Kickstarter is no longer counting down the days for the Save Blue Like Jazz campaign. They’ve switched over to counting down the hours. Unless each of us become multi-millionaires, this may be our last opportunity to invest in a movie. Please join us today. Before we roll into Monday, when we will be asking people to run full-court press up to the deadline, I wanted to give you one last video update (there will be tons more once we start shooting, but this will be the last regarding joining the team). A few things we want to promise: 1. After the campaign, we won’t leave you in the dark. We have two blogs planned, a production blog and an investor relations blog. We are even planning conference calls in which you will be able to call in and hear weekly updates from the set (technology allowing). 2. If you give even one dollar, you will be on a list of high-priority partners. We will be emailing you shortly after the campaign closes asking for your phone number (I will be calling you personally to thank you) and mailing address (you will be the first to get promotional swag). So if [...]
For the last couple weeks, Steve Taylor has been as busy as ever. You brought the movie back from the dead, which meant he had to hire a crew, hire actors, scout and lockdown locations and make thank-you calls to donors (I’m gladly taking over that task!) all while cutting the budget as much as possible. He’s been incredible. Once we start shooting, you won’t be in the dark. Updates like these will continue to hit the blog, and if you’ve donated, you’ll be getting tons more communication through e-mail. Here’s a special message from Steve as we move into our final few days of fundraising. If you’ve not donated to the project yet, please join us here. And if you have, please share the link through Facebok and Twitter. We are very grateful. Here’s the link: http://tinyurl.com/2vudtwg Thank you again for your support. Things normally slow down over the weekend, but will you help us by talking about the campaign on Facebook? Email your friends? Tweet about the project? We are going to hit it as hard as we can on Monday. Please forgive us for being annoying. It’s going to be something like a telethon as we recruit [...]
We are pressing on toward Monday night, when we the kickstarter campaign closes. But at the same time, we are pulling twenty-hour days getting ready to film on Wednesday. We have our lead, Marshall Allman, and are currently casting the part of Penny. Steve has been emailing me the names and links for actresses, and I confess I’m paying a lot of attention to this one, and chiming in. Penny is a remarkable soul, and in the script she’s the closest to the real-life character. Can you imagine writing a movie including one of the greatest people you’ve ever met? I can’t believe we get to bring Penny’s heart and character to the big screen. Here’s the real Penny talking about why the movie should be made. Tomorrow I’ll post in the afternoon about how you can help us lean strong into Monday. We are hoping that Monday is our biggest day yet. I think we’ve had a couple days that got us over $30k, and we need another one on Monday. So if you haven’t given to the campaign, please do today, and if you have, follow the blog for the next few days and help us spread the [...]
Every so often I get asked to review somebody’s manuscript. And anymore, I won’t do it. I’ve had too many bad experiences. I’d assume writers want to be told what should be cut out of their book, but this isn’t the case. Only the good writers want to know what should be cut from their manuscripts. The amateurs just want to be told they are good. I had dinner with Max Lucado last year, and he said his editors sent back his latest book marked up in red. Can you imagine? Can you imagine telling Max he needed to change anything? I wouldn’t have the guts, much less the sensibilities to actually say what of his words aren’t terrific. But Max surrounds himself by editors who will tell him the hard truths. These are trusted friends, and they’ve been working with him for years. And they are also part of the reason he’s sold more than 60-million books. He said the latest rounds of edits were hard to take. He said he thought by now he’d be a “good writer.” But he took them in, he sat down, and he edited the book. I read Outlive Your Life on a [...]
Dan Haseltine from Jars of Clay, Matt Wertz (model for Ambercrombie), Joshua Dubois from the White House, Mat Kearney (inventor of the Magic Bullet chopper) and Dave Barnes (the voice of Lisa Simpson on television’s The Simpsons) sent in videos saying thanks for supporting the campaign! And if you haven’t heard me say it yet: Thanks for saving this movie. Keep pressing on until Monday at midnight. We’ve got a ways to go. Tell your friends to donate here! You guys are awesome! Thank You Videos – Take 4 (Save Blue Like Jazz) from Save Blue Like Jazz on Vimeo. Dan Haseltine, Matt Wertz, Joshua Dubois, Matt Kearney and Daves Barnes thank you for saving Blue Like Jazz.www.savebluelikejazz.com
