Hoodoo you call when you need a bit of help to finance your dream film?
For Justin Kueber and Sam Reid, the team behind Guerrilla Motion Pictures, they’re calling on the crowd with a new Indiegogo campaign. The cinematic duo has long been holding on to a passion project called On the Rocks. Shooting in the Drumheller area has always been an ambition of the team.
After years of figuring out the right time to put the wheels in motion, they went to the picturesque landscape in the south of the province to scope out filming locations last week in preparation for shooting, set to take place this summer. There’s nothing quite like the otherworldly scenery with its canyons, gulleys, buttes and yes, hoodoos scattered throughout the mostly barren clay-rich terrain.
“We just have the craziest shots. It’s going to look nice but it’s the fact that we’ve got to raise some funds for it,” Kueber said.
Grace and Adam are two lovestruck teens who decide to run away and find their way on the road. Things start off swimmingly but landing in the Alberta Badlands, however, finds them stranded and running out of food. Desperate times call for desperate measures and the young relationship is put to the test.
The challenges that the young lovers face are meant to stand for larger issues, Kueber continued.
“It’s an idea that we’ve had for a long time. It’s kind of a basic story on the front but the entire film is a metaphor for the destructive impacts of industrialization and the importance of environmental preservation. So we want to go to the Badlands where it’s just there. There’s pretty much just rock everywhere. It’s kind of a statement. No one wants to live here.”
While it sounds like it might have taken a page from Terrence Malick’s 1973 opus, Badlands, it’s actually more akin to the 1971 Nicolas Roeg movie Walkabout set in the Australian Outback.
“That was a big influence to us so we wanted to do something similar to that but taking on newer themes.”
The company has pegged the production at a cost of $16,000. The film could be made under budget, he noted, except that it would force the removal of some key elements, including special effects – “some very important special effects,” Kueber emphasized – something that the duo anticipates could take up to two-thirds of the cost, along with hotel expenses for the modest cast and production crew. Feeding and paying the team is no small order either.
The deadline for the crowdfunding campaign is July 28.
“We’ve never really tried it out before and we always wanted to try crowdfunding. People are always talking about it.”
As usual with such Internet enterprises, there are a variety of enticing perks available for sponsors, ranging from Twitter shout outs at $10 to Guerrilla T-shirts for $75 to associate producer status for $1,000. If you had $5k then you could fulfil a lifelong goal of becoming an executive producer, which would also entitle the donor to a copy of the script, a DVD, and an invite to the set, among other extras. Further details can be found at www.indiegogo.com/projects/on-the-rocks-short-film#/story.
Kueber and Reid are also looking at equity financing.
They hope to take the 40-page short film-to-film festivals after it’s completed. Their recent short, The Path, screened at four film festivals including NextFest, the St. Albert Film Festival, and the Red Deer College Alumni Film Festival. It was also selected as one of the top short films in the City TV Short Film Showcase.
