We Don't Want To Beg

Good evening everyone. I suppose I shouldn't be that specific. I have no idea when you're reading this. How about "Hello everyone"? Is that better? Good.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about things lately. Robot Vampire Productions has a pretty full slate of projects coming. Not only does Lepus debut on the Death By VHS DVD on September 17th but we have several projects on the horizon. We are currently writing a feature length version of Lepus that we hope to start soon. We also have another short film, Terrestrial, we hope to start shooting in the very near future. Then there's the documentary I'm talking about doing as well as another horror short called Unhinged.

Yes, we're busy.

Add that to the three shows each that Brian and I do, plus all the supplemental shows and you'd wonder how Brian is ever able to play Magic The Gathering or I'm able to watch all the movies I do for The Gorram Nerd Hour.

Now that we've got that out of the way I would like to talk to you about what we're struggling with. When it comes down to it money is always an issue when making even the shortest of short films...unless you're Kevin Moyers and then you'd argue that Vine is the future. But we're not Kevin and would summarily ignore him when he begins to talk about Vine again. No, instead we would like to talk about the validity of Kickstarter and IndieGoGo. Sure, these are great tools. Sure, they help people get stuff made that otherwise may not have been. But you could also say that the world would be a better place if people like Spike Lee and Zach Braff weren't begging for your money.

When we made Lepus we had nothing but ambition. And even though I am proud of the end result I can't help but look at the short with a small degree of sadness. The reason I say that is because we didn't have the time nor did we have the resources to do some of the things I would have done. And that came down to money.

Terrestrial is the next thing on the slate. Much of the Lepus cast is returning. And we'd really like to pay them this time. They are working actors, after all. Now the question is this - do we go the crowdfunding route? I'm not 100% opposed to it. In fact I think it can be a great tool when not being used by tools. If we use it I would prefer it be used as a stepping stone, something where we use it to complete a few small things that help this company build a reel. After that we have something we can show people to hopefully find investors. That's what I see crowdfunding as being good for. I wouldn't want to use it to fund a feature, especially a feature being made by someone who is a big name in show business.

We would love to hear your feedback and possible suggestions on how we can do this without Kickstarter and IndieGoGo.

Hugs and Kisses,

Jacob