16,000 THANK YOUS!

	Dear friends, family, "volunteers", THANK YOU! Our 30 day online fundraising campaign to help fund the production of our feature film, The Volunteer, ended with a bang! You supported us to the point of overflowing... we reached our $15,000 goal with 9 hours remaining and you made the most of it! The final tally is $16,210!! And we're still getting cheques in the mail from people who want to support us! We can now get down to the nitty gritty of preparing for our month-long shoot in August. Lots of rehearsals, locations scouting, equipment scrounging, crew-building, etc. But knowing what we have to work with, budget-wise, is a huge load lifted off our minds and we thank you so much for your generosity. As the old saying goes, "It takes a village to raise an independent film." In closing, check out this video, we mean every word of it. Humbly, gratefully, sincerely yours, Jonathan, Trevor, & Ken
	To follow our progress, check out any of the following: - Like us on facebook: www.facebook.com/roscofilms - Follow us on twitter: @roscofilms - website: www.roscofilms.com

Random Acts of In-Kindness

There is a reason why most people leave when the credits start to roll - there are a LOT of people involved in making a film and in fantasy-land where everybody gets paid what they're worth, that adds up to a LOT of money.  Money that most indie filmmakers don't have.

So how do we do it? Recently crowd-sourcing platforms like Indiegogo and Kickstarter have been a boon for independent projects of all kinds.  We have our own campaign going (ONLY 4 DAYS LEFT!!) if you're wondering what to do with all that pesky cash lying around.

But the REAL secret to making big things happen is the in-kindess, if you will, of others.

Just yesterday we got word that Conrad Grebel University College at University of Waterloo have provided us with one of their apartment units at a considerable discount to help us house our cast and crew!

Our crew will be super happy when they learn that though they will be working for free (in-kindness, holla!), they will be sleeping on real beds, not just on available floorspace like at a 24-hour Korean bathhouse:

And MCC Thrift Shops in our area have let us use their entire store as a prop house. Costume, furniture, anything that could be in a thrift store, it's ours for the using. That so incredibly in-kind of them!

This isn't even getting into our cast and crew who are donating huge amounts of time and talent to help make this production something we can all be proud of.

In other words: THANK YOU. To everybody who is giving cash, to the organizations and individuals who are pitching in to pull things together for us, we can't do this without you... and for a film about helping and community support, we wouldn't have it any other way!

#TrueStory - The car.

Yesterday afternoon Jon, Cheryl, and I were leaving the New Hamburg Thrift Centre with an armful of costumes for our film (thanks guys, you'll get your clothes back eventually!) and Jon said,

"Where in the world are we going to find a car for Becky and Rick?"

5 seconds later, we see this car in a parking lot:

One U-turn and 60 seconds later, we're talking with Paul, the friendly owner of this beauty and we've got a fantastic car for our two fantastic characters! Thanks Paul!

If only it were always so easy...

Why every filmmaker needs a great still photographer

A filmmaker's primary weapon of choice - generally speaking - is a film camera, for obvious reasons. We're all about the moving pictures here, and unless you're doing a stop-motion film, having a still photographer might not be at the top of your production priorities.

It should be.

We discovered just how valuable a good photographer is when we had our friend Jonathon Bowman on set to take some behind-the-scenes photos during one of our rehearsals. We are enormously grateful to have such talent with us! Thanks Jon!!

While the rest of us were busy critiquing the movement of an actor's eyebrow, or standing around deep in thought, trying to figure out how to make a scene work, Bowman was capturing fantastic candid moments:

Kaity Adam. Photo by Jonathon Bowman

Cheryl Lee. Photo by Jonathon Bowman

Colin Shantz. Photo by Jonathon Bowman

We've got Bowman's photographs all over our website, blog, and facebook page and man, does it look good.

Another practical reason for having a great photographer on set is that when preparing submissions for festivals, media releases, etc, a quality still photograph is essential for posters, articles and the like. So instead of sending them a screenshot - which never looks as good as a photograph - you can send them a properly composed and processed photograph.

I leave you with a gem from a recent photo shoot on location showcasing the lads of Rosco Films.
We will show this photo to each one of our cast and crew before shooting.

The message is simple: This guy is in charge.

Meet the cast: Kaity Adam

Kaity Adam on set rehearsal. Photo by Jonathon Bowman.

The youngest star of our ensemble cast, we're happy to introduce Kaity Adam in the role of Amy! She's starring in her first major role in a feature film and doing a fantastic job of absorbing, processing, and channeling a complex character. Good thing she's smart beyond her years (we wish we were!).