Hey guys, it's David West here. Sorry I've been so slow
updating everyone on what's been going on now that our fundraiser ended but
it's been a VERY busy last couple of weeks for me. I was the best man at my
little brother's wedding, I went to a family reunion to celebrate my grandparent's
50th anniversary, I did a couple odd jobs to keep afloat while I work on movies,
I'm getting ready to crash the Portland Gun Buy-Back, and last Thursday I had
my arraignment for a "disorderly conduct" charge I got when I was arrested while protesting a police speed-trap with
a "Tax Whore Pig!" sign a couple weeks ago.
I have the whole thing on video - or at least, I will as
soon as the PD returns the back-up camera they confiscated from me - and it
should prove very interesting to expose some of the claims made on the police
report. You'll definitely be seeing a video about it sometime in the future. I've
got a good, freedom-loving, Ron Paul supporting lawyer so I have no doubt that
I'll be able to beat the charges.
Anyway... I'd planned on doing this as a video update but I have a few things
I'm still trying to get finalized before Paul Fest and I didn't want to wait
any longer to finish the video (the piggy-pigs having my tripod hasn't helped,
either), so I'm just going to write it. I want to give a big shout out to all
of the awesome people who helped us in our fundraiser, but unfortunately we
didn't raise nearly as much as we'd hoped to, so we've had to change our plans
a little bit.
After IndieGoGo's fees we only raised about $2,000. Once
all the perks are awarded (T-Shirts in particular aren't cheap) we have even
less. We basically only raised enough to either make the trailer or go to Paul
Fest and the RNC, but I fortunately figured out a way that I THINK we should
still be able to do both.
We'd wanted to finish the trailer and premiere it at Paul Fest, but we realized
not long after we'd started the fundraiser that we probably weren't going to
raise the kind of money we'd need to do that. That's why we shot the teaser
trailer; so we'd at least have SOMETHING to show people about "The Smoking
Gun." To stretch our funds as far as possible, we are using the money we
raised from the fundraiser to go to Paul Fest, and in addition I'm investing
over $1200 out of my own wallet into a booth at Paul Fest and 500 copies of One
Man's terrorist on DVD, which we will then sell at Paul Fest. I should only
need to sell about 100 DVDs to break even on the initial investment and everything
we sell beyond that will be profit. Hopefully, we'll be able to sell enough to
come back from the trip with an extra couple thousand dollars we can use to
finance the production of the more extensive trailer for The Smoking Gun,
because if not it's going to be paid for completely out of our rather shallow
pockets.
Once we get back from Paul Fest, though, the plan is to get right back to work
on the trailer and a few other film making projects I've been developing. The
beauty of this plan is that, now that we aren't working under a deadline, we
can spend more time working on the trailer, and as you know, time is money.
Where before we would have had to spend good money to quickly build a jail cell
set, now we can afford to shop around and acquire all the components needed for
it for a more reasonable price. Essentially, having more time to work on the
trailer will allow us to create it even more cheaply.
To get ready for Paul Fest, I've been working on adding some more special
features like a directors commentary to the One Man's Terrorist DVD. The plan
is to sell the DVDs for $15 a pop and $20 for autographed copies, but we're
going to be supporting a good cause while we're at it.
10% of all our DVD sales and 100% of the extra $5 from
autographed copies will be donated to helping libertarian journalist and
Ron Paul supporter Glenn Horowitz modify his car for wheelchair access. Glenn
was crippled by multiple sclerosis in 2006, and is a fan of my films who has further
demonstrated his good tastes by being a hardcore fan of Joss Whedon's firefly,
so I figure it's the least we can do for him.
The procedure to modify his Honda Element for wheelchair
access is going to cost about $26,000, and If you're interested in donating to
help him, here is the link to his "Get Glenn Mobile" IndieGoGo
campaign:
I'm also donating 25 DVDs to his
campaign as perks so even if you can't make it to Paul Fest but you'd like to
help Glenn and get an autographed copy of One Man's Terrorist, check out his
campaign and donate $25.
I want to let everyone know that I'm working on getting all the perks fulfilled but because we had some issues getting our IndieGoGo funds properly dispersed (I forgot that my debit card expired in the middle of the campaign, so my funds weren't properly dispersed at first and ended up being delayed about 2 weeks because of it), things did get delayed a bit. I have ordered the shirts now but unfortunately it's probably going to be another two weeks before they're ready and therefore I might not be able to send them out until early September when we return from the RNC. Part of the reason the wait is so long is because I'm getting a really good deal on them, though, so I appreciate all of your patience! Considering the budget we're working with every penny we save is that much more we'll be able to use for the film effort!
So I think that pretty much covers everything... Thanks again for all of your support in our IndieGoGo campaign and if any of you are going to be at Paul Fest or the RNC let me know because I'd love to meet up while I'm out there! Before I leave I want to tell you that, if you haven't already, you absolutely must check out the concept teaser trailer for Gray State, a police-state action-thriller in development by fellow libertarian filmmaker David Crowley. If you like what I've done, you'll LOVE Gray State. I've embedded their trailer below and linked to their IndieGoGo campaign below it if you'd like to donate. Check it out, and keep up the fight, guys! Keep your eyes open for another video update further discussing our plans for Paul Fest before we hit the road in a week!
