Since the 50th Anniversary event that we produced in April, we’ve been focusing on growing our social media presence for The Committee: A Secret History of American Comedy. We’re looking to use Facebook and Twitter to corral folks interested in the project, to better keep everyone in the loop as we go.
Maintaining a social media presence is a dedicated skill in and of itself, but we have a ton of material to share, and a fairly rational and utterly joyous belief that this project has widespread appeal. As such, the aforementioned social media outlets will be updated most often – even more so than this blog.
We are setting up a queue of interviews in advance of the San Francisco Improv Festival (September 12th – 21st), which will require the bulk of our focus for the month of September. We just had an amazing interview with John Magnuson, producer of Lenny Bruce’s Thank You Mask Man and The Lenny Bruce Performance Film, and a man who passed along numerous commercial projects to Committee members in the ’60s. We have a few more interviews the works this Summer, including a planned trip to Los Angeles in August.
Our Kickstarter campaign is scheduled for a September launch. This will give us some time to make final tweaks on our trailer (which will live on the Kickstarter page only during the life of the campaign) and finalize preparations for the fundraising campaign. Conventional wisdom from Sam’s experience as a non-profit fundraiser suggests that these efforts are most effective after Labor Day.
A September launch will also benefit from the captive sketch- & improv-loving audiences that will congregate at the San Francisco Improv Festival, where we’ll be promoting and pitching the documentary.
Our plan is to keep the Kickstarter goal manageable and achievable. The funds that we crowdsource will support further interviews – flights, hotels, rentals, etc., as well as a grant writer. Since the bulk of this project’s further budget will go towards securing the rights for various copyrighted material, we plan to address that issue with support from foundation grants, and hopefully an “angel” investor or two.
So that is where the plan for the documentary project stands. We plan to have the bulk of our interviews completed and most funding secured by the summer of 2014. To keep regular tabs, visit us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, or shoot us an email. And remember, in September we will be asking for your support. We hope you consider backing this exciting project…!
