Who We Are
We are a group of filmmakers in our final year of University. Our aim is to make a film that applies to all ages and all audiences, with a message we're trying to get across of how there are no winners in war only victims. This makes our campaign stand out to us, it is a message we strongly believe in and want everyone to understand.
Short Summary
War Song is a modern take on the War film genre which will look at the war from the side of the Germans, while setting the film in 1944 in the midst of World War II, the film will use modern themes, applying the element of emotional connection to the key characters, taking a look into the youth aspect of World War II with how soldiers could be as young as 10 years old on the side of the Germans, with no experience and pure naivety.
The film will follow brothers Frederik and Hans and their attempt to make it through the war, being brought in at such a young age, we aim to connect them to the audience as well as each other, building on emotion that we feel hasn't been as elaborated on as we aim to.
Meet The Team
Kieran Poynter - Director/Screenwriter - Kieran, who is the writer & director for war song, is a bold and visionary figure in the production of the film. With a wide range of experience in televised, music video, short & corporate formats he can apply his knowledge to creating a better film. In writing War Song Kieran hopes to re-create an authentic & emotional reaction from the audience in which we can unearth the history on these past events. His ambition is to progress on to become a feature film director with a unique visual style. You can find his work here!
Tommy Monkhouse - Producer/Script Supervisor/1st Assistant Director - Tommy Monkhouse is from South East London and has spent the past 12-13 years studying the media arts including Film, Music and Drama. As Producer, Tommy pushes himself with all behind the scene aspects and uses his skills and connections to help bring the vision originated by Kieran to life. He has previous experience working on music videos, adverts, short films, television and has also trained as a teacher and vocal coach having even performed with Pink Floyd in 2012! His dream is to work on a dramatic film which brings to life the themes of heroics and heart, he hopes that elements of this will come forward in this film. You can find most of Tommy's work here!
Adam Keiras - Director of Photography/Lighting - Adam Keiras, born in Vilnius, Lithuania and DOP of our film has always had a passion for filming. He has previously worked as an editor and videographer for a small production company, where one of the projects included filming a car rally travelling around Europe. He has also previously worked as a film making journalist for a news website which included making short documentaries and writing articles about past and current events. Adam wants to bring as much detail into this film as possible, giving the viewer as best of an experience as possible. With all the previous experience from other projects he is set on making this one his best yet.
Dovile Neverauskaite - Production Designer/2nd Assistant Director - Originally from Palanga Lithuania; Dovile is an extremely energetic and determined team member. Her biggest achievement to date is first place in the national photography award competition in Lithuania and numerous awards for art work. With this, she is extremely excited to be taking on the role of production designer as this gives her the opportunity to extensively use her skill set. By the end of this film she not only wishes to entertain audiences but also educate them about the realities of war.
What We Need
Through our university, we have access to all the essential tools that we'd require to professionally shoot this short film; at absolutely no cost to us! That said, we still need a lot to make this film... here is the list that we aim to make a reality for us to use.
Exterior Location - As previously mentioned, we will be shooting most of our film on scene at a realistic war re-enactment area. In order to legally do this, we will need to purchase filming permits; which we are currently still working out the cost per day. This is what most of the funds will be spent on, as roughly a quarter of our budget will go into two days of filming at this location!
Casting - If there is one thing that we've learnt over the years, it's that good actors don't come cheap! We have managed to basically secure most of our actors so far, whether it be our two main actors, the re-enactors or some minor characters, but there are still a few key positions that we are looking to fill. In order to secure the best talent, we need to guarantee that they receive an industry standard fee. As student filmmakers, we have experienced cast members dropping out at last minute on other projects (and it's not fun); so we need to guarantee them that this does not happen!
Costumes / Props - This aspect is key, when it comes to achieving the vintage aesthetic that we are aiming for. Our production designer Dovile has been working tirelessly with the director and producer to create very unique and intricate costume designs that visually convey the personalities of each character, while researching the real costumes that our cast already have access to and what we need to expand on and make look as official as possible. As well as this, she is working on researching a series of visually unique and timely accurate props, that play vital roles within the narrative. This is an area that we are trying to keep as realistic and authentic as possible, as not to compromise the quality of the mise-en-scene, as the visual aesthetic is a crucial part of our vision for the film.
