Director's blog

This vlog has some quick sneak peaks at the new website.

I stayed in the studio late last night editing the Colbert pitch. I'm finessing it. Eager to post it, but still want to wait til the new site launches...

I'm out of town for at least a week to deal with some family stuff. Digitizing and editing will be on hold, but will continue to work on the site and fundraising while I'm gone.

Have a great 4th of July,

n

This week welcomes two legends, Mr. Elliot Gould and Jules Fieffer, to our crew.

It was kind of cool how I got to meet them.

Jules was to be in town from NY to screen his film Little Murders at the Silent Movie Theater. My friend Amalia, who has been volunteering when possible, works at the Silent Movie Theater and knows that The Phantom Tollbooth is one of my favorite books (Jules did the illustrations). Jules had flown into Ocean Side to visit friends, and needed a ride 2 hours up to LA. So Amalia, who doesn't drive, asked if I could volunteer, and I happily said yes. She and I drove down together Sunday, picked up Mr. Feiffer, and got to spend an amazing 2 hours in a car getting to know him.

Jules is 80 now, and super hilarious. Aside from hearing lots of amazing stories about his creative process, I also got to give him his first Skittle (which he did not like), and to explain the rules of Ultimate Frisbee, which he had never heard of. I also got to tell him about The 1 Second Film, which he found interesting, and joined as an Associate Producer! We stopped at El Pollo Loco where we started to talk about the concept of perfect moments. Jules shared this moment as a possible one-second film:

During the McCarthy years, around 1955, Jules was in the NY subway waiting for his train when the news ticker caught his eye: the headline read that a Brooklyn artist had been arrested and accused of being a Russian Spy. Jules knew most of the NY artists, and couldn't help but wonder if it was one of his friends. He looked away for a second, and when he looked back at the ticker, it had changed... and sure enough, the spy was one of his friends. In that moment, all of his assumptions were turned upside down. This wasn't one of the cases of paranoia, this guy actually turned out to be a spy. Jules wasn't sure who anyone was anymore... he later wrote a play about that feeling.

I thought that was a pretty cool moment. Not just the drama of discovering one of your friends was an international spy, but also hearing this story in an El Pollo Loco.

From there, we  stopped to visit Jules friend, three time Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Paul Conrad. It was amazing to hang out with these two artists. I didn't even think to pitch The 1 Second Film, I was way too busy soaking in their stories. It was a short, but very sweet visit.

Later that evening, before the feature, we were treated to a beautiful 35mm print of Munro, the Academy Award winning animated short that Jules wrote. Then came Little Murders.

Here is Munro:

Little Murders was made in 1971 and still holds up. There are all sorts of amazing and absurd details. I especially loved the wedding scene with Donald Sutherland as the minister. You can see a bit of that scene in this original trailer. Supposedly the film has been recently released on DVD, which is awesome.

Elliot Gould, who plays a lead in Little Murders, was at the screening, and hung out after to do a Q & A. It was great to hear Gould and Fieffer share stories. After the questions and answers, I waited until everyone had said hello to Mr. Gould before attempting to pitch him our project. By then, he was in a bit of a rush to get home- it was around midnight and he wakes up at 3am! - but he took a moment to hear about our project.

I told him I was collecting some of my favorite people to make this film, and that it would mean alot to have him on board. He dug into his pocket, and asked if 52 cents in change would help. I told him it would, but that there was a $1 minimum to be a producer. With very good humor, he smiled and pulled out a dollar from his pocket. 

And with that, we raised another $1.52 and added two more amazing folks to our crew. It was a pretty great Sunday.

Work this week continues with digitizing, editing, and site development. There was a bunch of progress on the site today. Making bug lists and inching ever closer to the beta launch... oh, I can't wait for that! I'm also putting the finishing touches on an edit of the pitch to Stephen Colbert and his wife Evelyn. Will be posting that with the launch of the new site.

Here is the weekly vlog:

Best to all,

nirvan

This week we bought and installed another 3TB of digital storage for editing our documentary. One benefit of this project taking so long to complete has been the falling cost of digital storage. We got 2 internal 1.5 TB SATA drives for only $300. A few years back, a 1TB external drive cost $900.

Just wanted to thank everyone who chipped in recently to help us get these drives! We also passed 11,111 Producers, which was pretty cool.

I'm back to digitizing while continuing to work with the programmers to fix the site. There are still a lot of issues, but it is making progress. Hope to have more info on the site soon.

best to all,

n

Meet 2 of the volunteers that have been coming in when possible to help with editing and sub clipping. Meanwhile, digitizing continues. We have re-digitized the tapes that were lost, and are starting to make forward progress again. We just filled up another 1.5 Tb drive, and will need to get some more storage next week.

Also, we passed 1,100 producers this week, although sign ups have been slow. It's a hard time for non-profits arts organizations to try and survive on fundraising... hoping to have more flexibility with the new site, but for now we are going at the rate of random generosity.

Big thanks to those who have donated recently!

best to all,

nirvan

It's not often you get to say these words, but great news came in the mail from the IRS today. The Collaboration Foundation is now an official 501(c)(3) non-profit arts organization in the state of California. Yay!

