October 2015: A TriBeCa NYC mom and filmmaker, Alixx Schottland met a homeless mom and her teen songstress daughter. Inspired to make a difference, Alixx is putting her 20 years of entertainment industry experience to use. Having worked on independent films, on television and on the New York City stage, she creates dynamic, creative collaboration with other artists to develop distinctive projects and help bring their visions to life. Alixx is an ardent believer in projects that feature strong, complex roles for women and minorities that focus on subjects closest to her heart, such as social issues, charity, music and fashion.
This film will raise awareness to the teen homeless epidemic sweeping New York City and the entire country. LOVE MUSIC SHELTER is a scripted musical film in production for September 2018. LOVE MUSIC SHELTER is truly unique: as the film will incorporate real homeless teen singers melded with a few stars snagging lead roles to up the excitement and glam factor.
Inspired by true events, LOVE MUSIC SHELTER is a story about a homeless teen, Sam, and her alcoholic mother as they struggle to navigate the streets, shelter system and their dreams. Sam, against all odds, is accepted into a prestigious art school and must deal with the duality of attending a fancy charter school while living on the streets. She is embarrassed, proud, beat, and yet still hopeful. LOVE MUSIC SHELTER is a story about hope, change and believing in yourself no matter what the circumstances may be.
February 18th, 2018 –The National Alliance to end homelessness explains- “In America, 550,000 unaccompanied, single youth and young adults under the age of 24 experience a homelessness episode of longer than one week. What is worse is that a staggering 380,000 are under 18.” The New York Times continues – “In the last two years, there has been an increase of 30% in NYC bringing the number from 59,000 to 77,0000 homeless people with 40% of them being family and teens.”
LOVE MUSIC SHELTER strives to provoke changes in the system through national awareness. LOVE MUSIC SHELTER will employ homeless/formerly homeless teens both in front of the camera as well as behind the scenes. Those participating in the film will develop skills that they will be able to use in future careers. Forty percent of the cast will be actors of color and other minorities, in roles that reinforce positive role models for their community, thus breaking down the barriers that stereotypes and prejudices create.
"Alixx Schottland has been a dedicated volunteer at The Door for many years, working with the young people in our runaway and homeless youth program," says David Vincent, Executive Deputy Director, at The Door. "She brings her passion and knowledge about the young people she has met over the years to her film, which has the potential to bring urgently needed awareness to the realities of life on the street for teens and young adults. The Door is grateful that she will donate a portion of the proceeds to support our homeless youth."
Our commitment is to donate a percentage of profits from the success of this film to help make shelters a safer more stable environment for homeless teens that find themselves in this impossible predicament!
LOVE MUSIC SHELTER will entertain through creative storytelling and fresh music, but most importantly it will bring awareness to the growing homeless problem amongst adolescents. There is an opportunity for a few more key investors and celebrities to get involved to help make the difference for this forgotten population! After all, no one chooses to be homeless… #Musicheals
LOVE MUSIC SHELTER, on the street your only home is the song in your heart.
What We Need:
$4600 - 6 Episodes for our YouTube Channel:
$50- Salary of homeless or formerly homeless YouTube Channel performer: When donating this amount, you will help us create a paid opportunity for a performer and highlight their talents and story and help them get there talent out into the world via social media.
$100 -Photographer: We like to have a photographer on set of our YouTube Channel filming days to capture the magic of the moment. We interview amazing homeless and formerly homeless performers as well as up and coming talent, and use these photos to promote their music and stories across all our social media channels.
$100- PA: On our Love Music Shelter YouTube channel set, PAs are integral for filming, they help the director with set up, working the cameras, checking in talent, and so much more!
$200- Craft services: We love to create an industry like vibe on our YouTube set. When we invite homeless and formerly homeless performers to come share their talents, we like to give them an inside experience of the show biz industry. We hope to lift up and inspire our talent and treat them like the stars they are. By donating $200 you can help us feed these performers.
