About this project

July 19th - WE ARE SHOOTING !!! Check our UPDATES... for PHOTOS etc.

June 27 --- UPDATE----

We are thrilled and grateful that we made our pledge goal of $8000 for the film! This means we are now guaranteed this money and any extra we may raise from here on out.

We will still continue to raise funds for the days left on Kickstarter... and anything beyond our goal will go towards the more weighty post-production costs: sound design and mix, color correction, and titles.

So we welcome additional backers to the project!

Thank you to ALL of our supporters thus far for helping us realize this creative dream. We are excited to be shooting in two weeks... and we'll update as we go.

Annie & Lisa
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Help us turn our web series -- a comedy about tech obsession -- into a road movie!

WHO WE ARE
Two award-winning filmmakers. We are NYU Film School alums whose work has shown at festivals world-wide, including Cannes, SXSW and Telluride, with prizes from IFP New York, The San Francisco Film Society’s Kenneth Rainin Foundation, and the Sloan Foundation.

WHAT WE’RE DOING
Turning our web series, SPARKS, into a feature film.

Sundance Channel.com has syndicated the first season of SPARKS and will be releasing it this year, but for now you can see our first episode ABOVE or our entire first season HERE:
www.sparks-series.com

Join viewers who are saying:

"I'm still laughing, little tears are forming at the edges of my eyes as I chortle. This is soooooo funny. The actors are amazing...."
"Smart, cool, fun and endearing. I love SPARKS!"

We are taking what we've learned from the series and applying it to the feature --- making a great movie on a tiny budget with a tiny crew --- outside of the traditional channels of the film business.

OUR FEATURE
Is based on the web series and is about Sarah Sparks, a woman who just might relate better to machines than to humans. It’s called SMALL, BEAUTIFULLY MOVING PARTS:

Sarah Sparks, technologist, is pregnant and in crisis. Coming to terms
with the fact that she may be more interested in newborn tech gear
than in an actual baby, she hits the road in search of her own
estranged, off-the-grid mother. This comic, coming-of-parenthood road movie
investigates how one woman navigates family, dysfunctional
relationships and a talking meat thermometer.

WHAT WE’LL DO WITH YOUR CONTRIBUTION
SMALL, BEAUTIFULLY MOVING PARTS is a DIY micro-budget film for which we have $10,000 raised for production. In order to actually make the film, we need $8,000 more for expenses such as actor/crew travel, lodging, food, transportation and post-production.

Your contribution will help us hit the road and allow us to shoot in JULY 2010!!

THE STORY
Sarah Sparks is happy to find herself pregnant, at least to begin with. However, when boyfriend Leon observes that she is more interested in the ultrasound technology than in what’s being ultra-sounded, Sarah sees the torturous truth. A technologist by trade, she fears she relates better to machines than to people. Her sister suggests: maybe it’s time for Sarah to explore her relationship with her own mother. She ended communication with her mom years ago, who’s not reachable anyway, as she’s living off-the-grid in a geodesic dome. But when a horrific baby shower and a gang of self-righteous mommies sends Sarah over the edge, she gets in the car, longing for her mom and determined to fix what’s broken. She must prove to herself that she’s capable of having functional familial relationships … and that they actually exist. But at every turn, Sarah finds dysfunction and miscommunication. Her dictatorial toddler niece has rebelled against a malfunctioning toilet training doll, terrorizing the family. Sarah’s dad is having an affair with a Brazilian woman twenty years his junior, but he’s only met her via dial-up, so the passion is very … slow. On the road from L.A. to Vegas to the rural desert, Sarah talks with both strangers and friends about connecting in today’s uber-tech world, and considers the type of mom she’d like to be. SMALL, BEAUTIFULLY MOVING PARTS is about discovering that relationships are always imperfect, never fixed quickly, and, like a good gestation, develop over time.

87

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Project By

Annie Howell and Lisa Robinson

New York, NY

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Annie J. Howell has written and directed films that have played internationally on the festival circuit, including at SXSW, Newport, Full Frame and Clermont-Ferrand. Her work has aired on the Sundance Channel, PBS, and the Independent Film Channel, and as part of the ITVS online series, FutureStates. Her screenwriting work has been the recipient of a Nantucket Screenwriters' Colony fellowship, a Grand Prize at IFP's 2008 Independent Film Week and a 2010 San Francisco Film Society/Kenneth Rainin Filmmaking grant. She is also the co-writer and co-director of SPARKS, an Internet web-based serial comedy about humans and technology that is syndicated by the Sundance Channel and will be released in 2010. Annie earned an MFA at NYU’s Graduate Program in Film and is currently Assistant Professor of Film at Ohio University.

Lisa Robinson works as a screenwriter and director. Her feature project SYNAPSE received the Sloan Foundation Feature Production Award and is in development with company Salty Features. Her writing includes MIND BLAST, an IMAX comedy for the Blue Man Group that is currently in pre-production. She is also the co-writer and co-director of SPARKS, an Internet web-based serial comedy about humans and technology that is syndicated by the Sundance Channel and will be released in 2010. She has written and directed three short films that have screened at film festivals around the world including Cannes-Directors Fortnight, Telluride, Edinburgh and Clermont Ferrand. She is the recipient of the Martin E. Segal Prize, the Digital Media Lab Award for Excellence (from Japan), and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. She received her MFA from NYU’s Graduate Film Directing Program and is currently an Assistant Professor at Long Island University.

Annie and Lisa also blog for the Sundance Channel.

1. sparks-series.com
2. sundancechannel.com