Crowdfund This: Paul Felten and Joe DeNardo’s ‘Slow Machine’
A screwball thriller about performance and surveillance.
Sounds interesting already, doesn’t it? And with the track record of Paul Felten and Joe DeNardo, plus the full support of Academy Award nominee Chloë Sevigny, I’m pretty sure we’re in for a winner with Slow Machine.
But, as is often the case with some of the best projects (and as is always the case with our Crowdfund This column), the team needs our help for Slow Machine to become a reality.
Here’s what Slow Machine is all about:
The film sounds starkly different from anything you’ve seen in as long as you can remember, doesn’t it? Joe and Paul also filled us in on some further character information that we didn’t see in the video. Take a look below:
STEPHANIE, our main character, is an actress living in present-day NYC. She’s a vibrant, restless person – a woman for whom each new encounter suggests life-altering possibilities. She’s also at the end of her emotional/professional rope: tired of auditions, of tiny roles in dubiously ‘independent’ films, of crossing her fingers for understudy gigs. She feels like time is getting HEAVY. She thinks she is probably reading too much Philip Larkin.
Enter GERARD, an NYPD counter-terrorism specialist who’s an aficionado of downtown theater. Also maybe out of his mind. The two begin an entirely unhealthy sort-of-romance, which culminates… poorly. (We don’t want to give too much away here). Stephanie has to split, fast. She flees upstate with a man-in-a-van, who also happens to be the sound guy for ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER’S band.
The band’s making a record in a big, ramshackle house. Stephanie assumes an identity as a Texan and hangs, listens, spurns the van-man’s advances and tries to keep it together. She doesn’t succeed, and so she returns to the city, and to the consequences of Gerard’s presence in her life…
Now, Slow Machine has an insanely low goal for such an ambitious project. The film is currently sitting at $11,650 of its $30,000 goal, and there’s still 15 whole days for it to hit its funding goal. I was really interested in seeing just how such a small sum of cash would be spent, and it’s all been broken down:
$$ – The aforementioned film.
$$ – Sound people get paid.
$$ – Transportation of cast/crew to places like our upstate location.
$$ – Food. Cast/crew gotta eat.
$$ – Equipment rental.
$$ – The occasional prop/supply. It’s possible we’ll need a broom or something at some point. Paint. Stuff like that.
As always, there are some fabulous rewards for backers of the project, including digital downloads, mix tapes, stills, VIP screenings, producer credits, and even a… tattoo. Yep, an actual, real tattoo.
So, if you’re even vaguely interested in something completely different, you can check out the Kickstarter page right here, and be sure to let us know if you plan to back Slow Machine!
