THE STORY OF THE WELDER
The Welder is a story about a teenager living with his mom in the suburban wastelands of Northern California. Having lost his dad at a young age, he and his mother have been struggling through life. After moving to his new school, he meets a group of teenagers, who befriend him. Soon rumors of the murders of students that go to the school start to spread. As the movie unfolds, we discover the rumors are true. This film is a hack and slash, edge of your seat horror film that will leave you terrified to walk home. The Welder promises to deliver chills and gore to the big screen!
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UPDATE!
UPDATE!
Amy Roloff joins the project
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Reality TV star Amy Roloff joins the project as an actress
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Above, Director Ben Hammond with Amy Roloff
WHY DO I SUPPORT THIS PROJECT?
I believe in Ben as an artist.
Hi. My name is Whitney Johnson
and I’m the Production Manager for “The Welder” by Ben Hammond. I am also an
educator who has had the privilege of working with Ben for several years, and I
can honestly say, this kid is an amazing artist. He’s funny, honest, talented,
and has a clear vision of what he wants right from the start of any project.
I’ve rarely come across anyone who has the drive, knowledge, and intrinsic
motivation that Ben has. This is more than just a slasher film hashed from a 13
year-old boy’s imagination. This is a person who at 13 has the gift of knowing
his passion, which drives him to study film seriously with the critical eye of
a director and the curiosity of a visionary. I'm proud of who he is and of where
I believe he's going. I'm excited to work with him and I hope you will be too.
Your support can make a huge difference, not just for Ben, but for the
potential of young artists everywhere. As funding for arts programs dwindles
worldwide, we're taking matters into our own hands. You can help.
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*Above* Photos by Ellie Lafferty. On-Set Zombie Park
WHY SHOULD YOU SUPPORT THIS
PROJECT?
You get to be part of something
important.
You have
the opportunity to be part of something great and to help shape the future for
an incredibly talented, deserving young person. Many of them,
actually. This project is 99% young person driven and produced. I am the only
adult involved (beyond parents serving as moral and transportation support) and
everything right down to the props, costumes, script and shooting is student generated.
I’m mainly just here to balance the budget and keep things organized.
You get cool stuff.
I
like cool stuff. You like cool stuff. Who doesn’t like cool stuff? If you
support our project,you get
cool swag (see below) as well as infinite bragging rights about how you helped
a young
person reach for the stars, produce a feature length film, realize his artistic dreams,
all before he learned to drive. Those are some pretty great bragging rights.
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WHAT DOES YOUR MONEY GO TOWARD?
This amazing project.
100% of the support we receive will go toward production costs for
the film. We actually want to pay our cast and crew. We also want to make sure
that we have all of the equipment we need to make it look good, and not just a
hackneyed version of something you’ve seen before. Here’s a list of some of
what the money will cover:
- Paying our actors and crew. We
don’t envision that it will be possible for our actors and crew to retire in
Hawaii on what we’ll pay them, but we would like to give them something for
their time, effort and talent. Because this shoot will take place over multiple
weeks, there’s a lot of time involved and we want to make sure that we promote
a healthy relationship with local young artists in our community. While money
isn’t everything, it certainly helps establish a professional environment as
well as helping to ensure future project participation. This is where the bulk
of our funds will go.
- Camera and lighting equipment.
Insider tip: In film, it’s pretty cool to be able to see the actors. (I
know...it was a shock to me too!) Since some of the shots take place at night,
we need lighting equipment as well as a camera that can handle the needs of our
shoot. Ben has a pretty good camera already, but it would be great to have some
extra lenses to upgrade the quality.
- Special effects - Do you know
how much it costs to spray blood effectively? Serious deniro. In order for our
film to look good and our blood splatter to be professional (and not look like
it’s being shot out of a squirt gun from Target) we need some equipment, like
an air compressor.
- Sound equipment - WHAT? HUH?
WHAT’D YOU SAY? We’d like to purchase our own sound equipment for current and
future use. So far for previous shoots we’ve been renting microphones and other
sound equipment and it starts to add up. It’s actually more cost effective to
purchase our own sound equipment for this shoot as well as for future Highwork Pictures
- Feeding our cast and crew
during shooting. Turns out humans need food. Who knew?
