Authors, Clothing Designers: Get Your Wares in an Upcoming Movie

Want to know how?

Help fund writer, director J.D. Walker's KICKSTARTER campaign for her movie, THE POSTWOMAN!

There are NINE days left until the campaign in, and funds are still needed for this worthwhile movie, which has been featured in The Huffington Post and Indiewire's Shadow and Act: On Cinema of the African Diaspora. You can head to J.D.'s KS page to watch a video and learn more about the movie and campaign, but here's how you can get your wares into the production.

BOOK LOVERS DELIGHT

With a $75 pledge, you can enjoy your book being featured in the Bookstore scene and a digital link to watch the feature film (after the film's theatrical release and all restrictions placed on the project by TV or distributors). Clean "TITLES" only: Non-offensive. Children, Romance, Fiction, Non-Fiction, Erotica, Poetry, Spiritual, Motivational, LGBT, and other titles, okay. Just look for Pledge $50 or more [BOOK LOVERS DELIGHT: ALTERNATE $75 PLEDGE] in the list of pledges you can make!

BOOK LOVERS DELIGHT: THE SUPREME EDITION

With a pledge of $100 or more, you can enjoy your book being featured in the Bookstore scene, your name in the closing credits, two tickets to an advanced screening, and a digital link to watch the feature film (after the film's theatrical release and all restrictions placed on the project by TV or distributors). Package also includes a PDF of the shooting script, a Postwoman Movie luggage tag, and a grocery tote. Clean "TITLES" only: Non-offensive. Children, Romance, Fiction, Non-Fiction, Erotica, Poetry, Spiritual, Motivational, LGBT, and other titles, okay. Just look for Pledge $100 or more [BOOK LOVERS DELIGHT: THE SUPREME EDITION] in the list of pledges you can make!

CLOTHING LOVERS DELIGHT

With a pledge of $100 or more, you can enjoy having your clothing line featured in THE POSTWOMAN, your name in the closing credits of the feature film, two tickets to an advanced screening, and a digital link to watch the feature film (after the film's theatrical release and all restrictions placed on the project by TV or distributors). Just look for Pledge $100 or more [CLOTHING LOVERS DELIGHT: ALTERNATE $100 PLEDGE] in the list of pledges you can make!

GET TO PLEDGING!

Funding a Dream: Author Alisa Valdes

Nine years ago, Alisa Valdes' debut novel, The Dirty Girls Social Club, had people wondering if she was "The Latina Terry McMillan." The novel, about the loves and lives of six eclectic friends in their late twenties, not only garnered media attention, but it also became a New York Times bestseller.

Now, Valdes is moving to bring her bestselling novel to the BIG SCREEN... and you can help! Through Fundly.com, Valdes has kicked off a campaign to raise funds for a Dirty Girls movie. When talking about the book on Fundly, Valdes says, "I wrote the book I wanted to read but couldn't find." It was also the first book to explore the racial and socioeconomic diversity of Latinos in America that the mainstream completely ignores, with a black Colombian character, a blonde Cuban Jewish character, etc. -- and that, says the author, was the key to its success. "The book showed us as we truly are - multifaceted, complex, fully human - not as the dominant culture fantasizes us to be," she says.

With such a hot property like Dirty Girls, there were plenty of opportunities to bring the novel to the big or small screen, and at Fundly, you can read about those experiences and what has led Valdes to now pursue securing funds to make the movie herself.

When I asked Valdes what it would mean to have this campaign funded, COMMUNITY was a keyword for her: "We are looking to raise a small portion of our budget through crowdfunding. If we can do it, emotionally it will mean that we have the support of the community. Community is important to me."

If you loved the novel and would love even more to see the movie version, fund this campaign today! If you want to support an endeavor that would spotlight positive images of Latinas, then help fund this campaign! Be sure to watch the comical (yet painfully truthful) and entertaining video at the campaign site!

You can also help the cause by clicking any of the buttons at the end of this post to share it on G+, Facebook, and Twitter.

Like Valdes, I, too, believe in community. It takes a community to raise an indie talent. Support this one today!

Funding a Dream: Author Tananarive Due

One of my favorite authors is Tananarive Due. Her biggest fan is my sister. I'd put a bet on that. My sister has read and reread Due's books as if she's writing a dissertation on Due. Whenever a new one drops, she's big-eyed, excited, and on her way to a bookstore or online to buy.

The minute I learned that Tananarive, along with her husband Steven Barnes, had started a fundraising campaign for their short horror film Danger Word, I knew I wanted to put a shout out to the blogosphere in the hopes that people would hear this news and jump on board to support the project.

If you don't know Tananarive Due (and I'll try not to hold that against you), let me give you the skinny. She's an American Book Award winner and the author of the bestseller My Soul to Keep (my fave book of hers!). Her husband, Steven Barnes, has his truckload of talent as well, having written for several major TV science fiction series in the past 20 years to include The Outer Limits, The New Twilight Zone, and Andromeda.

