What is Them Park?
Them Park is a short film about what makes a place a home and how far we'll go to protect it. It's also a story about what makes people family.
We follow the owner of Pleasant Hills Theme Park, Leo Ricketts, and his quest to keep his park running - even though no one's walked through the stiles in nearly nine years. But all that's shaken when the state sells his tax debt to a hotel chain.
The Need.
Location
Them Park is set in an abandoned, but loved amusement park, and we've officially secured one in Northwest Pennsylvania! Cost for using the location for the week is $1,000. What's great about this location is that it's still a functioning park, and the possibilities are endless. With movie magic we can give it an abandoned feel.
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Travel/Lodging/Food
One of our largest expenses is getting us and our actors to our location and lodging while we're there. Depending on our final location, costs could go up to $1500 on travel and lodging alone. Not to mention feeding the cast and crew. Combined, we're looking at spending a frugal $2500 for the week of filming.
Production
Classy Raptor's greatest strength is the experience we bring to our productions. Everything from the Bejing Olympics, National Geographic, to video game production. We're well equipped to handled the challenges of this production. And we're in the fortunate position that we don't have to buy/rent any expensive equipment. We have a Red One camera. We have all the audio equipment we need. We even have access to top of the line editing suits.
Where we do need help is in data management. We'll be filming in 4k Raw (those are huge files, trust us!) and we need the hard drive space to store all of that footage! These HDD or SSDs can run a few hundred dollars a piece for a few hundred gigs and we'll need a few of them. We're needing $500 for storage.
Post Production
The rest of our needs are in post production. Hiring an editor, color grader, composer for the score, and hopefully a live orchestra (more on this later). Our current budget for post is $1000.
What's left?
That leaves $500. What's that for? Wiggle room. That's just in case we forgot money. Just in case we need extra gas here, or something breaks and we need it repaired.
Administrative costs?
Right now, Classy Raptor is covering their own administrative costs. Things like insurance and festival entry are coming out of our pockets. That way everything you help us with goes directly to making the project and not the extra stuff.
Stretch Goals!
So what if we were able to raise MORE than 4500? Well, we have some stellar ideas of how we'd use that money, but we don't want to reveal all of our secrets yet. Truthfully, we don't want you or us to get excited about stretch goals until they're a possibility. But here's some initial ideas:
$5000 - We'd be able to rent dolly and crane equipment for our camera. And while we know we can tell our story without it, we think this would add some interesting dynamics.
$6000 - A live orchestra. We'd be able to hire an orchestra to score Them Park.
$7000 - A SECRET UNTIL $4500
$8000 - A SECRET UNTIL $5000
$9000 - A SECRET UNTIL $6000
What is Classy Raptor Productions?
Classy Raptor Productions was created and founded in 2016 by six stellar individuals. We all had one thing in common: a dedication to making unique, entertaining, and quality films. Here's a little more about each of us.
Samantha Stratton - Producer of Them Park
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Samantha Stratton has been working in the entertainment industry for the past seven years as an award-winning journalist and former radio personality. She received her BS in Live Television and Radio Broadcast from the University of Indianapolis in 2013. In 2012, the Indiana Student Broadcaster’s Association awarded her Second Place News Package, and she also led her team at WICR 88.7 FM in Indianapolis to win IASB’s Radio Station of the Year 2012.
Samantha is also an avid writer, and her work has been featured on websites such as Popwrapped.com. As an MFA student at the Savannah College of Art and Design, Samantha is always looking for exciting and innovative projects to be involved in. Several of her own scripts are also in production.
Samantha is a lover of dogs, good chocolate, and Nora Ephron. She hopes to be the next best thing since Shonda Rhimes. Follow her on Twitter @SammyDavisiAm
Scott McKinney- Director of Them Park
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(AKA McDizzle) For this project Scott will be the director, and he's excited for the opportunity to help tell this story! As the director, you can trust him more than you can trust the writer.*
Scott is currently a graduate student at the Savannah College of Art and Design pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Film and Television and has an undergraduate degree from Sterling College in Communications and Marketing. At the Sterling College Film Festival, Scott won the Best Long Narrative Award as well as the Fan Favorite Award. After graduating from Sterling, he worked for the college for two years primarily as a resident director, but also as a video journalist for the campus news and as the intramural director. McDizzle loves spreading joy and laughter through his projects, and hopefully some of it will spread to you from this film!
*Producer's Note: This fact is not verified.
Joshua Howard- Director of Photography for Them Park
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Artist, photographer, filmmaker, designer, director, painter...if it involves visual storytelling, Joshua Howard is probably involved somehow. He was born in Daytona Beach, Florida, grew up in Atlanta, GA, lived in Kentucky for several years, headed up to Philadelphia to work as a producer and cinematographer with an indie film studio and now runs his own production company in Savannah, GA.
Check out his
IMDb page.
Chadwick Harman - Writer of Them Park
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Chadwick Harman is a writer. You can trust him*. If you don't trust him yet, follow him on twitter.
During his sophomore year of college, Chadwick started Mississippi's first (and at the time, only) professional game company, Cryogenic Studios, where he spent his time as content producer and lead writer. When the company was disbanded, he returned to his first love - fiction writing, both prose and dramatic.
If you need to contact him, you can try emailing him at chad@theclassyraptor.com or find the nearest source of coffee - he won't be far.
*Producer's Note: This fact is not verified.
Sommersill Tarabek- Associate Producer of Them Park
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Sommer may be brand spanking new to the film world, but she’s no stranger to success. She graduated from Coastal Carolina University Honors College with two bachelor’s degrees in English and Communication, held a 4.0 GPA, graduated Summa Cum Laude in both degrees, and was selected by the collective university faculty as Most Distinguished Student out of her entire 2015 graduating class of over two thousand seniors.
Before she graduated, she was asked by CCU to give the Keynote Address to the incoming freshman class of 2018 and was the first student to ever do so. After being honored by President David DeCenzo after the speech, the university administration decided a graduating senior would conduct the address every year thereafter.
In her wake, she left an academic legacy. In the world of film, she hopes to soon pave another.
Marshall Young- Sound Designer for Them Park
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Marshall Young is a sound designer and engineer from Pennsylvania. His experiences include work for the Beijing Olympics, several short films, a feature, and many years of live mixing and recording. Check out his awesome YouTube channel.
Risks & Challenges
One of the biggest risks we face is casting. We're asking a lot of actors to work on deferment. This essentially means that they won't get paid unless the film makes money - which is a far shot for short films. Most actors (especially good ones) know this.
We're already working on casting the piece, so we'll know sooner rather than later if this is going to be a problem. There are creative ways for us to work around this. Such as changing the script/story to make casting easier, but we firmly believe that quality comes knowing where to compromise, and no one on the team thinks that a compromise in this area would help us. But we do promise open communication with our supporters as we go through the casting process!
Other Ways You Can Help
If you can't donate money, donate a space on your social media timelines! Share our campaign and help us get the word out!
