Would you like to buy a documentary?

I have always hated asking people for money. Ever since I was a Girl Scout peddling my cookies to neighbors and friends, I knew any job with the word “sales” in it would not be in my future. “Would you like to buy a box of Girl Scout cookies? You don’t have to, if you don’t want to. They’re kind of expensive. That’s okay, I’ll just go.” That was my sales pitch going door to door.

I hated it, even when it was a product I believed in. I believed in Thin Mints. I ate many a box growing up…probably because I couldn’t sell any, my parents took pity on me and bought a bunch. I never liked pressuring people to buy something. And yet I find myself very much in “sales.” Every time I try to book a gig, I’m selling my services. Doing freelance work you’re always having to market your talents, convince potential customers that you have something the other guys don’t, you pretty much have to sell yourself.

So here I am, trying to sell something. Something I believe in. And this time it’s not cookies and it’s not me. It’s a project. A documentary about clean drinking water and a community in Asheville, which at this very moment, is fighting for that very thing. I’m selling their story, their suffering, and a peek into the system we have set up to take care of problems like toxic waste leaking into people wells and coming out their faucets.

After putting everything that I have and everything that I am into the project for almost two years, I’ve realized that it’s too big for me. I need to hire some help. So I’m doing this fundraiser that is dangerously close to failing and almost equally as close to succeeding. I’m $2000 away from the funding I need to finish it. Maybe that’s too much to ask in times like these. Maybe it’s too much for a town where jobs are hard to find and people don’t have money to play with anymore. Would you like to buy a documentary? You don’t have to if you don’t want to. It’s kind of expensive…That’s okay, I’ll just go.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/233019965/toxic-asheville-feature-documentary/posts/152588

Here's a Clip from the Documentary

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/233019965/toxic-asheville-feature-documentary/posts/152588

Only 4 days to go. I'm burnt out on trying to get the word out about this kickstarter campaign. I only have a few hours in the day to devote to this project and I need help. I need all of you to google environmental groups, bloggers and other communities with superfund sites that might be interested in seeing this movie. Send them an email, give them this link, tell them to contact me. Whatever you can do, even if it's just one community leader, one environmental group, one other person that you contact on an individual level, it will be a great help.

Thank you,
Katie

Only 9 Days Left!

Screening a Clip of Toxic Asheville!

This Friday and Saturday at the 7pm and 10pm shows I will be screening a ten minute cut from the documentary and will be there before and after the movies with a table by the ticket booth to answer questions. I'll also have some prints to raffle off. So if you're in town, come see a movie and support my documentary!

http://ashevillebrewing.com/2011/index.html

Katie

P.S. - If you can't show up, you can still pledge: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/233019965/toxic-asheville-feature-documentary

Over $1000 Pledged to my Documentary!

We passed the S1000 mark and someone from Japan even pledged. There's still more to go. Please share this project with friends and help spread the word and thank you everyone who has already supported the project.

Katie

Kickstarter!

My kickstarter page is launched:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/233019965/toxic-asheville-feature-documentary

Go pledge your support to this project and help raise awareness about a problem most Americans don't even know about. Clean drinking water isn't just an issue for third world countries. We have our own set of problems right here at home. Hint: watch till the end of the video, there are some funny bloopers.

Katie

I'm Crowdsourcing my Documentary!

So what is crowdsourcing? Well, instead of funding a project through a few large investors, you use a large group of investors giving a small amount. The site I'm using is called Kickstarter. You can check out my profile here: http://www.kickstarter.com/profile/233019965

They have lots of artists who need funding to complete their projects. The project I'm working on is my feature length documentary "Toxic Asheville." With kickstarter, if you don't meet your goal, no one pays. I will be fund raising for 40 days and my goal is $5000. The really neat thing about this site is that when you pledge and the goal is met, you will get different rewards for your pledges. For example, with my project if you pledge $25 you'll get a thank you credit in the movie and a DVD of my movie when it's finished. So in a way, it's kind of like pre-selling. I won't go into detail here, because that will all be on my page when I launch it.

So why and I telling you all this now? I'm hoping everyone will go and pledge on my opening day (Wednesday the 16th) or shortly there after. You don't have to give big, just $1 on Wednesday will get me some attention. If I can generate a big start with a lot of interest in my page, it might be featured as one of their "New and Noteworthy" projects and hopefully get seen by a lot more people. So go check out kickstarter and register now. The payments are made through Amazon.com, so if you've ever bought anything on Amazon, it will be easy to set up an account at http://www.kickstarter.com. I'll send out a reminder on Wednesday with a link when the page has been launched. Wish me luck!