Being a 501(c)(3) will open a lot of doors, and formalizes our organization's structure and obligations. The Collaboration Foundation will now qualify for many grants and additional forms of support. Plus individual donations can now be made tax-deductible in the US, including donations to The 1 Second Film, which is the Collaboration Foundation's flagship production.

There was a ton of work that went into this. From incorporating, to forming our Board of Directors, drafting by-laws, adopting a Conflict of Interest policy, detailed bookkeeping, etc., all topped by a 120 page application to the IRS. Then 9 months of waiting and follow up paperwork.

I could have never done this by myself, and have a lot of folks to thank...

The biggest thanks goes to Ben Wolkov and Christopher Lovejoy, the two key members of our pro-bono legal team at McDermitt, Will, & Emery, who helped us navigate the process. And also Keith Bowman, from Paul Hastings, who helped us with the first drafts of a the paperwork.

I'd also like to thank our fiscal sponsor, the Filmmakers Alliance, who provided us with umbrella support, allowing us to make large contributions tax-deductible and giving us time to get our footing.

Thanks to all my friends and family who have bounced ideas around, and given encouragement. Especially to Hal, Rachel, and Juli for helping project manage along the way. And Dana Bean and Miah for helping focus the language and mission statements.

I'd also like to thank our Board of Directors for having faith in this project. And of course, all of you who have signed up as producers and contributed in thousands of little ways to keep this going.

Sheesh, I have a lot of folks to thank... and just wait til you see the finished film credits!

Okay, thanks again all- this is just the beginning of a long journey.

nirvan

We passed 11,000 producers! a pretty amazing milestone. There are occasional days when no one new signs up, and I wonder if support will dry up and the project will come to a stand still, but then we get a flurry of new sign-ups, including the occasional Executive Producer like John Masters, which really helps.

In general, we are getting between 3-8 new producers a day. It's not an avalanche, but it has been enough to keep afloat, which is my main goal until the new site launches.

I'd also like to give a special thanks to our crew that continues to tell friends and give encouragement. This project continues to move forward thanks to folks like Lauren Sullivan, who has been donating a little at a time for the past year, and recently topped Kiefer Sutherland by one penny! Continued support really means a lot, and is a huge motivator.

This past week I pulled a few all-nighters in the office. Lately, I've been editing video of my pitch to Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman- who became producers #819 and #820 respectively. I started putting together a rough cut, and Thursday, editor extraordinaire Hilda Rasula was able to come in and help work on it. This is one of several little pieces I've been editing; the plan is to roll them out along with the new website. I'm meeting with the web team at Ciplex tomorrow to check up on the site. Will report back soon on that front.

Daily digitizing and logging of sub-clips continues as we gradually prep for editing our documentary.I'll get back to it, just wanted to mark this moment, and thank everyone for the support.

best,

n

technical difficulties. may have lost 55 hours of digitized tapes. sigh.

I met with Ara Devijian last weekend to work on the teaser for the teaser. This is sort of the Die Hard version. Music for the vlog is by our Seattle based producer Adam McCollom.

What do you guys think about the explosions? I'm not sure about them. It's definitely a funny direction to explore, but it may also distract from a bigger picture concept. The alternative idea is to have a background plate with thousands of more names/credits moving through space. But it might be cool to have an epic/explosive version- maybe using some of our more blockbuster type producers like Roland Emmerich (director of Independence Day). Any thoughts?

The teaser will be launched as part of the new site were building, and will be on the home page. As mentioned in the vlog, were behind schedule on the website. I met with Ciplex on Thursday, and they have added two more people to our project, so there should be some quicker progress.

I'm headed back to Ciplex again on Tuesday to review the new site.

I'm really growing anxious to get our site done as donations have slowed and we're treading water financially.  We've had a few days where we've only raised a couple of bucks- and last week, we had one day where we didn't raise a single dollar. The project can't sustain itself without funds. I think the new site will offer a much broader platform for growth, but the question is whether we will stay afloat long enough to get to that next stage...

I'm optimistic that we can keep the lights on til we get the site launched... but we need to get the site done sooner than later. And then we will see what happens...

More news tuesday after the web meeting. And a warm welcome and a big thanks to all our new crew!

best,

nirvan

Here is some behind the screens video from our recent trip to Ciplex to review our Drupal web development and make a big payment of $4,333.33. Big thanks to our 10,876 producers who've chipped in to help us get this far. We're getting closer!

Special thanks to Adam McCollom for the music: http://myspace.com/adammcollom
and Marcin Nadolny for running camera for me: http://twocan.org

Quick production Vlog. I'm still editing the video from our trip to Ciplex, and creating the master log for editing. Really exciting developments on the web front.

This past week, I was working on a side job- editing a little video for GOOD Magazine and the Knight Foundation. While doing that, I continued to digitize more tapes. We bought another hard drive last Monday, and are starting to fill that up. It's a great feeling to start getting all this footage digitized and in some order.

The trip to Ciplex on Tuesday was great. I'm still working on a little production video from that and hope to post that early next week. Tomorrow, I'm hoping to meet with Ara Devejian to go over the motion graphics sequence for a little intro video we've been working on. 

So lots has been going on.

Big welcome to all of our new producers! Welcome to our crew :)

best to all,

Nirvan