WHAT IS THIS FILM ABOUT?
中文？點擊這裡
To read SueAnn's personal letter click here
So yes, we're going to bike the whole country of Taiwan in 2 weeks and that is going to be awesome, but this film is about more than that.
We want to explore ideas. How do people learn to know themselves? Where do we begin and where we end as finite beings? This is the story of a physically challenging journey cycling through hundreds of miles, paired with the emotional challenges of navigating two wildly different cultures and a variety of languages.
This is a cross cultural exchange.
This documentary takes two individuals from the US to Taiwan, decontextualizing Western individualism and holding in contrast Eastern collectivism and the ideas that accompany such a vastly different worldview. But with the help of a guide that has spent her life stuck in the middle of these two cultures trying to figure that out.
This is a twist on a coming of age story many are familiar with- a trip abroad, learning and exploring, sleeping in hostels, but instead of backpacks in Europe, this is bicycles in Taiwan. Europe was the old world, but Asia is the new world where everything is turning.
We filmed this demo in Nashville in 2 hours with no money, my friend Sean here filled in on the bicycle, and we only had one camera-SueAnn did the voice over. We want to and know we can do more, do better than this, and if you back us today, you get to be a part of making this small pixel of our vision into a reality.
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WHERE IS THE MONEY GOING?
Our goal is $8,000- out of that we lose about 10% to processing fees and the cut that Kickstarter takes. Then, we are going to use about $2,000 of it to fulfill the awesome rewards (making and shipping postcards, DVDs, maps, and photographs) that we want to give to you guys, our backers. The rest of the money is going to go to the cost of making the documentary. We will be renting and buying equipment-- hard drives, lenses, cameras, batteries, mobile audio recorders, and microphones. There will also be transportation costs for us and our equipment- planes, trains, and bicycles, as well as, the cost of food and housing while we're in Taiwan on the trip.
After we finish filming the trip, we will be immersing ourselves in the post production process of editing. If we paid people to do this, it would probably cost us about $10,000+ alone just to get it edited, but we are planning on doing it all ourselves. We aren't really paying ourselves at the point we are in the budget, we just need enough money to get by (paying the rent on our home studio and keeping the lights on) so that we can afford to turn down other work we would be getting if we weren't working on this project. Anne & SueAnn will be doing all the video editing, SueAnn will be mixing the audio, as well as, supervising/producing the soundtrack with the help of Julia.
This is in no way a get rich scheme, and we won't be making profits off of this Kickstarter. We are doing this project with the mindset that we probably won't make any money from it. In fact, we probably won't even break even. We want to see this movie made on principal alone, but the reality is that this film won't be made if we can't get your support.
------>Update: Stretch Goal $10,000<-----
If we reach $10,000, every backer will get a free download of our film's soundtrack, which we won't be able to create unless we raise another 2K to bring Julia with on the trip. She and SueAnn are going to work together while they're in Taiwan to record people from Taiwan to make an album with the same principals, a fusion and experiment with forms of Eastern and Western music. As professional musicians, SueAnn and Julia look at this as an opportunity to combine parts of the skills of their day jobs with the project, as well as, their intense passion for ethnomusicology (the anthropological study of people through their music).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEivlEBfYio
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Risks and challenges
This is our first feature length project, and that lack of experience does mean there's potential for things to go wrong. It could rain constantly while we're there, and we'll have to find creative solutions to keep filming despite that (my first thought is ponchos, and lots of plastic bags).
If our equipment is damaged or stolen while we're traveling that would be a huge setback. There's always the chance that we'll experience other equipment malfunctions or technical difficulties that will set us back. These delays and obstacles will mean unexpected costs for us.
If any of us are hurt on our 600+ mile trek, it could create delays and cost us more than we budget. We are planning for problems like this in our budget and backups to allow us to work around potential problems like this. I also am confident that our determination and creativity will aid us in other unforeseen problems that we may encounter.
Life experience has taught me that problems will always arise, and when they do you tackle them head on, find a solution, and ultimately it contributes to quality of the work you end up with.
If we get hurt, if we get flat tires (which I fully expect to happen), we will stop at the side of the road, take a drink of water, change the tube, and move on-because the fim (and life) wouldn't be much of a story if everything always went perfectly.
In the world of post- it would be easy for editing to get dragged on, especially on a low budget project like this. But we've budgeted money so that we can take the time to really sit down and see this through in a timely fashion.
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Funding period
- (30 days)