Our Story
"Shrimp Dance" is a story I've been wanting to tell for quite some time now. It involves a teenage girl, Q, who turns 18 the week after graduating high school. After getting kicked out of her house by her parents, and without knowing "what to do with her life", she enlists the help of her friends, Purple and Zero, to set sail on a quest of youthful revolution against the modern day patriarchy. Whenever people ask me what the film is about, I've been describing it as a "Jim Jarmusch meets the Marx Brothers" teen film.
The Impact
"Shrimp Dance" is and will be my thesis project. In order to graduate and get my Masters, I need to complete a film. But that's just a small part of it. This particular story is allowing me to let out certain frustrations about our culture. I recently taught a class to undergraduate students in which I showed a series of films that dealt with youthful characters enacting a series of nihilistic, anarchistic, and destructionist exploits. I based the class around these specific films because I felt they shared a link: They each contain autobiographical content that the directors/screenwriters derived from their personal lives and used such anecdotes towards a modern context based on events happening at the time of the film's inception. These films inspired me so much, I decided to re-open the vault which held this small idea that I had stashed away for years. I feel it is now or never.
What We Need & What You Get
It has always been my dream to shoot this particular movie on 16mm black-and-white film. Because the script has undertones of technology and the negative effects thereof, it is the unadultered pureness of film that will help bring this story to the forefront. Not only this, film is a dying breed. Pretty soon, film will become increasingly difficult to access (and to get developed); even movie theatres are getting rid of their film projectors and replacing them with digital ones that play movie files. Since Ohio University still owns "film cameras", such as the Arri-Flex, this is my one and only opportunity to shoot this movie on film before it becomes obsolete.
Aside from this, I will also need money to feed my cast and crew. So far, the movie will run about 30 minutes long, which means that I will need more than just one weekend to complete the film. If I have 20+ people helping me out voluntarily when they could be at home studying, the least I can do is give them a hardy meal on each shoot.
Other Ways You Can Help
Forward this link onto anyone and everyone you know. Share this link on Facebook, get the word out. This film should be a lot of fun to make, and I would love for all of you to see it at some point. This isn't just my film, it's a part of everyone of helps out with it. It's yours just as much as it is mine.
