About this project
We’ve got a bridge to sell you.
No, not in Brooklyn.
It’s video, actually, of 2 bridges in San Antonio & a portrait of the woman who’s decorating them.
Texas-born potter Diana Kersey was commissioned to create tiles on guardrails for 2 rebuilt bridges leading into historic Brackenridge Park. One—on Mulberry Street—is done and open for traffic. The second—Mill Race Bridge—is still being erected in July 2011, but Diana’s hard at work building, glazing, and firing the large tile panels for it.
James Sanders is shooting a feature-length documentary video about the whole business, as Diana explains how, literally, all her pieces fit together: from pulling 25-lb chunks of raw clay out of a plastic bag to sticking fired and glazed jigsaw tiles into bridge cement.
Artmaking for the 2nd bridge is the subject of our latest TRAILER.
You can buy a bridge—at least a piece of it—by pledging $100+ here. In addition to a copy of the finished DVD, that C-note gets you one 5x7 tile, hand-built by Diana, and branded to your choice of bridge art:
- Mulberry Street Bridge—a grown-up Gulf Coast toad sports glazing color-coordinated to the “Life-Cycle of the Gulf Coast Toad” panels
- Mill Race Bridge—the iconic little golfer-man that graces the 1916-era weathervane on the clubhouse of “The History of Brackenridge Park Golf Course”
Pledge $250+ to get a pair, your choice.
Your pledge helps James finish his video. He needs $38,000 to pay for upgrades to editing software, additional lenses, racks, camera stands, filters, lighting, and media to store additional raw footage of Diana installing Mill Race Bridge panels. He’ll shoot more about Diana’s expansive artistic practice and community involvement. The money raised will also pay for direct post production costs: adding titles and B-roll, editing transitions, making color corrections, and writing an original music score.
There’s no risk to you at all. Pledge now. The way Kickstarter works, if we don’t raise our $38K funding goal by 9/15/11, your credit card will not be charged.
But we need your pledge early on, to demonstrate that we have wide-ranging interest by potential viewers of James’s indie doc so we can get ’er done. When we make our goal: you’ve only spent short money, yet greenlighted a potentially prize-winning full-length feature video.
Come on, buy a bridge. Help James put San Antonio’s exceptionally beautiful central park access roads on the map.
Wha’dya say?
Please scan the funding levels list on the right. Learn more on the Updates tab. Thanks for everything: your help, re-tweets, and well-wishes!
FAQ
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SD is trying to raise $38,000 to finalize Diana “Living A Potter’s Dream” with additional documentary footage, transitions, color corrections, titling, and inclusion of an original music score. The money raised will go directly toward production and post production costs for this video. Your support will also help us throw a gala public premiere screening simultaneously in two locations: one at Diana Kersey’s new studio and one at Southwest School of Art. We anticipate finishing post production in fall 2011 for a year-end 2011 launch in Texas.
This video is ideally suited for the web and—via Facebook and other social media links—on PDAs. SD maintains video hosting accounts to make linking seamless. Our professional network includes CBC/Discovery, Huffington Post, the National Geographic Channel, local public media, etc.
Diana “Living A Potter’s Dream” can use established relationships with numerous visual arts outlets frequented by the principals on our production team—subject matter expert Diana Kersey, videographer James Sanders, and producer Cathy Lee—to promote the video and publicly acknowledge its supporters.
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Videographer/Director/Composer James E. Sanders, Jr. and Producer Cathy Lee are the SD team. We've actively recorded video in support of public organizations, profit-driven businesses, and individual artists and community members for four years.
James Sanders, who has worked professionally in media since 1982, honed broadcast quality audio and video skills at Canadian Broadcast Network/Discovery Channel, KTSU-FM Houston, and KLRN-TV San Antonio. Associated Press utilized Sanders’ audio skills during broadcast of candidate Barack Obama’s local debate appearance in 2008. For SD clients, Sanders has documented lectures, readings, curatorial discussions, and concerts by exceptional musicians, as well as created corporate digital business cards and instructional DVDs. Recent video portraits have appeared on HuffPost Books (poet Marian Haddad) and National Geographic’s Photographers feature (photographer Greg Davis). His artistic vision compels him to video-document plain folks working intentionally to serve whatever public need they deeply experience. Sanders’ musical ears and eyes were sharpened by previous work as a professional freelance contrabassist and bandleader (1978-1998); he joined the San Antonio Symphony for a performance with Hannibal Marvin Peterson’s “African Portraits” and was a member of seminal Texas tenor saxophonist Arnett Cobb’s rhythm section, among his noteworthy appearances.
