LOS ANGELES, Ca. -
Two filmmakers with roots in W.Va. are teaming up with the W.Va. chapter of the Alzheimer's Association to launch a Text2Give campaign.
The project will raise funds for the production of a film called Angel's Perch.
J.T. Arbogast and Kimberly Dilts plan to start shooting the film in early the early summer in the historic logging town of Cass, in Pocahontas County.
The filmmakers say the technology allows people to make donations through their cell phones.
They hope to raise the remaining $260,000 of the $475,000 budget needed to complete the film and edit it by April 1.
This will allow them to remain on schedule and begin filming on June 5.
If the team is successful, it would be the first time in history that a film was funded with this technology.
Arbogast and Dilts began their filmmaking journey in February of 2011, with a successful campaign that raised $32,000 on Kickstarter.com, an interactive web site that allows artists to raise money for creative projects from individual contributors.
The initial $32,000 provided the starter funds the filmmakers needed to begin the project, allowing them to finalize the script's legal paperwork and contracts, bring the director to West Virginia to scout locations and shoot footage for a trailer, and in late January 2012, to shoot the first five minutes of the film in Los Angeles.
However, while the filmmakers garnered generous pro-bono support from local businesses such as Snowshoe Resort, Pocahontas County Convention and Visitors Bureau, and the Green Bank Observatory, they found raising equity to be especially difficult in the current economic climate.
"The downturn has been difficult for small businesses across the country, and that definitely includes independent filmmakers," says Dilts. "Making a movie on your own is never easy, but we really hit a wall. And if we wanted to shoot in 2012, we knew it was time to think further outside of the box."
An extraordinary partnership with the Alzheimer's Association, West Virginia Chapter allowed the Angel's Perch team to apply for grants and foundation support, but grants can take a long time to come to fruition.
So the filmmakers began exploring more ways to get the community involved.
"We have always known that the real power is in this state, this community-it's one of the things we're looking to celebrate in this film-the power of the West Virginia community to support its members and lend a hand when you need it most," said Arbogast. "We know people don't have a lot of extra cash these days. But we also know that a lot of small donations can really add up-if one in 70 West Virginians gave $10 to the film, we'd be at our goal."
Five years ago, a Text2Give campaign like this wouldn't have been possible. "Independent filmmaking has changed radically in the past few years," says Dilts. "It used to be that you cobbled together the money to shoot, you went to festivals, and you prayed that a studio bought your film. Today's reality is different. Filmmakers have to create a community and an audience now-to make it not only possible to shoot the film, but to say to distributors, 'look here! This is our audience! This is who believes in us and who wants to see this movie.' If we succeed with our text to give campaign, we will not only be able to make a beautiful film that celebrates the best of West Virginia, but we will be making history!"
The inspiration for Angel's Perch came from the writer's own roots in Pocahontas County and his experiences with the disease.
"Everyone has an emotional home - the place that defines your happiest memories. Forme, that place is a small town in the mountains of West Virginia," says Arbogast. "In 2004, my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and over the next few years I watched as she slowly lost her memories. There was something poetic about her struggle to hang on to her memories while living in a place she loved so much that is itself a preserved memory."
Arbogast was also tired of seeing the state he loved misrepresented on the big screen. "West Virginia is so often depicted in films as a place where terrifying hillbillies come down out of the mountains to kill college kids-- but that's not the West Virginia that I know," Arbogast says. "It's a state full of beautiful landscapes."
All content © Copyright 2000 - 2013 WorldNow and WVNS. All Rights Reserved.
