At last! We’ve been waiting with baited breath for the arrival of the animation and none other than Mr. Darryl Bartlett has finally given us a release date: October 29, 2014! We’ve been rarin’ to go for two months and at last Darryl’s lit the light at the end of the tunnel for us.
We’ve missed the fall calendar but with a little tenacity we can make the Spring calendar. IT CAN BE DONE! Just hope and pray that Darryl doesn’t run into any more roadblocks.
Just so you know, Darryl found the animation company in India sometime last December, before anyone came on board. And he got it for a great, great price. Out of his own pocket!! Bartering Bartlett they call him. He hired Nancy Thomas to write a story based loosely on his idea. Then I was hired to write the screenplay. James Drury loved it and he said he was in. Then Roberta Shore was in. Next, Lisa Race joined our little group and funded the live action portion of the project. Once we had the funding we were off and running. It was a shoestring budget and we knew that more than likely additional funds would have to be raised. So into the breach we jumped. We found a great production company, some incredible actors like Buck Taylor, Ava L’Amoreaux and Donny Boaz, and...perfect locations!
But, as you know, things happen. The unexpected occurs. We have to spend a little more here, a little more there. Shooting goes a little longer than expected. It all adds up. So two more gentlemen came forward and invested. And then, just when we needed it, KickStarter funded and really saved the day. We knew we’d need more than the initial investment to get the kind of quality we got in the live action and more than a hundred and fifty people came to the rescue through KickStarter. As a result we have a live action portion that looks like a $500K production. And that’s not even counting Darryl’s animation investment. We have wonderful musicians who have scored the live action and are waiting to score the animation. Thank you KickStarter pledgers.
And we’re all impatient. We want to finish “Billy”. And now that Darryl has given us a release date, we can do it! If the animation is done as we requested (I have to direct via email), we can almost certainly have a finished product by late November.
And, believe it or not, we’ve already got interest. So stay tuned. I’ll let you know as soon as the animation starts coming in. Who knows, maybe even before October 29th.