Thursday, July 25, 2013

Kickstarter, updates and a first look at SUMMER COLONY...

A few quick updates for readers of this blog, since it has been a number of weeks since I made my last post. I’m afraid that so many things have happened with the project since my last entry that it is difficult to keep track of them all! Each day Summer Colony inches further and further towards completion. This long odyssey of mine that began eight and a half years ago is almost over now, a realization that elicits feelings of both joy and sadness inside of me.

First and foremost, I have received so many requests from people eager to see footage from the documentary that I have decided to release three short excerpts for online viewing. The video clip that is playable below is the first of those, with the second clip to be released next week and the third clip to be released the week after that.


In this excerpt, my father Durlin Lunt remembers a series of fires in 1965 and 1966 (also discussed further here) that took down a number of structures at the north end of Northeast Harbor's Main Street. Of the many buildings lost in those blazes, it was the December '66 destruction of the local movie house (the Pastime Theater) that had the most dramatic effect on the business district, and to this day those villagers and summer residents old enough to remember the Pastime look back on the 1966 fire as a major loss for the community.

Secondly, for those readers who are not following the Summer Colony Facebook page, I am pleased to announce that we are in the middle of a Kickstarter fundraising campaign for the film.  Many of you have probably heard of Kickstarter, and maybe a few of you have even pledged money to a project or two there. For those who are completely unfamiliar with Kickstarter, it is a very powerful tool for funding creative projects through the phenomenon known as "crowdsourcing". In the case of Kickstarter, anyone with a credit/debit card and an Amazon.com account can pledge towards the completion of a project. It's not charity, anyone who pledges is entitled to a prize in return. But I'm not very good at explaining these things, Kickstarter's official FAQs are much better.

Our goal is to raise $6500, and as of this morning we are 43% of the way there, with fourteen days still to go in the campaign. The reasons that we have turned to Kickstarter are many, but the most significant factors were the need to cover certain post-production expenses and to pay for the manufacturing of DVDs, which are tentatively scheduled to be released on November 26th of this year. Because it was shot over a period of eight and a half years, with many gaps in between, Summer Colony was funded largely on an ad hoc basis. That approach is no longer viable due to the fact that the post-production process is very capital-intensive. Besides the DVDs, the most pressing expenses are the licensing of stock footage, photographs and the clearing of music rights. The video below will provide more details.

 

I would like to close this short little post by thanking everybody who has become a backer in the Kickstarter project so far. Big or small, your contributions are truly appreciated by all of us involved in the film. We could not have gotten this far without you!

Lastly, a second video excerpt from Summer Colony will be released on Monday morning (July 29th). It will be posted here, as well as on the Facebook page. Stay tuned!

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