"The Ferryman" Concept Art - 'Buddy'

The Story 

The Ferryman opens with a young boy and a clueless drunk arriving to a barren landscape populated with eternally wandering souls. 

They awake on The Ferryman's boat, which inexplicably comes and goes without the need for any water, and is owned by the soft spoken Buddy, a mysterious navigator of the underworld with unknown powers. 

The First Page of "The Ferryman" Script

Bored of his job transporting souls back and forth for eternity, The Ferryman lazily agrees to manifest a carnival for the young boy, Charlie, and throws the drunk, Wayne, off of the boat to fend for himself. 

Content with his day's work, The Ferryman lays back and watches the morbid crowd of souls gather inside the curiously placed wooden carnival. 

Unfortunately, not long after releasing Wayne and Charlie off the boat, complications ensue. Charlie discovers he can now walk in this afterlife, and has a tremendous secret hidden in his pocket. The only thing Wayne can remember is being on his way to run a ring toss game at a Carnival, before drinking himself to death. 

After a great disturbance occurs within the carnival, The Ferryman must reluctantly step out of his boat and clean up the mess made by the wrongly placed Charlie, and tragically oblivious Wayne. 

"The Ferryman" Concept Art- 'Wayne'

Revelations ensue, and what follows is a story of finding new life in death, accepting the consequences of a past life, and searching for the right place to move on, in one form or another. 

There's also a funny bit with some hot dogs written in there somewhere. 

The Setting 

The world of the Ferryman draws inspiration from Greek Mythology, Dante's Inferno, HBO's Deadwood, and maybe a little bit of Han Solo.

The film will be shot in Syracuse's Skytop Quarry, an abandoned and rocky area of land, gloriously out of place to put a small carnival inside of.

Skytop Quarry, Syracuse NY

The carnival will be as fully constructed on location as possible, complete with food vendors, fortune tellers, carnival games, fire breathers, strong men, and a small army of dirt covered extras. We know digital set extensions exist.

 With the help of local Syracuse talent, resources, and generosity, construction on the set will commence immediately after receiving the necessary funding and raw materials. 

The world of the Ferryman is bleak and lifeless, yet somehow a spontaneous carnival will breathe life and color to an otherwise destitute environment.

 The film will have a large focus on production design, with a team of talented Syracuse University students headed by Produducer, Art Director, veteran stage and theater set designer Eliana Lustig. 

The Filmmakers

The Ferryman will be Directed by Writer and Producer Josef Abramov, who has taken his entire life of film schools, internships, and on-set experience, and placed it inside of his most ambitious and daring work to date. 

The Ferryman comes from the genuine passion of young independent film making, and Josef hopes to share his immense inspiration with the rest of the extremely talented cast and crew, and create something wholly unique and visually stunning.

Producer Jesse Cardoza will put his tremendous amount of experience behind the camera to use as The Ferryman's Director of Photography, and is working closely with Josef Abramov on realizing a stylized, ambitiously cinematic look for the film, which will be shot RAW on a Canon EOS C300 and use a healthy variety of Dollies, Jibs, Steadicams, and Appleboxes.

 All the Appleboxes.  

The Cast

Quickly rising and constantly busy actor Ari Barkan will portray Wayne, a tragic and drunk force of nature acting as "The Ferryman"s antagonist.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4785566/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

Ari's impressive list of previous credits can speak for themselves, but just look at this shot of him standing behind Leo in The Wolf of Wall Street. 

Ari Barkan (back center) In Martin Scorsesse's "The Wolf of Wall Street"

Further casting will be updated as auditions continue. 

The Money

With the target budget and fundraising goal of 7500$, Our producers are making sure every cent will be put to use to match the ambitious vision put forth by the filmmakers.

Between the large scale, intricate set, state of the art production equipment, professionally hired crew members, intense and lengthy shooting schedule, hungry extras, "The Ferryman" was never a project intended to be made cheaply. 

"The Ferryman" is an entirely independent production, funded exclusively by private donations from those who believe in the wild and surreal vision of the young filmmakers, and want to see the fantastic screenplay translated to the screen the way it was meant to be.

Principle Photography will commence on April 4, 2014, with 5 full days of shooting planned sunrise to sunset, as well as additional days for potential re-shoots.

"The Ferryman" is planned to start it's nationwide festival run Summer 2014, and will be the first production from Golden City Films. 

You.

We want to give a little something back to anyone who believes in the "The Ferryman" enough to give us money their money and support our ambition.

 As well as all of the attractive perks offered, every backer will be updated regularly via newsletter with production information, photos, pre-production progress, video logs, and more cats. 

We want you all to feel involved in the making of "The Ferryman", we want you to see how far your contribution went and to earn your trust by showing you all the hard work done to realize this film.

Without you, this would never be possible, 

Thank You.