Catherine Lee’s expertise in educational publishing project management (Education Development Center, Inc.; Pearson Custom Publishing) informs her work as producer: coordinating audio/video production details and writing business solicitations. She founded and ran various entrepreneurial businesses in Boston, MA, including a nonprofit performance space, Studio Red Top, Inc., which for 13 years (1978-92) presented 350+ concerts, jam sessions, workshops, exhibits, and multimedia activities in various locations throughout eastern MA. Lee wrote and produced numerous 1-hour compilations of infotaining live jazz concert recordings broadcast over WGBH-FM, WTBS-FM, and WERS-FM. She also worked in educational media as conceptualizer, graphic designer, typesetter, supervisor, producer, and project manager (MA Corporation for Educational Telecommunications; Sojourner, A Women’s Journal; Woman of Power Magazine; Malden Community TV). As a working jazz poet, Lee hyperlinks embedded music and visuals situated in multidimensional space. These impulses are also often realized in her role as SD’s multimedia and events Producer. Lee relocated to San Antonio in 2006, and began collaborating with Sanders and other souls who generously build community.
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Kickstarter’s unique community supports creative inspiration. Here’s your chance to act like a studio exec or venture capitalist and help green light our independent documentary video Diana “Living a Potter’s Dream.” We have provided terrific reward incentives—including authenticated, original Diana Kersey ceramic pieces—based on the pledge amount you choose. To pledge to our project, just click the green “Back This Project” button on the project page. You will be asked to input your pledge amount and select a reward. From there, you will go through the Amazon checkout process. Note that you must finish the Amazon checkout process for your pledge to be recorded. You will only be charged if the funding goal is met.
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No. We get to see that, but no one else does.
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Absolutely! Since this is all or nothing, we have set our goal on the low end. As with any video project, the more money raised the better it can look and sound. We already have several key ingredients in place:
a) many hours of recordings of Diana Kersey working at an accelerated clip during an extraordinarily exciting time in her artistic life;
b) a great creative team;
c) precious Kersey hand-fired, one-of-a-kind ceramic objects. These incentives are much more valuable than the amount we are asking you to pledge, and give you tactile proof of your connections to both an outstanding urban public art installation and a soon-to-be-award-winning documentary video.You can help us to exceed our goal before the deadline. And this would allow us to make a better video. Plus we want to offset the fees from Kickstarter (5%) and Amazon Payments (3-5%) that become due for a successfully funded project.
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YES! Once you pledge to our campaign, you may want to change your incentive reward to a different one, or increase your pledge amount. To do so, go to Kickstarter and sign in. If you go to our campaign page, the green “Back This Project” button has been replaced with a blue “Manage Your Pledge” button. Click it and you can enter a new amount, or choose a new incentive.
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Only when we hit our funding target amount 100% or more will we fulfill the incentives, because no money changes hands otherwise. So PLEASE HELP US SPREAD THE WORD! Please email, embed, tweet and post this page to anyone and everyone!
We will begin shipping physical merchandise directly to you immediately after our deadline passes and we have successfully met our goal. The DVD copies and screening parties will only happen after the video is completed, so these incentives will take a lot longer to process. Please bear with us. We will, of course, keep you fully informed on our progress. -
YES! If you would like to pledge to the video but give the reward to someone as a gift, go through all the normal process of making a pledge in your name. For billing purposes, this action must be in your name. After our deadline, we will send a message to you on Kickstarter. Please reply with all the gift recipient’s contact information. We will make sure that person receives the reward.
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Thank you! And YES, that is possible. You select a button when you donate if you don't want to receive an incentive.
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You are not charged for anything. We get nothing and the video does not get finished. :( We must not let this happen! PLEASE HELP US SPREAD THE WORD!
Have a question? If the info above doesn't help, you can ask the project creator directly.
