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.
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.
