Kickstarter

THE FILM
The Man Who Never Cried is a modern day fable that will be told with narrative elegance and an even mixture of truthful comedy and poignant drama. Taking visual and tonal cues from films like Big Fish, Amélie, Little Children, 500 Days of Summer and the first 15 minutes of Magnolia, this film aims to use a far fetched concept (the inability to cry) to tell a truthful story about human emotion and the need of love and hope in everyone’s life.

THE CONTEST
The Doorpost Film Project has just selected 5 filmmakers (out of 21 semi-finalists and hundreds of entrants) who will receive $40,000 to make a short narrative film and will be provided mentors to advise through the filmmaking process. It is an exciting bunch of filmmakers, all of whom have made films before—this is not a group of students. The final 5 scripts, after two months of mentorship through 4-5 drafts, are now polished, ambitious stories with wonderful parts for actors—and best of all they are all only 20-30 pages long. The film's theatrical premiere will be in Nashville in front of scores of industry folk in November. The film will also be shared online on the Doorpost's website for public viewing and voting by hundreds of thousands of viewers.

In 2009, our team was one of 10 finalists to receive $30,000 for our final round film. With our first round short "I Love You, Will Smith", we have, again, risen to the final round this year! There's a quick blurb about our journey on the Texas Film Commission website: http://governor.state.tx.us/film/news-detail/14730

WHAT'S COMING UP
TMWNC will be filmed entirely in Austin, TX in late August. We're currently gearing up for casting in both Los Angeles and Austin. In the meantime, we're also setting up an open read through of the script in the near future to gather comments and reactions from our fans and fellow filmmakers. We've received great editorial comments on the script from established Hollywood industry folk such as Dean Batali (Exec Prod of THAT 70'S SHOW), Jeff "The Dude" Dowd (Producer), Dan Ireland (Producer, Director, and also Founder of Seattle Int. Film Fest), Tejal Desai (2003 Nicholl Fellowship Winner), etc. These processes will help us further vet the script and ensure a story that our audiences can connect with.

YOUR DONATIONS
With $40,000 already provided by the Doorpost Film Project, you may be asking yourself what the additional $12,500 will be used for. We have committed to providing our short with the best talent, equipment, locations, props, wardrobe and other miscellaneous necessities. Your donations will primarily go towards the professional camera, lenses and lighting equipment needed to establish the kind of look we are attempting to create. The rest of the donations will go towards actor fees, accommodations, and other talent expenses. As with most responsible producers, we will still be negotiating great deals with our vendors, but to ensure we are able to bring together top notch resources, we need your further monetary support. In our hopes that you will join our team, we've set up a series of "incentives" to the right to show our appreciation for your generosity.

A LITTLE ABOUT THE CREW
BRADLEY JACKSON (writer, director)
Bradley Jackson is an accomplished writer/director living in Austin, Texas. His comedic shorts THE BIGGEST WEAKNESS, PLAYLAND and I LOVE YOU, WILL SMITH were all finalists in the Doorpost film contest. His comedic short PLAYING CHICKEN won the Audience Award and Best Narrative Short at the South by Southwest Click Film Festival, Best Student Short at the JumpCut International Film Festival and recently won the $10,000 grand prize for best film/animation in the Famecast Online Talent Competition. The film was praised a “The quintessential comedic short... perfection” by the AV Club and “demonstrating an expert sense of visual storytelling” by Movie Maker Magazine. His screenwriting can be seen in the award winning, Sony Produced web series SCRIPT COPS directed by Austin filmmaker Scott Rice. The series has been viewed over a million times on Crackle.com. Bradley also recently optioned his feature length screenplay DRUNK DIAL to LA based TenFour Pictures with Gil Cates Jr., (LUCKY starring Colin Hanks and Jeffrey Tambor) set to direct.

RUSSELL WAYNE GROVES (producer)
Russell Wayne Groves began his business career in 2002 while attending the University of Texas at Austin. Concurrent with classes, he took a position with Rodman Construction, a civil engineering construction firm. He was quickly promoted to Chief Estimator, where Russell helped secure and manage $250 million in civil construction projects over a span of 3 years. In the spring of 2007, Russell formed a development company with his family that was instrumental in a 55-acre commercial land acquisition with partners from the prolific land development firm, Pioneer Austin Development. In 2007, he formed the film production company Llessur Sevorg Productions which is currently in development on a number of film and web content projects. In addition to short films and television pilots, Russell has produced both regional & national commercial spots, involving entities such as Best Buy and Dell. His film work has been recognized by the Austin Film Festival, South by Southwest Film Festival and most recently the very competitive Doorpost Film Project. Russell has many projects at different stages of development and has just wrapped production on a comedic feature film shot in Austin. His ability to produce and manage all facets of business make him an invaluable tool to any organization.

