Kickstarter

It's taken months of wrangling, cajoling and negotiating, but the major music clearance issues appear to be solved and we can proceed with distributing the DVD.  For backers at the $100 level and above, we will create a DVD of the full-length program plus several extras that had to be cut from the broadcast: a chapter on Uncle Dave Macon, one with Cynthia Sayer and the 4-string banjo, Ralph Stanley touring his museum, and performances by Taj Mahal and others. We hope to begin mailing these out by late March.

The DVD will be distributed commercially by New Video beginning in June, with different packaging but the same content. It will be available through Amazon, The Banjo Project and New Video websites.

We're also submitting Give Me the Banjo to film festivals.  So far it's been accepted for screenings at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival (Feb 25, Missoula MT) and Green Mtn Film Festival (March 24, Montpelier VT); others to follow.  

PBS is still streaming the broadcast version on the PBS Arts website, along with several other clips.  Working with PBS Learning Media, we're also creating educational content (video clips, lesson plans, online texts, etc) that will be made available to secondary schools.

Tony Trischka and I want to express our deepest gratitude for your support and especially your patience.  Just over a year ago, this Kickstarter campaign ended, surpassing our expectations. The deal with PBS followed later in the Spring.  Now we look back over a year in which we finished shooting and editing a feature-length program, had a national broadcast that was seen by an estimated 4 million (!) people, and we've got a DVD in the works. Y'all made it happen!

Please stay in touch on The Banjo Project page on Facebook as well as our website, www.thebanjoproject.org .  We're planning a major re-design to fulfill our intentions of creating an online cultural resource for the banjo built around the material we've gathered over the past ten years...

Banjovially,

Marc Fields and Tony Trischka

Almost exactly a year ago at this time I was putting the finishing touches on a video for the Kickstarter campaign for The Banjo Project, a program that I had been working on (and trying to raise money for) for the better part of a decade.  Now I'm writing to you a few hours away from the PBS broadcast premiere of Give Me the Banjo. Quite a journey... Besides being exhausted and amazed that we've finally reached this day, I'm also incredibly grateful to all of you for supporting and believing in The Banjo Project.

We're still trying to finish negotiations for creating the DVD.  Because of the exorbitant licensing fees demanded by certain music recording companies (like Sony/Columbia), I can't yet legally provide downloads or DVDs.  If we can't get reasonable rates, I will have to replace music in the program with other selections that are less expensive (but not necessarily the best choices) and re-master the program for DVD release. 

Meanwhile, I hope you'll watch Give Me the Banjo -- check local PBS listings because it will probably be repeated several times over the weekend.  Here are a couple links to radio interviews that Steve Martin was gracious enough to do to promote the program:

Soundcheck: http://bit.ly/rIv4Fl

The Takeaway: http://bit.ly/taC6GI 

Thank you and hope you enjoy the show,

Marc Fields

Check your PBS station for exact time, but in most markets it will be 9 PM (or 8 PM Central). This is the program that your support helped to make possible.  Kickstarter backers are acknowledged in the underwriting credits before and after the program.

Look for additional content coming soon -- including segments on the 4-string banjo and Ralph Stanley -- online at PBS Arts (www.pbs.org/arts).  

It's been too long since my last update, but the past 3 months have been an intense, relentless period of editing and refining to meet the PBS delivery deadline.  As you may have heard, Give Me the Banjo is now part of the PBS Arts Fall Festival Series, full title: PBS Arts from the Blue Ridge Mountains: Give Me the Banjo, first air date Nov 4. 

Last week Tony Trischka and I had the pleasure of working with Steve Martin to record the voice-over narration, which sounds a whole lot better coming from his mouth than mine.  The photo below was taken in June when we filmed Steve's concert with the Steep Canyon Rangers, excerpts to be included in the program.  

The long-awaited preview for $25 and above Kickstarter supporters will be posted on vimeo next week, and we'll send you the link and password.  The DVD won't be completed til we deliver the finished program to PBS.  Thanks again for your patience -- like everything else on this project, post-production has taken longer and been much more difficult than we ever imagined.

Marc Fields 

If you've noticed that it's taken an inordinate amount of time to receive your rewards, well, you're right.  It's been taking much longer to assemble, package and ship the multiple items to over 500 backers than I ever anticipated. The photos and mugs, for example, were ready over a month ago, but I still had to order packaging materials and then package the items. The truth is, the past two months have been very demanding times as I edit towards my program deadline while working a full-time job.  Fortunately, I now have somebody helping me to get the rewards out.  

I apologize for the delay.   We will begin sending out the signed photos and mugs in the coming week.  They will be sent out in small batches as dictated by the US Postal Service, but rest assured -- they are coming. 

Thank you for your patience!

Marc Fields

PS.  Still waiting too to hear when I can officially announce a broadcast date -- that's also supposed to happen soon, but I'm not supposed to say anything more til then.