About this project

MY SUMMER AS A GOTH is a feature film written and produced by Portland, OR-based filmmakers Tara Johnson-Medinger and Brandon Roberts. In order to shoot this film in Summer 2012 (for a Summer 2013 release), we are raising $20k in start-up funding. We are launching a 45 day campaign, 9/14/11-10/31/11. With these funds, we will develop our business plan, meet with investors, begin casting, and pay staff.

FILM SUMMARY: The story is about 16 year-old Joey Javitts, sent  to live with her grandparents for the summer. During the course of the summer, Joey falls for the neighborhood Goth boy, Victor. She is transformed by Victor and his merry gang of Goths from normal teenager to Goth goddess--falling in love, making friends and finding herself in the process.

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Have you ever tried changing yourself for love?

 Have you ever had a summer fling that you’ll never forget?

 Did you ever wear black on the outside because black was how you felt on the inside?

Our story opens on the last day of school, a day usually filled with the promise and excitement of a summer vacation's worth of adventures. Our heroine Joey, however, is not amused as she looks forward with dread to the prospect of spending her summer with her grandparents. As she is about to stuff her feelings with a pink old-fashioned, she runs into her high school crush Danny at the doughnut shop-- and promptly flees without saying a word. 

Once she gets to the small town where her grandparents live, things start to get interesting for Joey. She becomes swept up by the charms of neighborhood Goth boy Victor, who- along with his merry gang of Goth friends- performs a "My Fair Lady"-esque transformation of Joey. Only in our story, the young Eliza Doolittle character rocks a funereal princess look and parties in cemeteries.

SCRIPT EXCERPT:

INT. JOEY’S BATHROOM - HOURS LATER 

Joey is sitting at the sink with a white towel around her shoulders, stained by black hair dye. Pen, wearing yellow rubber kitchen gloves, is rinsing the dye out of her hair and scrubbing her scalp. Black dye circles down the drain. Cob and Victor sit in the corner, painting each other’s toenails black.

PEN

Okay, sit up and check this out.

Joey sits up and dries her hair with the stained towel. She examines her hair carefully in the mirror.

JOEY

My parents are gonna kill me when they see this.

She turns and faces PEN.

JOEY (CONT’D)

It’s awesome, I love it!

PEN

Yeah, I’m good. Oh wait, one more thing!

She turns and grabs a make-up bag, digging through it.

PEN (CONT’D)

What would a good Goth girl be without liquid liner?

She extracts a bottle of eyeliner, opens it and points it at Joey's eye.

PEN (CONT’D)

Sit still and open your eye wide.

Joey sits upright. Pen artfully applies eyeliner to Joey's lower lid.

VICTOR

You know there’s no going back now, don’t you?

***

MY SUMMER AS A GOTH is a story about the awkwardness and joy of adolescence: the fear of being unnoticed and unloved, the struggle to grow beyond childhood and define one’s identity, the longing for connection in spite of otherness, and the pain of that inevitably doomed first love. MY SUMMER AS A GOTH follows Joey during this fateful summer as she navigates her way through her first summer romance, and learns to be a participant in her own life instead of merely an observer.

MY SUMMER AS A GOTH is a story about how sometimes we need to try on another identity to find out who we really are. 

MY SUMMER AS A GOTH is for anyone who ever partied in a cemetery and fell for a boy who was totally wrong for them.

The film is scheduled for shooting in summer 2012. This initial Kickstarter campaign is being launched to raise development funds to:

• Assemble a solid investment package to attract investors and market the investment opportunity
  
• Hire a casting agent and get talent attached
  
• Attend meetings in Los Angeles with potential investors, co-producers, casting directors and some currently-engaged parties
  
• Attract the interest of possible seasoned Executive Producers
  
• Pay some of the very talented Portland-based crew who have already put in countless hours of work to launch this film
  

 While a donation to the MY SUMMER AS A GOTH is not tax-deductible, nor is it an investment in the sense that donors will receive a return on their money—it is an investment in two talented first-time feature filmmakers ready for their close-ups. It is an investment in the burgeoning Portland film community. It is also an investment in the power of independent film to tell entertaining stories with heart and humour that are real and speak to the extra-ordinariness of our seemingly normal lives.