Katie

Halloween Party

I had an awesome Halloween party at my house. The winners of the costume contest are below. My good friend George was "Ashevegas" as a casino dealer with the table attached as part of his costume. It was both an awesome costume and a functional game, as everyone at the party took turns playing poker. Mom was a dumb blond who heard there was a costume party and wore a "mask." And I learned how to make sugar glass, which is basically just hard candy. I broke up a sheet of it and stabbed it into red velvet cupcakes with a little red icing for some awesome bloody cupcakes. I love Halloween.

Katie

Asheville Cinema Festival

I had an amazing weekend at the Asheville Cinema Festival! The festival was very well organized and they treated the filmmakers really well. I attended great panel discussions on screenwriting and distribution and my movie screened 4 different times. The most exciting screening was at Regal on a really really big screen! I met a lot of great people and now I can't wait for next year's festival. The film that got in is a very short claymation (1 minute and 15 seconds in total) called "On High" and I'll have that posted soon.

Katie

Press: Asheville Filmmakers Work for Passion

Cover Photo by Matt Rose/Asheville Scene

Written by: Tony Kiss

Movie Making in the Mountains. Asheville Citizen-Times: Scene Magazine.

To be sure, Asheville has landed its share of big-budget movies.  Think of the Oscar-winning “Being There,” (1979) or the romantic epic “Last of the Mohicans” (1992) and, in March, the futuristic adventure “The Hunger Games.”

Even some local independent films, like Chusy Haney-Jardine’s “Anywhere USA” (once known as “Asheville, the Movie”) got some big attention in 2008 when it won a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival and compliments from director Quentin Tarantino.

But beyond the glitzy Hollywood productions, there’s plenty happening in moviemaking here.  On any given weekend, local filmmakers are grabbing their equipment and scripts, pulling together their cast and shooting short films – even features – mostly for love of the art.

Photo by Matt Rose/Asheville Sce

Those filmmakers are really just hoping for a little appreciation and exposure at events like this weekend’s Asheville Cinema Festival.

“It’s a thing I have to do,” said Asheville filmmaker Katie Damien.  “If you love it, you will do it regardless of how much money you make.” Like most local filmmakers, she has a day job, working in creative services at WLOS/Channel 13.

Damien’s short fiction film “Second Parent” has won the Cinema Festival’s Prestige Subaru Film Competition for local filmmakers and will be screened Saturday at 1:15p.m. at Asheville Community Theatre.   (Damien will also speak at the afternoon event, “Short Films for Women by Women.”)

Her movie is about a same-sex couple and what happens to the family after one of the partners dies.  “I wouldn’t have made it if it hadn’t been for the competition,” Damien said.  “You only have so much time to do what you want to do.  You are not getting paid, and this kind of competition is good for filmmakers.”

It turns out she will get a little cash out of the contest – a first-place prize of $500 (the second-place winner receives $250 and the third gets $100; all will be screened at the Cinema Festival.)  Nine short films, none more that seven minutes long, were entered into the Prestige Subaru Competition, said Asheville Cinema Festival executive director Wyman Tannehill.  The competition is about “supporting the filmmaking scene,” said Tannehill.  (The local Subaru dealership is the presenting sponsor of the entire fest).  “I think the filmmaking community here is very diverse,” he said.  “Not only in the age of filmmakers but in the type of films that people are creating.  You find people downtown shooting on some street corner or in a back alley.”....

Max Patch

I went to shoot time lapse footage at Max Patch. It was amazing! When the weather gets warmer, I want to go back and camp there. All these pictures were shot with a fish eye lens I rented for the shoot.

Katie

Asheville Brewing Commercial Contest

I entered a contest for a beer commercial that's too hot for TV. I have to give a very special thanks to David Ostergaard for staring the spot and letting me use his house to shoot in.

I Made it into the Asheville Film Festival!

A short film I made just got accepted to the Asheville Cinema Festival! (Formerly the Asheville Film Festival) The film is called "On High" and it's a short little 2 minute claymation I did under mom's Christmas tree. For anyone in the Asheville area, my movie will be playing in the shorts blocks in the morning on Friday the 4th and Saturday the 5th at the Masonic Lodge downtown (80 Broadway Street across from Olive or Twist.) I'll be there for the Q&A at the end of the screenings. You can get tickets online or at the door.

http://ashevillecinemafestival.com/short-fiction

Katie

Eric and Emily's Wedding

Eric and Emily are good friends who asked me to shoot their wedding.  They were married in Weaverville on a beautiful day.  They are both very laid back and their relaxed style just made my job so much easier.  This was a fun wedding to shoot!