$600- Rental of studio space: The beautiful studio space is important in creating an industry atmosphere to invite the performers into and make them feel comfortable while they share their important stories and talents with the world.
$600- Assistant editor: to help cut, edit and add in special effects for the YouTube footage, to make our show as cinematically exciting as possible.
$1000- Editor: our editor for our YouTube Channel creates the amazing videos we are able to bring you weekly.
$1500- Director of photography/Director: our director on set of our YouTube Channel runs the entire show- calling all the important shots.
Film Development and Management:
$3000 - Casting director deposit: the casting director plays a key role in getting the celebrities we need for our LOVE MUSIC SHELTER film to make this movement a national sensation.
$3000- Website design: streamlining our online presence is going to be key to investors.
$3000- Accounting: Our accountants play a key role in keeping this important project on track, help with funding deals and keeping LMS on a budget for success.
$3000- Graphic Design: to bring you all the amazing merchandise and marketing materials as well as design movie posters.
$5000- Fundraising event deposit: we want to start making a difference in the lives of homeless teens NOW! Help us create a fundraising event.
$6000- Social Media AWARENESS Marketing Director: helps us get the word out and share our important cause.
$6000- Deposit for PR for film: We need to start generating buzz! A portion of profit will go directly towards amazing organizations like The Door as well as towards building a new model of transitional housing and/or getting more social /wrap services for Transitional shelters! The power of PR is paramount in getting our story out there!
$6000: Website, social media management and general assistant: there is so much to do when promoting a film! We want to keep bringing you up to date information about the progress of the film as well as sneak peeks and behind the scenes footage of what’s going on with our film!
$8000- Legal expenses: our lawyers are playing a key role in helping us with investors, celebrity contracts and so much more!
$50,000- Deposit for a celebrity: having celebrities in the film will be a key factor to making sure this important cause becomes a film that changes the homeless teen culture in America.
$50,000- Deposit for Director: we want to hire an amazing director to bring our film to life. There is so much amazing talent, music, and fashion in the film that we need a seasoned director that appreciates the stylized yet realistic vision of LOVE MUSIC SHELTER.
** If we don't reach our entire goal: all funds donated will go towards the filming of our feature film LOVE MUSIC SHELTER and YouTube Channel maintenance! We are determined to make this important film no matter what. If we are not able to secure all of our $6 million in funding, we will use these Indigogo funds to produce a lower budget but still awe inspiring film.
The Impact
In 2017 there were 554,000 homeless people living in America. Several cities have declared states of emergency due to the increase of this often overlooked population. In NYC 40% of the homeless population are teenagers.
An article from This Week discusses "Why is homelessness rising?
While some people become homeless because of mental illness and drug addiction, more than 75 percent simply can't afford a place to live. There are now only 12 counties in the U.S. where a worker earning the state minimum wage or federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour would be able to afford a one-bedroom rental home on their own, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition." The face of homelessness is an ever changing phenomenon.
We decided to make a scripted feature film with fresh music and great fashion inspired by true events in order to attract a larger demographic than a documentary film would. Hence, a greater ability to raise awareness for this growing crisis and make a real impact through the donation of funds for increasing WIC, the budget to hire better trained and educated security guards and social services as well as building a new model of transitional housing. These elements are crucial for creating safe shelters that are truly rehabilitative and will help to inspire to young people to get off the streets for good.
How You Can Help
We are currently working to secure the $6 million needed to produce this film, but need your help getting the development funds to continue working on this important project NOW. We have been self funding LOVE MUSIC SHELTER for the last two years and really could use your help TODAY.
Please help by donating to our development fund so we may continue to raise awareness and show the studios in Hollywood that not only is teen homelessness a worthwhile issue that needs to be addressed, but will also become a box a office sensation by combining our compelling storyline with fresh music, innovative fashion, celebrities, real homeless locations and performers –We know we got a winner on our hands…. Share the magic of storytelling with us today. Help make this important film a reality!
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