Their short film Danger Word tells the powerful story of a 13-year-old girl and her grandfather who have survived the zombie plague in his wooded cabin—and how her birthday outing goes badly awry. It's a story about love and survival that empowers young girls.

A cool thing about this project? There are already 200 backers, including Hollywood insiders.

The Indiegogo fundraising campaign, which ends on July 29, 2013, would assist Due and Barnes on finishing post-production.

I asked Tananarive what it would mean to her to have this campaign fully funded, and her final response echoed that of author Liz DeJesus, who talked about dream fulfillment when asked about her fundraising campaign. Tananarive said

Aside from a few short scenes Steve and I wrote for a book trailer for FROM CAPE TOWN WITH LOVE with Blair Underwood, I have never seen my work translated to screen. I love movies, and I took up screenwriting in Los Angeles with the hope of seeing one of my book adaptations produced, but it hasn't happened so far. The idea to write our own movie came like a lightning bolt, and it has been one of the most liberating experiences of my life. The trailer is the only footage I've seen so far, and even that short snippet is so thrilling! I know there are other fans out there who would like to see the movies I want to see, and it's a dream come true to make those stories come to life on the screen.

You know, being a bestseller, being an award winner, being a successful writer does not mean you will always get a YES to projects you want to develop, projects you feel need to be developed. Sometimes, you can't wait for the YES of others; you have to make your own YES and work to build your dreams into realities. That's what this fundraising campaign does, just as it is doing for both writer, director J.D. Walker and author Liz DeJesus.

But even as you make your own YES, community love and involvement are important. It takes a community to raise an indie talent. Support this Indiegogo project from Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes today! While there, DEFINITELY take in the fantastic video that features Due and Barnes, the director Luchina Fisher, and the fantastic trailer to Danger Word.

You can also help the cause by clicking any of the buttons at the end of this post to share it on G+, Facebook, and Twitter.

Funding a Dream: Writer, Director J.D. Walker

Lately, a lot of talented writers I know have created fundraising campaigns to assist in their creative pursuits. One such talent is writer, director J.D. Walker. J.D. is a Sundance Film Festival Pitching Contest winner and also an Honorable Mention winner for The Postwoman in the Sundance Table Read My Screenplay Contest. I met J.D. on Facebook and am a definite fan of her constant push to develop her craft, to place herself in places and spaces and before people that can help propel her to new levels in her endeavors.

Using Kickstarter, J.D. is seeking funds for her movie, The Postwoman. The dramatic feature film is about a single mom who develops the courage to confront her ex-husband, dysfunctional family, and teenage daughter about her secret life with another woman. Funds received from the Kickstarter campaign would be used to assist with production expenses.

When I asked J.D. what it would mean to her to have this campaign funded, she said, "It means that we can proceed with filming, get the film distributed in theaters, film some of the first early scenes of the film, market what we film to private donors and investors, and it also means a step toward the second feature film on Oscar Micheaux, which won the pitching contest at Sundance."

Please take time to visit J.D.'s Kickstarter campaign for The Postwoman and consider backing this project. Even a dollar can help, but the more you pledge, the closer J.D. will get to securing production-expense funds. It doesn't hurt that there are cool Thank You "gifts" for backers, too.

You can also help the cause by clicking any of the buttons at the end of this post to share it on G+, Facebook, and Twitter. Let other people know about this great project and equally great talent.

Keepin' It Real with Screenwriter Cynthia Dagnal-Myron

For the month of March, All the Blog's a Page (AtBaP) has gone to the big screen as we talk to screenwriters!

This week, we wrap up our March series with a woman who offers GREAT advice to any writer: screenwriter Cynthia Dagnal-Myron!








For the month of March, I asked SEVERAL questions regarding fave sites for writers, advice, differences and similarities between the different media platforms in regards to writing, etc. When I asked, For those of you who write for different arenas - big screen, boob tube, stage, page, web - what are elements that differ for you as the writer in regards to how you SEE the story unfolding in each arena, Dagnal-Myron replied, "I only write for the big screen and the "page," so I can only speak for those two. But the difference is that when writing a novel or an article, I can offer both action and the "motivation" for what the character is doing in words on that page. A script is all "action." You're showing, not telling. What a character does has to carry that story, and the power is in what the character does even more than what he says. In fact, if you write about what a character is thinking in a script it will receive a quick "pass." When writing a "story," you can have the character ruminate, think aloud, discuss.

"You can also spend a whole page on description, to set a mood or make a point, when writing fiction. You create a whole world with words. Script writing has to be very economical, and exposition is to be avoided like the plague. In other fiction I can tell you what music is playing, what the character looks like, what perfume she wears. In a script, they frown upon this, because in the end, none of that will be decided by the screenwriter. So there are remarkable differences--glad you asked! I hadn't really thought about it this seriously before, though it's something I work with everyday."




To read the rest of Cynthia Dagnal-Myron's comments on screenwriting, head to All the Blog's a Page!


And while there, check out the screenwriting features from Stephen Kogon, Brian Spaeth, Kristin Johnson, and John W. Bosley!



ALL THE BLOG'S A PAGE (AtBaP) - Where everything relates to writing
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