Come make a movie with the University of New Orleans Film Program!
UNO’s Department of Film & Theatre is setting its sights on making an extraordinary short film. It’s not just students, but a group of talented professors and professionals collaborating to create a moving and beautiful film; a showcase for the film program. It’s called Spring Film Production – and the experience is the highlight of many of our film students’ careers at UNO.
Our movie is Brokedown Paradise. Lena Harper never intended to move back to New Orleans. She wanted another life, her own life, free from the weight of family history and the city’s traditions. But life has a way of taking its own path. She’s living at home with her dying mother, Cecily, who tries to rise from her sick bed and return to the glories of her past, to be the Queen of Carnival again. Every day Lena must remind her that Mardi Gras and her glory days are past. Broke, trapped and exhausted, Lena is lost, selling her family’s heirlooms at a flea market, trying to get through each day. But today will not be like other days. On the last night of her mother’s life, Lena will discover that Cecily’s beloved rituals and traditions go much deeper than she ever realized. Can a mother’s death be both a loss and a gift? Can Lena find forgiveness and redemption? The discovery is at the place where life and death meet for a final celebration.
What do we need to make it happen? The Film and Theatre Department provides the annual Spring Film Production with the film program’s equipment (including our brand new RED Epic digital camera) and a small budget. This is a great start, but not enough to make our movie. Our ambitions have risen along with has the costs of production.
We need:
- Additional equipment (and a few professionals to operate that equipment)
- Multiple locations as the settings for our story
- Costumes, props, set dressing
- And all the fixings for a mystical Carnival event.
We’ll be shooting for five days during our Spring Break, so we’ll need food and refreshments to keep everyone going during the long (think twelve hours or more!) working days.
Like most independent filmmakers shooting on a shoestring, we know how to get things done with minimal resources. Our producers are hard at work getting goods and services cheaply (and even for free), and finding ways to do more with less. But we’ve still got bills to pay. We need more hard cash than the University can provide.
Please show your support now. Every dollar helps us get closer to our goal. If everyone who visited this page contributed $10 (or as much as your heart and wallet will allow), we will reach our goal and be able to make our movie.
The creative team -- making it happen:
- Produced & Directed by Laura J. Medina (faculty)
- Produced by Laurent Dupépé, Gwendolyn Granger, Alex Lanaux (students)
- Screenplay by Erik Hansen (faculty)
- Cinematography by Hamp Overton (faculty, Director of Film Program)
- Production Design by Kevin Griffith (faculty)
- A full crew of 45+ hardworking UNO students
- And you!
We need YOUR help to make up the difference! Your contribution helps us afford those things we can’t get for free. Every dollar contributed is guaranteed to show up on the screen by way of ….
- Amazing locations
- Extraordinary visual design
- Killer sound
- Fantastic costumes
- Happy actors
- More helping hands on set
- and more….
Most important of all, you’ll be helping to achieve an extraordinary outcome – both creatively and educationally – for our students, faculty, the film program and UNO.
Please consider becoming our partner in bringing this story to the screen, by clicking contribute now.
Please, show your support for the school, for the department, for New Orleans! Here’s your opportunity to invest in our city’s future, in the education and development of our young people, in showing the world what extraordinary talents are right here in New Orleans. Help our future by helping the UNO Film Program make this movie today.
Help spread the buzz! You can also help us by sharing our link and generating buzz over our project.
The more people know about it the better. Also, check in for fun updates as our project progresses!
There will be a contest for the most referrals, stay tuned!
Please show your support now!
