pretty sure she comes to us via Adam Woods, but I can't really narrow it down any more than that with any certainty. So let's see...here's my best guess: She might work for The Food Trust, which is a company that "works to improve the heath of children and adults, promote good nutrition, increase access to nutritious foods, and advocate for better public policy." And that totally sounds like someone who'd be friends with Adam.


94. Jade Gasper (@jadeofalltrades): Jade is, I think, the key person behind Mark It Alternative, a company that puts your company or organizational logo on all sorts of stuff like frisbees and water bottles and pens and whatnot. ooohhh, they even have a section for stuff under $1. But unlike a lot of those types of companies, they're green, locally focused, and a member of the Sustainable Business Network of Philly. Which means, basically, that they're good people.


95. michael montes (@michaelmontes): Michael Montes is a composer. He writes music for films. He makes albums. At least, that's what his website says. His bio, however, is much longer. He has 32 (!) IMDb credits as a composer, including an Oscar nominee for Best Live Action Short (it didn't win). You can listen to a ton of his work on this Muxtape page or you can buy them on iTunes. Seriously, buy them on iTunes. He's a cool guy (and pretty damned talented too).


Stay tuned for the rest of our backers! And, as always, you can still become a backer and get the same rewards as our other backers. Just click on the "Donate" button below and PayPal will take care of the rest.

Fish to Pond Ratio

I've been spending some time lately considering the problem of the fish to pond ratio. It's a simple enough idea: as a filmmaker (or really any artist), there's obvious value in having lots of resources at hand, but there's also the value of being one of the more well-known people in town. You lose the problem of competing with the big guns.

I guess the thing that's been bugging me is this: how big of a fish do I want to be in how big of a pond? And how big does that pond need to be for me to accomplish what I need to?

Or maybe, just maybe, there is no pond. Maybe the pond is really the ocean of film and I'm looking at this all wrong.

Indies I Recommend: TILT

This is a new feature where I talk about indies that I personally recommend. I'll write more about this later, but for now I'm just going to steal something I wrote earlier. It's an important feature as one of the most important things we can do as a film community is tell people about things they might like. It's the best way to spread the word.

For this one, we're going to talk about a pretty great Kickstarter campaign that ends soon.

Let's talk about the TILT campaign. It's a campaign idea so very awesome that I wish I had thought about it first. Basically what they've done is created TILT: The Town and using Google Maps and some old-fashioned creativity, they've moved every single one of their backers into Brainerd, MN, given them their own stories and place in the community (I was a car mechanic!), and used that to expand the story. It's a fascinating combination of audience building and transmedia. It's also a lot of fun.

5 of the Greatest People in the World, Part 18

There's a thing on Twitter called Follow Friday. Basically, you present a list of people that you recommend other people follow. It's a pretty popular idea and it makes everyone feel good. So with that in mind, I figure the least we can do for our wonderful Kickstarter backers is to give them a variant of the Follow Friday plug. So here they are, in order (well, some of them):


86. Patrick Lannigan: Patrick, a.k.a. The Irish Thug, is a poker-playing, uh, thug with a penchant for movies. He's currently working his way through the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die at his blog The Irish Thug. He was a damned fine lacrosse player in his day and graduated from Northeastern with a double major, which makes him way smarter than me. And probably way smarter than you.


87. Blake Irvin (@blakeirvin): Blake actually sold me the computer I'm typing this on, back when he worked at the Apple Store in Cranberry, PA. And yes, I need to get a new computer, as that was a long time ago. Blake and I went to the same college, where our circles would sometimes intersect, often at coffee houses and open mic things where Blake would play techo/dance music and I would, well, listen (I don't play any musical instruments). He's one of those guys who's ridiculously smart in ways I don't understand, other than realizing that he's very good at what he does. He's a passionate guy in that way and the scope of that is, simply put, often stunning. Check out his two blogs, I am so agree and ok boot.


88. Samuel Larson: Sam is one of the several backers who I know through poker. He's been a supporter of my work for awhile, having purchased a DVD in the past, which makes his super awesome. He has a keen sense of film, but an even better sense of economics and, more importantly, Minnesota sports. Minneapolis, by the way, is an amazingly cool city, one of my favorite places I've visited, even if the Metrodome was a terrible stadium. One of these days I'll have to check out the new park and, with any luck, Scott Baker will be pitching.


