I want you to be my financiers and my audience so I can make a movie for you with no compromises. I know it's risky, and I don't know if it's going to work, but here are a few reasons why I think it's worth it to fund via Kickstarter. Zach Braff
Move over Veronica Mars, a new kickstarter involving major Hollywood talent is in the spotlight. Zach Braff has announced a long awaited follow-up to the critically acclaimed 2004 independent film Garden State, though he's taking an unusual (though becoming increasingly popular) route to finance the movie. Titled 'Wish I Was Here', Braff announced on his Facebook page that the film will be partly crowd funded by the popular project-starting site. His goal is $2 million.... that's how badly you need to want Braff's sophomore directorial effort, which has been written by Zach and his brother Adam. Braff has included a fantastic cameo filled video introducing the project on his
Kickstarter page...
Despite seemingly having a deal in front of him to get Wish I Was Here made with a conventional Hollywood financial backer, Braff has decided to use Kickstarter so fans can front the dosh, meaning that he can make all the casting decisions and have final cut on the project. To entice you into parting with your money, he has included an array of rewards for different levels of pledges for your money, ranging from a PDF of the production diary to a walk on role in the film. Fans will have 30 days to pledge to the project and Braff hopes to bring the film to next year's Sundance Film Festival and wants to release the film in September 2014. For that he will need to start shooting in August and he needs your help to do it. Hopefully Braff reaches his goal and makes his long awaited follow up to one of my favourite films. Braff revealed the plot for the movie via Kickstarter;
"Wish I Was Here" is the story of Aidan Bloom (played by me), a struggling actor, father and husband, who at 35 is still trying to find his identity; a purpose for his life. He and his wife are barely getting by financially and Aidan passes his time by fantasizing about being the great futuristic Space-Knight he'd always dreamed he'd be as a little kid. When his ailing father can no longer afford to pay for private school for his two kids (ages 5 and 12) and the only available public school is on its last legs, Aidan reluctantly agrees to attempt to home-school them. The result is some funny chaos, until Aidan decides to scrap the traditional academic curriculum and come up with his own. Through teaching them about life his way, Aidan gradually discovers some of the parts of himself he couldn't find.
Braff has revealed that he hopes to cast The Big Bang Theory actor Jim Parsons as the best friend character and he's already secured many of the crew for the project, including his Garden State cinematographer Larry Sher, who has most recently shot The Hangover flicks. To secure the funding Braff has gone into MASSIVE detail about the film (some of which we detail below)... so check-out the
Kickstarter page for it and do let us know below if Wish I Was Here is something you're so desperate to see that you'll pay your money upfront for it! Here's page 1 of the script for Wish I Was Here...
Pre-viz character designs;
The following are concept designs from Colin Fix for the movie. Braff writes;
Colin painted these two frames as research for the look of Aidan's opening fantasy sequence. Aidan's fantasy-self has a flying robotic-squire