18
Backers
$2,375
pledged of $38,000 goal
0
seconds to go
Funding Unsuccessful
This project reached the deadline without achieving its funding goal on September 15.
Pledge $1 or more Pledge $1 or more
Thank You: POTTER'S SPRIG! Every dollar counts! You will get: • 1 postcard reproduction of a Kersey bridge design, with handwritten thanks from Director James Sanders and Producer Cathy Lee; • A thank you posted on Standard Definition’s VIMEO video site and the Diana “Living a Potter’s Dream” Tumblr and Facebook pages; • Our sincere gratitude.
Pledge $15 or more Pledge $15 or more
Thank You: POTTER'S FROG! In addition to the Potter’s Sprig level incentives, you will get: • A set of postcards of Kersey designs going on both bridges; • A behind-the-scenes look at the production and post production process through a protected link on Standard Definition’s VIMEO video site where you can view video stills and news exclusively for supporters; • Plus you will get the FIRST LOOK at the finished video; • Very Special Thanks posted on SD’s VIMEO site and the Diana “Living a Potter’s Dream” Tumblr and Facebook pages.
Pledge $50 or more Pledge $50 or more
Thank You: POTTER'S GOLFER! In addition to the Potter’s Frog level incentives, you will get: • An 11x17 poster of completed bridge designs, signed by Diana Kersey; • A second set of bridge designs postcards; • And you will get access to an ADDITIONAL protected link on SD’s VIMEO site to download stills and view video messages from Diana; • Your name will appear in the closing video credits as THANKS TO.
Pledge $100 or more Pledge $100 or more
Thank You: POTTER'S APPRENTICE! In addition to the Potter’s Golfer level incentives, you will get: • A one-of-a-kind, hand-crafted 5x7 Frog Tile or Golfer Tile (your choice), accompanied by Kersey’s hand-written thanks and authenticity note; • DVD copy of the completed video with cover art and sleeve.
Pledge $250 or more Pledge $250 or more
Thank You: POTTER'S ASSISTANT! In addition to the Potter’s Apprentice level incentives, you will get: • A second 5x7 Kersey hand-crafted, authenticated Frog or Golfer Tile, to make a set of your choice; • Your FIRST LOOK at the finished video includes download permission.
Pledge $500 or more Pledge $500 or more
Thank You: KILN DEITY! In addition to the Potter’s Assistant level incentives, you will get: • A one-of-a-kind beverage mug, hand-thrown on potter’s wheel by Kersey, accompanied by hand-written thanks and authenticity note; • Do you have a business or a website of your own to promote? If so, under the heading KEY CONTRIBUTOR, we’ll link your URL on SD’s VIMEO site and the Diana “Living a Potter’s Dream” Tumblr and Facebook pages.
Pledge $1,000 or more Pledge $1,000 or more
Thank You: ASSOCIATE PRODUCER! In addition to the Kiln Deity level incentives, you will get: • A second hand-thrown Kersey beverage mug to make a pair; • Invitation to the Premiere screening party celebrating launch of Diana “Living a Potter’s Dream”; • Your name will appear in the video credits as an ASSOCIATE PRODUCER.
Pledge $5,000 or more Pledge $5,000 or more
Thank You: ASSISTANT PRODUCER! In addition to the Associate Producer level incentives, you will get to: • Meet Diana Kersey and take a personally guided tour of her studio; your visit will be videotaped, and a copy given to you as a memento; • Invitations to 2 parties: Join Diana at a Private Studio Reception preceding the Premiere, then travel with her via limousine to the Premiere screening party itself; • Your name will appear in the video credits as an ASSISTANT PRODUCER.
Pledge $10,000 or more Pledge $10,000 or more
Thank You: KERSEYCERAMICS ANGEL! You may opt to receive the single remaining Gulf Coast Toad vertical quatrefoil panel, a safety that matches the Mulberry Street Bridge's panels; or • Diana will create for you a one-of-a-kind custom vessel; • Choose any of the other incentives, or combination of incentives; • Choose a manner of recognition, or remain anonymous.
Project By
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Since 1982, Standard Definition has documented lectures, readings, curatorial discussions, and concerts by exceptional musicians, as well as created corporate digital business cards and instructional DVDs.
