Back in Gear

After a brief hiatus for the holidays, I'm back on the project at hand...

I received a call (several, actually) from an actor in Chicago whose agent, he said, had sent him the info on the project from NEFilm.com. He was a real mover, this one, and strove to assure me that he had whatever it took to be in my movie. He was missing a prime ingredient, though. Tact. During the course of a five minute conversation, he twice told me what a loser place RI was. "There's nothing going on there."
"Have you ever been here?"
"Well, no. But I've seen it on the map and it's no bigger than a shoe."
When I finally convinced him that he and Elephants were not made for one another, he promoted a friend of his who was an amazing editor and would be super for this movie.
"Has he ever done documentaries?" I asked- reasonably.
"No. But I'm sure he'd be great. He's such a cool editor."
I finally told him to have him call me and we'd talk. I felt like Hollywood and suddenly I knew where those phrases came from and what they were used for. He had one more question, though.
"Would you pay his airfare out there?"
Good luck in your career, dude.

I received my interim business cards for the project around Christmas and have been leaving them off in libraries, train stations, etc. ever since. They have this blog's URL on them and I'm hoping that more and more people will become aware of and maybe even contribute to the project. I want to hear stories!

And speaking of contributing, I'm now in the process of finding a fiscal agent for the project so that I can apply for more funding. That in itself is a project, since I can't just walk up to any old non-profit and ask them to handle my money for me. I have to prove, actually, that I have a viable project and a reasonable track record, so that they're not tying themselves up for nothing. So it's the paperwork game again.

There are some slick fundraising websites that I've explored, like indiegogo.com and fundable.com, but they make me a little nervous. I don't see any accountability factor, like fiscal agents, etc. These sites are, in essence, electronic house parties where people can go to donate cash to projects that suit them. More on this as things progress. I've registered with both, but am not sure how I'll use them yet.

Fundraising, is, obviously, the part of the project I feel least comfortable with. But it is the name of the game if I want to make a decent product and get it seen...