Story Synopsis

Billy is a young paperboy suffering from writers’ block. He secretly admires, and is somewhat obsessed with Sandy, a homeless poet who lives under the bridge that happens to be along Billy’s paper route. One day on his route, Billy discovers Sandy dead at the bridge. When he goes home and falls asleep, Sandy infiltrates Billy’s dreams and helps him overcome his writers’ block and express himself in the face of Death.

We Made It!

Thanks to everyone that has donated to the film, we have reached our campaign goal in less than two days!

But we're still going strong.

Although we have reached the goal, there are more than two weeks left in our campaign. If we raise another $800 (for a total of $1800) we will be able to pay for:

-compensating our main actor: This coming week's shoot is going to be long and hard and I would love to be able to compensate our main actor for his time and effort.

-film festival submission costs: Submitting to festivals is expensive. If we raise these funds, we can submit our film to a number of festivals on the east and west coast. This will not only help us send this film around the states once its done, but also network and meet people for our future film projects to come.

Who am I? Why Paperboy?

I’m Eli Kleinsmith, a filmmaker, musician, and student at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Paperboy is my culminating thesis project at WKU. I began developing the project in the Fall of 2012 during my sophomore year. The film is existentialist to the core, and deals with themes of artistic purpose and trivializing tragedy (“if it bleeds, it reads”). It takes its inspiration from directors like Agnes Varda, Jim Jarmusch, and Charles Burnette. These artists know how to tell a compelling story and really take advantage of the visual storytelling in a particularly DIY kind of way. This is the aesthetic that I aspire to achieve with this film.

The Music

The musical accompaniment for the film is part and parcel of the story itself. I began writing the music and the script around the same time so they really go hand in hand.

When Billy wakes up in the morning for his paper route, the music is momentous. It prepares you for the story to come:

When he finds his idol, Sandy, dead at the bridge, the music becomes tense and fast paced:

Where is the money going?

I have raised more than half of my budget for the film with two grants from my WKU. However, I’m still looking to raise $1000, which will go towards film processing and food/transportation for cast and crew. I’m approaching this film, not only as a culmination of my film degree at WKU, but also as a marketable (albeit strange) short film, which I can enter into festivals. Any funds I do not use for the production will go towards festival submissions. Here’s a breakdown of how I will distribute the funds I raise:

Other Artwork

If you’d like to hear some of my other music, here’s a link to my EP on Retroflex Records coincidentally entitled “Click on Me” (go ahead, click).

The experimental film mentioned in the promo video is Jockey's Ridge. The footage comes from a home video of my vacation to the Outer Banks in 2010. It was accepted into the 2012 Western Kentucky Film Festival.