WOODROW CRAVEN

Sorry it's been so long since I've written, but I figure you guys would get tired of me if I plastered something on here every day!

I'm in the middle of trying to put together a trailer and poster for my next movie entitled, WOODROW CRAVEN.  With the script I've written, the trailer and a poster I can launch a Kickstarter campaign to try and raise money to shoot the movie.  I'm looking at around $54,000 for the shoot.  Remember, I'm an ultra-low budget movie-maker!

Woodrow Craven is a "found footage" horror about students who break into their creepy teacher's house to plant spy cams in an attempt to catch him doing something evil, but find him dead instead.  So there's only one thing to do - they throw a party!  They party at his house with all their friends and take pictures of themselves with the "dead guy".  Later, so into their partying, they forget about Woodrow Craven and that's when he 'rises from the dead' and kills them all.

"Found footage" means that only video recordings (or digital) is all that is left of an event (because everyone is dead) and what the authorities use to piece together the crime.  BLAIR WITCH and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY are this type of genre.

Woodrow Craven is a story I came up with back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, but I didn't "feel" it yet.  I knew what I wanted to do, but it just didn't feel like the time to create it was at hand.  In fact, my kids were kids when I came up with the concept.  My youngest son Josh LOVED the idea and every year would ask, "You doing Craven yet?"

"When are you going to do Craven?"

"Why haven't you done Craven yet?"

"I want Craven."

"Mom!"

So, time marched on; the earth turned; other scripts got written; other movies got made, but still, I just wasn't feeling the time was at hand for my cannibal - zombie - vampire - killer teacher.

Then, last month (yes, only last month), my son - who now has sons of his own(!) - called me up and said, "Mom, regarding Woodrow Craven, I have two words for you."

I'm thinking to myself: "Go to hell?  No, that's three words.  Screw you?  Maybe.  Up yours?  F - off?"  I waited with baited breath.

"Found footage," Josh offered.

BINGO!  The music rose.  The lights dimmed.  The stage was set.  The brain kicked into gear and I suddenly knew every nuance, every detail of what I needed to bring my killer teacher alive for me.  No pun intended!

So I did some research on "found footage" because a good screen writer-book writer-producer-director-whomever had better learn the lay of the land before wandering through the quicksand.

I found out that these movies are VERY popular at the box office.  People can't seem to get enough of them.  Distributors are clamoring for them because the cost to make them is low and the pay day is huge (for the Distributors!).  But "found footage" also has it's critics.  Doesn't everything?

Besides my personal peeve of the camera shaking all over the place so that the movie audience loses their popcorn in a nauseating burst down the back of the guy sitting in front of them; another is the point of combining regular footage along with the 'found footage' makes the critics wonder: "who's holding the camera while these murders are going on?  And if you are recording your buddy getting killed by the monster - or whatever the villain of the piece is - why are you not helping him?  And why are you just sitting there letting the villain - ghost - killer - whatever come after you, but you are not running your butt off to get away, but instead - zooming in?

One of the latest crazes in sports is to record your adventures by wearing a head cam or a camera mounted on your bike, surf board, car, skis - whatever your adventure vehicle is - and recording your awesome ride OR your agony of defeat should you fail.  And a lot of those epic fails can now be seen on YouTube.  People today seem hellbent on recording themselves doing EVERYTHING.  No longer a secret sex video thing, they even have to record what they are eating for dinner and splashing it across every social media known to man.  So I came up with the idea that my two leads we're techno geeks who were into spy cams and using head cams for all their adventures.

My two heroes - victims - decide not only to break into their classroom and plant spy cams to catch their teacher doing weird things between classes, but they also decide (after hearing he's going out of town for two weeks) to break into his home and plant spy cams there to catch him doing his voodoo-witchcraft-sorceror antics there.  They also hope to find dungeons and torture chambers while they're at it.  So them planting the cams and breaking into his house are recorded on the head cams they are wearing at the time.

But to answer the critics about the regular footage mixed in with the "found footage" I tell the entire story through not just the kids' cameras, but the police interrogation room footage as the cops watch the story being played out on a computer in the room.  Not one scene in the movie takes place in regular footage.  It's all through "found footage" because even the police wind up as part of this story within a story.

And, if you're intrigued enough to go see this pic when it comes out, stay through the credits because there's more 'found footage' at the very end as a little easter egg bennie!

The whole thing - if it gets financed - should take a week to do.  Set build, 3 days of shooting, tear down.  Editing it will be the hardest part and probably take the longest (if I have to do it - hoping to hire a "real" editor!)  And then it will be off to my attorney for contact with the Distributors.  Hopefully the money I earn will finance my next pic!

So if you are intrigued, I hope you will support us on Kickstarter.  I will be letting everyone know when we finally launch our campaign.  I have to finish putting the trailer - coming attractions trailer that you see at the show before the main movie starts - together to wet everyone's appetite so they will throw money at us on Kickstarter.  Plus the poster will give people an idea of the 'look' of the movie we will be trying to make.

I've pretty much gotten everything lined up for the shoot already, from the Victorian home Woodrow Craven occupies, to the sound stage, to the SFX crew, some actors, make-up artist, set builders, etc.  Trust me, when I'm motivated, I can pull everything together quickly.  It's always about the money! lol!  Isn't everything?

I'm just saying...