89. Lisa Chamblee: I thought I knew who Lisa Chamblee was, and spent a good chunk of time Googling, but was unable to find what I was looking for. If I'm thinking of the right person, then she has a Twitter account (which I can't find) and a blog (which I also can't find). Wait, scrap that. I'm thinking of someone else. But I'll venture a guess: the two people are connected somehow. I don't know how, exactly, but I bet they are. Regardless, thanks a million Lisa. We appreciate it. And if you're reading this, drop me a line. Let me know more about you.


90. Michael McWay (@Grand_Epic): Michael, who lives in San Francisco, writes the film blog Film as Folk Art. It's a new film blog, so take a minute and go check it out. Give the man some traffic in the beginning stages of film blogging because, really, the beginning posts are the hardest ones. You're not sure if anyone's even reading what you're writing and it can kind of feel like shouting into the abyss. But Michael's a smart guy, trying to find his film blog voice, so help him out. Give him some feedback. He'll be just fine.


Stay tuned for the rest of our backers! And, as always, you can still become a backer and get the same rewards as our other backers. Just click on the "Donate" button below and PayPal will take care of the rest.

Little known fact

Our old friends already know this (or, they might have an idea), but Up Country is not the first film I've made in the North Maine woods. Hell, it isn't even the second one (although the second one was a documentary that never really got released due to factors out of our control, but that's a story for a different day).

So sit back and enjoy the accidental verite film guard duty, in which two very intelligent people boil potatoes. They're standing in one of the Up Country locations, so this is also a bit of a sneak peak.



This is also the only film of mine I still show people that isn't on my IMDb page. Come on IMDb, get with the program.

I think I shot this on a Hi8 camera, or something. I don't remember. It wasn't my camera. It was, however, a finalist for some contest.

5 of the Greatest People in the World, Part 17

There's a thing on Twitter called Follow Friday. Basically, you present a list of people that you recommend other people follow. It's a pretty popular idea and it makes everyone feel good. So with that in mind, I figure the least we can do for our wonderful Kickstarter backers is to give them a variant of the Follow Friday plug. So here they are, in order (well, some of them):


81. Shannon Black (@loreleileigh): Shannon pens the blog Chain of Gratuitous Episodes, a mostly film and television blog written from the heart of the Bible Belt (that poor, poor soul). And not just the normal Bible Belt, but Mississippi, which doubly scary. Shannon is big on the whole Oscar prediction game, and while we may not agree on Inglourious Bastards, anyone who singles out Colin Firth's performance in A Single Man as the best of the year clearly knows their stuff (although I guess she could just be a big Colin Firth fan). Shannon was very helpful in getting the word out about the campaign via the Twitter, and that makes her doubly awesome.


82. Leilani Holmes (@momentsoffilm): Leilani's directorial debut Death of the Dinosaurs was nominated for a British Independent Film Award in 2006, and her second film, Transference is due later this year. Leilani, primarily an actress who's studied on both sides of the pond, blogs over at Moments of Film where she found, much like I did, that Whatever Works was much more enjoyable than she feared it might be. Myself I think it has a lot to do with Larry David, but then again I'm a huge Larry David fan.




83. Sharlynn Verner (@farbeyondfrail): Shar spends her time these days in Kansas City as the better-looking half of the hit band far beyond frail. Their new EP Wonder is available at the Radiohead-styled "name your own price" thing (come on, don't be cheap) and you can find pretty much all their music on iTunes. I know Shar from way back in the day when we went to college together and she dated my friend Steve. Her family was from the area and a bunch of us used to go to their house for epic movie marathons, the most memorable of which was the Shaquille O'Neal marathon. A few brave souls actually stayed up all night watching, in order, Good Burger, Kazaam, Steel, and Blue Chips. I know what you're thinking: that sounds awful. It wasn't. It was much, much worse.


84. Sarah James (@ScareSarah): Sarah runs the UK based horror blog Scare Sarah, which writes about a ton of movies that have way too much blood for me to watch without getting sick. Have I mentioned that I have a weak stomach? I do. But speaking of blood, Sarah runs some kick-ass contests where her readers can win cool shit like this mug and this so very awesome mug from The Shining, which I must have. I simply must.


