Jay Cheel, director of “Beauty Day,” wants your money. Why should you fork over your hard-earned money to help this relatively unknown Canadian filmmaker fund a documentary based off an allegedly elaborate hoax about time travel? Well, if that intriguing rhetorical question didn’t do anything for you, take a quick gander at this Doc Ignite trailer for “How to Build a Time Machine“…
Jay Cheel is a documentary and short-film writer/director from St. Catherines, Ontario.
Crowd funding is an interesting concept. It’s been all the rage as of late, with Tim Schafer’s Double Fine Productions raising over 600K in under 24 hours via KickStarter to fund their old-school PC adventure game; however, it also gives fans an interesting opportunity to become further involved with the process. Not to be considered akin to “investing,” it’s more or less an opportunity for fans to become more entrenched with a project, and even benefit from it. This Doc Ignite program features multiples tiers of donation levels, ranging from a simple “Thank You” in the credits for smaller donations, all the way to receiving signed limited edition DVD/Blu-Rays, personalized gifts, and even backstage tickets to the premiere for the big dollar donations. These bonus treats won’t be too unfamiliar to those who have preordered more exclusive, albeit more expensive, limited edition items. Regardless what your stance is on crowd funding, it gives independent filmmakers like Jay the opportunity to receive funding that is hard to find when considering the criteria and scope this documentary is striving for. Originality is risky. And it’s easier for investors to put their money behind something proven, juxtaposed to unique and quirky projects such as this. Thus, it’s up to you to see through the creation of niche projects… if that’s your sort of thing.
You can help pitch in for this project at: http://www.hotdocs.ca/docignite/project/how_to_build_a_time_machine/