Dear Team Waiting Room,

I'm now just coming up for air after the amazing experience of watching you all rally around this film and lift it up when it needed a hand. Your belief in the film has inspired others and I'm happy to announce that design firm Dowling|Duncan has come on board to create "key art" branding for the project that will allow us to begin promoting and spreading the word as we prepare for our theatrical release.

The campaign features the handwriting of noted UK illustrator Marion Deuchars and the terrific work of creative director Rob Duncan who, after watching the film, agreed to do our campaign pro bono! And of course this would all not have happened were it not for your fellow TWR backer Jon Schleuning who made the introductions. So three cheers to Jon, Rob, Marion, and the whole team at Dowling|Duncan for coming together to support our film. Below is a little sample of the imagery which was inspired by the clock in the opening sequence of the film. The time motif will be used in a variety of ways, like in the post cards below, in which the idea of the clock - combined with text - can be played with in almost infinite ways. For those of you who ordered the scrubs they will now feature the new clock along with Marion Deuchars' work, rendering them instant collectors items. For those of you who did not order the scrubs, we'll make those available soon on our website. Most of you either will get the scrubs or the poster so I'll also send along a sneak peek of the poster in the next update.

I'm also very happy to announce that we officially premiere in the Bay Area on October 17th at the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland...right down the street from Highland Hospital! So start thinking now how you can help spread the word so that we can have a blowout premiere the way only Oakland knows how to do! For those across the Bay, don't worry. We will be screening either at the Landmark Opera Plaza or the Lumiere and possibly the Sundance Kabuki. So stay tuned for those dates. Our NYC premiere will be September 26th at the IFC Center and our LA premiere will be October 5th at the Laemmle Music Hall. And of course more dates and venues to come in Seattle, Boston, Minneapolis, DC and beyond.

I've also included a sample (right there below the post cards) from William Ryan Fritch's soundtrack. He's just finished the composing program at Mills College and is quite a talent, so for those that ordered it I'm sure you'll enjoy the disc. It will also be available on the website soon.

OK, I'm headed off for a much needed vacation, but when I return you'll be hearing from me and the team with more exciting news. I know you'll be waiting...

Until then,

Pete Nicks

WE DID IT Y'ALL!!

Together we have achieved our goal, and together we will make a difference with this film.

We are grateful for your patience, support and belief in our film. And we will make sure that everyone in the waiting room is aware of your belief in them.

Just two days ago Chris, a patient we met at Highland a couple years ago, became our 500th backer with a $1 pledge. We thanked him and he said, "I wished I could do more." Well, Chris...your pledge is a symbol of the type of spirit we hope this film will bring to the conversation around health care reform as we take it to towns and cities across America.

Here is Chris in one of our first web videos. Do yourself a favor...watch it all the way to the end and you'll understand why we became so enchanted with the idea of capturing the kaleidoscope of humanity in the waiting room.

You all have made this possible! So, on we go...

❤ Pete Nicks and the entire Waiting Room Team

Congrats to YOU!!

Today Kickstarter, the world's leading crowd-funding platform, made us "Project of the Day" which gives us incredible visibility during the remaining hours of our campaign to raise the voices of the beautiful people in the waiting room.

This is a testament to the urgency of the issue and also a reflection of the commitment you all have made to get us to this point. So, THANK YOU.

But we're not done yet. We are not just gunning to meet our $75,000 goal. We also set a lofty goal to reach 1,000 backers to show solidarity and the strength of our collective voice. If each of you can convince ONE NEW PERSON today to pledge $1, we will meet and exceed our goal.

So, please take the time today to CALL ONE PERSON and tell them why you have decided to back the project. 

Together we will achieve our goal!

❤ Pete Nicks and Team Waiting Room

This is it. Only 45 hours to go. 

You've all put up with all our updates. All the FB posts. Tweets. Now it's down to the wire. Phones are ringing in the war room, dogs are barking, people are crying...but we're gonna make it!

We are at $62,219 and climbing toward our $75,000 goal and the finish line is in sight. You did that...INCREDIBLE!

Do whatever you can in these waning hours to get the word out. And remember, we love $1 PLEDGES so much that we've added a new reward. For the last 48 hours of our campaign, we're asking as many people as possible to raise their voice in solidarity with The Waiting Room by donating just $1. You won't change the world with this pledge, but you will show your support. And we will show our gratitude by THANKING YOU PERSONALLY on our official website. A pledge of $1 carries as much weight as a pledge of $1,000 because every voice matters and together we can create real impact! So please RAISE YOUR VOICE and help these stories be seen and told across the country.

And to top it off here's some advance praise for the film in today's Washington Post!

"Of all the memorable films on offer at Silverdocs, the most haunting by far is “The Waiting Room,” Peter Nicks’s engrossing cinema verite film set in the emergency room of the Highland Hospital in Oakland, Calif. Taking a “day in the life” approach, Nicks trained his camera on the nurses, doctors and extraordinary staff members of the ER, where a steady stream of patients — most of them uninsured — come to receive care for everything from a strep throat and a malignant tumor to chronic diabetes or a gunshot.

As funny, smart and supremely professional as the medical practitioners are in “The Waiting Room” — which will most likely arrive in Washington theaters this fall — it’s their funny, smart, supremely dignified patients who provide the film’s most compelling narrative force. An estranged couple come together to support and advocate for their young daughter, giving the lie to toxic stereotypes about absent black fathers and “broken” families; a young, hipsterish couple face a life-threatening illness and a labyrinthine medical bureaucracy with gentle fortitude; the hundreds of faces in the film’s stirring final montage are full of pain, uncertainty, stoicism, grace.

Surely most of the people who populate the final sequence of “The Waiting Room” are of limited means. But just as assuredly, people who describe themselves as “typical middle class” found themselves in the ER, too. As “The Waiting Room” makes clear — along with “The Queen of Versailles” in its own funhouse-mirror way — the lines between wealth and poverty keep shifting, virtually before our eyes. Neither aspirational fantasies or pejorative cautionary tales, these films exemplify something much more potent: honest, deeply meaningful portraits of what America looks like, for richer and for poorer."

- Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post

Thank You All!!

- Pete Nicks and Team Waiting Room

❤ fired up, ready to go!!! ❤

We got the AMAZING news today that the Grand Lake Theater has penciled us into their October calendar. This is may be the best news we've gotten so far because this theater is THE theater to play this movie. It is right down the street from Highland and we're sure to generate some great buzz and amazing crowds. We're also talking to the Oakland Youth Chorus about opening the premiere show.

We are now just negotiating with Landmark to see if they will allow us to play their San Francisco theater in tandem with the Grand Lake, which is over the bridge in the East Bay (think Manhattan-Brooklyn). Landmark generally will want the film in both their SF and Oakland locations. Since the Grand Lake is not a Landmark Theater we would have to say "no" to Grand Lake if we go with Landmark. Complicated, we know! We'll see what happens...but we think it might be worth playing the Grand Lake even if we lose our SF venue. What do you think?

So tell your friends and family to pre-order their tickets now on Kickstarter. And you can change your reward as well if you'd like to get tickets. Just let us know and we'll walk you through it.

Let's keep rolling! We're almost there!!

- Team Waiting Room