Kickstarter

Hello, my name is Dan Gingold, I’m an independent filmmaker based in good old Brooklyn, NY, and this June I’m shooting a short film entitled Brother Go Find Your Brother. Brother Go Find Your Brother is about three friends who go on a weekend rafting trip on the Delaware River. During the trip they are confronted with how their friendships have changed as they grow older and make different decisions about the paths their lives will take.

The inspiration for the setting of this film came from rafting trips my own friends and I have been taking down the Delaware River for the past 2 summers. The characters in my film will be doing a lot of the things that we’ve done, including camping out on small islands, going off of rope swings and jumping from bridges into the river. Even though we’re breaking one of the three cardinal rules of film making (stay away from animals, children and water), I’m really excited about the dynamic aspect that the location will add to the story.

The last film I made is entitled The Skin of Your Teeth. It’s a zombie film set in rural New Jersey, and it was a finalist at the Zombie Short Film Festival. Other films that I’ve made have screened at the San Francisco International Documentary Festival, Rooftop Films here in NY and with the Bicycle Film Festival. Every time you make a film you learn a millions new things, and I’m looking forward to bringing the many lessons I’ve learned to this current production.

As far as costs for the film, I’m very fortunate: everyone from the DP to the actors to the crew to craft services, is working without pay. These are creative and talented folks, and they’re volunteering their time because they like the script and because they believe it will be a challenging, rewarding and fun project to work on. I still have to pay for everyone’s transportation and I have to house and feed them well, but the lions share of the money I raise here will be used to make this film with the highest production values possible. We’re shooting on water, so we have to buy our own camera (right now we’re looking at the Canon 5D), and we’ll need to rent a waterproof camera housing and waterproof sound equipment. Once we’re done there will be additional costs, including color correction, sound design, exporting to HDCAM, festival entry fees, etc…

Although it’s around half of the total cost we’re looking at, I put my Kickstarter amount at 4,000 dollars because it seemed like a reasonable amount to ask for. The rest of the costs will no doubt end up on my credit card. My other fundraising strategies include being a test subject in studies of experimental medical drugs (hat tip to Robert Rodriguez) and hitting the road this fall on a grueling schedule of selling posters on college campuses.

As you can see, I’m going all in on this project, and to prove it I’m offering this incentive: in the climactic scene of the film, two of the characters climb up on top of this railroad bridge over the Delaware, and they may or may not jump off into the water. While some of my friends have done it, on all my own trips down the river I’ve never gotten up the courage to make this jump myself. Since I’m going to be asking the actors and/or stuntmen to do it, I figured I should probably make the jump myself, and in order to boost my moral, I’m making the 1000 dollar pledge level the trigger for me to go out to Jersey and leap off the top of that bridge. Gives me the cringes just thinking about it, but if someone puts up the money I’ll film it from a few angles and make a little video to put on my website. Here’s hoping I don’t belly flop.

The cast, crew and I are gearing up to make our film, and we’re really looking forward to it. Thank you very much for your support.