Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Take a look..



This is the promo-video, or "sizzle" as they call it here in LALA-Land. It's basically a sales tool to be used in the quest for funding. A quest that I have yet to begin. What I am thinking is to first off try to get it on www.kickstarter.com, an amazing site for creative projects large or small. You should all check it out; I'll be sure to let you know when it goes up.

A great deal of time and money went into getting this little piece done, but most of all, the help of some awesome, talented and inspiring people.

So thank you to everyone who came out to help, to those who couldn't make it, but send their good wishes, to all of you who willingly shared your time and experience, and to "A Race of Angels" for providing some amazing music, thank you so very much.

If I ever thought about quitting this project, it's too late now....I'm really in too deep.

This is still the very beginning, and even if I manage to raise some funds on Kickstarter, I will still have to get into a serious hustling mode i.e. grant writing....

BENJAMIN KEEPERS- love your skills! Thanks for editing this piece, and for sitting with me through the wee hours, trying to come up with the right way of making it happen.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

no seriously...

The goal of the film is to inform and remind people the fight against AIDS is far from over.
Based on the latest CDC-studies, the number of new infections amongst young people are on the rise, and it is pivotal that we find new ways to appeal to this age group in particular.

Based on my own experience, documentaries on this subject seem to be either very graphic and grueling or very clinical and impersonal.

The premise of this film will be a road trip-like journey with the objective to look into some of the urban legends that are surrounding the ever-evolving business around the cure for AIDS.

I myself am not a big conspiracy theorist, but I do find it interesting that there are so many theories on this subject, and we are simply going to explore. The hope is that via this exciting adventure we will be able to feed some important and much-needed information to people who normally would not feel inclined to watch AIDS-documentaries or PSAs…like cherry-flavored cough medicine, or at the very least get a conversation started.                                                                                                            

Just so we are clear...

Cyberspace you terrify me....

I have decided to try and share this movie-making experience with you guys. On one hand, I am very excited to get some feedback and an outlet of sorts, and on the other hand I am shaking in my boots and I'm horrified that I'll come off as a f-ing idiot.
Mostly because people, 2 people to be exact, were asking me questions like: "Why are YOU the one to do this movie?"
"What happened in YOUR life to make you qualified to make this film?" and "What makes YOU soooo special, that people would actually care about what you have to say?"

The truth is I don't really know; I don't feel like I ever consciously decided that I was going to make a documentary on this topic, it just sorta happened, little by little.

I am no more affected by the AIDS epidemic than the next person, I mean...I know a couple of people who are HIV-positive, and I had a neighbor who was really sick and subsequently died from complications, bless her.
I also have some cousins in South Africa whom I have never met, that are affected rather directly as I understand, since I have yet to actually speak to them;  I don't know much, so that hardly makes me any more qualified as a film-maker...

Then there was this guy Sherman that I met a Hollywood party 8 or 9 years ago. He was talking about a doctor who was claiming to have discovered the cure for AIDS.
If you know me, you know that I am rather addicted to Google, both because I love a useless fact, but also because I am utter hypochondriac, for whom Google is a necessary evil.
Anyway, Sherman told me that this man, Dr. Gary Davis, had concocted this "cure" he called "goat-serum" which was, not surprisingly considering the name, a serum based on the antibodies from a goat that was infected with HIV.
I went home and Googled it, read some articles, found some video clips, told some friends and then I probably got distracted by something more important, like what to have for lunch...or Googling excessive hair loss in teenage girls.

All I can say is somewhere a little seed must have been planted, and now years later, much like the nature of the syndrome in question...(lame, but I'm cheesy like that)....it seems to have become something bigger than me. And all I know is that I want to make this film, and that I want to do it the way I think it will have the biggest impact, especially on teens and young adults.

And to those (2) people who still don't understand WHY I want to make this film, it's really pretty simple...I don't want to get AIDS, I don't want YOU to get AIDS, and I wish there was a way for all of those who have already gotten it, to UN-get-it! -Comprende?

The film is not about statistics, its about people but if you need some hard facts, here is a Link.
...a little something for the left side of the brain, never hurt anyone.




So yes I AM the one....why? Because I'm doing it!