Kickstarter

I am working on a documentary about thorium, an element that can be converted into energy in a Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR). This is a clean, reliable, source of energy that doesn't require large amounts of land to deploy.

I personally feel we will have a much better chance of addressing global warming the sooner this technology is commercialized. And I do worry about global warming.

The working title of this documentary is "THORIUM REMIX 2012". It is a follow-up to THORIUM REMIX 2011, which is available for free on YouTube, and also downloadable in a variety of formats.

So far, TR2012 is going great, if not as quickly as I'd like. We've got lots of new footage since TR2011, and the improvement will be significant. You can see, just with lecture-footage I've got a great deal more flexibility...

Right now I'm the bottleneck as I work through footage, but I've got a fast PC, decent software, and contact with many wonderful volunteers who contacted me though my previous thorium Kickstarter campaign. These volunteers have helped videotape events I could not otherwise afford to cover myself.

And of course we have lots of non-lecture footage, little of which has yet been posted to YouTube. In TR2011, Kirk traveled to Calgary. For TR2012 I visited Kirk in Huntsville...

...we were toured through ORNL and saw the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment. We spoke to MSRE technicians. It was a world of difference, and TR2012 will not be shackled by limited footage the way TR2011 was.

But, there is one major event that been announced since I began work on TR2012... International Thorium Energy Organization is holding a thorium conference ThEC12 in Shanghai.

While I think it would cost me more than $2,000 to videotape in China myself (or arrange decent coverage), I can make up any difference with previous money from backers that I've been hanging on to for TR2012 post-production.

If you attended TEAC4 you probably got a sense of how extra manpower can help. It allows experimentation such as chroma-key and extra angles. It allows simultaneous interview and lecture coverage. It lets me double-check tripod camera framing while someone else is ensuring a hand-held camera is being operated. It allows me to go to the bathroom.

$2,000 worth of coverage is probably me, and a bunch of cameras. One will be perpetually hand-held, everything else on tripods.

I'm hoping this campaign can help with the volunteer aspect... videographers who speak Shanghaines / Mandarin (... / Chinese?). TEAC4 coverage was such as success because of volunteers I'd found through Kickstarter as much as it was money. A successful Kickstarter campaign may help facilitate both once again.

If you think ThEC12 coverage is worth pursuing for TR2012's sake, or you'd like to use the footage yourself ASAP after the event (maybe for your own documentary) then please help out. If you have particular needs... release forms, etc, let me know what those might be before this campaign wraps up.

Now what I am NOT promising with this campaign is to post lecture videos online in the same high-quality and timely manner as TEAC4 videos are being posted. I was responsible for TEAC4 video coverage (allowing me free access to the event). I'm NOT looking to be the single guy responsible for ThEC12 coverage because my highest priority is now TR2012. I will gladly help others cover it, and share footage with anyone willing to share back. But I can't return home only to spend the next month editing lecture videos.

So I'll cover TR2012 to the best of my abilities, and share a copy of all the raw footage with $500 backers (or footage sharers). For sure this will be TBs of data. It will be shipped on a 3.5" naked hard drive.

China is a key player as the thorium story unfolds. The footage may turn out to be critically important.

It has been my repeated experience that conference events do not (themselves) capture footage in a manner suited to my documentary making. If we want any ThEC12 in TR2012, we'll need decent coverage. I've launched this campaign so we can secure that coverage without depleting post-production funds.

Thanks for your support, -Gord

Jason Datsun suggested an infographic might help...