85. Dean Brandt (@dreamingant): Dean runs Dreaming Ant, which is without a doubt Pittsburgh's premiere DVD rental store. And since it's a DVD rental place and everyone knows that the coolest thing about the rental store is the staff picks, check out Dean's list, which is perhaps the longest staff pick list in the history of rental stores. No seriously, it's insane. And to give you an idea of Dreaming Ant's awesomeness, their all-time top rental? City of God. I know, right? So if you're in the Bloomfield area, stop by. Tell them I sent you.



Stay tuned for the rest of our backers! And, as always, you can still become a backer and get the same rewards as our other backers. Just click on the "Donate" button below and PayPal will take care of the rest.

UP COUNTRY Novella: Chapter 9

I've decided that in the process of raising $$ and working on Up Country (or whatever we end up calling it), to release the story in serialized novella form. Every $500 we raise, I'll put out another chapter. I'll be writing it (and revising it) as we go, so if we raise money faster than I can write, so be it. We've hit our goal, but we haven't finished the story yet. Enjoy!


[Carlton Cuse voice]

previously, on UP COUNTRY

[/Cuse]



Chapter 9

At first, it was nothing but silence and darkness.

The first thing to come back was the sound of breathing--heavy and labored, a little panicked. Then, birds chirping, the wind rustling, until finally John dared open his eyes.

Through the grass he could see a foot, then a leg. Paul was prone, not moving, and John was pretty sure he'd been shot. Without Paul, John knew he was fucked. It was simply a matter of the bad guys picking them off one by one. First Mark had been taken by the guy with an axe, and now Paul had been gunned down in a clearing. He wondered if there was more than one guy. Was the axe murderer working with the Guide? And if so, was there a third person? One guy he could elude. Two people, maybe. But three? Four?

On top of that, Paul was the one with the wilderness experience, the one who knew which berries you could eat and which were poisonous. John was pretty sure he could keep his bearings, but if he didn't know which way he was supposed to go, what good was that?

As John started to contemplate his next step, he noticed Paul's foot had moved. He was alive. But there was no telling if it was safe, so he had to stay quiet, he had to keep his voice down.

Psst

Paul's head whipped around and a sense of relief broke over his face. John held a finger over his lips and Paul nodded. They would have to communicate silently, using nothing more than hand gestures and lip reading.

"You ok?" John mouthed.

Paul nodded. "You?"

John nodded.

"Is it clear?" Paul couldn't see anyone, but wanted to be sure.

"Maybe?" John motioned for Paul to come toward the grass, and was careful to form the word, "Slowly."

Paul put his head down and used his elbows to work his way over to the grass. He angled himself to where he could have a better view of the clearing.

John made the universal signal for a gun with his hand and pointed toward the direction of the shot. It was the direction from which they had come. Could there be any doubt about the intentions?

Paul didn't need to do anything to communicate the next part. His face said it all. Paul was right. They couldn't go back to the camp. There was an axe and now a gun versus their knife. Going that way was out of the question. Mark's best chance was for them to find their way out and send the police in after him.

But first, they had to get the hell out of this clearing.

They looked around. The best they could tell, they were surrounded by woods. Logic dictated that their best move was to head for woods that were close, while being in the opposite direction from which they came.

John pointed over his shoulder and Paul nodded.

"On three"

John held up three fingers.

They both pushed themselves up onto their hands.

Two fingers.

Then their knees.

One finger.

Ready.

Go.

Hunched over, their heads down, they ran as fast as they could, trying to stay below the grass line whenever possible. The woods loomed. Another shot rang out, this one farther away (was it a warning shot?), and they threw themselves into the woods.

And still they ran, weaving in and out of trees, taking some solace in the fact that the tree trunks would at least deflect a bullet. The branches whipped at their faces, at their clothes, but they didn't care.

After a while, when John was reasonably sure they had put enough distance between themselves and the clearing, he slowed to a stop. Paul slowed too and they both took a minute to catch their breath.

Hands on their knees, they struggled for air and looked around. There was nothing but trees in every direction. Nothing looked familiar. Nothing looked any different than anything else.

Had they run father into the woods or closer to the highway? There was no way to tell. John pulled out his cell phone. There was still no service.

But at least no one was shooting at them. That was something, at least.



...to be continued...