Set Design - Whilst the interiors that we are going to use will be a decent amount, we will also need to give them a serious makeover that meets the time period, in order to create an effective mise-en-scene that feels tangible within the world we are trying to build. We are also trying to keep this as realistic as possible, though obviously other areas like location and actors are a slightly higher priority.
Catering - As well as paying the actor's fees, we will also need to make sure that their bodies and minds are properly fuelled for a hard day's work. While important for the actors, this is low priority in terms of importance to the overall film, and as a result we will be spending as little on this aspect as possible.
Musical Score - A good score is vital when creating an engaging story, which is why we want to employ a composer to create a contemporary tense and emotional soundtrack.
Transportation - Other than paying the actor's travel expenses, we will need to transport the crew and filming equipment, that said we are currently looking into different modes of transportation and what it will cost us.
External Crew - With such a large production we are currently looking into make up artists, composers, runners and other external secondary roles, that said we will need to pay for their travel, accommodation, catering and wages for certain roles, that said we would wish to pay for these aspects in a professional fashion.
Accommodation - With us suspecting that we will need to stay on location with the expected location being out of the London area, we will need to pay for accommodation for ourselves as well as cast and other crew members.
The Impact
While developing the idea for the film that we require your help for, we discussed the outcome of war and its effect not only on the soldiers but those around them and the generations that were effected!
With this, we wanted to get across to our audiences that in the end War has no true winner, it ends up being that there is just victims/survivors with a story to tell, and with our contacts having connections/relations to those who were in World War II and being able to help us bring this true story to life, we wanted to audiences to understand the true situation but show them in a way that stands out compared to other war films.
Now we know we could spread the message in other ways but with your help, we can do this in one of the most powerful forms of media in our generation - the world of Film!
Risks & Challenges
As with any film production, there are many risks and challenges that we as a group must overcome and strive to push past.
With setting our film in the time of World War II, we must meet the challenge of not only finding an authentic location that will allow us to create a realistic environment while also having visual effects that create the aesthetic of the time and the style of the realistic no mans land. But we must also hire actors/re-enactors who have an understanding of the subject matter and can give an almost identical look to the source material we have been researching, this includes costumes which most will have but others we will have to purchase, props and vehicles which match the setting but will be within use that we will buy or rent and a makeup crew that will create realistic wounds and tones for our cast, while also accessing VFX crew to build the mise-en-scene for the action scenes. We want to bring to life a modern take on the war classic and show that the war genre still applies to a modern day audience!
We will also have to meet the risk and challenge of travelling to locations that will be out of the way for us! This is to have a location that will meet the factual representation of our source material, with us trying to make the film look as realistic as possible we will need to pay for different forms of transportation for cast and crew.
Finally, we will have the distribution for the film, not only will we have to distribute it to all of you but we will be aiming to get this into film festivals which will cost but with your help we can bring a modern look to the world of war.
Our Final Thank You To You
With this being our final year, we've aimed to not only bring you a gritty authentic war film, but we want to be as ambitious with the film as humanly possible! We will not let anything stop us and we are all extremely excited to show you the final result.
Any contribution that you are able to make is greatly appreciated! We understand that there are many projects on IndieGoGo, and we realise that you sadly can't fund them all (although I'm sure you would if you could). But the hard work and drive that our team have put into this project so far is extraordinary, please allow us the opportunity to prove ourselves to you and thank you for the support you all are giving us! With your help we can market the final film and spread our message.
Other Ways You Can Help
Any donation big or small will be a huge help to us...
Now we understand that you may not be able to donate, funds may be tight, that said money isn't everything, you can still help whether you want to lend us a hand or you can promote our social media with just a few simple clicks.
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/WarSongFilm/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/warsongfilm/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/WarSongFilm
We look forward to bringing you our production and going through the story together with you. Thank you.