Coordinates

So I've backed this book on poetry ....
Kickatarter link : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/53932193/coordinates/posts/1678486

http://kck.st/2cCc31R

By the way I myself self publish books by the brand name  : Poets' Choice.
https://www.facebook.com/poetschoice : Facebook Page ... I've even published an international poet.

I am self-publishing my first collection of poems! 

About this project

Origins 

Over the past few years I have been whisked on many travels, both within and without. As I found myself penning down poetry more often, I took inspiration from the film Before Sunrise and began writing for others - sometimes when I met someone, I asked them for a random word which I then used to create a poem for them. I carried this brown-papered notepad with me everywhere I went - it accumulated words, captured moments and slowly began to fall apart... 

I was sharing my poems with individual people and those experiences were intimate, tender and magical, but somewhere along the way I felt that it was time I shared it differently... 

So then came this little creation which is just about to be born into this world..! Every time I share a poem with someone I feel like I am giving them a part of myself. So I did have to muster some big courage for this project, and I'm thankful for the support I have had on the way. 

The Project

Because this project is born simply out of love, and because I don’t have much money myself, I have to keep it on a very tight budget. I have been doing basically everything (and learning in the process) from conceptualising to editing to designing to the artwork (let’s hope this works out). Of course I have received great help on the way from family and friends, and all these have helped me to cut costs greatly. 

This is a fundraiser, but also a pre-order of my collection of poems, titled Coordinates. Each book will be sold at $10 SGD when it is published, but just for Kickstarter it is priced at $8 SGD. I am hoping to get at least 150 pre-orders, which would give me the green light (the funds) to send them for printing. 

Of course, you are very welcome to make a further donation if you wish to support my humble project! Please suggest rewards that you would like to receive as I am out of ideas for that... 

Do watch the video for a reading of some of my poems! 

Risks and challenges

The book is almost ready for printing, and I am quite certain that nothing else will go wrong at this stage! Apart from the funds for printing, I am also waiting for the approval for the ISBN code and working on the cover pages.

I know I have friends all over the world... As such I know a big part of my sales will not be in Singapore. You guys will have to pay a little more if I have to mail the books out to you, but i'll see what I can do about this (I travel quite a bit and also have friends who travel lots) so we can all be happy! :)

Pinocchio's Candy Lust

http://kck.st/2biFYeL

A disgruntled female carpenter becomes disillusioned with the world and paints her entire body with woodgrain to liberate herself.

About this project

I want to tell a story that reaches a wide audience, and for the first time, I feel that video is a necessary medium for me to tackle. I am in the incredible position to have a very strong filmmaking team around me, having worked in film with Court 13 (with pros like Benh Zeitlin and Ray Tintori) and having my creative community full of exceptionally talented artists who are often collaborating on film projects. 

The movie is full of my art, and me, but also about making art, about creating something beyond your control, and losing control of yourself.

We are shooting on 16mm Celluloid and KODAK has agreed to sponsor the project through a matching grant that provides a donation of filmstock in proportion to what we raise here on Kickstarter. The more we raise- the more film we can shoot!

Raising questions about multiple selves and the commodification of "artist" and "woman," Pinocchio's Candy Lust is a treatise on gender in relation to artistic identity.

Gepetto

Gepetto, a disgruntled female craftsmen, is confronted with the choice between acting responsibly and hating her life or (re)producing herself as Pinocchio.

Self-Transformation

Carving a paintbrush and painting her body with wood-grain she undergoes a transformation so wild she destroys her whole village. Fleeing in fear, Pinocchio dives into a candy fountain and becomes a victim of the underwater world of candy. Playing in this narcotic dreamland until her body starts to melt away, only Gepetto has the power to save Pinocchio from death.

Fake-Italy Location

Director of Photography and Co-director Sam Kuhn will shoot 16mm film to add texture and history to the aesthetic world. When Pinocchio dives underwater, the sudden shift to digital footage will give a contemporary saturated feeling to the tempting candy world.

Prosthetic Hand

Academy Award Nominated Director Benh Zeitlin has signed on to the film as my project advisor, continuing our long time collaboration that dates back to nights working in the original Wesleyan squash Court 13.

Workman #1

Minimal but exaggerated movement, choreographed by dance artist Laurie Berg, will lend the film a unique visual style, allowing dramatic gesture to stand in for extensive dialogue.

Gepetto's Worksite

Musical Supervision by record digging DJ duo Chances with Wolves will add a strange, beautiful, foreign yet familiar score. Tone Tank is also super-excited about writing and performing an operatic track for the Workmen.

Fake-Italy: Tree Pinocchio climbs

After raising funds to shoot underwater sequences and some test footage for the project back in June, we are now preparing for the next phase of our shoot. 

Underwater Swim-Through

 Our principal photography is scheduled for this fall and I have already crewed up. Now we just need to raise the funds to get the biggest chunk of the project in motion. We set our goal at $18,000 as an absolute minimum. REMEMBER I have to pay about 10% of what we make in fees.

I am hoping we can manage to raise above and beyond $18,000, and really make a super strong film- which would require asking the most from my crew, which would require paying them better wages, paying my actors to miss work, hiring a script supervisor to make sure we get usable, consistent shots, and more.

This fundraising campaign does not even begin to cover the cost of post-production, editing, adding effects, finishing sound and color. 

The more you are willing and able to give, the better the project will be. I am throwing myself physically, financially and emotionally into this as hard as I can, and I expect to make it worth everybody's while. Otherwise I wouldn't ask.

Discussing Storyboards with Crew

To learn more about my work you can watch this short biopic made by my collaborator Sam Kuhn. It was our first project together and he went above and beyond-- even earning some notice from Vimeo as staff pick.

  Feeling moved by the tableaus of Female Surrealist painters I modeled dream sequence compositions off of the work of Leanor Fini. The brazenness and animal femaleness that I see coming out of her work, and that of other women in that period (Dorothea Tanning, Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington) feels relevant to me today, and I'd like to move that energy from painting into film. 

Art Department

There is no archetypal artist's novel about a woman. I cast myself as both artist and art object in my own Jungian adaptation of the picaresque novel, (the original) Adventures of Pinocchio.

 If you want to know more about the project, please feel free to message me and I will be happy to answer your questions. 

Additionally, you can download this Pitchdeck to see more.

And if you are interested in making a tax-deductible donation through my fiscal sponsor - the Solo Foundation- you can let me know and I can facilitate that as well.               THANK YOU !!!!!

Risks and challenges

Lots of special effects will be tricky and not go as planned. For this reason, I have budgeted for talented animators and digital artists to rework any ambitious sequences that read too abstractly once captured.

Being an experimental film, and long at 20 minutes for a short, making sure an audience beyond my personal network has access to the film will take research and determination.

Although this is my first film, it is hardly my first ambitious art project, and I have never abandoned a piece halfway through.