ANDREW LEE (producer)
Andrew Lee is a producer at Synthetic Pictures, an internationally recognized commercial, film and branded content production company. His clients include AMD, Vegas Tourism, MADD, Proctor & Gamble. He was a producer on the 2.5 million dollar branded content campaign, VEGAS BOUND (2009), which documented an entire small town on an all-expense paid trip to Las Vegas. He was also nominated as a finalist for the 2009 “Best Up-and-Comer” by the Austin Advertising Federation’s Big Wig Awards. He is now producing THE SPIRIT MOLECULE, a feature documentary that’s currently in post-production with a scheduled 2010 release. On theside, Andrew has produced short films such as THE BIGGEST WEAKNESS, official selection for the Austin Film Festival, Little Ripper Film Festival in Melbourne and was a 2009 Doorpost Film Project Semi Finalist. Most recently, he produced the short film TABLE 7, official selection of the 2010 Santa Barbara International Film Festival, 2010 Cleveland International Film Festival, and SXSW. Shortly thereafter, he produced the 2010 Nikon Festival winning short film, CHICKEN VS PENGUIN, selected by Rainn Wilson, iJustine and Chase Jarvis, to receive the $100,000 grand prize. Andrew studied film in the Radio TV Film program at the University of Texas in Austin producing short films officially selected for various film festivals and broadcast on local network TV. Before settling in at Synthetic Pictures, Andrew has worked with the Austin Film Society, Texas Film Commission and Storyline Entertainment (producers of FOOTLOOSE, CHICAGO, HAIRSPRAY).

DAVID WARD (Associate Producer, Editor)
David Ward is a filmmaker, videographer, and editor living in Austin, TX. He has done work for ESPN, Gaither Studios, Sweetwood Productions, The Active Health Network, PMvideo, Massify, and many others. As an editor, his work as been featured on Yahoo Video, AOL.com, eBaumsWorld.com, and various other websites. David was the editor of THE BIGGEST WEAKNESS, PLAY LAND and I LOVE YOU, WILL SMITH, all finalists in the Doorpost film contest and have been selected for various film festivals. His short film MAKE A WISH was a semi-finalist in the Doorpost film contest and played at the 2010 SXSW film festival.

RICARDO DIAZ (Cinematographer)
Ricardo graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.S. in Radio-Television-Film. While there, he served as cinematographer on a number of award winning short films including HEY MISTER and TRINITY TEST both of which were shot on super 16MM film and played the Austin Film Festival. He then worked as a union assistant cameraman on feature films, commercials, and music videos - including shooting the 35 MM opening title sequence for the feature film ELVIS AND ANNABELLE (starring Blake Lively and Joe Mantegna). In 2009, he graduated from the prestigious AFI film school in Los Angeles and also shot the Doorpost finalist film PLAYLAND. He has since gone on to work on multiple international documentaries, a short film starring Ari Graynor (NICK & NORAH'S INFINITE PLAYLIST), Michael Stahl-David (CLOVERFIELD), Keir O’Donnell (WEDDING CRASHERS, PAUL BLART: MALL COP), and most recently was a camera assistant on the narrative feature film LUCKY, starring Colin Hanks and Jeffrey Tambor.

CHRIS STULL (Production Designer)
Chris Stull has worked in the art department of films made in Texas since 1994 with REALITY BITES and MISS CONGENIALITY. Chris’ collaboration with Robert Rodriguez began in 2001 on part one of the SPY KIDS series, followed by the subsequent installments as both set dresser and leadman. Chris partnered with Rodriguez again in 2005 on the critically acclaimed hit, SIN CITY as Assistant Art Director followed by THE ADVENTURES OF SHARKBOY AND LAVAGIRL 3-D as Art Director. In 2007, Chris worked as set dresser on Rodriguez’s GRINDHOUSE and in 2009 on the highly anticipated follow-up film MACHETE as Production Designer. Amongst his partnership with Rodriguez, Chris was production designer on the films ELVIS AND ANABELLE and SKATELAND, which recently debuted at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.