What? So soon? Yes, and this one was completely unplanned because I’m not the one holding the contest. Instead, I’m entering in it as a contestant! I’ve got to tell you that I don’t enter a lot of contests because they are usually just games of chance—you put your name in and you hope they draw it. But this contest caught my attention because it actually requires some effort and talent.
The contest is being put on by Dockers (owned by Levi Strauss & Co.) and it’s called the Wear the Pants Project. Basically, it works like this: Contestants compete for a prize of $100,000 to “finally do what you love.” In 400 characters or less each contestant must enter their plan. Then people vote for the plans. The top 50 vote getters proceed to Round Two where they will be required to submit an essay and a combination of pictures and/or a picture and a video about their plan. From the submissions judges will choose their top five. Finally, people will get to vote on those top five. The contestant with the most votes wins! Here’s a video from Dockers explaining it:
Now, as most of you already know, my plan, my goal, my dream, is to see the cast of The Invisible Man together again in a sci-fi feature film. No, it won’t be a movie based on the show. I had an entertainment attorney approach NBC/Universal and, unfortunately, I couldn’t get the rights to I-Man. But Vince and Paul both suggested to me that I pursue a film that has an original story…something where rights won’t be a problem. The cool thing about going this route is that if you love it and want to see more, there won’t be a big studio ignoring us or telling us no. How awesome would that be? So, I’ve been working on this sci-fi movie project for several years now. It’s been a steep learning curve and there have been the typical ups and downs, starts and stops that accompany a project of this sort; but I’ve never given up on this dream and I don’t plan to. You don’t make it in the film industry if you’re the kind that gives up easily and, believe me, I can hang on like a bulldog!
Right now we’re on story number three and I really think this is the one. We are getting very close to having a finished treatment that I can show the cast; and if they like it, I’ll be able to have my writer start the script. Once that happens, I’ll be able to start writing the business plan. But there’s an obstacle here and that’s money. So far, everything has come out of my own pocket. I estimate that I’ve spent over $15,000 up to this point on the project. That’s a sizable amount of money for me. I’m not a rich woman. But nobody can accuse me of not having skin in the game. I’m prepared to spend more, however, the last six months have left me broke. I got hit with a lot of unexpected expenses like vet bills (when my cat got sick and died), auto repair bills (when a tire blew out and I had to replace all of them), higher than expected contest costs, and the cost of having to replace a dying computer. It’s going to take me several months to dig myself out of this financial hole, which means that the next steps of the project may have to be pushed back until I can save up the money to pay for it, because right now I have no money to pay my writer or story analyst.
I have considered trying a crowdfunding campaign like Kickstarter or IndieGoGo where some filmmakers have successfully raised money to fund their projects, but I really like the idea of trying this contest first because it doesn’t cost anyone anything…just a few minutes of your time every day to vote and help spread the word.
Winning $100k would be a huge boost to this project and would definitely speed things up. I would have enough money to finish development, pay for fundraising and some marketing expenses, and probably get through most, if not all, of pre-production. In addition, the possibility of getting publicity for the project from a company as large as Dockers would be a huge plus and could be quite attractive to investors. It makes my head spin just thinking about how big this project could possibly get.
I think the rewards definitely make going for this worth our while.
So here’s where I need your help. I’m talking to everyone I know or even personally don’t know. That means friends, family members, co-workers, fellow fans, readers of my blog, fellow filmmaking colleagues. Everyone! I need as many people as possible to help me out here by voting for my plan. This is a rallying call!
The contest started a couple of weeks ago, so we’re getting a late start. Round One of the contest ends on March 15, so we have only one month to get ahead of the competition! I’ve been checking out the competition and many are just putting up their entry blurb and that’s it. Not much effort on their part and, not surprisingly, they’re not getting many votes. However, it’s the few movers and shakers in the group that are our real competition. I don’t know who the high scorers are yet and Dockers is supposed to be announcing it some time in the near future, but I have seen one contestant with over 600 votes already! We have some catching up to do! Personally, I would love to see us just blow everyone out of the water with our votes and really make the judges at Dockers take notice of us. Do you feel the same way?
If you do and want to help, here’s what you can do:
- Go to http://apps.facebook.com/dockerswearthepants/entries/14621 and click the VOTE FOR THIS PLAN button on my entry page. You’ll have to sign up for Facebook if you are not already a subscriber and you’ll need to accept the Dockers app. Anybody who knows me knows that I usually don’t accept apps. But I do make a rare exception if they are from a legitimate company and they are necessary, which this is. For those concerned, Dockers has stated that “Facebook requires that we confirm all users when it comes to building out contest applications like ours. We’re gathering the least amount of info possible from our users and will not be accessing anyones Facebook account.”
- Next, please either bookmark my entry page or place a direct link to it on your desktop. You’ll want to make it easy for you to access the page every day for the next month and vote. You’re allowed one vote per day and it only takes a few seconds to do it, but it means so much to this competition!
- Finally, please spread the word among everyone you know (family, friends, neighbors, classmates, co-workers, etc.) and ask them to vote daily and spread the word too. The more, the better! We need as many participants as possible! There are Facebook share and Tweet buttons on my entry page. Please use them!
That’s it! Not terribly hard or time consuming and it doesn’t cost you a penny!
I’ll be sending out regular updates, both here on my blog and on Facebook, about the contest as it progresses. As of this writing, I have only 17 votes, so we have a lot of catching up to do! If you want to vote, please click on the following link. Sometimes the app can be a little glitchy. If that happens to you, please try again later. And thank you for your support!