These chapters will be free until a cliffhanger near the end when they'll only be for our backers. You can still become a backer and get the same rewards as our other backers. Just click on the "Donate" button below and PayPal will take care of the rest.

5 of the Greatest People in the World, Part 16

There's a thing on Twitter called Follow Friday. Basically, you present a list of people that you recommend other people follow. It's a pretty popular idea and it makes everyone feel good. So with that in mind, I figure the least we can do for our wonderful Kickstarter backers is to give them a variant of the Follow Friday plug. So here they are, in order (well, some of them):


76. Yen Tan: Yen feature drama Ciao, was released theatrically in a bunch of cities a couple of years ago by Regent. Variety called it "A contemplative grace note". It won some awards. It even got a vote in the Muriel Awards for cinematography. He is also a pretty amazing designer, and is the guy behind all of the super cool posters that never stop coming out of Austin these days, as well as a bunch of other stuff. See, I told you he was good. Yen is currently prepping his next film.




77. Kirsten Bestor (@kirstenbestor): I'm so bad at names. I just realized that Kirsten went to the same college I did. To be fair, once I did forget my own middle name, so please don't take it personally Kirsten. Now that I've done some Facebook scanning, I think the pieces are starting to fall into place. She would have been a freshman my senior year, majoring in English. And even though I minored in English, I don't think we had any classes together (I didn't spend a lot of time on campus my final semester). I hesitate to say this, because I don't want to be wrong, but I think she was one of the roommates of a girl I was dating. At minimum, they're good friends. See, I kind of figured it out. These days, Kirsten is married, has 2 kids, and works at our old alma mater in the Cardiovascular Sciences Program (there's a Cardiovascular Sciences Program? Since when? See, this is what happens when you don't go to alumni functions.)


78. Jarrod Whaley (@jbwhaley): Mere days ago, Jarrod successfully funded The Glass Slipper, his second feature-length film, and has already begun filming. His first film, Hell is Other People premiered this last spring to sold-out shows at Cinequest, and then not-so-sold-out shows at Indies for Indies. But that's ok, because he's not bitter (right?). These days Jarrod lives in San Francisco with his girlfriend Ginger after living far too long in Chattanooga, TN. In a strange way, I feel oddly connected to Jarrod. We lived in Chattanooga at the same time (although I don't think we ever met) and now we're funding our second features at the same time. One might even think I'm stalking him. But I'm not, honest. Whoever told you that is a liar.




79. Brian Czarniecki (@briczar): Remember that play I was in that Dan Stiker directed? No? Oh. Well I'm not really sure how I ended up doing that. I'm not an actor. Oh sure, I gave a ground-breaking performance as a robot in a school play, but that was more an unwavering commitment to doing the voice than anything else. So, when Dan cast me in this play, I had no idea what the hell I was doing (or how the hell I even got there), and poor Brian was forced to play opposite me. The thing is, Brian is a really good actor, easily one of the best in Pittsburgh, and I'd put him in a damned film if he wasn't so damned busy. It would have been really easy for him to grumble about how bad I was, but he didn't. He took extra time to show me what I was doing wrong, some easy ways to do it better, stuff like that. It was immensely helpful. And when I'd suddenly add a string of profanity to my dialogue because I couldn't remember my lines, he went with it like it was in the script. A true pro.


80. Chris Cook: Chris Cook is a fine human being. Other than that, I don't know. There's a Chris Cook that's a friend of Gary King on Facebook, so that's possible, but that Kickstarter account didn't back Gary's campaign, so it seems unlikely. Chris Cook is just too common of a name to make a good guess. Even when I googled the email address listed, it came up empty. So Chris, whoever you are, thanks a bunch. And say hi. Let us know a bit about you.



Stay tuned for the rest of our backers! And, as always, you can join them!

actual Kickstarter backer data

Some actual numbers from our Kickstarter campaign

I classified all our backers into three categories (friend, colleague, and stranger), the defining quality being how do I know them first? The "# %" is the percentage of backers and the "$$ %" is how much money they gave.

This is a breakdown of what day of the week people gave.




And this is the hour of the day, Eastern time.

Hopefully more to come.

The Cutting Room Floor

I talk with Casey Ryan of The Cutting Room Floor (@CuttingRoomMRB) about Up Country, Kickstarter, and what to do when you encounter a bear in the woods. Check it out!