UPDATED 11/10/14 - WE DID IT! WOW THANK YOU!
STRETCH GOALS! VINYL for the new album at $8000 = DONE*
*VINYL of the 2015 album will be added to every backer at $75 or higher.
an ALL-NEW MEGAMAN album for everyone on Christmas Day AT $9000 = DONE
CUSTOM CART PERK Added at $10,000 = DONE!
*Every backer over $250 will get the NES cart album with their pledge!
12K: hard copy perk for the Megaman album releasing 12/25 = DONE
THANK YOU!
Hello everybody! It's me, your friendly neighborhood teacher/rapper/hero, Random, aka Mega Ran. Here we are back on the Kickstarter with a huge project!
Every year since I decided to take on this music thing full time in 2011 has been a journey...sometimes good, sometimes bad, but always a challenge. The main goal for me has always been to continue to grow and to keep innovating and giving you great and thoughtful music projects.
This year we stepped into the world of film, thanks to an amazing director, Mike Cardoza, who agreed to travel with us on his own dime to shoot an awesome documentary of myself and a live band, called Mega Lo Mania. It dropped in August 2014 to some great reviews.
We were then faced with a task that was more daunting that I ever thought it would be, which was promoting and distributing a film. I know all about music, but the film world was one that I was not prepared for! There's film festivals, movie reviewers and the like, not to mention, putting your film in front of people so they can enjoy it.
We put in the man-hours to create the content and put it out, out of our own pockets, but when it came time to figure out distribution and promotion, we were quite frankly out of money. Additionally, most retailers and festivals require a film to be 60 minutes, and ours is currently at 40. This requires reshooting, repackaging and re-releasing the video, as Mega Lo Mania: The Director's Cut.
This Director's Cut will feature:
- more performance footage
- interviews with legendary and influential musicians about me and our work
- more history of chiptunes, VGM and hip-hop
- much more!
Here's a breakdown of costs:
Getting a movie on Netflix (HD)= $999
Getting a movie on iTunes= $1500 + yearly fees
Getting a movie into Redbox =$1395
Getting a movie into Amazon= $150
Getting your movie into just HALF of the hundreds of film festivals all over the world= over $1000 in submission fees
total= over $5000... to distribute a film...AFTER making it. Whoa.
So, here we are, back at Kickstarter to figure out how the heck to get the most out of the time and effort we've already put in. Tough stuff.
At the same time, I'm working on my 2015 full-length album, tentatively titled "Wouldn't Miss It For The World," and I honestly think it's my best stuff in a long time. It's the blend of soul/jazz-hop, chiptune and new-age beats that I've been trying to put together for years. It's The Call meets Forever Famicom. Right now I have some amazing contributors to that album, like K-Murdock, Homeboy Sandman, MURS, Joell Ortiz, Austin Wintory (Journey, flOw) and many more. We want to do VINYL for this release as well, so hopefully any additional funds over the $5000 we make can go towards that album.
I have a lot of ideas for stretch goals that I'll share, like a SURPRISE PROJECT I've been holding for a special occasion, but first things first, we need the distribution funds to make this video do what we know it can do, be a success!
Thank you for reading and sharing! Let's make history all over again.
Raheem
Risks and challenges
The video is done, additional footage is being worked on now.. all that we need to do is to distribute it, so your risk is little to none. Time may be a factor, as we don't control when items are available on Netflix, etc, but from our side, we will do all we can to make this work.
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Funding period
- (25 days)