Since we had to hock our crystal ball in pre-production to pay for film stock, we’re forced to approach these post-production fund-raising efforts with full confidence that everyone we know, and should know, will hear about this amazing opportunity, show up to the party, and contribute whatever is needed to reach our main goal.  We want to believe it because this kind of response will bless us with the opportunity to forget about all the producer stuff and allow us to get back to being creative.  But blessings often come in disguise.  When reality sets in, we find the real benefit is that we’ve learned a lot about crowdfunding, and can now focus on the next phase of being a producer, the double-down; the never-ending search for our next audience, folks that don’t even know we exist.  Truth-be-told, that’s how success usually happens in the indie film world.  In short… we’ve only scratched the surface!

Now that the campaign has ended and our funds are set to hit the bank account this coming week, I’m in talks with my account manager at Fotokem.  They’ve begun preparing for the first round of services listed in our Indiegogo budget.  After platform fees, we’ll end up with about $4,300.  This is enough to clean & prep the negative, generate the IP print and scan our beautiful analog film elements into the digital realm. While we did not raise our full goal and won’t have enough money to get to the finish line, we now have a digital element that has basic dust & scratch removal baked in.  This means that we’ll have a “clean” element that we can use to pull shots for the creation of a proper fund-raising trailer.

Throughout the process of my first-ever crowdfunding effort, I’ve come to appreciate everything that movie producers go through to help the creative department “pull-off” a project.  That’s what it feels like, an up-hill battle of attrition.  Now that I’ve come to accept my role as a producer, I’ve been learning as much as possible about the ins and outs of film fund-raising, and M&D (marketing & distribution.)  Completion of a movie trailer that is specifically designed for the fund-raising process will be critical for this and all other projects moving forward.  That’s because investors understand the project much better when there’s a visual presentation that addresses their questions, respects their busy schedule, and accommodates their business-oriented frame of mind.  So the next step is to write & edit a trailer that will help find the rest of the money needed to finish.

After years of work, it sounds like another frustration; just another flaming hoop to jump through when all we want is to be done.  But a more professional, realistic attitude allows me to absorb certain realities of film making, namely that the trailer creation process is a valuable boot camp for anyone who needs to giving rise to their own projects featuring ideas and concepts that they have created and/or developed as professional storytellers.  This experience will help finish the project at-hand and then also pay dividends once we go into pre-production on the next film.  When I finish cutting the trailer, I’ll start submitting it to various funding sources (grants & angel investors) through various types of proposals tailored to each audience.

The Land is a story that I plan to expand with additional episodes.  This means we’ll end up with a feature length story which makes the project more attractive to large investors and distributors alike.  In the meantime, I’m gathering all the physical and digital perk items that can be delivered to you sooner than later.  Thanks for your continued interest and patience while we do our best to do this thing the right way.

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That’s it!
-Blake