Thursday, November 25, 2010

Forms of Identification Thanks YOU

Today is Thanksgiving and I'm reminded how far we've come with our fundraising campaign. Because of your support and your contributions so far, we have met our first fundraising goal and have hired our effects artist! We are on schedule to finish the film by the end of the year as planned! It has been a long haul in many ways but we can officially say that we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it looks really beautiful! Thanks to all of you for your contributions thus far, we have crossed that first milestone!

Some of you already know about and have made a generous contribution to our Kickstarter campaign.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1285660629/fruition-of-forms-of-identification

Once we finish the film, we need to get it on the big screen! That means designing and producing DVDs, entering the film into festivals, creating marketing materials. We still need to raise $1,540 by December 15. If we don't raise that specific amount, we have to give back all donations made through Kickstarter thus far. Thanks to Lisa, Lynn, Lars, Jane, Joe, Sam, Uncle John, Eduardo, Claudia, Julie and Uncle Kevin who have made a pledge. You can pledge as little or as much as you feel comfortable.

We have a short video explaining our film and the funding drive, as well as other information on our Kickstarter page.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1285660629/fruition-of-forms-of-identification

We are eternally grateful for the support we've already received from the community - Empowerment Works, Numi Tea, Millennium Restaurant, Mariposa Bakery, La Boulange, Blossom Bluff Orchards, Tom Tieche, Mission Workshop, Pedal Panties, Magnolia Brewery & Pub, The Animal House, Vima Dance Studio, Weird Fish, Taco Bike Timmy, Bike Basket Pies, Magnanimus Wine Group, Aaron Delachaux, Maya Hara, Megan Martin, Ryan Lendt and all our volunteers! It's great to live in a city like San Francisco that bolsters the arts!

Thanks for supporting our film!

Thursday, November 18, 2010

From "The Moon By Whale Light," by Diane Ackerman

I'm reading this book that I happened to come across at the $1 book sale at the SF Public Library. It's an incredible book of non-fiction. I'm realizing that I can learn more about human nature by studying the way animals communicate with each other - the echolocation of bats, the dance of a crocodile and especially the singing of the Humpback whales. Here's an thought-provoking passage that I feel worth revisiting again and again:

"... mind is such an odd predicament for matter to get into. I often marvel how something like hydrogen, the simplest atom, forged in some early chaos of the universe, could lead to us and the gorgeous fever we call consciousness. If a mind is just a few pounds of blood, dream, and electric, how does it manage to contemplate itself, worry about its soul, do time-and-motion studies, admire the shy hooves of a goat, know that it will die, enjoy all the grand and lesser mayhems of the heart? What is mind, that one can be out of one's? How can a neuron feel compassion? What is a self? Why did automatic hand-me-down mammals like our ancestors somehow evolve brains with the ability to consider, imagine, project, compare, abstract, think of the future? If our experience of mind is really just the simmering of an easily alterable chemical stew, then what does it mean to know something, to want something, to be? How do you begin with hydrogen and end up with prom dresses, jealousy, chamber music? What is music that it can satisfy a mind, and even perhaps function as language?"

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

What's it all about?



This short video will explain why we're fundraising!

And please visit our Kickstarter page - visit often!