The Oscar Party

I totally forgot to post last year's Oscar pictures. It was a great night with lots of black swans and feathers strewn everywhere. I was the black widow from Ironman 2. We had a gay gardener from "The Kids are Alright" and even Sean Connery. Lots of great costumes this year.

Katie

Asheville 48 Hour Film Festival

The team I'm in for the 48 hour film project just won the audience award for best picture in our group and the best use of character award. The whole movie is below. It was an awesome experience again this year!

Katie

Team: YA Productions
Genre: Thriller

Character: Tommy or Tina Darnes (a mechanic)
Prop: Apple
Line: "Don't be so sure."

In addition to these requirements, the film had to be more than 4 minutes, but less than 7. And all this in just 2 days.

48 Hour Film Project Trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGzEaxUeOC0

For those who don't know about the 48 hour film project, it basically goes like this: you register a team, show up at a designated place and time, they tell you what genre you have to do, all teams have to use the same character, prop, and line of dialouge, then you have to write, shoot, and edit your movie... oh it all this has to be done in one weekend. We just finished our film and I've attached a link to the trailer. The whole video will be up later, when all the screenings are finished. I had a great time doing this again this year. Our team was amazing! More on this later.

Katie

My40 this Morning LaZoom Asheville Promotion

First of a series of 3 spots I produced for our morning news show.




Special thanks to the LaZoom comedy troupe for performing in these spots. More info: http://www.my40.tv and http://www.lazoomtours.com

Katie

I Won 3 Emmys!!!

I just won three Emmy awards: one for writing, one for News Image Campaign and one for special effects make-up. The official event photos aren't out yet, but these pictures were posted by a woman taking a few at the Southeast Regional Emmy Awards. I'll post some that I took later on.

Katie

LaZoom Comedy Bus Tour

Yesterday I went on the LaZoom Comedy bus tour (www.lazoomtours.com) around Asheville with my good friend George. We had a great time! I've used the guys from the LaZoom troupe before in a promotion for WLOS and I'm using them again for some more really funny spots I'm shooting now. Look for these same actors in posts to come. They'll be easy to recognize.

Katie

Glass Blowing

In Asheville there is a section of town called the River Arts District. There, a community of artists have taken over dilapidated warehouses from our town’s bygone days of manufacturing and turned them into beautiful studios and homes. All the artists leave their doors open so people can just walk in and see them creating and buy a piece if they want.

I was out one weekend looking for interesting people to shoot for a promotion I’m working on (coming soon) when I passed a sign that read, create your own hand blown glass $50. Now I know $50 is a lot to pay for one pint glass, but this is a special pint glass because I helped make it. And glassblowing is not an easy thing for a person to do on their own, you pretty much need an assistant. I got a lesson in glass blowing, some experience actually doing it and I got to help support the amazing community of artists that call Asheville their home. If anyone in the area is interested in making your own hand-blown glass you can visit: www.ashevilleglass.com theyhave regular classes as well.

Katie

Chris and Sara

I shot two of my good friends/colleges engagement session at the NC Arboretum. They are just so cute. They were worried about not being able to pose well, but really they had nothing to worry about. Wedding coming soon.

Katie

Chamber 5k

I did my first marathon. The Asheville Chamber of Commerce 5k. I walked the whole way... well I did run for the last bit of it because we could see the finish line and the countdown clock was about to go to 1 hour and we decided we wanted to get in under an hour, so we had to run the last little bit. WLOS had a team and I decided to join. It was fun. I cut up posters so we could have themed costumes. I'm the "Body of Proof" poster.

Katie

The American Muslim Project

My friend Sarah approached me a while back to do a video for the American Muslim Project (http://www.theamericanmuslimproject.org/) It was created to combat ignorance and help create a more tolerant America. This video was made in answer to their call for videos to help combat Islamaphobia. I think it's a great cause and I am happy to support it.

Katie

5 Emmy Nominations!

I've just been nominated for five Southeast Regional Emmys! The awards gala isn't until June 18th, so I have to wait a whole painstaking month to find out if I won or not. The news guys had a Emmy nomination party at Dave's house and everyone was on some digital device following the twitter feed to see who was nominated next. Here's what I'm up for:

Writer - Short Form
Editor - Short Form
Craft Specialty - Makeup (with Brian and Cindy from Homeward Bound)
Promo - Image - News (with David Saich and Paul DeWitt)
Promotion - News Promo - Campaign (with David Saich and Paul DeWitt)

The Promo Image News is really Dave's. I'm in that one because I helped with that spot. The campaign has some of the time lapse spots I did and Dave's one big spot and Paul did our graphics. So in about a month, I'll be off to Atlanta to find out if I get to take a trophy home!

Katie