We Got the Green Light! (Seed&Spark update)

Good evening Wonderful Supporters, 

We're down to the last 3 days of this campaign. It ends at 11:59pm EST this Friday! Thanks to all of you, we just got the Green Light, which is the 80% threshold required to receive the funds we've raised! 

Our goal is definitely to hit 100% so that we can deliver on all our promises, including being able to donate 5% of cash raised to The Trevor Project; but now that we're past 80% we know we can get through production and make this film. Thank you! Let's keep the momentum going tonight!

Suggested Tweet: 

The #aboutadonkey team got the Green Light on @seedandspark! Now let's get 'em to 100% & make this inclusive comedy! http://bit.ly/2m4Z4wO

Thank you, thank you, thank you,

Christina, Kelsey & the team

IndieWorks - February Recap

We usually put out recaps the week after IndieWorks, but we've been quite busy at CongestedCat this month. So here it is: two weeks ago was our February edition, and it was a wonderful night. We thought the cold would keep the crowd away but we had over 45 people in house for our 6 women-powered shorts of the night! Some thoughtful, insightful and fun conversations came out of the lineup. We hope connections were made, as well!

We'd just like to say thank you to everyone who came out to support the filmmakers and spend the evening with us & them. We hope you'll join us again for our March screening on the 7th. 

See photos from the night:

The Films of the night:

The Perfumist (Directed by Yukari Akaba Rockmuller, Shannon Lee, Daniela Lobo Dias, Sandra Rivero Ortiz)
A dramatic story highlighting the battle of Machine-Equipped Man against Cosmic Nature. Seeking the perfect scent for his perfume, Benedict Malville runs into the consequences of trampling on sacred, natural ground.

What The People Want (Directed & Animated by Kathleen Judge)
This animated music video takes inspiration from the songs lyric and especially the disappearance, murder, and attacks on women around the world. 

America Heard: Refuge of Hope (Directed by Yasmin Mistry, Produced by James Boo)
Syracuse, New York is an unlikely home to over 10,000 former refugees. Two women at the forefront of this community reflect on what their presidential vote means to those whose only true home is the American town that took them in.

Sleeping With Earrings On (Directed by Jaclyn Gramigna, Written & Produced by Stephanie Iscovitz)
A family drama centered around Maggie's marriage to the love of her life, Kyle.The tension is palpable on the morning of the wedding when Georgie misplaces something important that Bridget entrusted to her.

Juice (Written & Directed by Rachel Kessler)
M, a young woman of quiet intensity, has six of her closest friends over to celebrate her sixteenth birthday. 

Great Expectations (Directed by Don Downie, Written by Dorothy Marcic, Produced by/Starring Laura Dowling Shea)
Maribeth just needs some help to finish a big project but ends up with much more than she expected! Sometimes more is less.

We were a bit shorthanded this month but still managed to shoot the Q&A. Check out the quick Recap to see what the filmmakers had to say about their films. *Please know there are some film spoilers - feel free to look for an opportunity to catch the films at a festival or computer screen near you & then come back to watch!

The awards go to...

At the end of the evening, we announced our winning filmmakers for both Audience Choice Award & Silver Whiskers Award. The Audience Choice Award is voted upon by all those in attendance, and the Silver Whiskers Award is judged by the CongestedCat Team based on a system rating 8 categories of Story, Dialogue/Writing, Direction, Acting, Cinematography, Sound, Editing, and Production Value. The Silver Whiskers winner goes on to screen again at our end of year Best of Fest screening in April. 

The Silver Whiskers winner also receives $50 towards a crowdfunding campaign on SeedandSpark.com should they use the platform and a free Social Media audit ($200 value) from 4MileCircus. 

For the February 2017 lineup, our winning films were:
    Audience Choice Award:  "Sleeping With Earrings On"
    Silver Whiskers Award:  "Juice"

Join us next month for our March Screening on the 7th!

Meet Cinnamon, our titular Donkey! (Seed&Spark update)

Hi everyone, 

We're at 30% with 25 days left, thanks to all of you! We're so excited to keep pushing forward to bring this film to life, and are so grateful to have you along on the journey with us. To celebrate hitting this milestone, we'd like to introduce you to Cinnamon, who will be playing TG, the donkey, in our film! 

When brainstorming how we'd get a donkey for the film, we knew we wanted to avoid reaching out to any petting zoos or pony ride type companies that would potentially exploit or abuse their animals. We set out to find local sanctuaries and rescue groups. Thankfully, we came across this NY Times article (video included) about Donkey Park, a non-profit in Upstate NY that takes donkeys to nursing homes and schools for the disabled as therapy for both people and donkeys. (The article explains more about their mission.) 

We reached out to the founder Steve Stiert, and he was just lovely. He was very excited by our film and the opportunity to promote the loving nature of donkeys to more of the world. I think there is also some parallels with his own story and that of Tim, the father in the film. He agreed to let us use one of his donkeys for the film once he verified we were the real deal and aimed to care for the animal as much as he does. Cinnamon is about 8 years old. She and her mom, Susie, are rescues. If Steve didn't take them in, they would have been slaughtered for meat. 

Donkeys are companion animals. They tend to bond strongly to another. Steve said that even if Cinnamon and Susie weren't mother and daughter, he'd still bring both to set because they're best friends (kind of like me & my mom!) and need to be together. So lucky for us, we'll get to have both cuddly cuties on set with us for three days at the end of March! 

In the film, TG is just a donkey being a donkey. Cinnamon will only have to act natural and be herself. But we do have some moments where we'll need her to look or walk in a certain direction for the camera. Steve let us shoot some video to demonstrate how he's been training her with positive reinforcement to get her to learn some cool stuff. 

We'll have more videos of her training later, exclusively for all you supporters. And even though Susie won't be in the film, she'll surely be in our behind the scenes videos with Cinnamon from set!

Our big push now is to hit 50% by the end of this week. Please keep spreading the word so we can reach more of our audience and get this film made together!

Sample tweet:

Meet Cinnamon, the donkey from #AboutADonkey! Want to see more of her? Support the project on @seedandspark: https://vimeo.com/202790888.

Thank you,

Christina, Kelsey & the team

Table Read Video (Seed&Spark Update)

Good morning, 

I'm just going to start every update with THANK YOU because you're all awesome and we can't thank you enough. We're at 24% and moving at a nice pace. But getting to 30% as soon as possible is pretty key, so we're looking to reach a lot of people today!

If you missed yesterday's preview of the first scene of the film, it now lives in the media section of our campaign. Hopefully you enjoyed it. Please do share it with anyone you think might dig it too!

A few weeks back we had our first reading of the entire script. It was a very low key get-together for the cast and core crew. We recorded it for our own purposes, since Kelsey and I were still revising the script at the time. But we decided to throw together a super short highlight reel to share with you all. I doesn't reveal much, just a quick intro to the ensemble. 

We've got more videos to come! Stay tuned.

-Christina

We're Crowdfunding for "About a Donkey!"

We launched our Seed&Spark campaign for our second feature today! Watch our pitch below, then check out our campaign to get involved with bringing this film to life!