Another Kick at the Can
Curling is more than just a game you see every four years at the Olympics. It's one of the oldest team sports in the world and carries with it a rich history and culture that sets it apart. It hails from Scotland but has been dominated by Canadians for decades. Now the United States has risen to be a curling superpower in its own right, and we're here to tell that story.
From the team who created the "Far From Home" series (www.farfromhomecurling.com), comes the story of a uniquely American approach and culture surrounding one of the fastest growing sports in the world. We tried to tell a part of this story among others in our original (and unsuccessful) campaign, and noticed an interest in American curling which made us focus our attention in the USA. Now we're back and we have just one story we want to tell (for now).
We've spent a couple years following American curling teams internationally as well as visiting events and clubs throughout the country. By our estimation, we have approximately half of the footage and assets we need to tell the story we want to tell - we just need help putting the rest together. We love the sport of curling and always look to give back to it as much as we can, but can always use a bit more funding to travel to and capture the locations and events that define the American curling experience and why it's so special.
With your help we can send our team to document some of the oldest (and newest) curling facilities in the country in addition to following the lead up and aftermath of Team USA's medal run at the 2018 Olympic Winter Games.
What We Need & What You Get
We are looking for an additional $20,000 to round out the production of this feature length (1.5 hour long) documentary film. We want the community to get involved and get people talking about it and sharing stories, so crowdfunding seemed like a good idea. More than anything, we want this project to play a part in telling the story of American curling with the intention of further growing its exposure and following. We believe that if we can reach a greater audience, everyone will fall in love with what's happening in curling clubs across the USA and for American teams on the world stage.
The funding required will go towards paying for the costs of our perks, travel expenses, footage and music licensing fees, and just straight up production costs. The vast majority of time put into shooting and editing is a labor of love, but at some point Jesse could use a few extra coffees to stay awake working.
In return for your assistance, we have partnered up with some of our favorite curling brands and manufacturers to hook you up with some cool swag to show off how you played your part. Or in some cases if you just want to have your name on the screen at some point we can do that too.
We'd love to exceed our funding goal and get really crazy with things like music and animated sequences. Marketing and advertising, maybe even some research and excavation. As far as we see it the sky's the limit for what we can dig up and do with curling in America. However if we don't fully reach our funding goal, we still have a ton of footage and will continue to round out the story as we can with what we can. Every dollar helps us continue to build a budget and if anything we are just trying to make a good story better and to reach more and more people.
Where Your Money Goes
CurlingZone founder (and our Executive Producer) Gerry Geurts has always backed the "Far From Home" series, both out of his own pocket and through CurlingZone and The World Curling Tour. So far Gerry has coordinated over $5000 USD of funding towards getting our crew (or other cameras) on location to document and interview at several events in the USA, including the 2016 and 2017 Continental Cup in Las Vegas, the Golden Wrench in Phoenix, and the Hollywood Summer Blockbuster Bonspiel.
We still intend to capture footage and interviews at several other locations including a few more spots along the west coast like Seattle, San Francisco, Orange County and a return to Hollywood. There are also stories to be told in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Duluth, Minnesota (House of Hearts), in addition to the east coast in NYC and Boston. We have several more places we want to get to and ideally at least another 35 days on the road with our crew between them. Community funding will cover a lot of the hard costs for our crew of 2-3 to travel and feed ourselves on location for that amount of time.
Most of our available perks still cost us money to produce, and on average our cost is about 30%. This means that of the $20,000 we want to raise, we know that we may potentially only be entitled to approximately $14,000 of this sum. Furthermore Indiegogo takes their cut at 8%, which would put a total final sum of $12,400 at our disposal left over from the community's investment of $20,000.
Additional costs that may come up (film transfers, research fees, 3rd party production fees, licensing fees, etc) will be continue to be covered by CurlingZone. Nearly the entirety of the post production process will be completed by our Director/Editor/Producer Jesse Wachter as a labor of love. As the sole producer of more than 30 installments of the "Far From Home" series (including the 22 minute pilot TV episode), The Sheet Show, Grand Slam of Curling Features, and the Days and Nights of Thomas Arbuckle; Jesse is well aware of the work required to see the project through and has the experience and equipment to finish the job. Most post production is slated to take place over the late summer of 2018, aiming to have the project available to the public in December of 2018.
If we do not reach our total funding goal, we will be required to prioritize our list of destinations a little be, so a lot of things are still up in the air. There's a chance that we will have to wait until next season to get to certain events and this would delay the release of the final film.
The Impact
We are Canadian filmmakers with a passion for curling. We recognize the worldwide importance of the growth of the sport in America, and we want to help give this unique culture, game and its players the attention, recognition and respect it deserves.
Risks & Challenges
We are fortunate enough to have great relationships with players and builders from the club scene all the way to the elite level. Curlers help each other and we can't do what we do without the support of the community that we receive already. However we can never assume everything will go off without a hitch.
We have learned that the hard way in over a decade of commercial and documentary film/video production. We back everything up (three times), double check every room we leave for rogue equipment, we even bring back up gear with us and work in pairs just in case something happens to a key member of the crew. We are professional travelling video people and this is what we do best.
That being said, we can never prepare enough for the unknown, and equipment can break down at key moments, events could get cancelled, or emergencies may arise which prohibit us from documenting the events outlined in our schedule. The same goes for anything else that could go wrong - if something doesn't work out, we will do it again until we make it work. We are asking for the funds to do this project the right way, and that's the only thing we intend to do.
The most apparent threat to seeing our plan through is not receiving the amount of funding we require to get to the places we want to get in the time frame we wish to accomplish it in. We are already committed to our project and have hit roadblocks so far as it is, so one way or another we will get it done, even if it takes a little longer.
Other Ways You Can Help
If you can help financially, awesome. If you can give more for the perk level you are requesting even better! That being said we can't expect everyone to help financially, and anything you can do to spread the word helps us tremendously. We want to share American curling with all Americans, and all curlers, and really anyone in the world who wants to see an inspirational story about something good for a change. So all you have to do is share what we are trying to do - Indiegogo has share tools. Tell your friends. Put up a sign at your curling club. Tweet about it. Write about it. Everything helps.
