Josh Kornbluth

Josh Kornbluth

Please Help Us Make Our New Movie!

by

My brother Jacob and I — who only a few short years ago collaborated on the movie Haiku Tunnel — are now working on another film, titled Love & Taxes.  It’s a sequel, of sorts, to Haiku, since it also stars me and will have many of the wonderful people working on it who were in our first film (along with a bunch of new wonderful people).  And, like Haiku, it is based on a theatrical monologue of mine — this one done in collaboration with my theatrical director, David Dower.

We’re planning to shoot this film (at least to start with) as a sequence of these “test shoots” — with our hope being that they will be of good-enough quality to make up the actual movie.  And we’re trying out a new technique of raising money and awareness for our projects — by making use of a cool new website called IndieGoGo.

It would be hecksa-fantastic if you would take a few moments to click here and go to the Love & Taxes IndieGoGo page.  There (starting in the left column) you can (if you wish) donate to the production (and get a cool “perk”!), and/or sign up as our “Friend” (which, besides helping us greatly, entitles you to see the “private” documents on our page), “endorse” us, rate our project — any way that you’d like to become part of our process.

This is an exciting (and somewhat scary) experiment to see if we can make use of the power of the Internet (and of our friends) to grow a feature film entirely from the grassroots.  If we can raise $15,000 this way, we can go ahead and do another “test shoot” — an action sequence involving tax law!  (Bet you haven’t seen that before, either!)

So if you can, please do check out our IndieGoGo page — and become an integral part of creating a cool new independent film!

13 thoughts on “Please Help Us Make Our New Movie!”

  1. Hi, Josh — Very interesting!

    Have you considered releasing these test shots under a Creative Commons license? If so, it would be a no-brainer for me to promote this on my “Free Culture” related web site where my vast audience of 100+ readers would learn about it. Also you’d likely receive plugs from Creative Commons (which has a much more vast audience), and mentions at other web sites where people like to talk about supporting new business models.

    To me — and I think many others — the CC licensing and chance to support free culture and alternate models would provide a lot of value for my contribution. (In addition to getting to see the movie, of course.)

    However, I’ll be happy to kick in a donation in any case, because I enjoyed Haiku Tunnel so much. It’s just that I think the promotional opportunities from releasing with a CC license — even with the tepid non-commercial clause — could be significant. (If you wanted to release only the test shots under CC and not the eventual movie, that would have to be very clear to avoid a backlash later.)

    I understand if this might be impractical with arrangements you’ve already made, so I hope you don’t feel uncomfortable telling me “thanks but no thanks.”

    Finally: great clip! I want to see more!

  2. (On further thought: Ideally, the eventual movie would be Creative Commons licensed also, I think. But again, I realize this may be a bit ambitious on my part.)

  3. Hey Josh – I can’t afford cash donations right now, but if you have any need for a photographer for publicity purposes I’d be willing to talk trade…

  4. Scott, this is a terrific suggestion! I’ve long been fascinated by the Creative Commons model, and this could be the perfect opportunity to use it. I’m going to check out http://www.creativecommons.org/ and ask around — and if this won’t impede the chance of our eventual film to eventually have a typical theatrical distribution (should we be so fortunate), then I’d love to do it. Please feel free to pass along to me any other leads or links for my self-education in CC licensing. (And on a somewhat — but not totally — related point, your comments have reminded me that I want to read Lewis Hyde’s book “The Gift.”)

  5. Julie, thanks so much for going to the IndieGoGo site and signing up as a “friend” — that’s incredibly helpful! And yes, if we have any need for a photographer, I’ll definitely be in touch!

  6. Okay, I’m in! Release the movie under a CC license and I’ll double my contribution. 🙂

    I sent an email to Mike Linksvayer at Creative Commons to point him your way and ask for any tips. Since CC is based in San Francisco, maybe you can even meet in person with someone there.

  10. Hi Josh,

    Scott Carpenter (see above) pointed me in this direction. It would be extremely cool to release the new film under a CC license. Feel free to ping me ml@creativecommons.org if you’d like to chat about it.

    Another recent film with a crowd-funding aspect, Sita Sings the Blues, was released under a CC license earlier this year (and for anyone in SF, it’s playing at the Red Vic starting Friday). 🙂

    Mike

  11. Thanks, Mike! I’m about to drop you an email so I can learn more about the CC stuff. Also, I’m just starting up a video blog (weekly, I think), and I want to inquire about CC’ing that as well.

  12. I can’t contribute at the moment, but I did link from blog. Hopefully it will catch the eye of someone with a little more money than me.

Comments are closed.