Hi all,
It's March, a year since we began this Kickstarter, and its been an incredible year for us thanks to all of your support. We wanted to check in and let you in on our progress, and take a minute to keep you updated on some changes we're making to the Folk to Folk project.
First, for fun new things! Early this fall we were invited to True/False Film Festival in Columbia, Missouri to be the festival's "Official Busker Film Crew" - which means that from Feb. 28th to March 4th, we got to run around with cameras and audio equipment capturing as many of the street performers who come to town to busk during the festival as possible. We've already got one video from T/F up - Yes, Ma'am, a street band from New Orleans.
That's the latest in our filming news, but more importantly, we want to talk format.
In editing all our footage over the past 6 months since our last trip, we've decided that this project will work best as a transmedia documentary project, rather than a short film. So, instead of working to scrap together the themes and talking points and insights we've gathered into one 45 minute documentary, we're experimenting with multimedia storytelling of a different nature.
Our first step is to create an interactive map to organize our videos. This will give every voice we've captured the space to be heard, without having to squeeze into the context of a larger film. It will also give our audience the power to pick and choose who they want to hear/see/experience each time they visit our site, putting the creation of a narrative into your hands. We've been working hard to develop this map concept with a designer and developer, and we hope to have a beta version sometime in early April.
We're also researching other interactive storytelling platforms, and we're excited to see where this idea ends up. But in the meantime, we promised you DVDs and full film downloads, and we still want to show you how much we appreciate your donations - because, seriously, without you guys, none of this would exist at all.
So, we've come up with a couple of ideas, and we want to know what you think.
Option 1 - Digital downloads of any/all webisodes we've put up or ever will put up for your personal collection. We've made it so you cannot download our webisodes without a code, and we will give you that code.
Option 2 - DVDs with a compilation of these webisodes for your offline consumption. You can send us a list of the ones you want, or we can choose at random. DVDs will come with custom-made DVD cases and notes and love.
Option 3 - You tell us. A Folk to Folk flannel? Pajamas? A drawing of what we imagine your face looks like? A detailed atlas? Stickers? If we can do it, you can have it... within reason.
Again, we are so, so thankful for your support. We'll continue to update everyone on our progress as we... progress.
<3,
Folk to Folk