LOVE FOR SALE

There’s an old Jewish joke:
The Strongman at the circus is performing his act. He lifts 300 pounds above his head. He bends and straightens a metal bar. He breaks a steel chain with his bare hands! For the finale, he takes an ordinary lemon in his right hand and a glass in his left.  He squeezes out all the juice from the lemon into the glass.  He shows the dried up lemon skin to the audience and they are awed.   He offers anybody a thousand dollars in they can get even one more drop out of the lemon.


And one man says, “I’ll try.” He walks up on the stage. He’s in his 60’s, five feet five, a little dumpy, bald, with thick glasses.  He squeezes the lemon and fills the glass with juice.


The Strongman is flabbergasted.  He says, “Who are you, sir? What do you do?”
The man says, “I’m a fundraiser for the UJA.”

But seriously, folks …. how do you ask friends and family for money? That’s the dilemma we encountered when  considering ways to finance our web series  STRONGHOLD.

Experts say if you want to raise money, make the cause personal.   But it’s already personal – what’s more personal than money and dreams? The problem is, it’s their money and our dreams.  Plus, it’s not a shared dream.  It’s not world peace.

Additionally, this isn’t a great business move for potential investors. They aren’t buying anything with a monetary gain; they aren’t investing in their future; and they won’t get their money back.

There’s no feel good factor. It’s not a noble cause.  No one died.   No one’s threatening to die.  No one’s even sick. There’s no karmic payoff.

Generally people don’t want to pay for other people’s kids, mistakes, or dreams.  Most people have all three of their own to contend with.  And, as everyone knows, kids, mistakes, and dreams tend to be costly.

So the Entity Eye team has decided to ask strangers for money.  And while all the same obstacles exist, it seems somehow easier to be more aggressive about it.  After all, we won’t be seeing any of them at Thanksgiving.  No awkward tussle over the last spoonful of green bean casserole. No ugly suggestion that you do the dishes because you owe everyone there money.

Toward that end, we set up a page at Indiegogo.com/STRONGHOLD to raise funds for our web series Stronghold  (No One Saw It Coming).   The page reflects our talent and dedication. We infused it with our own particular sense of humor so it stinks of funny.  And in a brilliant business move worthy of Steve Job’s envy, we don’t actually ask for contributions. We want you to “Join the Resistance”.  Of course, it costs money to Join the Resistance but you’re getting cool swag and a cute story to tell at cocktail parties.

Is this going to work? I’m an optimist so I’m going with a resounding “You betcha’.”  You see, yesterday I pulled up to the drive-through window at Starbucks to pay for my overpriced cup of coffee only to find the fellow in the car ahead of me had already paid for it.  If a stranger is willing to do that, maybe he’d be willing to buy a Death Cards patch to support our production.  Worth a shot.

So go to Indiegogo.com/STRONGHOLD.  If you aren’t swayed by our talent, dedication, and passion; and if your karmic cup is full, and you don’t like the tee shirt, contribute anyway… because it’s just a really nice thing to do.  And we promise we’ll work on that world peace thing as soon as we can.

By the way, if you liked that joke, check out the podcast OLD JEWS TELLING JOKES on Itunes for more cheeky Jewish humor.

Dim all the lights, sweet darling ...

As the resident producer for Entity Eye, I’m easily identified as that short girl in the back mumbling “It costs how much”?  Here’s how it works:

Entity Eye productions have minimal (miniscule, tiny, itty bitty)  budgets. Craft services consists of whatever we have a coupon for or which pizza delivery place has the best deal.
A.  I’m a happy, smiley kinda gal.

B. I have the basic human desire to be liked (although my ultimate goal is to be adored worldwide). And nobody likes the girl who says “You can’t have that. It’s too expensive.”

C. We’re perfectionists who care about even the most mundane detail in an irritatingly sincere way.
Therefore,  A+B+C = How can we get what we need and stay in budget?

A case in point:
STRONGHOLD (No One Saw It Coming!) episode one, scene one:  War is raging.  Light from falling bombs illuminates Voodoo’s bedroom...cut.  In order to simulate the flashes of light from the bomb explosions, we flashed three strobe lights covered in orange and yellow gels. The effect was realistic but the strobes caused pixelization of the final product.  Then we used a dimmer for one of the lights.  There was some improvement but we decided we needed dimmers for all three lights.  Dimmer switches that can handle 500 watt lights are crazy expensive, so we decided to make our own.

Our first stop was the hardware store. We bought a couple of 600 watt three way dimmers (our first mistake);  two extension cords, boxes, and lids (our second mistake); and a wire stripper apparently made by Fisher Price.  Then we went to Fernando’s Dad’s house because he knows about these things.  After he stopped laughing at our wire stripper (they come in adult size - who knew) he decided to help us, probably out of pity.

We put together the first dimmer as best we could.  The directions for the three way dimmer looked like they had been drawn by a very drunk Andrew Pollack. The light worked but the dimmer didn’t.  We tried the other dimmer and got a light that dimmed.  Our victory  dance  (very ’80’s in a Footloose-cool kinda way) was short lived. The box and lid were too small for the dimmer.

At this point, it’s late, it’s raining and it’s cold and I just want to go home and eat cake.  But Mr. Perez the Elder shortened the metal dimmer with a fancy machine that made a lot of noise.  So...back to the hardware store where we bought a simpler one way dimmer which we hoped wasn’t defective (it wasn’t) and the right size box and lid.  A little wire stripping and twisting later - sounds like porn for electricians - and we had three working dimmers on extension cords that could handle 500 man-sized watts of electricity.

EPILOGUE
Keep in mind that this is not a “how to”, this is a “how we did it”. We’re not electricians. We have a legitimate fear of electricity, especially near water and prisons.  Every time I plug in one of our rigged up devices the crew takes a healthy step back. No one has been injured yet, but it’s just a matter of time before we hear a heartfelt, desperate “someone call 9-1-1.” Then why do we do it? Why risk becoming a smoldering baked potato with a bad Toni home perm? Because it was within our budget and because now the scene looks awesome.   See for yourself at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o5_GRC8ksY