Learning it in class and having the guiding hands of your instructors is one thing,but trying to make a feature film with only three people doing EVERYTHING behind the scenes will make a sane man, not-so-sane.  Actually, a lot of the time it was just two people behind the camera doing everything, as Adam was also cast in the lead role.  It was a bit too much and the reason why we brought in Sami Sinervä, with his film expertise to help out and eventually become a permanent fixture of Manjughosha Films.

The usual issues pop up, and you deal with them.  That's life, and in film it's no different, so we created 3 short films, that comedically tell the story of pre-production ("PRE", genius name, I know), production (PRO) and post-production (POST), and will give you a little better idea of who we are and what we've done and how we plan to go forward in the future.  It really goes without saying, but this is where we belong, and where we want to stay.  Making movies and creating something not many people even get the chance to do.

WHY WE NEED YOUR HELP!

Guess what?  The hardest part is already done!  We shot the film.  We edited it, graded it, scored it, gave it hugs and polished it's shoes so it looks handsome and feels good about itself.  Now we need your help to get "Stem the Tide" into as many film festivals as possible, big and small, and as professional as possible.  Each festival has a different application fee required in order to submit the film.  Many even require additional fees if you are selected to have your movie shown.  On top of that, each festival has a specific format that they use to show your movie, from old school film, to digital tape, to dvd, to bluray, etc.  So we are going to have to print multiple copies of the movie in various formats which is VERY costly. Another hurdle to stumble over is marketing, an ugly word that has hurt many a film with bad marketing, so in order to have the best chance to find a distributor, we need to create press kits and advertise heavily to help draw more attention to the film and eventually us.  Things like movie posters, press kits, flyers, soundtrack cd's, dvds, blurays, etc., which is not cheap unfortunately.

And last but certainly not least is the cost to have our sound and music score digitally mastered for 5.1 surround sound.  Imagine going to a movie theatre now and stuck watching a movie in 2 channel sound instead of having that immersive surround sound.  Bad enough we can't tackle the elusive 7.1 but 5.1 is a great start for a first film.  Unfortunately, this process is extremely expensive, costing in the ballpark of several thousands of dollars.  Yes I know, that's a big ballpark.

It's funny, you never really think about all these "hidden costs" that crop up during post-production, but it comes with the territory if you want to be a part of filmmaking.  So here we are, after putting all our money together, getting the movie completed and ready to go, we are looking to our friends, family, and all of YOU, supporters of independent movies, to help get this off the ground and make our dreams of making a film closer to a reality.  $6000 may seem like a lot of money, but it's certainly obtainable and with your help, it will become a reality (VERY PBS sounding there… sadly we don't offer a tote bag, but I'll bring it up with Shawn).  Any extra money over our goal will go towards more marketing venues and possibly even a publicist to help set up interviews or even Q&A's to generate more interest in the movie.

So with that, provided you read this and didn't just jump head first into the pretty videos, we thank you.  Sami, Adam, Shawn and Geoffrey thank you.  For your time, your donation and your support.  Independent film is so much more of a reality because of an opportunity like this, and for that we are very grateful.  To those who DIDN'T jump ahead watch the pretty videos now, they are pretty cool.  We put them together EXCLUSIVELY for Kickstarter and people like yourself who come to this site to support people with a dream to create something special.  Enjoy.