It Ain't Over So we were unsuccessful. But we remain undaunted!

We are photographing every Sizzler in the United States of America no matter what! It just may take a little time.

Thanks again to everyone who backed us - we so appreciate you showing the love and giving your support. And thank you to everyone who sent emails, twittered, facebooked, or interviewed us! You are a discerning bunch.
One More Very Important Thing As we move forward with our plans, we have one more thing to ask - because we still want you to be a part of this project!

Please go to thefishesloveyou.com and sign up for our mailing list. We won't send you a ton of emails. We will keep you up on the progress of Sizzler and other projects. And we may be back on Kickstarter again - for finishing funds.

Sizzler!

The Fishes

Hello!

Hello to our 40 backers - thank you so much for your support! Thanks to Benno - our latest backer, and to Reed's dad for putting us over the $2k mark.

And if you haven't backed us yet, hello!
Sizzler Update We took out the Eagle Rock and Sunland Sizzlers this weekend, and tried to get a sense of the CA wildfire damage - but roads are still closed through the Angeles National Forest, so we didn't get far.
42 hours / $9,940 to go
To be honest, with $9,940 to go, reaching $12,000 looks grim. We haven't given up. We want to get funded! We've been working hard to get the word out. The dream of the Sizzler room is very much still alive!

Here are some more Sizzler words to think on for the next 42 hours -
10 Zen Monkeys We sat down for this very thorough interview with Destiny at 10 Zen Monkeys. Destiny? Destiny.
http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2009/10/08/every-sizzler-restaurant-in-america/
FlashNews FlashNews goes out to radio shows and late night TV. We did not get a call from Letterman -
http://www.flashnews.com/news/wfn1091009J31594.html
The Church of Lazlo Reed survived a drive-time radio interview with a bunch called The Church of Lazlo on 96.5 "The Buzz" Kansas City. He thought it was a tough interview, but he said "contemporary art" on air, which I think is just about as beautiful as a blurry Sizzler. They're aren't any Sizzlers in Kansas or Missouri by the way.
http://blogs.965thebuzz.com/lazlo/2009/10/12/monday-october-12/

Why back us now Why back us now, with $9,940 and only 42 hours to go? Because if you do like the Sizzler project, and want to be involved - we need to know.

Regardless of whether we get funded here, we need to find our people!

Liz

PS -
On a very high note, the Kiva.org couple we loaned to got completely funded, which we think is great - http://www.kiva.org/app.php...

Sorry about the extra update today but we forgot a few things.

There have been some interesting mentions about our project in various places around the web this week! They illustrate why we put this on Kickstarter to begin with - to bring people along, which feels great.

We do wonder what people really think of it - and us - especially since we're only 14% there.

But hey - a few weeks ago, if someone had told you 34 people would back The Fishes for almost $1700 (so far) to go photograph every Sizzler in America, would you have believed it?
Blog Mentions Kickstarter - Great Moments in Project Videos (thanks, Yancey!)
http://blog.kickstarter.com/post/200232623/great-moments-in-project-videos
(Scroll down, it's there.)

Rachel Hulin's excellent photography blog
http://www.rachelhulin.com/blog/
(In the links - you can find it...)

Eater LA !!
http://la.eater.com/archives/2009/09/29/sizzler.php
On Twitter: @kickstarter Project of the Day: Husband + wife team want to photograph all 206 Sizzlers in the US http://bit.ly/1BJ41r

@manbitesworld They want to raise money to travel the country + take pictures of every Sizzler. Did cancer get cured? http://bit.ly/LG32b from @eaterla

@thirdward We fell in love with the Fishes & their goal of photographing every Sizzler: http://bit.ly/1STZcv

@BarlowBill Help the Fishes photograph every Sizzler in America. Every one. http://bit.ly/19R2ke

@renyer Come on everybody, we can do this! These guys need $12000 in donations to photograph every Sizzler in the US! http://bit.ly/2qzsm0

Any comments about the project are definitely welcome here!

And keep passing it on - we want to hit that 25% mark soon. 25% feels good.

We got 6 new backers by Wednesday, which means that we get to pledge back $30 to a microloan on Kiva.org. That's great! (And since on Kiva you can only loan in increments of $25, we bumped it up to $50, so even better!)

We chose to give a loan to Mrs. Sreythom But, who runs a small grocery stand in front of her home outside of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. She is trying to raise $700 to buy more supplies and expand her business. You can join us in helping her or just view her page on Kiva here: http://www.kiva.org/app.php...

In other news, we went to New York last week with our work and showed it around. We had a great trip and got to talk to a lot of interesting people in the art community. There was much enthusiasm for the Sizzler project and we've returned home more committed than ever to finishing the project and making it the best it can be! We only have 12 days left and have a long way to go to reach our fund raising goal, so if you've been waiting to pledge, now is the perfect time in order to help us get momentum for the homestretch!

Thanks again everyone for the continued support!

We've been so excited having this project on Kickstarter and have been overwhelmed by the support from friends, family and strangers alike. It's gotten us thinking about ways that we can give back to people who could use the support. One small gesture that we've come up with is that from now until the end of Wednesday, for every new backer this project gets, The Fishes will put $5 towards making microloans on Kiva! Even if you only pledge $1, we'll still pledge $5 back to Kiva. Plus, we will make good on this whether we ultimately make our fundraising goal or not! So if you've been waiting to pledge, now is a great time!

Thanks for the continued support and please help us get the word out! We want to make a BIG microloan on Kiva!

Reed

Hello everyone! A mini-update. And behind-the-scenes photos.

Facebook has Sizzler flair. Incredible! (See photo.)

We took out five Sizzlers this weekend.

We have 167 to go.

The Ventura Sizzler is particularly lovely.

Thanks to everyone who has been supporting the project and getting the word out!
If you're reading this and haven't backed us yet - don't wait! You'll get great art.

Heading to New York this week - wish us luck!

More soon,

Liz

26 days to go on Kickstarter! We are SO THRILLED to have all of you on board - 18 backers who committed over $1000, which I can't believe happened in just a few days.

So we had the guts to do this, and no matter what happens, I'm proud of that.

Launching the project, coming up with rewards and deciding on $12,000 as our goal was harder than I thought it would be. I don't have to tell you that it seems like an insane amount to produce, on a very basic level, 206 photographs of a restaurant chain! Blurry photographs! But that's what the budget told us.

And we wanted the stuff you get to be good. Really good.
We have 150 cities yet to go! Even though we've already covered Texas, New York, Florida, New Mexico, Nebraska, and some of Arizona and Utah, the Western US is incredibly heavy with Sizzlers. I'm intimidated by the density of it. It's a road trip, but it's not the great American free-spirit-find-yourself road trip. It's mapped out, and takes us to places the typical road trip folk don't visit. These are neighborhoods with Walmarts, Home Depots and the occasional yogurt shop. Once we find the freeway exit, most of the time we can navigate to the Sizzler pretty well without consulting the map.

Our record so far is six Sizzlers in one day. The six Sizzler day is actually kind of a rough day - because of navigating, traffic and, honestly - burnout. Each time we want to produce a great image - chances are we can't come back. So whatever's going on - the building is completely backlit or the best spot is in the street, traffic is terrible, there are 20 cars in the parking lot. We figure it out.

Now we're covering the Southern California Sizzlers catch-as-catch can. This weekend - Ventura! And some San Fernando Valley Sizzlers.

Today someone described this project as a collection of memories - I like that. We hope it has a little something for everyone.

We'll update a couple times a week from here on out! And thanks everyone for checking out our ideas and coming along!

Liz