Kickstarter

Hey everyone,

Once again, thanks so much for supporting Caucus during our Kickstarter push last summer.  We're so excited to announce that we're going to have our World Premiere at Hot Docs in Toronto AND that we've just launched our website, with our first teaser trailer.

Here's the link to the Hot Docs announcement:

www.hotdocs.ca/media/press_releases/hot_docs_announces_28_high_profile_special_presentations_to_screen_during_2

And you can check out our trailer and site here:

www.caucusfilm.com

We'll be letting you know soon about our US Premiere, which we're over the moon about.

Thanks again for your support and we can't wait for you to see the film.

Yours,

AJ

Hey everyone,

First off, I just want to say thanks so much for your support during our Kickstarter campaign.  Knowing that you were backing this project specifically and my work generally was a great, great bit of inspiration around these parts.  The folks at Kickstarter were amazing, too, giving us lots of attention and support.  We really appreciate it all.

As you've no doubt know by now, we weren't successful in reaching our goal.  However, some really great things came out of our campaign, not least was the fact that we were making the project more public, particularly in Iowa, where we filmed.  Some of these conversations that are starting to happen offline are about fund raising, and we're going to keep pursuing those leads in the coming weeks.

We also learned a bit about timing and we realized, as we mentioned in one of our earlier updates, that trying to get the film out during the hot election cycle, as had been our original goal, was probably not the best idea.  With the political day focused on whatever gaffe or issue or debate or sideshow of the moment, we realized that getting people to focus on the Iowa story from 2011 to early 2012 would be a challenge.

So we're looking ahead to 2013 when the film will premiere in the warm afterglow of either Obama or Romney's inauguration and when folks are ready for a post-mortem on the political season we all just went through.

We're still going to need help getting money for our post-production process - as we said in our video, we don't have a Super PAC of our own - and we hope that our failed first attempt won't discourage you from supporting us in the future.  Give us a few weeks to follow some leads and then we'll reach back out to you.  We still want you to adopt your counties, get your posters and send you stuff from Iowa.  And if you know of others that we should reach out to in the meantime, please don't hesitate to let us know.

But mostly, just know that we won't forget your support and generosity.  You're the best.  And we hope you'll stick with us in the coming months.

Have a great end of summer,

AJ

Hey everyone,

Once again, thanks so much for all your support.  Apologies for not thanking some of our most recent backers individually - we're doing our best to get the word out as we head into the final stretch.  Yesterday we were live on WHO Radio in Des Moines, talking about the film, and as we mentioned in our last update, the Des Moines Register had an article about the film and this campaign in yesterday's paper.

There's just 36 hours to go and we are still a ways from our goal.  We could really use your help in this final push.  As a reminder, if we don't reach our goal, we get zero, zilch, nothing, so please join us in helping to get us to the finish line.

We are thrilled that Kickstarter has named us the Project of the Day!!  This is amazing news and hopefully will be just the thing we need to push us forward. 

Finally, we're super excited that the amazing Iowa-based company, Raygun, has created a new, 2012 version of their "Rock Out With Your Caucus Out" T-shirt to coincide with our Kickstarter campaign.  We're adding it as a new, last minute reward level.

Once again, thanks so much for your support.  It means the world to us.

Yours,

AJ

Hey everyone,

We just wanted to thank you once again for all your help in supporting Caucus.  We've got a long way to go this week if we're going to reach our goal and we're doing everything we can to get the word out.

The Des Moines Register just posted an article about the film which will run in tomorrow's paper and I'm scheduled to be on Iowa Public Radio's River to River this Wednesday.  We're hoping that a big push in the final days will allow us to reach our goal and be able to dive into post-production on the film.

Thanks to all of you for your tweets, Facebook posts and social media support.  It's been invaluable.  As we head to into this final week, we encourage you to send to any friends who are interested in politics or just want to support some nice indie filmmakers.

One thing we want to note - while we initially thought we might try to get the film out this fall in the midst of the Presidential election, we've taken the advice of numerous friends and experts who've argued that we'd have a hard time bursting through in the midst of the daily tick-tock of political news.  So we're holding off on getting the film out until 2013.  We hope you won't mind getting your digital copies of the film a little later than we initially thought, but we think it's the best thing for the film.  As always, we couldn't be doing it without your support.

We've been posting a lot of one year ago today videos in the past couple weeks.  Here's some material from earlier this year, as (now-nominee) Mitt Romney tried to make his final sales pitch in Iowa in Council Bluffs and in Dubuque.

Thanks again for all your help!

We're in the final week now of our campaign and we could really use our team.  We're still pushing towards our goal and every little bit helps.  Lots of counties are still available to adopt!  If you could take a moment to send a note to a few of your indie film/politics loving friends and ask if they would join you in supporting this project, we'd really appreciate it.

Meanwhile, here's some more footage from last year in Iowa.  On the day of Michele Bachmann's victory in the Iowa Straw Poll, she was overshadowed by the entrance of Texas Governor Rick Perry into the race.  The next night, both would appear in Bachmann's home county at the Black Hawk County GOP summer dinner, where Perry charmed the locals inside the hall while Bachmann camped out in her bus in the parking lot.

Come Monday, Perry was ready to make his own tour of the state, kicking off the day at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, where all of the other candidates had made a stop prior to the Straw Poll.  At the moment, Perry was riding high, with many assuming he would be the man to challenge Mitt Romney for the nomination.

Here's a bit of Rick Perry's first full day in Iowa: