Pygmalion and Justine
We’re in a path of new discoveries. Some of them amazing, some not at all great, some kind of sad. It has to do with what we are doing presently. There’s a saying in the US, Time is Money. It’s a philosophy that it’s not shared all over the world, but it does mean something in our case these times of excitement, living on the edge of our economic conditions, using our time in ways that make us extremely happy and anxious, but spending all the money. This is no longer a One Man Crew/Torturer One Woman Cast/Victim style of production. Not anymore, those times are long gone. We have a big team now, and it’s a team of real professionals in all areas of production.
We’re completing the production of Pygmalion. Not a CRUX movie, not at all. It’s erotic, it has S&M elements, like most of Jac’s and Amy’s work. Some may say is very subdued in its portrayal of sadomasochistic relationships, but some may find it more engaging to a larger audience. Pygmalion has its own life now. Something happened on the road from the script to the production. Jac wrote the script, Amy is directing it and from the written word to the actual image there’s a transformation. It’s a funny, erotic movie. It looks very pretty too.
So, Amy has a fifth feature film under her garter belt and we have a new production in our editing suite. These are exciting times. I think. And we have JUSTINE ahead of us. Before we embark in this new feature film, Amy has a request. One week vacation, full vacation. She just finished directing one movie, acting in it, and she was directing, producing and running around the salty lands of UYUNI with a music video. Obviously, she will need a vacation.
Jac’s intention is to shoot JUSTINE in September, but things are not always they way he wants them to be. So, the most likely scenario is that he’ll start shooting in October. And the one week vacation that Amy wants, may happen in Mexico, where she will be heading the first week of October to a very important festival with her film OLALLA. She was invited to participate of this festival. The official announcement is coming out August 17th, so I can’t mention which festival it is at this point, but it’s happening. Amy is going to have her vacation in Mexico after all.
The pre-production of JUSTINE is underway, of course. It started long ago, when Amy built The Stocks. And as you all know we have our IndieGoGo campaign which is advancing very slowly to its big goal and I think that’s what I’m going to talk about now.
JUSTINE is the decisive film for Jac and Amy. One of the discoveries we are making is showing us that having strong CRUX/GIMP scenes in films like Dead But Dreaming and OLALLA does not really help that much. It actually limits the larger potential of those films.
And what is my point? If Dead But Dreaming and OLALLA had half the CRUX/GIMP content and more drama, they actually may do better in the larger market. These great films are not doing that well in the GIMP/CRUX market and they are limited in larger niche markets. That’s my point. There’s interest in the vampire community for Dead But Dreaming with good reviews, million plus hits on the trailer, and so on. Vampire lovers want their vampire movies more about the vampires and less about other stuff like loooooong whipping scenes where they have to seat and count as many as 36 lashes in one scene alone. Dead But Dreaming and the possible sequels have the potential of creating a large cult following. But the way to reach that following is through cable tv and other media where long, extended whipping and crucifixion scenes do limit our possibilities. They also take a lot of time and money to set them up properly and a longer time to shoot them, while, a vampire pursuing a victim, biting her neck and then having sex with her is easy to shoot and has more of a cult following.
That’s what I mean by JUSTINE being the decisive film in our path. The IndieGoGo campaign is not exactly contradicting my point. I wonder what would happen if we put all of our efforts in promoting other aspects of our work. Jac likes CRUX/GIMP and he will always manage to sneak a scene or two in his movies, like he did with his first film, a docudrama set in Haiti where he has a crucified woman in a sugar cane field and two brief scenes where women are whipped. The question lingering here is: do we have enough of an audience to keep this work going at the level we want it to go?
Maleficarum is a success in our book, but in terms of actual income, it does not do better than what Jac would take in a year salary if he worked in some mid level position at a TV station. Right. He does what he does because he loves it. Period. And now he’s preparing something so magnificent that he would love to have all the means to do it the best way possible. That’s the reason for the IndieGoGo campaign. The hope is that there are enough people out there, willing to push this project ahead. So far we are grateful to 42 wonderful supporters who contributed from as little as 1 dollar to over 1,000 per person. No amount is too little, no amount is too big. With their amazing help we only reached 31% of our goal in ONE month. We have 27 days of the IndieGoGo campaign left. Can we make it?
The film will be made regardless of how much we reach with the IndieGoGo campaign. But since the cash pays for the making of it, the less we have, the less production values the film will have. For instance, instead of four great locations, we might end up with 1 or 2. Instead of a nice crowd of actors and actresses in costumes, we might have just a few. That’s how it works. In Dead But Dreaming we had only one financed sequence,The Whipping Scene. For that scene we had a great location, we built the set, we had a nice crowd, great uniforms for the soldiers and so on. And we worked 5 days, torturing Amy, every day, many hours a day, in front of a crowd.
Later on, Mila had a chance of being tortured but the budget allowed for a very short nailing scene. The great far off location was very expensive and we had a crew and cast there for two days. Jac needed four days to make it work properly, so he had to live with half of his dream scene. We can only imagine what would it have been it Jac had the funding for it.
For JUSTINE we have a great STOCKS scene fully funded! It calls for a good number of people to be in it. It also calls for a nice location and it specifically calls for Amy to be sentenced to 50 lashes before she’s put on the stocks where she’s raped and people throw rotten fruit at her. That perk did not come cheap. In fact, that initial support by our very first Associate Producer was the push that started JUSTINE.
As of this writing JUSTINE has FOUR out of FOUR contributors to put her on The Wheel! It is SOLD OUT. We have the potential of having a great scene.
Two contributors are backing for JUSTINE and others to be put on The Cross. The question is, how grand the crucifixion scene is going to be?. Will it be as grand as it is in Jac’s mind? Will it be only half of what it can be? If there’s one experience that Jac has in producing is the crucifixion. He has done it so many times that with the proper support he can make something truly grand happen.
The Rack has one contributor so far.
We met 31% of our IndieGoGo campaign so far. We would like to reach at least 50% or our goal. As in our past campaign. Any contribution to our campaign helps, of course. The more of those small contributions, the better. Are you willing to take that small step for a man, but a giant leap into danger for a Girl to be whipped and crucified… and to be on a rack, and to be suspended by the ankles, and to suffer the wheel…?
So… let’s try to push this project ahead.
