A new life?
Uus Elu 451 is an imaginary exoplanet 4 light years away from Earth. A spaceship from UISA (United Interstellar Space Agency) is on its way there. Onboard is a young boy named Jack.
All of a sudden he find him self waking up in a rescue pod, with a wound in his head, launched into space. He is now all alone with the rescue pods computer "Nester" as only company while he learns that all of his family and friends are either dead or 4 light years away.
And he also finds out that he needs to fix the rescue pod within one hour or he will drift away into space.
That is the first episode of a new short film series that we are going to make. A series about Jack that find his way to the exoplanet Uus Elu 451 where he think he will be the first person to ever set foot on that new world. But soon finds out that he isn't alone on the planet.
After making the first episode as a separate short film we realized that we had so much more to tell and that we enjoy making film. We wanted to tell the story of Jack and how he struggles with facts that, as a child, you shouldn't be handling.
Uus Elu is estonian and means New Life. Jack's expedition were on their way to explore Uus Elu for a possebility of new life. And he finds new life but also creatures that needs a new life them self.
Suddenly the story is more about what life is, how you overcome your own thoughts about life and how far you are willing to go to save some one else's life.
This series will have a total of 5 episodes that will be 14 minutes long each. We only have children and youths infront of the camera and our main audience will be children and youths aged 8-15.
The four coming episodes will take place on the planet of Uus Elu and will be shot on Gotland, Sweden, an island in the Baltic Sea known for its magical environment for film and photography.
And we need your help to bring this to life.
What We Need & What You Get
We have already got 10'000:- SEK in support from our local film resource center Film on Gotland. And we are super happy about it. But we need more.
We have estimated the budget to 35'000:- SEK and the budget is roughly divided like this:
8000:- will go to set building, to build an exterior of the rescue pod and the interiors of three different facilities.
5000:- will go to props of all different kinds. To buy both actual props and building material.
4000:- will go to costumes, mainly to buy cloth for making costumes but also overalls and other parts that we can't make on our own.
8000:- is for renting three lenses that we need. We are filming with Black Magic Ursa Mini cameras but the lenses we had during the first episodes aren't available this summer, so we need to rent them from an other company.
3000:- is our food budget. It might sound very little, but we believe in making food from instead of buying already made food. In that way we can keep down our costs and also keep the food healthy and nutritious.
2000:- is for gas and transportations.
2000:- is for SFX Make-up. We need to create an alien mask for one of our actors and need to buy materials for that.
3000:- is our misc. budget. Things that might be needed.
The money we have got from Film on Gotland will be most for set building, props and costumes, so we do need to raise money for the lenses and food.
We are asking companies in Sweden to support us, but due to Covid-19 and other reasons we find if difficult to get help from them.
So if you help us out we will be more than greatful. We will love you for the rest of our life.
The Director's speech
To make this project become real would me so much to all of us.
As a director and producer, I haven't been able to make my own film in almost a decade. My inspiration has been totally of and there have been high demands that has made me feel that I just don't want to be a part of the filmmaking world for a long time. People telling me that I have to make films in their way and not my way.
With Uus Elu I am finally living out a dream and that is to make a sci-fi with youths and children infront of the camera, with a story that is for the same age as the actors are. To tell a story about life, the future, the ability to stand on your own and make decisions that could change your life totally. It is a story about growing up fast, but still try to be a child. It is a story about finding a way of new life and still keeping your own.
I have such great talents both infront and behind the camera, that I am privileged to work with. My cinematographer is 15 years old and is a shooting star. My actors are between 10-16 years old and all of them are hand picked because of their acting skills.
We all love to make film and we all believe in this story. And we all want to share it with the rest of the world!
Risks & Challenges
There is always a risk with crowdfunding and filmmaking. There is always a risk that when the film is done it will be hard to screen it and even get it sold. But we can't do more than trying.
Let us reassure you that EVERY penny counts! Even if we don't reach our target goal, every bit of funding will come to use. There are many holes to fill but we also know how to work with what we have. But the more budget we have the better production we can make.
And we want to make a production that will be so good that festivals and TV-channels want to have our films there. We know we can make it, with your help.
The main challenges we have is to find lenses for the cameras. We have the opportunity to borrow cameras from the directors work, but we don't have the same lenses as we had when we did the first film. And if we don't get those lenses we will find lenses that we can work with, so the production will be made no matter what.
The only thing that can set us back is if every one gets sick. But then we'll move the production forward in time and make is as soon as possible.
Other Ways You Can Help
We know that it is a strange time in the world right now. We know that people have lost their jobs, family members, dreams etc. We know that social distancing most likely will become a part of our new life.
By that we also know that many might now have the possibility to help us financially, but you can help us by sharing this campaign all over the place. Just by sharing this campaign on facebook, twitter, blogs, vlogs, communities and so on you ARE helping us.
Use the Indiegogo sharing tools to spread the word around.
If you love sci-fi, if you want to make the cast and crew happy, if you feel that this is the right project to participate in, then you know what to do!